The Age to Come — G.W. North

I'd like to turn with you tonight to the Scriptures, and we'll at least commence our reading in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It seems a long time ago, since we started on Friday night.

I don't know whether it does to you, but I seem to have come a long way since then. And I want to say how blessed my heart has been to be here with you all and share the great truths of God and to go together into the revelation of Scripture.

Bless the name of the Lord. And tonight, I want again to look at something of the wonder, of the greatness, of the plan of God. For you will remember that this is the book that speaks about so great salvation.

Neglecting So Great Salvation

You know that that comes in the second chapter, and I suppose it's a favorite verse. That we're warned about neglecting. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? We know that God has a great forgiving heart.

And I suppose every one of us would have to say that the Lord has forgiven us for dwelling too long upon one little point. You know how the Scripture of old said, you've compassed this mountain long enough.

Now go on, get up and move on. This is far greater, vaster, fuller than you ever imagined. I suppose it might have been possible to conceive the fact that they would have encompassed that mountain forever and kept walking around it and said, now this is the place where we've got revelation.

This is the place where we've come, we've got the law. This is the place where we've seen the fire. This is the place we've arrived at. We're out of Egypt. We're in the world. We know about the blood.

We know about the lamb. We know about the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit, as you know, was the cloud of fire. And by night and cloud the pillar of cloud by day to guide them. Oh, it was all so marvellous.

And God said, oh no, get up and move on. This thing is far, far greater than you've ever imagined. Carry on, he said, so I will. It's whether that set will. And that's why we're told, beloved, in these days, that we've got to beware, lest we just want to settle down on what we've got.

For I can assure you that what already you have received of the saving grace and power of God, it's only really a foretest of what the Lord has ahead for you. It was like this, really, with the Lord Jesus himself.

Christ and the Temporary Order of Creation

For instance, if you read with me in the first chapter, in verse six, when he, that is God the Father, bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him.

And of the angels, he saith, who make his angel spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. But under the sun, he saith, thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. A sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands.

They shall perish, but thou remainest. They all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

What a thing to say to the first begotten when he was brought into the world. It was just a step which would begin a phase of Jesus, the eternal son's existence on the earth, which would end when he was thirty-three or so years old.

And father said to him, you've been born into this world, into this earth, but you're going to fold up the heavens, you're going to make all this perish. It's a step forward into that which I have yet ahead.

That's what father was saying to his son when he brought him into the world. It's only a temporary phase, Jesus. Glory be to the name of the Lord. Fancy saying that, you know. You wouldn't have thought that, would you?

But that's what he was told. This was something necessary. It was something for the time being, something that had to be done, as the rest of the book of Hebrews makes quite clear to us. But it was, as I say, but a step.

And Jesus was passing on. And this was the thing that was ringing in his ears from God. You're going to fold up this heaven, you're going to roll it back, you're going to, yes, you know, you're going to make a new creation.

This is really what was in father's mind and was in the great plan of God. Now, it may be that you've neglected this. In fact, it may be that you've regarded this as a stumbling stone, as you've only sought to stumble through the book of Hebrews.

And you've wanted to get on to other things, and you thought, well, I don't know what that's all about. Of course, like me, you would have said, well, I believe it. It's in God's Word, and I believe it, and hallelujah, praise the Lord.

But you haven't had the foggiest clue why God should say things like that when he brought his Son into the world. It was only so that he should have ringing in his ears what should be ringing in our hearts.

That this is a temporary scene. That this is only for the time being. How much longer it's going to last, who can say? And Jesus was born into this world that he might do the things that had to be done in order that God should in all righteousness and justice establish the great age to come that was already fixed in his heart.

Now, Jesus knew about this. And he says to Jesus, he says, well, now all these angels, they're your servants, they're flames of fire. And here he was, he was lying in a manger. He says, I've created all these spirits for you.

Hallelujah. Isn't it marvelous to think that there are hosts and hosts of living flames, wondrous angelic spirits, whose business is with the earth. Amen. Because you thought that it was the devil's business with the earth, didn't you?

