Darren Tappouras - The Power of His Presence - Class 1

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   OK, by way of introduction for Brother Darren’s talk, we’re just going to take a short reading, but a very exciting reading from Revelation 21 and verses one to seven. So Revelation verses chapter 21, verses one to seven. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

2. 0:28

   And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride at dawn for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

3. 0:50

   He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done.

4. 1:17

   I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have his heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. Thanks, Darren. Thanks, Brother Anthony, and good evening, my dear brothers and sisters and the Lord Jesus Christ, dear young people. It’s really, really lovely to be with you again. I was just thinking, I haven’t been here for a few years with with COVID interrupting, So it’s nice to be back among you again and particularly nice tonight to be able to share with you some thoughts from God’s Word.

5. 2:06

   Just get my slides organised. In our community we have a very strong and a very good and a very powerful future focus and we’re looking forward a lot in our vocabulary in a in the sentiments we express. Even in Anthony’s beautiful prayer, we are pushing into the future as it were. We’re we’re leaning into the future and and those that that comprises of a number of different objectives in the future that we’re looking forward to.

6. 2:45

   So we’re looking forward of course to the Kingdom, to the return of Christ and the Kingdom being established. We’re also looking at current events in the world and we’re looking at the movement of nations and some of the big geopolitical issues that are happening, trying to see if they are working towards what we expect will happen in the future. So we do have a very, very strong, very, very powerful future focus and we do that I think quite well. You know, if you look at Chris Adelphian videos online, you’ll literally see hundreds of of videos and talks about the future, the future of this world, the future of this planet, what God has in store, in store for the future. And we’ve got a very keen interest in that. I know at Gosford, when we’ve got a couple of very, very good prophecy brethren at Gosford, brother Andrew Dangerfield and brother Matt Norton, and whenever they do, one of their current event.

7. 3:38

   You know year in review sort of sessions everyone turns up. It’s a big night and people who haven’t even been at the meeting for a long time or turn up out of the woodwork and it’s it’s a big event and these young people and babies and it’s great. I’m just a bit jealous because when I do it that’s the opposite. So but but you know they’re good. They’re OK guys they’re all right. So we we do have that sort of passion that that sort of future focus.

8. 4:03

   We also have a very past focus as well. We’re very, very interested, very keen to look at particularly the history of the Old Testament, the what we might call the old covenant era, the the time of David for example and Solomon and the the Kings of Israel and the prophets. We’re very, very interested in the Old Testament as such and we we are very familiar with those characters.

9. 4:28

   And that’s another little thing where I when I usually give a meeting a list of subjects. For a potential Bible class or weekend or something. And there’s, you know, I can almost guess they’re going to pick out the the life of David or the Jihu or the sort of the character study that says it seems to be something that that people are very, very interested in. So I think we have a very good and a very strong future focus and a very good interest and focus on the past where I’m going to suggest in our series and this is just a bit of a background to sort of introduce where we want to go with this. If I might say from my own experience, which I’ve been baptized nearly 40 years now and have been actively involved in the brotherhood from a Sunday school teacher to Bible mission field worker and everything in between, My my take is we don’t have a really good articulated position about what’s happening now as far as God is concerned in our own lives, that that could just be me and my own circle. But I find that as something in the brotherhood. Wherever I’ve sort of interacted and and been involved in discussions.

10. 5:38

    What is going on now? What is God doing now? Now is hard to define. What is now? It’s is it dead time between the past and the future. God did all his good work in the Bible era, in the time of David and the prophets, and of course the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles. All that was full of God’s activity and we love it and we know about it and read it and teach it in Sunday school, which is all excellent and good.

11. 6:04

    And we’re also looking forward to the prophecies being fulfilled in the future and the return of Christ. And we’re in this sort of static era. Remember static when you used to turn the telly on and there was nothing on? That’s that’s something from the old days you guys wouldn’t remember. But there used to be nothing in the middle of the day and it’s just static on the box. Is that, is that sort of what’s happening now? We’re sort of caught in this mid. Period.

12. 6:28

    We’re in a in a sort of a holding pattern, as it were. God’s had his future involvement and that culminated in the death, resurrection of Jesus and he’s got this future plan and this time now is a bit dead. There’s not a lot happening and it’s sort of a holding pattern and we are a little bit confused about what we’re doing. We sort of are talking about watching and waiting, and we’re hunkering down.

13. 6:53

    And we’re living our life of course according to godly principles. But what what’s happening now and what really is now all about. And that’s really what we want to focus on in this particular series and try and try and define now and and also try and elevate now in our thinking as well without in any way diminishing our future, our future vision and and and our past interest and and passion. Elevating the now is is really the objective of what I’m trying to achieve in these studies.

14. 7:25

    And so hopefully, hopefully that will be helpful and beneficial for you as it has been for me. There are a lot of verses in the New Testament that talk about the now and they’re very powerful verses, full of emotion, full of potential. And I have found in my life that I’ve read over these verses, not just read over them, I’ve. Acted as Chairman at my Ecclesia and read them and they’re beautiful sounding verses.

15. 7:53

    But how much reality and how much have I lived these out in in my own life. And and I’m asking the question tonight in our introductory session. Do the do these words resonate with you? Are they true? Are they real? Are they something that you can feel the power of, or are they just maybe nice words? And they’re relating to now words that we haven’t felt or or or felt the power of so famous words like Philippians 4 verse seven talks about the the peace of God that we can experience now.

16. 8:28

    The New Testaments, the Irene and the Shalom in the old this peace of God That and I’ve used the NIV rendition here that transcends human understanding. There’s something very powerful and lofty and. Phenomenal about that. Isn’t there this, this peace of God? What is it, the peace of God that transcends human experience? At some level, there’s many of these verses. Ephesians 3 is another one.

17. 8:57

    To know, to experience, to be aware of and interact with the love of Christ that surpasses. And again, another transcendent type word that surpasses knowledge. Something beyond just knowing stuff. Something. Experiential in a sense that we we feel that we can know the love of Christ, that actually there’s there’s sort of a paradox here to know something that is beyond knowing and being filled with this fullness of God is that just this, is that just nice words that we just rattle off and read as a chairman or put on a on our occlusial program or on our hall or whatever.

