Elijah — Major Ian Thomas

Christ as the Truth

Right. It isn't sermons that count it's the message. That is to say the truth. Lord Jesus said if you abide in my word, you'll know the truth. It isn't the word that will do anything for you. It's the truth that you discover in the word.

The truth will set you free and He leaves us in no doubt as to who the truth is whom you discover in the word Jesus. For he goes on then to say if the Sun shall make you free. Then you will be free indeed a message.

Everything is this that it never changes. It's the same yesterday today and forever because the truth is a person. The Lord Jesus himself is that I am the truth. That's why theology if it's true to God's Word never changes.

Never truth never changes. Because truth is a person he is the sum total of all truth the final exegesis of all truth. And to know him is to know all there is to know. I've quoted sometimes I think in the past a certain German theologian who lived long enough ago for hundred years to talk sense Dr. Bougainville, I Don't suppose you've ever heard of dr. Bougainville, but you might imagine that he might be German by the name.

Sounds more like a disease than a name, but dr. Bougain half. And he said if you really know the Lord Jesus personally for yourself anything else that you don't know doesn't really matter. And then he went on to say.

But if you do know the Lord Jesus personally for yourself everything else if you don't know the Lord Jesus personally for yourself. Anything else you may know isn't worth anything. That's pretty good.

But then he really knew God for himself the truth. Timeless eternal that's why any boy girl man or woman Can qualify to be as a member of the body of the Lord Jesus a means of communication to the world.

Whereby they can come to understand the liberating emancipating truth of the gospel. And the beautiful thing it is that you you don't have to know what's happening. Just plant plant plant plant truth truth truth truth.

Christ Manifested Through the Believer

I Mentioned to the folks over the weekend in our annual general meeting in Fallbrook that Francis of Assisi said preach Christ. Always when necessary use words. You see the Christian life is Christ. All he wants to do is manifest himself through you and through me so that our humanity advertises deity.

So in the measure in which we are restored to normality that allows him now as God to be to us what he in his normality 2 ,000 years ago allowed the father as God to be to him he constantly Advertised deity he put Christ.

He brought the father out into the open Where he might be seen. I love that Just in parenthesis there. Do you remember how in John's gospel? He said in the beginning was the word the word was with God was God by him all things were made.

Without him was not anything made that was made. He is the creative deity in him is life that life was the light of men and that word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory and Of course the Lord Jesus was quick constantly to affirm that the glory That they saw was that which the father had given to him that which derived from the presence of the father in the son.

That's beautiful. Because John then goes on to say In the same chapter the first chapter where he affirms that Jesus is the word Who was in the beginning with God was God by whom all things were made without whom was not anything made that was made and That word the logos was made flesh.

He then goes on to say only four verses later. No man has ever seen God at any time. Isn't that strange. He just tells us that the word whom they saw in in whom they saw the glory as of the only begotten of the father.

The creative deity. But he says no man has seen God at any time. How do you reconcile those two statements? Only in the measure that you understand that the Lord Jesus of his own free volition assumed our humanity was born a human being and Was willing though Never repudiating any of the attributes of deity that make God God.

He was willing for 33 years to forgo the exercise of those attributes of deity that would have been Incompatible to his humanity and so he stepped out of eternity into time to fulfill the function Which we mentioned last evening that God had mine in creating you and me.

To make God known with a physical visible and audible body that would give a physical visible and audible expression of an invisible God. So in the 18th verse he says this. No man has ever seen God at any time the only unique son the only begotten God.

Who is in the bosom in the intimate presence of the father? Who lived constantly as man on earth in the presence of his father? Who was in heaven? But not only in heaven in him for the father who lives in me said he he does the work.

Just as that song told us we live in the presence now of an indwelling Jesus. He lived in the presence of an indwelling father. Incredible, but if it was my father sent me I'm going to send you nothing surprising about it.

He is in the bosom in the intimate presence of the father. He has declared him he has revealed him. He has brought him out where he my father can be seen God. He's interpreted him. He's made him known.

