The Covenant 4 - the Mediator of the New Covenant — G.W. North

Let's turn to the Scriptures, beloved, shall we? I'm nearly in a panic, in that we've only got one more night left, and I haven't said half that I ought to stay. I'm rather thinking I ought to say tomorrow night to be continued in August, or something like that.

But the Lord may have other plans, in that we're on this great theme of the Covenant, and last night spent a while, well, somebody told me it was two hours, well, it was only a while, looking at our blessed Lord as he wants us to look at him.

One of the thrilling things about the Lord Jesus is his glorious identification with us. He just loves us, and that's the end of it. And there's nobody can do much about that, except respond to it. If the devil doesn't like it, that's up to him.

And if people don't want to believe it, well, that's simply up to them, and, but, oh, glory to God, for those of us who believe it and receive it, it's heaven on earth. And that's what God wants. And tonight I want to read with you just somewhere to make a start on this great line that's in our hearts.

The New Covenant and the Mediator

Let's go to the Hebrews letter, shall we? Even as I suppose we all know that this is really the letter that contrasts the Covenants. Let's look into chapter 12. I love reading this, anyway. It says in verse 18 of the twelfth chapter, that you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest.

And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more. It's sad, isn't it? Don't speak to me any more. Men saying that to God.

You ever said that? And the reasons given in the next verse, for they couldn't endure that which was commanded. That's why they said it. They could not endure what God was saying. And think of this. When this was all going on, as so much as a beast touched the mountain, it had to be stoned, or thrust through with a dart.

So terrible was the sight. Moses said, I exceedingly fear, bless God, that the covenant of terror is over. God himself said he did terrible things. That wasn't the nicest thing that he did to all the firstborn in Egypt.

It was a terrible thing. You wouldn't have liked to have had your firstborn son slain, would you? But God did that. Terrible thing. Such a tremendous thing is it, for people to play around with God, like the Egyptians did.

God does do terrible things. He says he does. Praise God. He also does some wonderful things. Let's make no mistake about it. Hell is a terrible place. The terrible thing he's going to do, to turn all nations into hell and forget God.

God doesn't gloss it over in the Bible. He doesn't want you to think of him only one-sidedly. It's all according to your attitude and relationship to him, that either makes God a terrible God, or a wonderful lover.

Perhaps if we write Psalms which say Selah after that, pause and think. Hallelujah. Now look at verse 22. But you are come unto Mount Sinai, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn.

Which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men, made perfect. And to Jesus, who himself we're told in this epistle was made perfect through suffering, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

See that you refuse not him that speaketh. Don't say, Lord, don't talk to me anymore. Will you? I want then, I know I'm almost bound to expound this chapter if I'm not careful, but I want to keep on my theme that God has given us for these days.

And here we have the great contrast made between the old and the new. And I don't suppose anybody, I hope nobody, for instance, that was gathered together last night in Westcourt would think that God is doing and moving in a terrible covenant toward us in these days.

But that he is actually indulging himself. He loves to love and he's letting himself go. He let his son go. He let his blood go. He's let the Holy Ghost come. God's really giving himself to it with his uttermost and eternal and infinite love us to his heart's content.

And I trust to yours also. So may the Lord then lead us on into this fullness that he has for us. We took as our reading last evening, sorry if you weren't there when I make these comments only, we took as our reading the 31st chapter of Jeremiah last evening, when we read God as saying that the days come that he's going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel is recorded for us again in the 8th chapter of this book.

We'll read it, shall we? It says this, verse 8 of chapter 8. Finding fault with them, he saith, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God. That's the sort of thing that God does.

Masterful, purposeful, miraculous. Hallelujah. He's altering human nature now. He's altering human beings. He's altering heart states. He's altering lives. He's altering mental conditions. Do you need yours altering?

This is God really being God. Amen. I will be to them a God and they shall be to me. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me.