But here is a glorious revelation for our hearts to understand. And I really do think that it's only because of this that the earth has continued in the state of sort of semi-preservation in which it now exists, fast collapsing around our ears as we move on to the end of the age.

There are angels here. I think I'd like to pause and ask the Father now to open your eyes that you should see them. To open the eyes of your understanding. What a glorious thing it is. They're all your spirits, he says, they're all waiting upon you.

Glory be to God. And he reminded him, he said, your scepter is a scepter of righteousness, Jesus. You don't wonder that he used to talk like this and say, well now we've got to fulfil all righteousness.

This is the way Jesus lived. And the way he talked and the way he moved among men. Because he hadn't left his kingdom when he came on the earth. You do understand this, don't you? It does say in the Philippian letter that though he was equal with God and thought it not robbery or thing to be grasped there to be equal with God, he laid all that aside and came down to this earth.

But he didn't step out of his kingdom. And that's why when he started preaching, he said the kingdom of heaven is here. It's right at hand here. Amen. This is a tremendous thing for our hearts to grasp.

And in this kingdom he ruled with his scepter of righteousness as the gospels make quite clear to us. When we read the stories of the Lord Jesus there, that is what we see. The amazing righteousness of the Lord Jesus, so mixed with love and grace and justice and all the other wonderful qualities of his manhood and of his life that sometimes we didn't just recognize the righteousness of it all.

And that's why you have to really read the gospels, not because we have any doubts about it, these things, but to discover them. It's a great, great discovery. And your heart will rejoice when you can read your New Testament and discover these things because so many people say to me, they say, I read the Bible, you know, but I don't get anything out of it, people say.

I don't know why. I can't understand them. I understand that it must be so if they say so. But beloved, perhaps it may be that you're reading from the wrong angle. It may be that you haven't read these great scriptures to know God and know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps somebody's told you, you've got to read the Bible every morning before you go to work or before you go to school or before you go to the library or wherever you go to because if not the devil will get you down and you've got to do all these sorts of things and that's the way, that's why you've got to read the Bible.

But of course, utterly the wrong reason for reading the Bible. The whole glorious truth is that you've got to be able to come to know your precious Lord and know Him very intimately. But as the Lord moved on earth, you will discover that He moved in these marvellous ways in His kingdom, grace and love.

And all the time He was moving on to the great end. I don't know how long the present state of affairs is going to continue. My knowledge of the world is very, very small. It's so small that you can't intelligently hold a discussion with me on politics or on economics or I couldn't tell you the present state of the rail crisis and I couldn't tell you the present state of the petrol or oil shortage and I couldn't tell you the present state of whatever else is wrong with the world.

I can't really tell you because I just don't bother my head about it. In any case, if you get really busy and I warn you, in the kingdom of God, you might occasionally hear the news and once a month you may get a newspaper to read.

Something like that. So I warn you, if you must live in these other things, well, you'd better not become a preacher of the gospel. Because you just, in the end, don't have time even to know whether your bread costs four pence a slice or five pence.

You don't even have time. As long as you get a bit, that's all you worry about. I mean about the bread. You say, well, some of us have to worry. You don't have to worry. That's just it. And the whole tremendous truth is that God is wanting to reveal eternal secrets to our hearts and I warn you that if you want to know them you've got to keep your ear right down to God's heart.

You've got to let the Lord unfold the truth to you. And here it is then, praise God, the Lord was moving on to great and wonderful things that God had for us. Now we are to enter into this and we are to see our position in this world.

We are to understand why we are here and we are to give ourselves over to this that the Lord should use us to the utmost capacity. I warn you again, you could die by the age you're thirty-three. You could do, I warn you, the Lord did.

By the time he was thirty-three his work was finished and God took him back. Well, well. On the other hand, it could be, but I very much doubt whether this will happen to you, you could live as long as a chap named Enoch, he's spoken about in this book, who never did die.