The Christian's Vocation to Preach Christ

Now that's your vocation and mine. The Lord Jesus came into this world to accomplish the reconciling act upon the cross cleansing us from sin. So we now in a spiritual new birth may be Reinhabited by the Lord Jesus our creator Redeemer so that he through us may be advertised to the world in which we live.

So we preach Christ. By everything you do say and are the look on your face the tone of your voice you preach Christ When necessary Use words. But the vocation of a Christian is 24 hours a day seven days a week.

To be a healthy member of that corporate body on earth to which he is the head. And that's why you don't have to know what's happening. Because it isn't the sermon that you preach it's the person that you are.

Because of who he is living where he does that's the message. That's the message and that's your privilege and mine we're very clumsy and We fall tragically short of that which is our assignment. But what is so exciting is that you don't have to know what's happening while he Christ is being Communicated through you one way or the other.

Just after breakfast and before the morning session Charlie handed me a letter that arrived addressed here to his hill. And I didn't open it until after the morning session but I found it quite fascinating because I Get these kind of letters.

Every week almost every day and if not in written form at least by the handshake and what somebody has to say. Dear major Thomas after hearing you speak at East Dallas Christian Church many years ago.

I Bought you three books. They've been a great source of inspiration to me as I sought to be and do what God wants me to be and do. Several copies of the saving life of Christ have been used until they fell apart and had to be replaced.

I Must have given at least 200 copies as gifts. The Holy Spirit speaks loud and clear through every page. But this is the important part When I first heard the statement you made about God waiting seven years to live through you.

The life you had been trying to live for him. It was a mystery as It is the vast majority of those who not insincerely Claim to be Christians and have the right so to do because they have been redeemed.

But they've never grasped the mystery of godliness God likeness it's no mystery because the mystery is an open secret now in the person of the Lord Jesus Who refused to claim any? Responsibility for the quality of life that he lived saved to be available to his father who through him could communicate in the Sun the character of God.

It's a mystery. But it's an open secret. Because when you and I are prepared to allow the Lord Jesus as God to be to us what he is man allowed the father as God to be to him. We will preach Christ 24 hours a day as he preached the father 24 hours a day.

He that has seen me has seen my father. And I don't have to make an appointment. I Don't have to be in position. Just look at me 24 hours a day day or night from the right the left above beneath the front or the back and you'll see my father behaving.

Not because I'm God but because I'm man. Man as I was God created man to be the kind of man who let God be God in the man. Origin of his own image source of his own activity dynamic of his own demands cause of his own effect.

This is truth timeless eternal unchanging. He went on to say Having admitted then it was a she not a he. That it was then a mystery the veil of church. Organizationalism that was the veil church organizationalism Was so firmly over my face That only the dryness of knowing the Bible in my head so well Caused me to search this statement.

I Put it on the refrigerator door and meditated on it until at last I understood not me living for Christ. Christ living in and through me. The only Christian life there is. Anything we do for him no matter how nobly moted motivated only produces a shabby exhibition of the real thing Christ.

A Friend recently gave me this address for you. I'm writing in hopes that he have some sort of organized Bible study or lesson plan I could use for ministry in the Dallas County Jail. At present I'm writing my own materials and feel the need of a little more depth at the elementary level which the skill is.

The skill level of most inmates. Well great. So I've never met that lady, and I know who she is except. I've got her address. But all I know is that she rediscovered Jesus. And that's the desperate crying need of the Church of Jesus Christ throughout the world because the church has long since taken the place of Christ and it's high time worldwide.

That men and women who call themselves Christians gave the church back to the one who is the head of that church Jesus. Because we are his body the church. And he's the head of that body. See most. Exhibit infinitely more loyalty to their denominational entity to which they belong than they do to Jesus.

If their quotes church says it that's infinitely more important than what Jesus said you've got to be denominational a loyal to it and So it has become the object of their idolatry in taking the place of him.

So preach Christ. Whoever it does please whoever it doesn't if necessary use words. You see if 24 hours a day you preach Christ somebody's Going to come knocking on your door and say excuse me. What is it make you tick?