18. 9:34

    Nothing wrong with any of that in any anything I say is not belittling anything. I’m just trying to flesh out. Do we really feel the power of these things? That’s really what I’m trying to say. There’s exhortations from Jesus himself. Matthew 6, the famous, this famous reference from the Sermon on the Mount. Don’t be anxious.

19. 9:55

    Jesus is saying that. Don’t be anxious. It’s a command, you know, We talk about obeying the commandments of doing what God says and following Jesus. Words. Well, here he says don’t be anxious. And I I know for a fact I get anxious. So what? What’s going on here? How? How is that all? How is that working?

20. 10:10

    And is there something about being connected to our Lord Jesus Christ, being in God’s, being one of God’s people that should reduce the anxiety? That should have some impact on that. Hebrews 2’s got this interesting reference. Those that are in Christ have been delivered. From something that affects all mankind that have been delivered from a fear or a phobia of death. So they’re not even afraid of death and how real is that for you?

21. 10:43

    And I don’t know how I for myself, I don’t know if that’s that true. You know, even the turbulence on the plane a few days ago, I was got a little bit fearful of death. So. So here’s this. Something in the gospel helps you transcend the fear of death. And it was literally lived out by the early Christians. They they would walk into an arena and be ripped apart by lions after being given the opportunity to recant. But they they didn’t Something about death. The fear of death was reduced dramatically in their life because then there now was powerful. They they they felt something.

22. 11:19

    These sentiments expressed, that I’ve just picked a few samples out here. They they really felt this peace of God and the and this. Transcendent love of Christ, etcetera and and it’s it’s quite powerful. First Peter one Peter encourages his readers to rejoice with and look at look at these words. They’re like over the top words aren’t they when you think of it.

23. 11:41

    Joy, unspeakable and full of glory. As he goes on to say. Is it just a nice word we can you know or is there something real here Joy. Unspeakable. I think the closest you could probably get is when you looked at your programs tonight and saw that I was doing the talks. That’s probably the closest you’ll experience in this human life.

24. 12:03

    But joy? Unspeakable. How? When’s the last time you’ve experienced joy, unspeakable and full of glory? You know it’s it’s not. It may not be on your agenda to ever experience that, or to think about it, or to be aware of it, or to know that it even exists or it’s a thing. But here it is in the inspired word of God, where it’s imperative. So I’m.

25. 12:22

    You know you got to get judgy on you if you haven’t experienced joy. Unspeakable because it’s imperative as a commandment of God to rejoice with joy unspeakable. And if it’s not something you prioritize, well, whose fault’s that contentment? Here’s another one, and this is there’s a whole, whole raft of verses that repeat this concept. And this is so hard to make real, isn’t it? There’s this whole raft of verses that say counting or joy. When you’re experiencing trials and problems in your life, when you’re going through horrible situations physically or emotionally or mentally, relationally, to count those things as joy, that’s that’s really hard, isn’t it? That’s, that’s that’s that seems theoretical to me. And yet there is something in the New Testament that empowers us.

26. 13:17

    There is something about being in Christ that can make that real, if it’s on your agenda to make it real. If you were identified as a something, a target that you can achieve in your life, then it’s something that is that can be real. We know famous example of Paul in Philippi and he’s just had his back smashed to smithereens.

27. 13:35

    He’s obviously in agony and pain. He’s locked into in stocks and him and Silas are singing, they’re in the jail singing hymns and songs of praise, etcetera. So it was something that was lived out by the early believers, something that they experienced. It wasn’t just theory and just nice sounding words. So we want to think about how that how those sort of sentiments can actually be part of our our life in Christ today. There’s something about the now.

28. 14:03

    There’s a power available for the now. There’s something incredible and phenomenal about the now that maybe if you’re like me, we’re not, we’re not tapping into, we’re not experiencing, and it may not even be ever on your agenda to even think about or to be aware of. We may have adopted the holding patent idea that we’re just hunkering down, putting up with whatever we have to put up with, just waiting for Christ to return.

29. 14:30

    I was, I had a I’m an arranging brother at my meeting. I had a sister and she was going through. It was a significant problem. Probably not. You know, out of 1 to 10 it was probably a four, but it was a significant problem. And I’m trying to help her work her way through it. And she just kept saying, I just want Christ to return. I just want Christ to return.

30. 14:47

    I I just woke up this morning and Christ hadn’t returned. And it’s like there was something unhealthy about that whole approach. There was something wrong there. Although the sentiment is something, you know community’s value system that we would we would all go, that’s wonderful that she thinks that way. There was I I I detected something wrong with that. That didn’t seem to resonate with the New Testament way of looking at problems to count them all. Joy.

31. 15:11

    And yet to experience the moment to experience the now still being within the presence of of God. So that’s that’s sort of what we want to look at that that’s not sort of that is what we’re going to look at Phoebe. No sort of it’s going to this is what we’re going to cover and hopefully God willing consider in our series it’s anchored by this concept of God’s presence and this is a really you know it’s it’s a pretty deep subject So I’m letting you know now it’s going to you’re going to have to like put your thinking caps on it’s there’s a there’s a bit of. Breaking things down, a bit of analysis that we need to do because I know when I did it at Gosford and everyone thought, oh, it’s about the presence of God. It’s going to be a nice light, nice devotional night and it wasn’t quite that way it it’s got a it’s got practical implications as we move through it but to get there we’re going to have to do a little bit of work. So the presence of God, it’s a Bible wide theme. It’s, and arguably it’s the.

32. 16:07

    Theme of the Bible. I know everyone says that about whatever theme they’re looking at, but this is really, really pivotal. It’s really important right at the very start of the Bible narrative, the Bible story, we’ve got Adam and Eve experiencing this interaction with God, his presence and the the way the scripture uses this domestic style language to to to describe that interaction, you know, it says. That Adam and Eve heard the sound of of Yahweh walking in the garden in the cool of the day. It’s got this beautiful serene feel about it hasn’t walk in the garden, the cool of the day, the beautiful trees and the paradise like circumstances which they’re in. And that’s how they would interact with God and they would interact direct with His presence, something called His presence.