He just went out for a walk one day and never came back. He walked with the Lord. I don't know, it's entirely up to the Lord what he does with your life. And I hope that you've already come to this conclusion.

I hope you've come to this decision with the Lord. I hope you've got it settled quite finally and I hope all the kinds of arrangements you enter into with man or woman, about the present or about the future, are made with this in mind, that you are not your own at all and that you belong to God entirely.

It's amazing he wants you, isn't it? But he does and he wants you whole so that he can use you wholly for his glory. And this was the whole attitude of Jesus Christ when he was on the earth. And we're told in this second chapter something about the wonder of the Lord.

The Son Made Lower Than the Angels

We're told that he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Verse 9. He's been made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. Do you know what you would have thought about that?

If your father said to you, well, I'm going to make you lower than the angels so that you can die. What would you have thought about that? What would you think about that? Made you lower than the angels so that you can die.

Apparently angels and those above them can't die. But those that are lower than the angels can die. Apparently. So Jesus had to be made lower than the angels so that he could die. Marvelous, isn't it?

I think that's tremendous. And he came down here on this earth to die so that God's program should be fulfilled. Because we're told in verse 5 that there's a world to come. And the world to come has not been put in subjection to the angels.

Amen. Not the world to come. I don't know how long this world's been in existence. I mean, some people, they talk about a thousand million years as though they were about a day. They're even better than the scriptures which says about a thousand years is a day.

Or if they are better than the scriptures. I don't know how long it's been in existence or how long it's been in existence in its present form. But the preachers of the gospel, they are concerned about presenting a world to come.

We speak about it, he said. Do you speak about the world to come much in this fellowship? Do you? I wonder if you do. Well, apparently we speak. So it must have been the early church. For this man was one of them that wrote this book.

He says we speak of the world to come. Amen. Glory be to God. Hope you understand this. It's good for you to understand it. If you turn to chapter 11, you read that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For by it the elders obtain a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Amen. Hallelujah. Or if you like, the ages were fitted together by the word of God.

All the ages have all been made to fit. Glory, I don't understand it. I know how God fitted two ages together. I understand that. I understand how God fitted the present age into the past age. Do you understand how he did that?

It's very easy. Simple to understand how God fitted these two ages together. They were fitted together by the word of God, by the word becoming flesh. That was very simple. It's ever so easy, really, the Bible.

It's ever so easy to understand it. One should know how it all fits together. It's like a jigsaw. One should know it. You see, where did I go? I went out at Christmas time. And I went and sat on somebody's settee.

Oh, it was a great day. We had turkey and I don't know what. We were visiting someone else, mind you. And I sat on the sofa. Settee, I think you have to call it. And I looked at something by the side of me and it was a jigsaw puzzle.

And I had a look at it carefully. I think it might have had 20 pieces. I thought, oh, I can do this one. So I turned it out of the box, made sure I didn't cheat. I broke all the pieces up. And I put it together about next to no time.

And the little child who was there thought I was wonderful. A grown-up would have thought I was stupid. But never mind. The little child thought I was wonderful that I had put this jigsaw puzzle together, you see.

And of course, it's ever so easy when you know how. And I know how these two ages fit together as easy as anything. As I said, the word was made flesh. And the old age, and this is really what we're concerned about in this book, actually, in this Hebrews book.

From the Old Covenant to the New Age

The old age was based on a system of law-giving. It commenced, as you know, with Moses. Oh, and the giving of the law. I don't want to go into all the details of it now. And an age of law commenced. And in it, of course, God, having given the law, He did it to condition people.

Because, you see, without the law there's no knowledge of sins, says the scripture. And people were sinning and sinning and sinning, doing all sorts of things, and not knowing that it was sin. Saying, oh, well, it's perfectly natural.

Or something like that, you see. So God gave the law in order that He could show up sin. What it really was. And then He conditioned everything by putting a tabernacle on the earth. He had them build Him a house on the earth.