He's going to alter the knowing faculties of He's really dealing in what we would call abstract personalities. He's dealing with untouchables, things that drugs don't touch and shocks can't reach and philosophies can't do anything about and psychology can only guess at.

He says, this is what I'm going to do. I will be merciful. They shall all know me from the least to the greatest. And I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

In that he saith, now remember when he said it, in Jeremiah, this is when he made the first covenant. Oh, in that he saith a new covenant, he made the first old. He was talking about a new covenant through his prophet Jeremiah, hundreds of years before Jesus Christ was born or the first writer of the New Testament took up his pen by the urge of the spirit and under the power and guidance of the Holy Ghost started to write the great sacred canon of the New Testament.

Think of it, he made the Old Testament old whilst the Old Testament was still in being. They did not know it was the old covenant then, they just knew it was the covenant that God has made with them. He made it the old covenant by his pronouncement in Jeremiah.

The Eternal Covenant and the Messenger of the Covenant

Amen. Now, let's go back into the Old Testament, shall we, to catch up our thinking. We will go back into the book of Malachi. I am not thinking that to many of you I'm going to say anything new tonight, in that I know that some of us have been into these great scriptures before.

But I hope you get as much thrill out of re-looking at them and listening to them as I do when reading them and thinking about them. For this great covenant as we read last night that God makes with us, as David said, he says this covenant that God has made with me, ordered in all things and sure, he says it's all my delight.

He keeps thinking in this great covenant, he says it's all my delight, I love it. It's like a cloudless morning, it's like the dewy grass when the sun shines on it, it's always fresh. Hallelujah. It's an eternal covenant, never weary of going back over what God had said, pledged, owed to do on his behalf.

Never weary of it. And here we are then in Malachi, and you know that Malachi was the last book of the Old Testament. And we're going to read in the third chapter, and God is speaking, Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, saith the Lord.

Now you know this is John Baptist. And the Lord you seek, he whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, that's Jesus, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delighted. Behold, he shall come, saith Jehovah Sebaoth, the Lord of hosts.

But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For, if you want to know what he's like, he tells his old people, he's like a refiner's fire, and he's like fuller's soap.

You know what fuller's soap is, don't you? Perhaps if you ran a laundry on the cleaners, you might know something about it. They don't call it today. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

By the way, I better say now, I'm not aiming to be finished at half past nine, so keep your eye on the clock if I'm still going in an hour's time. I'm aiming to finish when I'm finished. So I'll say goodnight to you now if you'll have to go.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. You ask your neighbour that sits up and looks at the late television play whether they worry when it gets to half past nine or half past ten or half past eleven. And we who have the Word of God, we who have the better things, we who have the eternal things, should we not indulge ourselves occasionally?

We have a bad head in the morning sometimes. Amen. All right. So you see that we're introduced by the great prophet of the Lord to the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two messengers here. John Baptist, the messenger of the Lord, and the Lord himself who is called here the messenger of the covenant.

Praise the Lord. What a name for him. Really, you know, if you look right through your Bibles, you will discover an abundant wealth of ideas suggested in the names of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is just about everything.

And the Lord has got a name for him to cover everything that he does. It's all comprehended in the one name, Jesus. And when you say Jesus, it's the all-inclusive, great, comprehensive name for this one in whom God has vested everything to do for us.

And he has done it. Praise his name. And he comes and he is the messenger of the covenant. Now, you will know that he never, he doesn't say he's going to preach the message of the covenant. It says he is the messenger of the covenant.

And you're not surprised, I suppose, when you turn to your New Testament and you take John's gospel, that he starts back by saying that Jesus is the word. In the beginning was the word, the message. The message.

That Greek word logos can quite truly be translated word, message, sentence. It's so profound that you could write a book about that one word. He is the message. In the beginning was the word. And when you say that the word became flesh, and the word dwelt among us, and the word was called Jesus, then Jesus is the all-inclusive word.

His life, from its inception, or from its recognition on the earth, and way back before that, because it says that in the beginning was the word, the word was God. The word was with God. It's always been like that with God.