33. 17:01

    And because of sin we know in Genesis 3 they couldn’t. Do that anymore. So we’ve got a clue there about about what is holding that interaction back. So they they they feel shame, they feel embarrassed, they feel guilty and they’re unable to bring themselves into the presence of God and they hide themselves, as Genesis 3 verse 8 says, from the presence of the Lord God.

34. 17:26

    So we lose presence in this in the Bible narrative right at the very start, right at the beginning of men’s. Adventure. If you want to use that term, man’s sordid adventure from from the fall onwards, it is lost. The presence of God is something that is lost, something valuable and beautiful and and cool. That’s not a hip word.

35. 17:46

    That’s from the Bible, Something cool that is lost. And then the whole Bible story is tracking towards the restoration of that interaction. And so you get to Revelation 21. Right at the other end of the Bible, of course, the last couple of chapters, and you’ve got this concept about God dwelling with men, which is like the opposite of what’s happening there in Eden is God and man are pushed apart and separated, and now God is dwelling with men. And there’s this in chapter 22.

36. 18:21

    There’s this little enigmatic little phrase there that they shall see his face. It’s like everything has been brought back to the purpose that God originally had. So just for just for a bit of word knowledge, when you see the word Presence panayim in the Old Testament, it can be translated face or faces, or countenance. They’re all words that all are referring to the presence of God.

37. 18:48

    And now God’s face is available to men, unmediated, uninterrupted, which is the end of the story, if you like. And so the whole Bible has been repairing that that particular problem. And so we need to then start at the beginning and work our way through how God has progressively dealt with this, this separation, if you like, in this, this desire for FaceTime, with his creation, with those made in his image and likeness that he had lost because of sin.

38. 19:23

    And so of course we know in the story the full. Man, he’s exiled from God’s presence, from that beautiful, serene, peaceful paradise like situation, without any fear, without anxiety, without fear of death. All those things we looked at, joy, unspeakable peace and and serenity and all these beautiful things that were there in the garden. No doubt now that is lost and there’s thorns and thistles and stress and sweat and and the whole situation has changed. And as we move through Scripture, God uses this mechanism called a covenant.

39. 19:57

    We’re going to spend a whole night on that looking at the concept of covenant and how covenant was God’s method of restoring that relationship, restoring the FaceTime with his people and those covenants. Of course, there’s a covenant built into Genesis, into creation itself. There’s the covenant to nowhere and then right through to the new covenant, which we’ll spend a bit of time looking at and then throughout the Old Testament particularly and of course it finds its way into the.

40. 20:23

    Story of Jesus life as well and his interactions. And then right through to Revelation 21 we’ve got these dwelling place concepts whether it’s the Tabernacle or the temple. God is placing his presence in a mediated way, restricted way. His presence is dwelling amongst his people and there’s access, very restricted access, but there’s access nonetheless. And God is is dwelling there in His presence, is with them in a particular way.

41. 20:48

    So we want to we’ll spend the night trying to flesh out the whole temple idea and how that is relevant today as well. And then we get further into the Bible and we get to Jesus. We get to the living temple of God. And here we’ve now where it’s really the pointy end sort of starting to really gather momentum.

42. 21:08

    We’re now seeing the presence of God exhibited in a human. God’s presence is there. God dwells in him. In him the Godhead dwells bodily, if you like. He was the presence of God. And in a in a in a very real sense, the presence of God dwelled among us. You know that famous verse in John, one that says the Word became flesh and tabernacled amongst us?

43. 21:31

    God’s Shekinah glory lived in a person, not in a tent, not in the most holy place, and we beheld his glory. It wasn’t hidden away that you can only see. Once a year on the Day of Atonement. We beheld the glory of the only begotten of the of the Father, full of grace and truth. And so he’s a walking, talking temple, the presence of God shining from him and revealed through him. So we’ve seen the presence being heavily mediated now, lived out in an open expression.

44. 21:56

    And that’s not the end of the story for us, because that that presence of God then is transferred into God’s people. As the Lord is taken to heaven, He leaves behind something we call the Ecclesia, and the presence of God now dwells amongst them. And that is this flow of God’s presence as it works its way through and and the new covenant is something that we are now the recipients of.

45. 22:24

    This new connection, this new profound connection to God that is again I feel unappreciated in some of our circles. This new creation as God is working in US and doing something akin to the original creation back in Genesis and we are the temple of God as it says over and over again in Ephesians 2 and First Peter one and 1st Corinthians 6 and 2nd Corinthians 6 and right, right through the the the New Testament, that’s an undeniable concept.

46. 22:53

    Then of course we’re revelation back to Revelation 21 and 22. So we need to track through that that story to some degree. So we’re going to have to move through that as we consider this very profound subject. To try and illustrate what I’m trying to achieve in these sessions, I’m going to use a little, a little parable. It’s it’s not a Bible one, it’s a parable. You may have heard it using other training courses or something, but I’m using it for my purposes tonight to illustrate where we’re going with this. So in this little parable it’s a story about a beggar and he’s sitting there in a in a city in ancient times. He’s there sitting there in this on on the cold stones of a a cobble St. and he’s trying to eke out an existence in this city and he’s begging everyone that walks by for for scraps of food and people.

47. 23:48

    He might get the odd coin if he’s lucky but most of the time someone might throw him some food or some leftover meat or something from a handful of grain that was gathered by some of the workers in the field. Might throw something at him and he eats it up and he’s he’s so, so happy to have a little bit of food and he’s he’s peeking out this very miserable existence in this in this city. One day a Prince, some noble man comes through the city and sees him sitting there on the stones and gives him this box and he’s very thankful to get this box and he now sits. Instead of sitting on the cold stones, he sits on this box and it elevates him a little bit higher off the floor. It’s it’s much more comfortable and he can sit there and he begs.