And He instituted a system of sacrifices as atonement for sin, you see. And He commanded that all the blood of sacrifice should not be shed indiscriminately anywhere, but that it should be shed at a place called the brazen altar that stood just inside the open gap that served for the gateway into the tabernacle precincts.

And it was absolutely dead straight in line with His throne. And all the blood that was shed on the earth for sacrifice had to be shed in line with the throne. His throne. Which He sat on, on a place called the mercy seat, back in the holiest place of all.

But He commanded that all the blood of sacrifice and atonement should be shed under His eye. And under His supervision. He legalized the whole thing. And that was that. And oh, it was all so wonderful.

His word had been written on two tablets of stone and it had been hidden inside the ark. Nobody could get at His word at all. Not His written word. It was hidden away called Ten Commandments and God sat on the golden lid on top of it and kept it.

There. Well now, the way these two ages fitted together was this. That God had another age in mind. Because He only ever intends any of these ages that we've known about to be temporary. He only intends any of them to be temporary until He makes the great new world.

That's going to be permanent. Hallelujah. Praise God. I could enthuse about this but I want to keep right dead straight down the line. And so Jesus, being born into the world, as I say, the word was made flesh.

And everything that God had written in the Ten Commandments and all else that was written as ordinations in the book of the Lord that was kept in the side of the ark, it was all written into Jesus' flesh.

It was written in His heart and it was written in His mind. It was worked out amongst men just as though He was writing it out plainly by all the deeds of His body and of His flesh and it was wonderful.

And so, in the end, He died on the cross and He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of this death. And then, you know what happened. He went unto the cross. Praise God. And it was a marvellous thing that God did there as we were reading this afternoon.

Thank you, brethren. He did something better than He'd ever done before. He took away this system of atonement because it was no good. It was only a very sort of temporary measure. It was no good really because it couldn't deal with sin.

It was just a sort of a temporary coverage and it wasn't really what He wanted anyway. God didn't want atonement and one of the little things I do quarrel with dear brother John and Charles Wesley on is that their use of the word atonement because they should have known better for they were both great Greek scholars I don't know why they should have got mixed up like this that God took away atonement and He put reconciliation in its place because atonement only covered over the condition that couldn't be reconciled.

You see, because these people of old couldn't be reconciled to God by the blood of bulls and of goats and animals He had a veil up and He kept them outside. He said, well you can come as far as this but after that you can't come any nearer.

But there is no reconciliation by atonement. Reconciliation is only by reconciliation and that's really the word the word atonement doesn't come in the New Testament anywhere. I know your mind may be thinking, yes it does I've read it in Romans 5 but we'll have to hand it to the revisers here they've corrected it.

It's reconciliation. We haven't received the atonement we've received the reconciliation and that's done away with atonement absolutely, completely there's been a great reconciliation. Amen. Oh, and this is how God sort of fitted the two ages together He sort of brought the whole idea up like that you see from the past bloodshed and all sorts of things and then He sent His Son and He fitted into it beautifully that doesn't fit in there very well but you know what I mean it all fitted in God fitted two ages together He fulfilled all the past that was glory all the law of God all the things that God had to say all that He commanded all that He promised all that He hoped for everything, hallelujah.

He fulfilled it all glory be to the name of the Lord. And then He rose again. Praise the name of the Lord. And the great joining had been made and the cancellation of that and that age passed away. Praise God.

No more offering for sin no more bloodshed. Hallelujah. Praise God. God wouldn't even let David the favorite of His build the temple because he was a man of blood. Yeah, that's right, you know praise God.

And this is a tremendous thing. And He did away with all that. And down comes the Holy Ghost. It's rather like the saying Jesus said He was going to build His church but you know He couldn't build it while He was on the earth because even He was a man of blood.

And down came the mild pacific dove. Praise the name of the Lord the third person of the Trinity. He got no blood to shed. He's all glorious spirit. He's all bringing in the eternal reality. From whence the flesh and the blood and the bones and the brains and the strength of Jesus came.