So we go right back before his birth, we go right back into eternity, and we look at his life, and we read the stories of him, we hear his parables, we listen to his wisdom, we take his statements and his charges, and we see Calvary, we see the empty tomb, we go to the hill of ascension, we come with him onto his throne, and we see all that's happening up there in heaven, and we say, that is the word.

All that. In fact, this is the way John speaks in his epistle. You will remember, somebody that doesn't know anything at all about it, said that the one that wrote the gospel of John didn't write the epistles of John.

I mean, he discovered that, poor chap. I don't know what devil led him to discover it, but it's amazing how you can. John wrote that epistle, and he says this, that which we've seen, which we've heard, that which was with the Father, the word of life.

There you are, talking about Jesus. It's so comprehensive, it's so gloriously all-inclusive. Yet, to say Jesus, because we're so used to hearing names like Bill, Joe, Jack, Mary, Joan, and all this, you see, it doesn't really mean anything to us at all.

It's connected automatically in our mind with a personality, and some things we may know, and some things we don't know. But this tremendous word, Jesus, it is all, everything. So the Lord wants us to take this into our heart.

And he comes, and he is the messenger of the covenant. He comes, and God's got a great covenant to make with us in this precious, precious person. If you look at Luke's gospel, for instance, let's go into the first chapter of Luke, just a while, to get our bearings back with the old.

And you will know that in the first chapter of Luke, we have the story, among other things, of the birth of John Baptist. And this is what John Baptist's father, who had been dumbed, Zacharias, because he didn't believe the word that the angels had spoken to him, and was dumb all the while.

John was coming through his mother's womb into the world, and until this boy was born, and Zacharias moved into the purpose of God for that boy's life, and for the world, praise God, he was kept dumb.

And at last, when he consented to what God wanted, his mouth was opened, and he starts off by saying, in verse 6 -8, Blessed be the Lord. Hallelujah. I think you might, it's a good way to start when you've been dumb.

It's a good way to start. Blessed be the Lord. Oh, glory. Amen. Isn't this wonderful? And he goes down, and he says all sorts of things, and he says, verse 72, This has all happened that God should perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, you see, not what he gave Moses at Mount Sinai.

Notice, that wasn't the covenant. There's only really one covenant, as we shall see. There's only one of everything, really, in fundamental things, as we read in the Ephesian letter. But you see, as some of us who were together on Saturday night saw, that that covenant came in by the way.

God was moving on from Abraham, and he was going to go right the way through. But because of sin in the hearts of his people, he gave a covenant called the Mosaic, or the legal covenant, to contain them in sin.

And we're told in their sin they were contained. We're told this in Galatians 3. We shall be going into that chapter presently, I trust, that until faith came, that is, the faith of Jesus Christ came, says this writer to the Galatians, himself a Jew, Paul, he'd been a Jew.

He wasn't a Jew any longer. He'd been born again. And, of course, you lose your nationality once you've been born again. And he was not a Jew anymore, he was a Christian. And so, he says, before faith came, we were kept under the law.

Shut up! God kept them shut up, he contained them. Shut up! Under the faith which would afterward be revealed. Says the law, it was only our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that's all, to keep us going along the way.

It's the Greek word pedagogos. We get the word pedagogue from it, when we talk about, we won't say who we're talking about, when we talk about the pedagogues. But it was the slave that was used in the household of those days to take the children along to school.

That's who he was. He was only the master of people going along to school. He was never the real teacher. It's really a mistranslation, that word. And that's all the law was, never a teacher, just the one that conducted us all in our infancy as we were being taken along through time to the moment when Jesus Christ should come.

That's right. That never was the thing that God intended, you see. God had to do that because of the sin in the hearts of his people. It was a terrible, terrible thing. And it was this oath, this covenant, this thing that God had promised unto Abraham.

This is what he was acting on all the time. No legal code there. God just came in grace. Abraham didn't know anything about God at all. He was just a devil worshipper, probably a snake worshipper in Ur of the Chaldees.

