Blog Archives

08 May 2023 John (Program #4)

John (Program #4) – A Foreword to the Life-Study of the Gospel of John (4)

You have to remember the first section of this book (John) is to bring God into man, and to declare God to man. This is the first section. Then the second section is to bring man into God.

We come to the position of John’s writings in the scripture. First of all, we have to realize John’s ministry is a mending ministry. When John was called, he was not fishing there; he was mending the net. When Peter was called, Peter was fishing, but John was mending. So in the later ministry, Peter did a lot of fishing. Peter brought in the people, but eventually it was John that mended the heavenly net. John’s ministry was a mending ministry, and this mending was one with life. Only life mends. Only life covers all the holes of the heavenly net…

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07 May 2023 John (Program #3)

John (Program #3) – A Foreword to the Life-Study of the Gospel of John (3)

The central thought of the scripture is life and building. What is life?  What is building? Firstly, life. God’s creation was centered on life. This has been fully revealed in Genesis chapter 1. And number two, man was placed in front of the tree of life, indicating that God wanted man to take it as life. This is revealed, thus, in two verses: verses 8 and 9 of chapter 2 of Genesis. Number 3, the Old Testament saints enjoyed God as their life.  Psalms 36:9 says “With Thee, there is the fountain of life.”..

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06 May 2023 Genesis (Program #51)

Genesis (Program #51) – Living by Faith (2)

We have our second program today on a life of faith.  Our message will begin with Abraham building his second altar.  What is the significance of Abraham building altars while human society was building cities and high towers?

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06 May 2023 John (Program #2)

John (Program #2) – A Foreword to the Life-Study of the Gospel of John (2)

The experience of Christ as life is in the realization of Christ being God himself dispensed into our being. This is life.

We all have to know, Christ is life, the Church is the building, but still what is life? You should say, life is Christ. But we should realize to such an extent that Christ as life to us is just God Himself dispensed into our very being.

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05 May 2023 John (Program #1)

John (Program #1) – A Foreword to the Life-Study of the Gospel of John (1)

In today’s program, we like to see something from the whole Bible. The Bible is a book of two things. Many of you would say Christ and the Church. The two things are not Christ and the Church, but life and building. Christ is life and the Church is building. If you don’t realize that Christ is life and the Church is building, when you say Christ and the Church, it is just a kind of doctrine. When we say Christ, we mean life. When we say the Church, we mean building. What is Christ? Christ is our life. What is the Church?  The Church is God’s building.

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05 May 2023 Genesis (Program #50)

Genesis (Program #50) – Living by Faith (1)

This one should be very instructive and helpful to anyone desiring to live by faith.  We’ve seen before that we really need to look at Abraham, Isaac and Jacob collectively if we are going to get a full picture of God’s calling.

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04 May 2023 Luke (Program #65)

Luke (Program #65) – The Man-Savior’s Ascension (3 & 4)

The Gospel of Luke concludes with one of the mysterious and difficult to understand items in the entire New Testament and that’s the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ to the heavenlies, some forty days after His resurrection. Luke 20:4 says “while He blessed them He parted from them and was carried up into heaven and they worship Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.”  One of the reasons that seems to be mysterious and difficult is that it appears to be very removed even remote from us. Yet when we see His ascension properly in view of the entire New Testament revelation we realized that it has tremendous implications for us.

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04 May 2023 Genesis (Program #49)

Genesis (Program #49) – The Progress in Answering God’s Calling

Our life study today is dealing with progress in answering God’s calling.  A central item in God’s call to Abraham was the necessity for him to cross a river.   What does this mean?  The explanation should take into account both literal and the spiritual significance of this.  Literally, Abraham had to cross a great river in order to go from one realm, the land of Chaldea into the realm, the good land into which God was calling him.  Spiritually speaking, this points to the reality of the experience of baptism.   Elsewhere in the Scriptures, when God’s people were to go from one realm to another, they pass through water.   Noah passed through water to get into the realm of God’s new creation.  The children of Israel passed through the water of the Red Sea and again through the water of the Jordan.  All of these may be understood and rightly as types of baptism.  When God calls us, we began in an old fallen realm.  God wants to bring us out of that realm into a realm where Christ is everything to us.  In order to make this transition by the Lord’s grace, we need so to speak to cross a river.  We need to pass through water which spiritually signifies death and resurrection.  So in summary, Abraham’s crossing the river indicates our need to go through death and resurrection in Christ signified by baptism in order to be transferred out of the realm of old creation into the realm of God’s new creation…

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03 May 2023 Luke (Program #64)

Luke (Program #64) – The Man-Savior’s Ascension (1 & 2)

The final Chapter of the Gospel of Luke is marvelous. It begins with the Lord Jesus revealing Himself to His dear ones, that He had resurrected from the dead. Then we see Him in resurrection appearing and disappearing repeatedly in order to train them to experience His invisible presence and finally He brings us to this concluding words that He uttered to His disciples:

Chapter 24:46, “And He said to them thus it is written that the Christ would suffered and raised up from the dead on the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaim in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. And behold I send forth the promise of my Father upon you. But as for you stay in the city until you put on power from on high.”

24:51 “And while He blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heavens.” Here was His promise that He would cloth them with power from on high. But not before His visible ascension to the third heavens.  What happen in that ascension? And why is it important for us to know about it?

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03 May 2023 Genesis (Program #48)

Genesis (Program #48) – The Motive and Strength of Being Called

Today we are going to look at the God of glory appearing to Abraham.   When you consider Abraham’s entire life, when you look at him in his entire history.  You’re looking at a person just like us.  He is called the father of faith.  There seems to be quite an impression from the Word that he is really a person of faith.  But when you look at the details of his living, he was a person just like us and actually very unbelieving.  If it weren’t for the appearing of God, he would just be in his unbelief.  But the very appearing of God infused him to the uttermost.   In principle, I would say, what kind of person was he?  He was really like a kind of unbeliever; the Lord would say something, he would say yes but then actually he just live out the opposite.  Really what was required, what was needed for God, the God of glory to appear to him over and over and over again and it’s just like us.  I am so grateful that the Lord came to me again and again and again so that we can be infused with Him as the unique faith in this universe.  Abraham is called the father of faith but actually he did not have one drop of faith.  All of his faith came from the appearing of the God of glory, infusing him with Himself as the very believing element.  This is the kind of person he was, apart from the God of glory, he had no faith.  He was not a believing person.  But Hallelujah, the God of glory appear to him over and over and over again, so he has been infused with this dear person as the very believing element.

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