Evangelism Through a Transformed Life

Can you use words? Having evangelized with the quality of life that you live now with lips you explain the evangel and You'll have to do it the way the Lord Jesus did it when a man young man came and said good master.

He said why do you call me good? There's only one who's good, and that's God. All you're seeing in my humanity is a valid X Expression of who he is living now where he does by my free consent Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost.

And so when somebody comes and knocks on your door and Says what is it that makes you tick you'll say? It isn't an it it's somebody living in somebody and he's knocking at the door of your life, too, and If you'll open it and let him in he'll be to you.

What he is to me and what he is to me is what his father was to him. Isn't it simple? It's evangelism. Bunch of birds dried up brook and a bankrupt widow. God's logistics. That's how he takes care of his friends.

Miraculous Provision and the Life of Faith

But it's exciting because you see. If you're one of God's friends because you're told what to do and do as you're told even the birds will feed you. In other words you'll embark upon the adventure of living a Miraculous life and God always intended you see the Christian life should be a miracle because said the Lord is without me you can do nothing and That which can't happen apart from God.

We normally call a miracle. And the Christian life is a miracle a Quality of life that has no possible explanation, but Christ in the Christian putting God back into the man. This of course is his promise.

Let's just check on that in the Epistle to the Philippians we're coming back of course in a moment to 1 Kings 17, so if you vote in the place keep your finger there but Philippians and chapter 4 Rejoice in the Lord and Says the Apostle just in case you're hard of hearing.

Again, I say Rejoice. He was accustomed as we have become us in today, too. To mingle with all kinds of people who call themselves the servants and followers of the Lord Jesus. But look as though they're doing anything, but rejoice so he said rejoice I say and again.

I say just in case you didn't hear me. Rejoice. Because you've got good grounds to rejoice. Be careful for nothing. That doesn't mean be careless sloppy irresponsible that means Don't have a care About anything because you know there's somebody who's equal to any need that could any ever occur under any circumstance at any time in your life.

So long as once you're prepared as man to let him be to you as God what the Lord Jesus man was prepared to his Father be to him as God. For we're told in John 13 3 that the father gave all things into his hands all things.

In other words he was magnificently furnished by the presence of the father for every good word for all that he was assigned to accomplish by his birth life death and Resurrection and as the father sent him so magnificently furnished so said the Lord Jesus.

I'm going to send you because I'm going to be to you now what my father was to me then if you let. If you let me so be careful for nothing. Just in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known under God.

With prayer and supplication in other words lay the table with all your need all the problems and opportunities and responsibilities just lay the table. Knowing that he who dwells within you as God could never be less than adequate and demonstrate your confidence.

Unshatterable confidence by stepping away from the table leaving what you put there where you put it and say, thank you. Thank you. In everything give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you don't quench the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit lives in you if you're regenerate to credit you with the life of Jesus as the Holy Spirit lived in him. To credit him with the life of the father. What a magnificent relationship that the Lord Jesus enjoyed with the father.

I'm in my father. My father is in me, but he said this is the relationship I came into this world to re-establish between you and me you in me and I in you. Terrific. Now tell you what will happen says Paul the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall Keep your hearts and minds.

Through Jesus Christ you rest in him. For my God verse 19 of that chapter shall supply all your knee all your knee. According to not your riches or anybody else's riches, so don't go. Deputizing trying to get somebody else take the place of God.

Because if you're told what to do and do as you're told even the birds will feed you. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. In other words all the fullness of the Godhead.

Bodily is good is already in the Lord Jesus. And you're complete in him because God in heaven is going to provide all your need according to his riches. Through Christ Jesus. Wonderful. The Lord Jesus himself of course laid the foundations for that confidence that you may and I may have in Matthew chapter 7.

Just glance at that Matthew in the 7th chapter. These verses are very familiar to you said the Lord Jesus. I say to you verse 25 take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on and.

Initially of course apart from a dynamic relationship between the creature and the creator that sounds totally irresponsible. But the Lord Jesus himself didn't take too much thought for his life what he would eat and what he would drink.