That's what they used to do. Then, as so they tell us, these that dig up the past, these so on and so on, these scientists that used to go on there. And God just came to him. He just came to him out of the blue.

He came and said, now look, Abraham, you do this and that. No, no, no, no. You see, the whole covenant out of God's heart. And he was going to move in this free way. He just wanted to keep coming to people and revealing himself to people.

He wanted to keep coming and talking to them. He didn't really want to give them two tablets of stone with laws written into them. And they're non-existent now. Those tablets of stone are missing and a good job too.

I mean, that's right. If people would pay a million pounds for a footballer to kick a bladder of wind round the field, what would they do? What would they pay for two tablets of stone written by God? Sell the world for it, wouldn't they?

Surely it must be so. Unless we're all mad, they've gone. Amen. Like the cross, it's gone. Like the grave, we don't know where the grave is. Let them all quarrel about it. We think it's here. Gordon says it's here.

Somebody else says it's here. You're the grave, beloved. Amen. And it's a tremendous thing for us to understand that God is really wanting to teach us something. And he's back on this great oath that he made to Abraham, praise his wonderful name, when God could move in the freedom of his heart's love to men and women and be God to people as he wanted to be.

He never could be God to his ancient people as he wanted to be. He never could really let them know who he was and what he was like. Never could. He wanted to. He did all so many tremendous things, but he was limited.

Regeneration and the Institution of the New Covenant

And now he's moved. Already he's sown the seed in Mary's womb. Already. And just three months before Jesus was born, John Baptist was born. And this dumb unbeliever, Zacharias, a priest, you know it's about the sons of Levi, didn't you?

Now hold this very closely on your heart. From Malachi, this son of Levi, this Zacharias, this unbelieving priest, this blind leader of the blind, when at last he agrees to talk God's language and go God's way, his mouth is open and he says, Lord, I see it.

He's speaking by the Holy Ghost. Look at verse 67. He was filled with the Holy Ghost, unprophesied. But he wasn't born again. Temporarily filled with the Spirit for the ministration of a gift. Amen. Keep that very clear.

You'll understand a lot if you'll read your Bible properly. You'll understand a lot. Not that we don't need to be filled with the Spirit, but I must have got in front of myself. But here then is the tremendous thing, beloved.

He still belonged to the old covenant. He didn't belong to the new. The distinctive message of the New Testament is regeneration. Put that down in your book if you're writing. The distinctive message of the new covenant is regeneration.

Praise the name of the Lord. And they never had it in the Old Testament. At all. And God is moving on then. And so Jesus is born into this earth. And it's a precious thing to follow the great life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I want just at the moment to look, say, into the 22nd chapter of Luke. We mentioned this last night, those of us that were together may remember this, that in the 22nd chapter of Luke, the Lord Jesus Christ says this.

He's gathered them together in the upper room and they're keeping the last Passover and they're keeping the first commemoration service of the new. And he says in verse 15 of Luke 22, with desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

But I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup and gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come.

And that finished the Passover. Now he institutes the memorial feast and he took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them saying, this is my body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me.

Likewise, also the cup after the supper, you notice that, you see, the Passover supper is over. He takes the cup after the supper and this is really a breakfast, don't call it the Lord's supper any more.

The supper's over. This is the next meal, it's breakfast. Yeah, so you come to breakfast next Sunday morning. You don't have your old nonsense, talking traditionalism. Read your Bibles, beloved, read your Bibles.

People don't read their Bible. It's breakfast. You see, it always begins in the new day. It's the Lord's table at the Lord's supper. It's the breakfast, beloved. He's anticipated the day. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

You don't have two suppers in one night, do you? You see how quickly the night passed? Ah, but no, you think I'm being funny. The night's passed. It's over. He's instituted the breakfast in a tick. The darkness is gone.