This is a marvelous thing. And down comes the Holy Ghost. And that blotted out entirely all that other age. And now we're in the new age. Amen. And listen, there's still an age to come. Well at least I believe there must be a lot more ages to come because I can read text in the Bible that speaks about the ages of the ages.

Oh my. And again you may remember that it says in this glorious book Hebrews 9 that once in the end of the age Jesus Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. It was the end of that age.

Hallelujah. And the ushering in of the new age of the Holy Spirit. Glory be to the name of the Lord. The age of the Holy Spirit. God began it on the day of Pentecost. It was a wonderful thing that God did.

And this is what He says. We're speaking of an age to come. It says in chapter 2 and verse 5. Alright an age to come. But now look at verse 4. Oh now let's look at verse 3. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him.

God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with diverse miracles and outpourings or distributions of the Holy Ghost according to His will. You see God as far as the outpoured Holy Ghost that's the age we're in.

Then the age to come is mentioned in the next verse. Do you see that that's right brought us as far as the age we're in. Amen. Isn't it lovely. The Bible is so marvellous I marvel at it the more I read it.

It's exact precision. It's glorious. And then hallelujah. Why has He poured out the Holy Ghost. Because this age to come that God's got in mind has got nothing to do with angels. It's all to do with with me and you with us this great age to come hallelujah.

It's to do with men and women who've come into the new covenant of God by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost and have entered already by a miraculous birth and live in a wonderful fullness into and in this glorious preparation for the age to come.

Amen. Now are you getting ready for it. The age to come. Praise God the age to come. Now you will know I was saying this afternoon that since Jesus died and rose again the word death has changed its meaning.

Christians never die they only fall asleep. Christians never die they only fall asleep. That's what happens from that moment onwards. It's all been changed. Yes hallelujah. Wouldn't it be wonderful to fall asleep.

What if you should do it tonight. Wouldn't it be marvellous. I said Jesus only had 33 years. Some of you are a long way past 33. Some of you are very near it. Some of you have got a long way to go. You see and praise the name of the Lord Jesus fell asleep.

And we're all being prepared for this age to come. Bless him. Are you getting ready for it. You see this has got to be very very real in your heart. It's got to be absolutely true. Look at chapter 6 with me.

I know that what I'm going to read is all part of a warning that you needn't be too worried about in the sense that all the warnings in scripture are there for a reason. I mean nobody gets worried when they're driving a car and they're coming at the green light.

And then suddenly it turns amber. That's a warning that in a minute it's going to turn red. Or perhaps in half a minute. But you don't get. Oh it's terrible. I've had a warning you don't get all frightened like that.

But right in the middle of the warning if you're sensible you may not say hallelujah the amber light's showing. But you ought to be praising God that the warning's there and don't forget it. And if you keep learning teaching yourself to ignore amber warnings you might be blind when you read the warnings in scripture.

It's a psychological build up what a man is in his car he is in the church and don't forget it. I once talked with a gentleman and he said I went and talked with a psychologist once and he said do you suck sweets or chew sweets?

He said I didn't believe him when he said I chew sweets and he knew what I was. I said to him yes he did. Because it's the way you eat will show the observing person the kind of soul you have. I didn't put it in that word those words.

That's why the bible's very keen on social behavior. It all is of a pattern. You can't live one way at work and another way in the church. You can't be different if you've lived long enough to formulate habits of social behavior you can't live differently.

I'll tell you perhaps the time you're 15 than what you are spiritually you can't. And listen. Some of you young people have got lovely faces. Now listen by the time you're 30 or 40 your spirit will show on your face.

And nothing you buy at a chemist's will alter it. I'll look at your faces now and I'll tell you what your soul is like. So don't put anything on because I shall see through that too. The Lord enables me to.

You can't avoid it. Hallelujah. The word is made flesh. Your flesh is shouting out the word to me. Whatever it is that word shouting it out to me. Hallelujah. And your face is the finest index. All right.