Foxes said he have holes birds of they have nests. The son of man had not where to lay his head. He was a street preacher. And those of course who wanted to malign his ministry Mocked him when he had to borrow even a coin for one of his as they would consider outlandish illustrations.

He was an incorrigible scrounger. He always lived in somebody else's home. Sat at somebody else's table. But after all why shouldn't he the world didn't provide him with a room in the Holiday Inn. He was born in a stable.

There's no room in the inn. Behold the fowls of the air said he for they so not neither did they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Are you not much better than they? Do you mean to say that God in heaven having created uniquely to advertise deity to be the Human vehicle of his divine activity the temple of believing God on earth.

Do you think he doesn't care? Or isn't competent. We need to rediscover the Lord Jesus, but we need to rediscover that quality of trust that believes that who he is. And where he lives is true. You see I find that the vast majority of Christians are prepared to live on somebody else's faith.

You miss all the excitement of seeing God make provision for you. I? Can see the light of excitement in the face of somebody who has a deep very deep and threatening need and suddenly God comes through.

Simply because they had a simple state of heart. God knows my need. If he knows the needs of the fowls of the air. Who so not neither do they reap? Nor gather into barns. Surely God knows my need he said sir.

He said he'll provide all my need. But I find people constantly grumbling and criticizing because somebody else isn't exercising enough faith to provide their need. Isn't that crazy? They're living a second-hand Christianity second-hand Life.

Somebody else's faith has got to provide my knee. How about exercising your own faith and having the exhilarating experience of seeing God himself direct? Supply your knee. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?

Why take he thought for Raymond consider the lid is a field how they grow they toil not neither do they spend? But they don't look as shabby as you do and they don't wilt as you do. I Say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven shall he not much clothed? Be shall he not much more clothed you. Are you of little faith? Or if I take no thought saying what shall we what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed?

After all these things do the Gentiles see they're on the grab the whole time when it gets something out of somebody. The Gentile means of course the unregenerate the last or the carnal baby Christian who's never grown up to know God for himself.

Your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Why don't you take him seriously? Seek ye first the kingdom of God. That means not your place in his kingdom but establish in the hearts of others that which is Essentially his kingdom where he ought to be.

For Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you so seek his kingdom. Don't build a structure don't Try to build an empire. Just introduce boys girls men and women In such a way that they're prepared on the grounds of redemption through the precious blood He shed to allow him as the risen Lord to take up residence within their humanity.

Ascend the throne and be God in the man king in his king seek that supremely and inevitably thereby his righteousness. Because righteousness is God behaving and no boy girl man or woman can produce righteousness apart from becoming part of his kingdom.

You see you can't enter the kingdom without becoming part of it. If you're not part of his kingdom, you've never entered it. Because the kingdom of God is Within you take therefore no thought for tomorrow for the tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

Elijah, Obedience, and Spiritual Authority

Well, that's it a Spelled out by the Lord Jesus by his servants the Apostles and of course Enunciated here in the 17th chapter the first book of Kings because truth is timeless. It's eternal it never changes.

Because God never changes. Does you're told? Birds of a feat. Not only that of course, but as we discussed last evening when one of God's friend being told what to do does He's told he'll meet God's friend and when God's friend meets God's friend. You can see God in action.

Something exciting is going to happen. It won't necessarily be sensation. It won't necessarily be spectacular, but it'd be miraculous. And not only that you'll be the right man in the right place at the right time and Through you God one way or the other will be saying the right thing to the right person and Under those circumstances you can afford to speak Even at the risk of being misunderstood.

I don't mean that you throw your weight around you're arrogant and like insulting people or You know Stirring their feathers. There's no virtue in there. But you have the right to speak with that authority that derives from your submission to God's authority.

That was the authority with which the Lord Jesus spoke. He said many comforting gracious kindly loving things, but he said some very hard things to Addressing the status quo of religion in which he never sought a place he described those who were the Ecclesiastical bigwigs the theological leaders of his day as a bunch of vipers.

