A Deeper Revelation of Jesus Christ: The Secret to a Christ-Centered Life – Part 2 -Gene Edwards

I cannot explain to you what it means to see Him. Certainly, I’m not talking with your eyes or in a coma. Please deliver me. Don’t you dare take my words that way. I would run from such a brother, especially if he told it twice, because every time you tell one of these things, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I read a little story of a brother who had just had a thought about something. The next time He saw it, it was a vision. The next time, it was a revelation; the next time, an entire movement was built on it, and it’s influential in America today. It became a revelation. I have often heard people say I had a revelation of…I had a revelation of this…there is only one revelation. There may be many visions, but there is only one revelation. That is the revealing of Jesus Christ. That’s all.

The book of Revelation is not a book of what’s going to happen. The book of Revelation reveals the Lord Jesus Christ, and it won’t ever make any sense until you see it as revealing Him. May the eyes of your spirit and the eyes of the heart of the house of God be open that you might see Him. That as you come to Scripture, you see not Scripture nor doctrine, but Him. Saints, listen: between the third century and all the theological mess that we have been taught since then, and our minds have been turned in this direction, there is a great chasm. We have thrown everything in the world into that chasm to try to fill it up. Only one thing will bridge this gap between all our divisions and opinions: Christ revealed in your heart. Until the first thought in all things is my Lord. Until you can see Him so superbly.

Now I want to say one thing to you here: I am not talking about sermons on the life of Jesus Christ taken out of the four gospels and how He was kind and you ought to be kind. He gave, so you ought to give; He was nice, and you’re not nice, and He prayed, but you don’t ever pray. I’m not talking about that kind of thing. Hear me. That’s about Christ. That’s not Christ. That’s not in Him, of Him, through Him, to Him, by Him. That’s not Him. That’s about Him. And boy, I know that you and I have been preaching that. I know you tried to live up to it. And I know something…two other things. You didn’t make it, and I’ll tell you something else. You got very despondent over your failure. Well, give it up, Saint. We begin with the unveiling of Christ Jesus.

Well, what do you do, Gene? I don’t have any idea. You might pause one day and say, “Lord, would you please allow the Holy Spirit to do the one thing we’re all sure he’s supposed to do?” There is a lot of debate about the Holy Spirit, but one thing is indisputable. The first function of the office of the Holy Spirit is to manifest and reveal the Lord Jesus Christ in you. That’s His first and foremost job. You don’t need tongues nearly as much as you need the Holy Spirit birthing a revelation of your Lord in you.

I would just ask one question. Will you ever meet the Christ of the four gospels? Will you ever meet the Christ of the four gospels? Will you ever know Him? This is the Christ of Galilee and Judea. Will you ever meet Him? Will you ever know Him? Well, let’s get a consensus here. Do you say yes? Think about it for a moment. He’s not here, folks. Go to Galilee and Judea; He’s not there. When you see Him, He won’t be a carpenter. He will be Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Paul said, “Even the Lord, we do not know after the flesh.”

Have you ever looked at Paul’s Christ? He’s not the Christ of the four gospels. He almost never refers to the Christ of the four gospels. He is Christ crucified. He is a Christ of the cross; not on the cross, of the cross. He is an enthroned Christ. He is a resurrected Christ. He is a triumphant Christ. He is an ascended Christ. He is an enthroned Christ, and He is a glorified Christ. And that Christ – that Christ – is in you, and that Christ is the Christ the Holy Spirit is probably going to reveal to you.

I would present to you that, especially in the mess we’ve been in for the last 1700 years, it wouldn’t hurt to see your Christ, your Lord, Jesus; whatever name you want to call Him or you do call Him, it wouldn’t hurt any of us to see Him a little bit more…and at the center. And at the center.

Let me say this to you. You know, when Christ came into you, He didn’t leave part of Himself outside. Everything you ever need of Christ, or ever will need, came into you. And in that respect, we are complete. We are complete because He’s in us and because we’re in Him. We are complete in Him, and that’s a verse of scripture, not just a song. I guess our problem is that nobody told us. It’s very, very difficult to have a full sight of Him when nobody tells us; especially when they’re telling us things that clog all this up. Saints, let me get you clear on this. You have been put under the law in almost everything you have been preached.

Now, I don’t really care if somebody puts you under the law if you’ve gotten a really good sight of the Lord Jesus; that would be like putting butter on glass and then trying to slow it. It just won’t work. I don’t care what they preach to you if you have begun with the Lord as the center of all things. But if you don’t have that, you’re subject to everything on this earth. And there is freedom. It was for freedom that He set us free. He didn’t set us free to put us in bondage. May God reveal to you, my Lord and your Lord, that you can’t be put under the law by anybody. May that day come when there’s nothing that’ll put you under the law.

Now, I want to say that these things should happen in the church, but even the church is not a revelation of Jesus Christ until we see the church as part of our Lord. I don’t mean something with Him, by Him, but something that is part of Him. We are from here down. He, more centrally, is from here up, but it’s all the Lord.

Throw that thing back on, and let me say one last word to all of you about that very matter. About three or four months ago, Christianity Today ran an article. The title of it was, “Whatever happened to the local church?” I grabbed it and started reading. The writer, whom I called as soon as I got through reading it, said, “At no time has the church ever been understood or proclaimed in America.” Well, what are all those church buildings doing up? Oh, we can proclaim a church building, and we can proclaim a church building fund; we can do it almost as well as the Catholics did during the dark ages when they built all those cathedrals. They had a real slick way of doing that – they enslaved everybody for two or three months and made them build that thing. Well, anyhow, we don’t do too much better.

In Europe, there is a doctrine of the church, in which there is respect for it as something other than a building, but not much even there; at least it has its history. At no time in America has the church ever been anything but an instrument of the minister; for the minister. She…not it…she is never preached. She is never seen in her glory. She is never seen in God’s eternal purpose. She is never seen as part of His heart’s desire. We might preach evangelism, but we do not preach the church. Everything we do proves that we would dare start an organization to win people to Christ is an abomination. That is separate from the church.