48. 24:29

    But still his life’s pretty miserable. He’s begging just to stay alive, and there’s no purpose to his life. There’s no sense of fulfilment or achievement or nothing, nothing that elevates his human existence because he’s just in this very low level of subsistence, just trying to stay alive, just eating a little scrap here and there. There’s an anxiety, there’s stress, there’s not knowing what what life holds for him.

49. 24:58

    Then, of course, this poor man, this man’s very, very truncated and and and very sad. Life ends and he dies and the city cleaners, the street cleaners come around to clean up his mess. There’s some old utensils there and there’s a little bit of his mess. There’s some linen that he used to sleep under, etcetera.

50. 25:22

    There’s not much there and they’re cleaning it up. And there’s the box that he’d been given all those years before and I got to move the box. One of the one of the tradesmen lifts the the top of the box off and looks inside. Behold, the box is full of gold bars, pure gold bars. There’s many millions of dollars worth of gold in this box. And this beggar and he’s lived this horrible life, was sitting on this treasure, this inestable, this incredible. You couldn’t even imagine the value of it, this treasure. He was sitting on the whole time and as he, Dave Wade, begs for food and he’s living this very, very Hanford life and very unfulfilling life.

51. 26:10

    All the while there was this treasure that he could have accessed and and imagine his life how it would have been different had he known about this treasure. He could have contributed to the life of the city. He could have built buildings for people. He could have, he would have been respected and loved by people. He would have been able to help people. He would have had fulfilment and purpose and he would have been able to be integrated into the workings of the city and felt the the power of all those sorts of experiences. But he never got that.

52. 26:37

    But it was there. He just never looked in the box the whole time throughout his life. And I’m going to suggest brothers and sisters that in some way that could be what’s happening in my life and maybe yours, that we have this this treasure and and this is the way particularly poor. But New Testament talks about and even Jesus talks about what we have.

53. 26:59

    We’ve got this treasure and we’ve got the treasure now this this incredible treasure, these riches in Christ that we have available now and we want to just see are we really, do we really appreciate them? Have we identified them? What are they? And and can they change our lives from just being hunkering down, eking out an existence, waiting for this time when Christ is going to return and hopefully everything we made better.

54. 27:25

    As well as that, though, there could be the power of something now that we can have an experience in Christ. So I want to just maybe recalibrate some of our thinking a little bit in this regard. One way to recalibrate is to think about how we view particularly the Old Testament and the Old Covenant times. Because many of us, we’ve grown up from Sunday School, going through the five stages of our Sunday School books, which is awesome and great.

55. 27:51

    And I love all that knowledge that I’ve accumulated from being a young student, of course. But by learning all that, we sort of get the impression that that was the real thing. You know, that’s when God really was active in the world. That’s when God did stuff. That’s when God was visible. That’s when God was doing his work.

56. 28:10

    And if I could only live then and see David and be one of David’s mighty men, or or see the prophets, or be be part of Israel’s victory at Jericho River. And and to feel the power of that, only I could experience that old, that Old Testament history myself, because that seems to be the real thing. And we look back at the, you know, the Shekinah glory that was there in the Most Holy Place and the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud and these phenomena, these these physical manifestations of God’s presence, and we go, wow, that’s the real thing.

57. 28:45

    That’s that’s awesome. And yet we’re going to see brothers and sisters, as we go through our sessions. None of that was actually the real thing. None of that was the real thing. And the book of Hebrews is going to make that really, really clear. None of that was the real thing. What we have far surpasses any of that. That’s not even comparable to what we have in Christ today. And in fact, what we are and what we have and what we can experience today is amazing and beyond anything that those old covenant believers could ever have imagined. So what I’m going to do in the next 15 minutes or so, in that time remaining, just going to give you some samples of these, if you like.

58. 29:31

    To use the analogy, gold bars from this box that we might be sitting on and not using, We just want to look at these gold bars very quickly. We’ll come back and look at them in more detail and do a whole night on some of these things. But I just want to show you the transcendent riches that we have in Christ, particularly when compared to what maybe Israel under the old covenant had. And I’ve just got on our little banner head here some quotes from Hebrews.

59. 29:59

    You know, Hebrews has this little theme that runs through it. The the word better that what we have in Christ is better. And sometimes we approach Hebrews and we look at the the, the target of the original writing, we go, OK, that’s because they’re Jewish believers going back to Judaism. And so the writer of Hebrews is in tell telling him how Christ is far superior and the benefits in Christ are far better than than than what they had in Judaism, what they had under the law.

60. 30:30

    If we stay at that level, looking at the historical sort of context, I don’t think we’re going to get the power of this book. None of us attempted to go to join the local synagogue in Hurstville are we? So, so we’re not really looking at this to say is the is Christ better than the law? The power of Hebrews is for us to extract the power of what it means to be part of the new covenant, what it means to be in Christ, what it means to have access to the most Holy Place. These are the these are things we want to really extract from Hebrews the reality of it and not just get lost in the the historical immediate readership that’s there because we’ve missed the power.

61. 31:08

    If we just do that, OK, example, better example one, what do we have that’s better in our life now? Well, there’s something called boldness. Not just access, but boldness to draw near to the most holy place or the very presence of God. Something we might take for granted or something we think everyone’s always had the ability to draw into the presence of God.

62. 31:37

    Do you know in under the old covenant the presence of God was actually an Angel? Do you know that it’s actually a person personage? The angel’s called the presence of God the Angel of his presence. And Isaiah 63 talks about how the Angel of his presence brought them through the wilderness. And of course the Angel, his presence was going to be extracted by God at one point because of the golden calf incident until Moses interceded for the people.

63. 32:00

    So the presence of God has been heavily mediated in under the Old covenant. It’s not what we have today, which is just so amazing. So to try and quickly move through these things, I’m just going to do a little before and after Schemer, and we’re just going to run through some of these things and just have them in our mind to think about and then we will look at them in a bit more detailed subsequent classes. So here’s a famous verse from Hebrews 9 that says very, very categorically and very clear the way into the holiest, which is the Most holy place where the Shekinah, the dwelling glory of God was, was not yet made manifest while the first Tabernacle was standing.