This is what he's teaching you. The suffering's over. I don't want you to mourn and moan about me. Just a tick in eternity. That's all you hang on the cross. It's all over. And, you see, he did this as from his life, but it never took effect until after his death.

Put that down if you're writing. Put that down. For he wanted you to understand that this only comes from the living Christ. Let me repeat that. He instituted it whilst still alive. He was still alive, and he's saying, here's my blood.

You're drinking it. He's saying, here's my body. You're eating it. This is right. But he was alive. He said, eat my body. Eat the body of the living Christ. That's what he's saying. Drink the blood of the living Christ.

Oh, that alters it all, doesn't it? You think you sort of drink the blood of the dead Christ that was shed at Calvary. He said, no, drink it. I haven't got there yet. Drink the blood of the living Christ.

That's what he's saying. That's new, isn't it? Yes, it's a new colour. It's breakfast time, beloved. It's breakfast time. It's the new day. It's so glorious. But this is what I want you to see. He says, this cup is the new testament in my blood, which he shed for you.

And I want you to notice this word, given, in verse 19. Do you see this? Twice he says, he gave it unto them, and then he said, this is my body which is given. Likewise, that means exactly the same, the blood is given.

Keep your finger there, although you needn't, because you can memorise that now. Go back into Leviticus chapter 17. Brother, I don't think we're going to get very far tonight. I don't think we are. I believe God's going to talk to all our hearts in a very wonderful way.

It's best we learn truth and merely follow a thief. And in Luke chapter 17, this is what God is saying. Sorry, Leviticus chapter 17. You will remember that God is saying this. The blood he's talking about.

He says, the life of the flesh is in the blood, verse 11. And in verse 10, he says, if anybody eats any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood. I will cut him off from among his people.

The life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you. There it is, that's the word given. But see where he's given it, on the altar. That isn't where he gives it. He gives it in the cup. Keep this very clear.

I've given it under the old covenant. It was the blood of death. In the new it's the blood of life. He doesn't say the blood at Calvary is the testament. He says it's this cup. Got that? Of course it was meaning the blood that he was going to shed at Calvary.

But he was meaning this blood as it's running now, coursing through me, this living Christ. I'm personified. I'm brought down into the flesh for you. But all I want you to know that I'm living, living, living, living.

They stamped the red plasma down into the ground along with all the other blood that had been shed on Calvary's mountain. For he wasn't the one, only one that was slain on Calvary. It was the public execution spot.

New covenant is this cup. Why did he catch it in a cup, pray? For you to drink it. That's what a cup's for, isn't it? To drink out of. Not to pour it out on the ground. Hallelujah. I say, isn't the Bible an amazing book when you really read it?

Now this is what God wants us to understand. He's really teaching us a marvelous thing. He says they're going to shed my blood. I'm going to give it. It's for the life of the world. But listen, I want you to know that that's why of old I set my face against people that drank blood.

Now I'm setting my face against everybody that won't drink it. That's right. Setting my face against everybody that won't drink the blood. But it has to come to the one, it has to come to the stubborn refusal.

He's prepared to look upon all men with favor, to invite them to praise God. And he calls and leads to this precious place where in the spirit, you know what he was saying, don't you? That all the spiritual value of his life and blood was caught up into a cup that God would give us all to drink.

There it was red wine in a chalice, if it was a chalice. I reckon it was an old earthenware pot myself, but you please yourself. You might want to get very nice and delicate about it. But Jesus Christ was very common, beautifully common.

No silvered cups for him. He was a man of our manner. Praise God. It was caught there. All the blessed spiritual intent and content and meaning of Jesus. Oh, it's all in the spirit, beloved. The wine will only ever be wine.

You'll sip it and it will pass on. And all sorts of things. But unless my beloved, when you come together and drink that cup and drink and eat that bread, if you don't publish abroad the fact that you're a partaker of the cup, the new covenant in that cup, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're blighting your soul and damning yourself for eternity.