The Powers of the Age to Come

Let's take the warning. It's impossible. Verse 4. For those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost. That is we have. You see you've got the Holy Ghost.

Now you've got the word to come mentioned again. Isn't it marvelous. This age and the next one. And when beloved here's the secret. When you've entered into this age you've tasted of the powers of the age to come.

Hallelujah. When you've entered into the age of the Holy Ghost. When they entered into the age of law they began to taste of the powers of the age to come. That's right. They had prophecy. They had prophets.

They had a mediator Moses. But the age to come was going to disclose the mediator. They had blood. So did Jesus. Glory. You see in all they began to taste of the powers of the age to come. And so we we've begun to taste of the powers of the age to come.

Glory. We've been made partakers of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Oh what a precious precious glorious revelation this is. And he's come to make us partakers of these glorious powers of the age to come. Now if I was to ask you what you consider to be the powers of the age to come what would you say.

Well prophecy. No. Not going to be any prophecy there. Well I've got the gift of tongues. No. No. Not going to be any tongues in the age to come. Well I've got healing. Not going to be any healing in the age to come.

You understand that. Don't you. You have got this clear. Haven't you. You've got to get this absolutely straight. Oh I'm a preacher. You see. And well I'm an apostle. There aren't going to be any apostles in the age to come.

No preachers either. Thank you. Won't you be relieved. It's as well for a man to know that he's only a stopgap measure. And a very small measure at that the tremendous thing beloved.

The powers of the age to come.

Have you partaken of them. Have you some of these glorious powers. What is this power that you have in you. You're all frightened to speak in case I say you're wrong aren't you. What is this great great power in you.

Well chapter one will give us a clue here it is verse nine. Thou hast loved righteousness. Oh hallelujah. That's the fundamental thing of the age to come. Righteousness. Amen. Oh the power of righteousness.

Have you tasted of the power of righteousness. Now. I'm not asking you whether you've just received the benefits of righteousness such as forgiveness imputed to you. I'm asking you whether you've tasted the power of righteousness in your life.

That's the scepter of the kingdom. When a man has tasted the power of righteousness then Christ is ruling in his life. The scepter of righteousness is the scepter of the great kingdom. For we are passing on into the kingdom age.

Hallelujah. What a precious thing that is. And have you loved righteousness. Has this become the love of your life. What is the love of your life righteousness. Hallelujah. It must be right. Oh not legalistically right but right.

What a glorious thing it is to be righteous. Not self righteousness. Not something based on self and neither the other extreme. So that all you're thinking about is the righteousness of Christ but the great righteousness which has been given unto you so that you can live your life righteously in this present age before men.

Bless the Lord. Can you do that. Amen. When we can and we could go on in all these great things and we could start to sort out some of these tremendous truths. One of them I would like to go out of this epistle for and look into the Roman letter which is a great letter about righteousness.

But I want really to deal with the opening verses. Paul a servant of Jesus Christ called an apostle separated unto the gospel of God verse 3 concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead.

What do you know. Not only about the scepter of righteousness. What do you know about the spirit of holiness. That holiness is a spirit in you. That holiness is the spirit of you. Amen. Oh glory when there's a scepter of righteousness in your life.

And listen no man sees or enters the kingdom of God until they're born again. And the scepter of the kingdom is a scepter of righteousness. And Jesus Christ rules and reigns in Zion in righteousness. Alleluia.

And that in your life is marvelous. And it decides your transactions. And it decides your words. And it decides the things you enter into the things you reject. It decides everything. The scepter of righteousness.

Glory be to God. That's marvelous. But oh to have a spirit of holiness. Amen. That's great holiness has got to be a spiritual thing with you spiritual righteousness. He was declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness.

In other words there wouldn't have been any Acts 1 .8 if by the spirit of holiness he hadn't been declared to be the son of God. And then he could talk about power coming from on high after that. Amen.