64. 32:42

    Some commentators meant to say think that that means it still had standing while it was, while it was actually valid and was functioning in a way that it was. The situation changes dramatically later on in Hebrews. And we get to Hebrews 10 and we say and and because of the new covenant, because of the blood of Christ. The writer of Hebrews says, Therefore, brethren, we have boldness to enter the holiest, which you couldn’t enter before except on the Day of Atonement there was only one man the high priest could enter.

65. 33:15

    Now we all have boldness or confidence to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new that’s new. This wasn’t available before. And living Zoe, it’s alive. Something’s alive something’s. It’s not just a an apparatus or a ritual. There’s a new and living way which he has consecrated for us through the veil.

66. 33:42

    There’s something very, very different between the old covenant believers experience of God and the interaction with God and what we have available to us today. And it’s like in a sense the to use a figure of the Tabernacle and temple that the that vale’s now gone and those two compartments are now one. And God’s glory, as it were, spills out and his presence is spills out to his kings and priests who are in his presence in a in a much more direct and constant way. There’s something quite differently. You know, some commentators and some study notes that I looked at.

67. 34:22

    They try they relate this to prayer and they say, well now that Christ has opened up the veil, we can pray directly to God. Really. Is that what it is? Because there was a lot of prayers being given in the old covenant. In fact, their prayers under the old covenant seem to have more effectiveness than even ours. And the example James gives in James 5 is of Elijah under the old covenant who prayed and stopped the stop the rain and caused the famine because of his prayer. So it can’t be prayer.

68. 34:54

    It’s something more profound than prayer. There’s something that has changed in the universe. Something has changed, profoundly changed. That involves you and me. That is represented by this access boldness to the very presence of God. What is that? What has changed? Something has dramatically changed. It’s not just being able to say through the Lord Jesus Christ the end of a prayer. Example two.

69. 35:18

    Well, that’s that’s part of it. But that of course cannot be the whole picture. Hebrews talks about this concept of being made perfect. We under the new covenant can be made perfect. Now perfection. And we’re not going to touch on that too much tonight. Perfection or being without blemish. Being perfect, being holy, being sanctified is a precondition for being in God’s presence, interacting with God.

70. 35:44

    Adam and Eve couldn’t and didn’t have that. Once they sinned, they lost that perfection, if you like. Perfection is not necessarily sinlessness either. You know a little baby could be sinless in a sense that hasn’t ever sinned. Someone in a coma may be sinless at that time. Perfection is something else, isn’t it? There’s some, there’s something that makes us relatable to to Yahweh, to God.

71. 36:08

    There’s there’s a the ability to be connected to God in a in a again, a profound way. Now the Old Covenant could not make those as faithful as they were, as faithful as they were, and we’re not in any way diminishing their faith. But those under the Old Covenant were never made perfect, Hebrews 10 says. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect.

72. 36:38

    They never got that perfection, whatever it is, whatever this perfection is this precondition, as I said, to stand to be interact with God and to be at one with him. They never ever received that. They never got that. And that’s why their presence is always mediated, highly mediated and restricted. They never were made perfect.

73. 36:57

    However few verses down in Hebrews 10 it is very different for us. Look at the difference for by one offering he has perfected forever the tense. The Greek there is he’s he’s done something which reverberates through through all time. It’s it’s happened in the past, completely and utterly For you and me, we have been perfected forever, while at the same time he’s still sanctifying us. That word sanctified is an ongoing verb. It’s it’s continuous.

74. 37:28

    So at one level, we’re perfected for something. God has perfected us to allow us into His presence, while at the same time he’s still sanctifying us. And we’ll touch on this. I’m jumping ahead. We’ll get to this a bit later on. And being perfected is not necessarily being forgiven. That’s that’s as I said, that’s a negative thing in a way.

75. 37:50

    Forgiveness is just having a a sin removed in a sense or or not counted against us. But you know even under the laws there was forgiveness, sins could be forgiven. Now there’s many quotes in Leviticus talking about God forgiving is the sins and there was even sacrifices for transgressions and sins etcetera. But the law could not make perfect that’s that’s the positive side of the of the coin.

76. 38:12

    If you like, it could. It could forgive their trespasses, but it could not make them perfect. It could not make them be in a situation, a position where they could interact with God in that, in that Adam and Eve way. Here’s an interesting one you may not have thought about before you and I. We think we’re just, you know, in this dead period of time. Nothing’s much happening.

77. 38:37

    It’s just static. God’s done all the work in the past and we’ll do it in the future. Is this really interesting statement by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 11 where he says, I say to you among those born of women, Now keep that, that’s a little clue here. Those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. So right up until he says from John the Baptist, sorry, from from creation, right up into John the Baptist, he was the greatest person who’ve ever lived. And then Jesus goes on to say, but he who is least in the Kingdom of heaven is now.

78. 39:16

    That’s in the tense. There is now is greater than he. What does that mean? That’s a that’s a little bit a little bit enigmatic, isn’t it? What’s going on here? What is the Kingdom of heaven? We sometimes jump when we read phrase like we jump to the future. I think that’s the the actual Kingdom when Jesus returns and sets up the Kingdom. But the context here, the next verse tells us it’s not talking about the future Kingdom.

79. 39:43

    He says from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violence take it by force. It’s talking about God’s people since since the baptism of John, since the teaching of Jesus who embodied the Kingdom. Whoops, sorry, who embodied the Kingdom. He said the King of God is among you. The King of God came in a sense with with Jesus teaching and he and he bought that to man’s attention and man interacted then in a sense with God’s Kingdom. And those who received that, even though they suffered violence, even though there was problems, he says they are, even the least of them is greater than John the Baptist, who was the greater, the greatest.

