The Fellowship of the Father and Son Comes to Earth (DCLC – July ’87, Part 3)

Audience Member: I have a question about the passage of scripture on being marked off before the foundation of the earth.

It’s in Greek, and it’s Ephesians 1, and I think it’s all in the way it’s translated, marked off. What’s let me get my eyes here. You’re very familiar with the passage…yeah, it’s exactly what it means.  It’s verse four. Chose us in Him, chose us in Christ. Marked us off in Christ before the foundation of the world. And I really wish it were translated that way.

(new subject) This is a scientific journal that’s for people who have IQs of less than 150. It’s a layman’s scientific journal, very, very well written. On the front of it is a one-way sign, but it’s going in both directions. Listening to the opening words. “In the universe of both Newton and Einstein, time flows backward in the past as readily as it does forward into the future. Time flows backward into the past as readily as it does forward into the future. Which means we should all have memories of the future.” I didn’t understand that exactly, but if I had lived in the past and could flow backward in time, then I could remember now, couldn’t I? When I was back there, I would remember the future, which is now. Don’t think about that too long. (laughter) “That we are not able to remember the future and that physicists can’t find a single arrow of time that points in any direction except ahead, is one of the most profound and vexing mysteries in nature.” In other words, by all rights, it ought to be the norm to remember the future. Wouldn’t that play havoc with the stock market? Let me see if I can find the article. I didn’t think about reading it, but this is a very, very fascinating article here. No, if you folks need to go somewhere, here’s a good time to do it.

If time ran in reverse, and physicists find no reason why it shouldn’t, then trees would ungrow, broken glass reassemble, and tomorrow be as vivid in memory as yesterday. I’m just going to read the first front of this; better not. I’m going to read this thing over first. There might be some things in here so far out that none of us would have the foggiest idea. “The difficulty started 300 years ago when Newton published his Principia and unleashed on the world the science of mechanics. Newton’s mechanics allows you to calculate the orbits of planets, trajectories of missiles, and the behavior of billiard balls when they collide. In fact, Newton’s mechanics essentially idealize everything as billiard balls. One of the strangest things about Newton’s theory is that there is no era of time built into it.” In other words, our universe seems to be doing something that it’s not supposed to. It’s only going in one direction. I only read this a few days ago. This is not something I’m propagating here, folks, I just want you to know that in the realm of physics, which certainly isn’t trying to be Christian, they every once in a while bump into something that helps us grasp a little bit of what’s going on around us. You know, Einstein talked about his fourth dimension. They talk about a parallel universe, antimatter. What else do they talk about like that? These are things I don’t quite understand. I’m sure that some of you could explain them to us clearly. I’m not concerned about my relationship, particularly to that, but it allows me to believe and to understand a little bit more about the ways of God and what it is God does and how He relates to the universe which He created.

I’ve often quoted Evelyn Underwood, who wrote a book entitled The History of Christian Mystics. It’s nothing in the world but a book on devout Christians, mostly from a Catholic viewpoint. At the beginning of the book, before she talks about each one of these people’s lives, she makes a statement. The statement is this: “All of these people throughout church history had several things in common. One of them is that they seem to spend a lot of time with the Lord. Another one is they were devout people who lived clean lives,” and some other things, I don’t really remember what they were, but she said, and it’s absolutely true, “every one of them had a profound sense of another realm.” A profound sense of another realm.

Now, we’re here just seeking to explore the Lord, and if there was anything that I spoke on this morning, if you weren’t here, I rarely ever say this, but if you weren’t here, I’d really recommend you to watch the video or get the tape because it was very definitely a central message in this conference. Just to awaken you to a universe that’s in you, the realm of the spirituals. Well, you say, “Is it in me?” Well, I will tell you this: it was in Him. He was not a Lord who was here on this earth working out of a theory of ethics, not working out of a concept of teachings. Neither was He, because He was sinless down here, living a good life by the strength of His will. Something awesome was going on inside Him. I don’t think anyone in church history has ever challenged that, no matter which school they came from. The question is, did it all stop with Him, or does this continue into the sons and daughters of God? That’s really the only question that is being asked.

This morning’s message was entitled The History of the Deeper Christian Life. So last night’s message, which you have by now forgiven me for, was on what this deeper Christian life conference is for. And this morning we discussed the history of the deeper Christian life. We found out that it originated with God the Father and flowed out of the Father into the Son. Out of the Son, it became part of the other realm, and then man was designed and made in such a way that he, not only is of this earth, but he is also of the other realm, for he had spirit breathed into him.

Now, throughout the New Testament, you will find again and again references to your spirit, the human spirit. Corinthians and Romans are full of this. One of the benedictions of the epistles ends with the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. May the Lord sanctify you both spirit, soul, and body. You have a spirit. Now, spirit is not native to this realm. Solid is native to this realm. Spirit is native to the other realm, so we became a hybrid. We belong to both this universe and the other one; no one else does. Just man. God doesn’t belong to both; He belongs to that one. Animals don’t belong to that one; they belong to this one.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and therefore, He is in line to inherit the kingdom of the heavens. Is that not true? All right. He is also the Son of David. So, He is in line to be King of the nation of God. Therefore, this One who was both Man come in the form of human flesh and also God the Son dwelling eternally in the Father, He has the title right to stand first in line to inherit and be Lord and King over both realms. Amen. Praise the Lord.

Well, we talked then about what happened to the Christian life. This is what happened to the Christian life, and the deeper Christian life, it came to earth in Bethlehem. And the deeper Christian life, we lived on this earth for 33 years, and we just marked off about 200 years here when the deeper Christian life had its history on earth. And I hope you understand that I’m stretching the term a little bit. Then, after Constantine, it seems as though we lost all concept of spiritual things and became extraordinarily earthy. Have you ever heard of Anthony, usually called St. Anthony, who went out into the deserts of the Sinai, took some people with him, and stood out, stayed out there in the hot blazing sun, fasted for 50 years. Those guys who fasted all the time seem to live forever. Thousands of people went out into the Sinai to do this. Men began to stare into the Son to try to earn their rights and privileges with God. Men beating their backs and cutting themselves and doing all sorts of hideous things to themselves to impress God that He might love them. A very objective world we lived in for a long, long time with a little group of Roman Catholic mystics, who called themselves that and others, who were taking Neoplatonism and really getting into this thing of meditation, contemplation, something else, and union. Does anybody know what that other degree in there was? Going up the Neoplatonism scale to oneness with the good, pure Plato.

In our own day and age, we have switched over to the Bible. We have switched over to evangelizing the world. We’ve switched over to service. When I was a young man, I lived in Europe for a while, and the Europeans laughed at Americans because they seemed to be always doing, doing, and doing. And I went back just recently, a few years ago, and America’s attitudes and ways had taken over. And now Europe’s doing it. It’s do – serve God, serve God, serve God, serve God. Serve God. You cannot imagine how many Christians have entered the ministry and gone to the mission field on the basis of feeling that if they did that, they would be spiritual. The thinking was that somewhere after hearing all those wonderful stories, they would go out there and somehow, they would either find God deeply or they would satisfy these inner longings.