He said your white and sepulchers full of dead men's bones by your church. Organizationalism you long since by tradition have denied the truth of God's Word. You've substituted man-made demands. For those which God alone has the legitimate right to make and to justify Your behavior you reinterpret the Bible to make the Bible say what you think it ought to have said but had you Believe Moses whom you reinterpret, but in whom you say you believe.

Had you believed him you to believe me he wrote of me, but religion has blinded your understanding. The religion that you've created out of your own unenlightened study of the Bible producing your own humanistic theology and Philosophical propositions.

He said you're a bunch of serpents. You're Whitehead sepulchers, and you're very evangelistic. Because you compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte of your religion and having done so make them twofold more the children of Hell than you are yourself that wasn't particularly polite.

Would you say? But you have the right to say you see what needs to be said if the only person you want to please is God. What's called Stephen's apology? Do you remember the apology of Stephen? In the seventh chapter of the book of the Acts, this is his apology.

He said you're stiff-necked and uncircumcised and heartless. That's his apology. I Don't know that anybody be all that impressed if I went and apologized that way to them. But of course Appalachia doesn't mean that he was making an apology for himself or even for God.

God forbid. He was simply telling them the truth. He said as your father's resisted God, so you resist. These were those who engineered the death of Jesus the religious leaders of his day. And that was Stephen's apology.

And they were mad it says they gnashed their teeth. Stoned him to death. He looked into heaven saw Jesus standing in the right hand of God fear. He was unashamed unafraid. Father lay not this into their charge.

He saw Jesus. I see Jesus. What was the Lord Jesus doing about it? He was watching watching wicked evil religious human beings. Stone a man to death because he loved his creator God and the Savior who came.

Who lived and died that he might be forgiven? What did Jesus do about nothing? Nothing, that's the way the Lord Jesus treats his friends. Because there's no fear of death. To those in whom death has been abolished.

Where was the Lord Jesus when? Herodias had his head cut off. To satisfy the unholy demand of a man who was living in adultery with her. For she was Philip his brother's wife. Where was the Lord Jesus when John had his head cut off?

Well, he was in town. What do you do about it? Nothing? Because his assignment had been accomplished. And as you can read in the 10th chapter of John people went on believing long after John's head had been removed from his body.

Because he said they said everything that John said about Jesus is true. He had a message the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Is in the light of eternity.

Time becomes very irrelevant. Paul mentioned that he said I'm in a dilemma. I'm in a strait betwixt two. He said I'd like to be absent from the body and present with my Lord. Which is far far better out of this dirty smelly world.

Magnificent into his glorious presence forever in the place that he's going to prepare for us. I having not seen nor ear heard neither ever having it entered into the heart of man. What God has prepared for them that love him?

I'm I'm almost impatient. They are. I'm in a strait betwixt two. For to me to live is Christ. That's the only life I've got that's of any validity on earth Christ. For I am crucified with Christ nevertheless, I live you not I.

Christ lives in me the life I live in this body. I simply live by disposition that allows him as my creator Redeemer risen from the dead to reoccupy this my hammy Humanity so that I at this moment can be his hands his feet his lips his mind to think with art to love with and my ears his to hear.

To me to live is Christ to die of course is gain. To be released from the limitations of my corruptible humanity and all the dirt that is around me. Absent from the body present with the Lord. But said he so long as the Lord Jesus living his life in me wants to continue his ancient mission Seeking and saving that which is lost so long as he has something through me to accomplish.

Notice this for the furtherance of your faith and for the furtherance of your joy not mine yours. I'll hang around. I'll hang around just as soon as the Lord Jesus who clothes his activity with my now corruptible humanity.

For the outward man perishes, but is inwardly renewed day by day by the one who never grows old Jesus so long as he still has something to accomplish in and through me. That's fine by me. I'll hang around but the moment he's done his job so far as I'm concerned I'm off by Present with the Lord Marla.

You see when you're as available sold out to the Lord Jesus in that measure which is never to completion as the Paul the Apostle Paul firmly and Unashamedly declared he said I haven't arrived. I haven't appropriated fully yet that for which I've been appropriated.

I know where it's at. I know that I'll only be evangelized in that day when the Lord Jesus has that total monopoly in terms of my humanity That he gladly gave the father while he walked on earth as man In whom the father had total monopoly of the son.