80. 40:26

    Rather under the Old Covenant, Brother Carter says in parables of the Messiah, Jesus is now speaking when he refers to the Kingdom of God. He’s speaking not of the future Kingdom, brother, Carter says. He’s Speaking of a new order, a whole new world order, and I’ll get to that in a minute. John says Jesus is the last of the prophets.

81. 40:47

    He is the last link in the chain up to this new order. And in that case, the days of the Kingdom had actually come in that sense, in the sense that the king was in their midst and the gospel of the Kingdom was pressed upon men’s attention. So those who responded to the Kingdom message that were greater, it’s in some sense whatever that means.

82. 41:08

    Then the incredible John the Baptist who he wasn’t, he didn’t feel worthy to tie Jesus Shoelachitz and we wouldn’t, we would feel unworthy. We even tie untie John’s Shoelachitz. And yet this scripture is saying because of the status we have, the perfection we have the access and boldness to God’s presence that we have something we have is even greater than anything that John the John the Baptist experienced as well. Of course he died before the resurrection, which when all these things became inaugurated.

83. 41:40

    Example 4 this is an interesting one and I I when I when I presented this at Gosford, it it it was there was push back and we we had to really look at this in some detail. So it’s quite interesting. The idea that we are sons of God is something that relates to us today.

84. 42:04

    Under the old covenant, they weren’t called sons of God, particularly after the flood, that phrase is not there. Israel was a son in a in a corporate sense, but Israel were not individually sons of God. This is something that has come into force. Remember we saw that quote from Matthew 11, those born of women. John the Baptist was a greater, but something has happened since the resurrection of Jesus where we’re born again. We’re born not of flesh and blood as John one says, we’re born of spirit.

85. 42:36

    There’s a whole, there’s something quite different now that relates to us in this unique period of time. It’s not an in between dead time at all. It’s a very powerful time and our interaction with God is extremely powerful. So under the old covenant there’s no real emphasis on God as the Father, which some people are shocked by. It’s a little bit shocking in the New Testament, in under the New covenant, it’s Father all the way, isn’t it? Jesus comes on the scene and it’s father, Father, Father, Father, Father, my father, Father, Father, your father, Father, Father.

86. 43:08

    It’s it punctuates every second verse in the gospel records. It’s Father everywhere. There’s you can colouring Father and it hits you in the eyes everywhere in the in the in the gospel records. And yet it’s hard to find anything in the Old Testament in that, in that, anything like that in the Old Testament. There are a few references to God being a father in the Old Testament and most of them are are metaphors so God’s like his or they’re they’re figures of speech so the famous one is Psalm 103 as a father pities their child so God pities us it’s as a father.

87. 43:42

    It’s it’s not God depicted in that same way and where God is depicted as a father it’s a it’s again as I said before it’s a it’s a corporate father over his son out of Egypt. Have I called my son as a as a corporate body? It’s it’s significantly different. There’s about 15 references in the whole, you know, whole of the Old Testament, the big chunk of our Bible to to the fatherhood of God. And we went through all those at Gosford individually and looked at them to to just anchor this concept. And yet it explodes in the new.

88. 44:14

    New Testament explodes on the page. Won’t look at all these now, but there’s that famous concept of Paul’s that runs through his epistles, which is picked up from the cross, isn’t it? The ABBA father concept? ABBA being this intimate, you know, dad if you like, and father ABBA father this relationship to God.

89. 44:34

    And by thinking about this and making this real, we start to get a clue as to how the presence of God works. It’s all starting to change once we appreciate this unique status that we have as sons of God. You know, to get to see the President of the United States, I imagine it takes years to get an appointment. And you’d have to know the right people and go through the right channels.

90. 44:57

    And you may never, ever get to visit, have an appointment with the President of the United States. And yet his little child is in his presence every night and can run into his room and see him all the time. So a child has access to presence that. That is quite unique, isn’t it? And quite profound.

91. 45:17

    And you know no one in the Old Testament ever calls God my Father, no one. So it is something that really is developed and really comes into force from Jesus onwards. And there’s this famous verse hearing John One, yeah, John one’s a very profound chapter in the beginning was the word was God’s mind and his his wisdom. And the beginning was that Word and that Word becomes flesh and it’s dwell dwells amongst it’s it it interacts with human experience and and human

92. 45:49

    feebleness and human sin and human life and and it interacts with God with it’s God interacting with humanity and we see the glory of God lived out in that man and as a result of that that incredible events and and all the things that transpired those who believe in him have a right or some translations have privileged. Either way is fine, but you can see it’s a change of status, isn’t it?

93. 46:16

    That didn’t exist before. It now exists in Christ. We have the right to become the children of God or the sons of God by belief, by faith in his name. We’ve not been born of blood or the will of flesh. This is a divine, profound miracle that we’ve been born again into. Sorry, I’m trying to wreck your equipment. We’re born into something that’s that’s that is just hard to hard to for me to even articulate and to put into words what, what that means.

94. 46:48

    We are the children of the creator of the universe, of the power of the universe and and all the implications that that brings. We have this right, that comes this this privilege, this capacity this this thing that we’ve been elevated to to be the sons and daughters of God and that that came to existence. Now that’s something that longs to us. Now you know, first John three, now are we the sons of God? You know, this is something that’s, you know, ability to appreciate.

95. 47:20

    Now example five, we are really running out of time. But I’ve got a whole night on this, so I’ll just quickly run through it. There’s another profound verse here in John 7 where Jesus just jumps up in John seven. It’s like he does it out of the blue. And if it wasn’t for Josephus, we probably wouldn’t know what he was actually doing. But he jumps up on it’s the it’s the the feast of Tabernacles. And he just screams out.

96. 47:44

    There’s no, there’s no lead up to it. We don’t quite know why he does it. But he just jumps up and he yells out. He that believes on me as the scripture says out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. I’m not going to go down this rabbit hole. But there’s nowhere in the scripture that says that by the way. So that’s keep keep that in the back of your mind. We’ll touch on that later on.

