The Third Great Work

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The major types of the Old Testament reveal that God’s plan of salvation consists of three major areas. The first area is that of the forgiveness of sins through the blood of the cross. The second area has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit. The third area is just now opening to the Church. It is the fullness of God dwelling in us, as typified by the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

(10/16/2005) In order to come to God and obtain the forgiveness of our sins we must receive the forgiveness that was purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus on the cross of Cavalry. Now we have been made righteous through our faith. Such ascribed righteousness grants to us the authority to enter the program that leads to the eternal Sabbath, the rest in which God rests in us and we in God.

Next we must yield to the Lord that He may grant us His Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, as we walk in daily fellowship with Him, furnishes us with the wisdom and power to press forward to the fullness of God’s rest. Through the Spirit we are able to overcome sin and also to bear witness of the atoning blood and triumphant resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Now we possess the authority to enter the Kingdom of God, and also the wisdom and power to begin the lifelong program of transformation into the image of Christ, and untroubled entrance into the Person and will of God.

We have passed the guard at the gate and have approached the tool shed that we may receive all the equipment we need to do the job.

The "job" is to enter fully into that perfect rest in which all that we are, think, say, and do is proceeding from the Lord Jesus Christ.

We stand in relationship to Christ as Christ stands in relationship to the Father. Christ lives by the Life of the Father, drawing every aspect of His being and doing from God. We are to live by the Life of Christ, drawing every aspect of our being and doing from Christ.

To thus become the Kingdom of God and Christ, the chariot of God we might say, we must follow the Spirit carefully. Satan will resist us at every turn. We overcome Satan by trusting in the blood of the Lamb to keep us acceptable to God; by always confessing our faith in God and His Word, thus testifying to the faithfulness and truth of God; and by loving not our own life to the point of death.

Obviously we have to choose between our own life, our own desires, our own plans, and God’s Life, God’s desires, and God’s plans. We are living in the eternal Sabbath when our first nature is crucified with Jesus Christ and now we are living by His resurrection life and power.

The emphasis of the true Sabbath is not on our not working. It is on not working according to our own desires. God rested on the seventh day. Now we are to enter that rest by ceasing from our own works and looking to God for every detail of life.

We have come now, in God’s calendar of days, to this third great area of redemption. First, the blood of the cross. Second, the Holy Spirit. Third, the fullness of God dwelling in us through Christ such we have been crucified with Christ but nevertheless live.

The rest of God was known to the Apostles, as we read in the Book of Hebrews. When the original Apostles were taken to Heaven, the Spirit of revelation went with them. Then men began to write commentaries on the Scriptures.

Hundreds of years passed, and then the Reformers began to grapple with the doctrine of justification. The Bible was translated into the language of the common people. The priesthood of the believers was regained along with water baptism by immersion.

The concept that a holy life must follow justification if the work of salvation is to proceed in our life was emphasized in the nineteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century the baptism of the Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues was restored.

Now we are in the twenty-first century. The Ark of God is coming down the road. We are not to put our hand on the Ark, so to speak. The Glory of the Lord is approaching, and there are mighty angels whose task is to guard the Glory.

All that God has planned from the beginning is at hand. But who will take advantage of the day of his visitation? It is easy to miss what God is doing. We may be content to remain with justification, or with Pentecostal manifestations. We may not be willing to set aside our own life in order that Christ may have His undisputed way in us.

There are multitudes who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and their Saviour.

There is a part of this multitude who have learned to yield to the Spirit. Actually, the purpose of tongues, according to the Scriptures, is to lead us into the eternal Sabbath, into that state where it is Christ who is living in us rather than our original nature.

Now the Spirit of God is searching among the multitudes of the saved to determine who is willing to take this further step in God. To press forward to know Christ, to know the power of His resurrection, to experience the fellowship of His sufferings, requires total consecration. First justification. Then sanctification through the Spirit. And now total consecration—the presentation of our body as a living sacrifice that we might prove the will of God for our life.

Christ died that we might live. Now we have to die that He might live in us.

How about you? You know, Jesus has kept the best wine until now. Now we are understanding and entering God in a manner seen from afar by the prophets and wise men of old. It is the perfection for which Abraham is waiting, because he cannot be made perfect apart from us.

Again I ask: How about you? Are you going to gladden the heart of Christ by giving all that you are and do to Him? Will you open your heart to Him that He may enter and dine with you? Or is He knocking in vain as far as you are concerned?

Open the everlasting doors of your personality and the Kingdom of Glory will enter. Who is this King of Glory? He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Armies, soon to come and install His rightful rulership over the earth.

The wise individual will tremble at the thought and hasten to enter the Sabbath rest of God that he or she may be able to stand throughout the age of physical and moral horrors that is approaching the United States, and then return with Christ and all those in whom He is reigning to help with the work of installing the Kingdom of God on the earth.

"Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on the earth as it is in Heaven. Amen."

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