That's what you're doing. Don't you touch it unless you're doing that. Don't you go anywhere near it. You shall be guilty of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. For when you come there, you're either on one side or the other.

Concerning Calvary, one side or the other, it was in his blood, this precious and marvelous covenant. And we know that it had to be shed, shed for many for the remission of sins. This is my blood of the new covenant.

Christ as the Living Covenant

Oh, don't you see, beloved, the whole difference. God wrote the new covenant into flesh and blood. That's right. God wrote it out for us, plain, large as life in the son of his love. Spelled it out for us, the great ABC.

Yes, he said he was both the Alpha and the Omega, the complete alphabet. And if you know how to put letters together, you'll make up every word that it's possible to make. In this tremendous thing, he spelled it all out for us in simplicity and in love and in carefulness, in detail and in fullness, in time and in eternity, in natural terms and in infinity.

He's written it out for us, beloved, for us to understand the terms of the new covenant. The terms are the life of Jesus. The word is the life of Jesus. Amen. The commandment, the charge is the life of Jesus.

Amen. Praise God. Is that sinking in? Amen. It's not a book containing four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and some other letters and a revelation. Bless God we have them. Praise God. But that's not the new covenant.

The new covenant is the life of God made manifest in the flesh. The new covenant is Christ entirely. The new covenant is him. He's the word. He brought the message of the covenant and he had the blood of the covenant in him and he died on the cross to shed the blood of that covenant and he went back home to ratify it in heaven.

Amen. That's what it's all about, beloved. The new covenant is Jesus. It's Christ. It's him. It's God and man in one. It's God achieving his ambition, coming to his ultimate. It's God fulfilling his promise made to Abraham.

Oh, praise the name of the Lord. This new covenant and he's made it with us. This is the thing for us to understand, beloved, once we come here. Why? Oh, let's go into Galatians, shall we? We'll have a look in this Galatian letter.

Chapter 3. Oh, hallelujah. In this third chapter we find some wonderful things and we can read, where shall we start? It says in verse 8, it says, The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preach the gospel unto Abraham.

Did you know that there are three? He preached the gospel to Abraham. What do you think of that? Did you know that was in the Bible? That God preached the gospel to Abraham. Hallelujah. Marvelous. And he said, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

Glory be to the name of the Lord. It's a gospel of blessing. But you see, it's all brought down to its basic things. It's marvelous how things are brought down to basic things by the Spirit. For instance, if I said to you, I want you to repeat.

I want you to repeat the old covenant. Go on, the basis of it. What would you do? What would you do? You'd start in Exodus 20, wouldn't you say? No, you wouldn't. But you can simplify it. I tell you, instead of going through all Exodus 20, start in Deuteronomy chapter 6.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and all thy strength and all in thine. And the second commandment is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

That's the whole of the old covenant. There you are. That's the ten commandments. See how they can be simplified. Did you realize that? Why, it's precious, isn't it? Isn't it true? You sum up the first half of the Decalogue and it means love God with all your heart.

Sum up the second half, you know, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that. It's love your neighbour as yourself. Then you don't do anything.

That's all it is. Everything can be simplified in this precious thing. So God simplified, simplified, simplified everything he had to say and said, I'll send Jesus. That simplifies the new covenant. It's as simple as that.

It was in his blood. It was the very basic, elemental, coursing red stream of his being. It was the reason for his living. It was his ability to live, blood flowing round his veins and through his arteries.

The new covenant was Jesus Christ's ability, medium, basic, fundament of life. What do you think of that? Everything came from that blood, everything. It built up into flesh. First in his mother's womb and then it was born and then it grew.

It was lovely, glorious, so simple, this wonderful covenant. I hope you're seeing this. I hope your eyes are open wide and your hearts really reaching out into all the truth. This is what God wants us to grasp.

And it's precisely because these things have not been grasped and understood that we have all kind of manufactured theories and ideas, angles and emphases, instead of the Lord being able in simplicity to come to our hearts and just start to move on us and that's what it's all about, beloved.