97. 48:04

    But this he spoke, the narrator says, concerning the Spirit who those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified. There’s something about the Spirit that is going to be significantly different after the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is one of those subjects that can be controversial because we are very suspicious of people claiming to have the Holy Spirit gifts or people claiming that the Spirit’s giving them guidance and telling them how to live their lives etcetera. And we rightfully suspect that and and we don’t believe it’s compatible with free will and personal responsibility and all those sorts of things.

98. 48:48

    But there’s a there’s some change here from the Spirit being given, the Spirit’s going to be given. Now we can, we can think of that in terms of the Holy Spirit gifts that was given in Pentecost to a very small, ultimately a very small subset of believers that would ever receive the Holy Spirit, those miraculous gifts, if you like, of tongues and and healing. But there’s something more profound happening here. The Spirit’s been given to to the Ecclesia, and it’s not just referring to the gifts.

99. 49:19

    Now if you we’re going to spend a night on this and if you really want to prep up on it, there’s you cannot beat this book here called The Spirit of God by Brother Alfred Nichols. It’s a pretty tough book. I have to say I’ve got a reasonable reasonably good comprehension when it comes to reading. But this is a really tough book to read, but it’s worth it. And Brother Nichols is pushing back against the idea that God only works today through the Bible. He he’s sort of saying that’s not the full picture and and it’s quite profound what he says. He’s not some, you know, young person I have to say. Brother Nichols was the editor of the Christadelphy magazine for 15 years, and he wrote some of our most Seminole books, you know, Revelation, which Interpretation and other books like that.

100. 50:06

     So he’s a very deep scholar and it’s really worth looking at this, but I’ll give you a quick hint now in the context of our before and afters, he says. He says when we talk about the gift, when God gives the Spirit and it’s a gift, it’s not the word that we usually associate with the Holy Spirit gifts.

101. 50:24

     So when you look in look at Corinthians, the word there that’s used to describe the gifts is this word charisma, which you’ve probably heard. That’s the gift of tongues and the gift of healing, a gift of interpretation. The New Testament, the word using the New Testament describe the gift of the Holy Spirit is a different word.

102. 50:43

     It’s the word doria, or derivations of that. And he says derivation. Derivation. Doria is the broad term that encompasses all God’s spiritual gifts and charisma. The gifts was just a subset of that which is no longer available to to believers. And of course we have the Bible, which is one of the one of the gifts of God that has been given.

103. 51:06

     So, so the the gifts, when you think of the miraculous gifts, they’re charisma. When you think of the gift of the Holy Spirit, it’s doria. It’s a different word. It’s not Doritos. That sounds like it, but it’s not. That’s just where my mind goes with it. OK, so charisma is a subset of doria. Keep that in mind.

104. 51:23

     So when you see these verses in Ephesians and other places, don’t just we could automatically just replace them and say, well that’s all about the Bible. Now we don’t have the gifts. When he says the gift of grace that we have in Ephesians or this indescribable gift that we have in 2nd Corinthians 9, there’s some gift which is Holy Spirit inspired gift. It’s not the miraculous gifts, it’s not the indwelling gift that the, you know, the Anglicans talk about. It’s this gift of God through the Holy Spirit that comes to us when we’re baptized.

105. 51:55

     We’re baptized into the name of the Father and into the Son and also the Holy Spirit. So it’s it’s a big part and it probably needs more thinking about maybe to make in, in my experience anyway, the gift of righteousness as Romans 5 says, the doria, this is a spirit gift. Every good and perfect doria, every good and perfect gift that comes from above. The gift of living water that Jesus talks about to the woman of Samaria and John four.

106. 52:19

     He has doria us. All things pertain to life and godliness. These are gifts from God, of course. The Bible is a beautiful gift from God. But Brother Nichols says we can’t just swap out everywhere. We read the Spirit with with the Bible and we use this term. He says there’s nothing wrong with using the term Spirit word, but it’s not a biblical.

107. 52:40

     There’s nowhere in the Bible does it say spirit word. That’s something we’ve made-up. So we’ve got to be careful about just superimposing Bible on top of Spirit every, every time. We see that God is everywhere present by spirit. God interacts with us even today. And these are things we need to sort of think about.

108. 52:57

     So when you, when you swap out Bible against Spirit, you’re swapping out against the Spirit gifts at the lower level in that hierarchy, not swap it out against Doria. Doria. The gift of the Spirit is still valid today, not the Holy Spirit gifts. They’re they’re charisma, They’re below that. Anyway, if you didn’t understand anything I said, don’t worry, we’ll cover that a bit later on. The point is, something changed with the resurrection. Something significantly different changed. Something massively changed.

109. 53:29

     And so there’s something called a whole new world order that came into being. It was inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ, and Hebrews 9 says it talks about the rituals under the law of Moses as food and drinks and washings and ordinances. He says these would exist until a time of reformation, which the NIV picks up the meaning of that word really, really more profoundly.

110. 53:55

     I think more accurately, it’s a time, it’s a new order. These gifts of washing and sacrifices would would continue until not the Kingdom. That would continue until this new order was brought into effect and that new order was brought into effect at the resurrection. It’s already started. And so this is something we’re going to look at as well. We are living in a very significant period of time. The new creation is at work right now and we are part of that new creation.

111. 54:32

     And without this period of new creation, the Millennium cannot happen and will not happen. So it’s not dead time, it’s not hunker down time, This is God time. And so Hebrews 10 says, therefore brethren having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by this new Zoe way which he has consecrated for us.

112. 54:50

     That word consecrated is better translated as Strong’s has inaugurated. Now we know what an inauguration is. And inauguration is when a powerful figure is inaugurated as president or I think, I think Charles’s tomorrow is it or today? I don’t know. I lost track of that. But Susan will know that one. There’s inauguration happening happens in our world now, when a new king comes into into being, Christ inaugurated this new and living way, this, this connection to God, this entrance into the most holy place, this profound interaction with God’s presence has been inaugurated already. There’s a new order, a new, a new and living way that exists right now.