I know I haven't arrived there yet. That's what I've been appropriated for. I have not yet Appropriated that for which I have been appropriated but I know where I'm going. I Press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus in that day when absent from this body present with my Lord delivered not only from the penalty of sin and as on earth in measure from the Power of sin in that day.

I'll be delivered totally from the presence of sin. There'll be no Rebel left that old Adam nature will have been Completely replaced by the one who once more is given the absolute right to clothe himself for eternity With what he created for me in which it was my privilege to advertise his deity I'll see him as he is and seeing him.

I'll be like him and In that day, he'll look at me and see what God once saw in Adam whom he made in his own image himself. Then I will have arrived then I will have been evangelized. Then I will have been restored to normality.

Then I'll be man again forever. Now this was the only authority the Lord Jesus you That which derives from a man's submission to God's authority. Let's just glance at that just for a moment in John's gospel in chapter 10 Verse 37 if I do not the works of my father.

37th verse 10th chapter of John. If it isn't demonstrably obvious to you that as man, I'm being told by my father as God what to do and I'm doing it. Believe me not. Believe me not. However much you may love me how much you may regard me however much you may respect me.

You don't have the right to believe anything I say even though what I say is true. Unless it's demonstrably obvious that there's only one person behaving Club with my available humanity. If I do not the works of my father believe me not.

If for every step I take I'm not being sent if for every word I speak I'm not being commissioned By my father if there's anything in me that has an origin other than the father as God living me as man.

Then don't believe me. You don't have the right to believe. You see we vest a man with authority on the base of who he isn't what he knows. If ever there was a man who had the right to exercise authority on the base of who he was that man was Jesus.

He was the creator God. The logos who was in the beginning with God was God and by whom all things were made. He never exercised that authority. If ever there was a man who had the right to exercise Exercise authority on on the base of what he knew that man was Jesus Christ in whom were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.

He never exercised that authority. The only authority he was willing to exercise as man was his total submission to his father's authority. Only what I do which is my Father doing it is of any validity.

Only that word I speak which is my father speaking through my lips making articulate what he wants to say has any validity. Incredible. But that's what it means when it says in Philippians and chapter 2 that he emptied himself humbled himself made himself of no reputation.

Made himself nothing. The servant that Bob was talking about this morning. They were in debate as to who was the rat and who was going to be the king. The Empire builder. Promoting himself that was their debate the Lord Jesus said.

Without my father I can do nothing. Father who lives in me. He does the work. Don't congratulate me on what you see him doing. I'm not building an empire. I'm doing. I'm being told what to do and doing as I'm tall.

And I'll be obedient unto death. Even the death of the cross and as we were reminded this morning if you follow Jesus, that's where you're going to end up. But it's when they came to the cross. Do you remember what happened?

They did exactly what the Lord Jesus said they were when the shepherd is smitten like frightened sheep. You'll run away. You followed me to the cross, but that's it period. That's where most Professing Christians are prepared to follow Jesus.

To the cross they'll cling to it and sing melancholy songs about it. But the last thing they want to do is Die on it mind. You said the Lord Jesus verse 38 if I do in other words if my father is telling me what to do and I am Doing what my father tells me though you believe not me.

Because you have a problem you knew me as a little baby nursed in my mother's arms. You saw me as a little kid romping in the street. Working at the bench learning my trade as an apprentice. I understand your problem.

But though you though you believe not me. Just recognize a quality of life that I exhibit that has no possible explanation. But God the mystery of God like believe the works. You see when you and I have entered fully into God's redemptive and regenerative purpose.

We would have the authority to say what he then said. I mean, would you actually have the courage to stand up in the presence of others who are still skeptical about the Christian life and say. You may you may find it difficult to believe that I'm the kind of man a woman that I am.

You know in terms of my faith in Jesus, but just watch me behave 24 hours a day when nobody else is looking. You take a peep. Hmm now that's a test. In other words, are you prepared to evangelize with your mouth shut without having to vindicate yourself?