113. 55:34

     And there’s a lot of news that’s a little pun on the good news. So the good news had lots of new stuff about it. There was a new covenant that came into force with the blood of Christ. We’ll look at the whole. We’ll spend a whole night on that. A new creation that’s taking place right now.

114. 55:50

     A new man or a new being being developed by God within us, a new and living way that dictates this interaction with God. A new commandment. This is a fascinating, a new commandment. So we’re going to be very careful when we take examples from the Old Covenant and try and bring them through into our world.

115. 56:08

     We’ve got to. They’ve got to be funneled, if you like or or or filtered through the New Covenant prism. Just because you could kill an enemy under the Old Covenant doesn’t mean you do that now. The New Covenant is love and loving your neighbours and turning the other cheek. It’s A and by this New Covenant, if we live by it properly or everyone will see that we’re Jesus disciples because it’s so counterintuitive. It’s so different.

116. 56:30

     It’s so, so opposite of anything else that has been experienced by humans before. So there’s this new everything that’s coming to being since the resurrection. So here’s a famous verse that we we, we refer to a fair bit in our particularly first principles and other places. But let’s in the in the in the context of tonight’s talk.

117. 56:51

     Let’s just read it slowly and just feel the power of what we have. Not in a not in a proud way but just in a in a way of gratitude to God and and and feeling what the potential there is in in this spiritual life in Christ that we have and first Peter one says concerning this salvation.

118. 57:10

     The prophets you know you know the prophets, those people you learn about in Sunday school and read about all the time and study and love those prophets prophesied about what the prophets were about the grace whatever else they prophet about Russia and and all this sort of stuff. That’s all true. But ultimately Peter is saying they prophesied about the grace that was to be yours.

119. 57:40

     It’s not my words, is it? And that grace it was to be yours. They they really wanted to know about it. They searched and inquired diligently. It just was. It was. You know, Paul talks about as being this, this secret or this mystery hidden throughout all time until until the resurrection, this incredible thing that would change the universe itself, that grace that was to be yours, Inquiring what personal time the Spirit of Christ, all those Old Testament types and stories and parables and prophets, and are all converging onto this Christ.

120. 58:19

     And the Spirit of Christ is bringing all these things together. The Spirit of Christ was in them, indicating when he when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories, it was revealed to them and they were serving, not themselves actually wasn’t. It didn’t benefit them a huge amount really. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? It’s hard that these prophets are inspired by God and they’re talking about these things they were serving, not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the gospel, the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, which things the angels themselves desire to look into.

121. 59:06

     That’s you now, brothers and sisters, That’s us Now. All the stuff the prophets were saying, Ezekiel going through all these parables and Jeremiah being up to his neck in mud, and Daniel and all these people, they were prophesying about the grace that was sorry, the grace that was to be yours, which things the angels desire to look into.

122. 59:31

     So tonight we’ve identified some of these gold bars been made perfect, something which we’re going to try and make some reality about. What does it mean to be made perfect? Even though even the most faithful men and women that we’ve ever heard of that are in the catalogue of the faithful in Hebrews 11, What does it say at the very end of that chapter? These all died in faith.

123. 59:52

     They did incredible things, but they were not made perfect. They without us will not be made perfect. We are made perfect now in our living lifetime. We live in the presence of God. In a very real way. We’ve got the right, the privilege to call ourselves the sons of God and to call God our Father, greater than John the Baptist in our status, receiving this incredible gift of God’s Holy Spirit. And we’ll talk about how that out works a bit later on. So let’s finish really quickly.

124. 1:00:24

     Hebrews, Hebrews 12. Let’s go to Hebrews 12. Brothers and sisters, We’ll finish up here, our last reference for tonight, Hebrews 12. There’s a contrast here between two mountains. So it’s got Mount Sinai, and you can see the sort of language that’s used to describe Sinai. It says verse 18 for you have not come. So that’s this is not our experience. You have not come to a mountain that can be touched. So there’s something interesting at the start. There’s something physical and tangible. Whatever we have is not physical in that three-dimensional sense. Which means you got to.

125. 1:01:12

     We got to work harder to appreciate and to make it real. It can’t be touched. This mountain that burnt with fire and the to the blackness in the darkest darkness, rather in The Tempest and the sound of a trumpet. Look at the the visceral and the noise and the feelings and all these physical tangible things. The sound of trumpet and the voice of words. So those who heard begged that it should stop, and they couldn’t even endure it.

126. 1:01:40

     And if a beast even touched the mountain, it was stoned to death, or thrust through with a with a with an arrow or a dart. So terrifying, verse 21 says. So terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling. So that was the Old Covenant. God’s presence is mediated, strongly mediated. The mountain itself is restricted. Even animals couldn’t get near it. The people are kept at the bottom. God’s presence is represented by the Angel of the presence. It’s very mediated, very restricted. Look at our situation though, verse 22. But you are come, let’s not push this into the future because that’s not what it’s saying.

127. 1:02:21

     It’s not saying we’re going to go to Mount Zion in sometime in the future. You are. The English tense agrees with the Greek tense. Here in these verbs, you are come unto Mount Zion under the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Wherever you read about that before, Anthony read about that in our open reading. That’s Revelation 21.

128. 1:02:45

     That’s beyond the Millennium. There’s a link, there’s a direct link between what we experience in Christ and that ideal recreation that happens, that that total consummation of God’s purpose in the future, the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. We are there now. Not in a physical sense, but we’re there. You are, you are. Come not to Mount Zion, under the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and ecclesia of the first born, which are written in heaven to God the judge of all, into the spirits of just men made perfect. This is, this is our experience now, brothers and sisters, to the spirit of just men made perfect in this relationship with God that is a billion times greater and more intense and more real than anything that Mount Zion, Mount Sinai could offer the people of Israel.

129. 1:03:43

     And it’s not written there in Hebrews, as I said, just to say, show the Jews going back were wrong. It’s written for us to to take into our emotions and our heart. To say this is incredible. We are recipients of this box of gold brothers and sisters and hopefully over our studies. We want to take each bar of gold out and try and make it real and try and feel the power of the now that we are living in Mount Zion right now.