From the Cross to Glory (1)

The Christian walk exemplified in the patriarchs of the Old Testament.

Hoseah Wu

Firstly, I want to share with you some of the burdens which the Lord brought into our conscience this past year in the US and also in the Far East.

The time is indeed short and we’re living in evil days. We’re living in the days of Noah and there’s no warning ahead of time. We should be preparing ourselves to go and be with the Lord and I feel that this conference is crucial. How is the Lord going to restore His testimony in the short time that we have on this earth? The time is short and Paul said that we must redeem the time. We need to take time back for the Lord and redeem it. If we don’t, we’ll end up wasting it.

In these last days, we need to rise up and be about our Lord’s business. We can’t be passive any more because He is at the doors. We don’t know when He will appear. But if He appears, are we ready for His appearance? We’re living in a very crucial time and these are days in which we need to be wide awake. God is determined to secure what He is after. God means business but do we mean business with Him? May the Lord deliver us from a casual spirit. We need to be awakened and to be diligently occupied with the things of the Lord. The things that are vital to Him, not the things that are vital to us.

Another thing which I wish to share, is that in the US at least, for the last twenty to thirty years, we have heard some tremendous teachings from our brothers about heavenly vision and about the eternal purpose of God. About what God has set His heart on securing for Himself and about the bride that the Lord Jesus Christ is waiting for. He is waiting for His bride but His bride is not prepared, she is not mature enough to be joined together with Him for eternity. And so there’s a warning: we’ve heard much, we know much, but if we don’t allow what we have received to become real in us or to put it another way; if we fail to allow the Holy Spirit to realize what the Lord Jesus has revealed to us, then what we know ultimately will judge us.

What we know is so that it may find fulfillment in our lives but if we fail to make real what we know, then that knowledge will judge us.

Therefore, there is a real sense of seriousness in these last days. How we need to occupy our time with the Lord Himself and cooperate with Him allowing His purpose to be fully realized. Knowing is not enough. Understanding is not enough. Even agreeing with what we understand is not enough. We need to allow what we know to have it’s outworking in our lives both individually and corporately.

God is determined to fulfill His purpose. God will not give us up. God will also not give in to us because faithful is He who calls you and He will surely finish it. We are living in very critical times. We are living in days of great shaking.

I want to quote a phrase from our brother Stephen Kaung. I want you to take this quote to heart and think about it. When I heard these few words from our brother, they sunk into my heart and I couldn’t forget about them. It is a very challenging word, so listen carefully: ‘God has already committed His testimony to us; how can we dare to fail Him?’ God has already committed His testimony to His people; in faith, He committed His testimony to us since He knows that He has the power to fulfill it. But the question is: are we willing to let Him finish it?

Let’s take those few words to heart. God has committed His testimony to us. He has already committed His Son Jesus Christ to us and He wants His son to be fully wrought and formed in us both individually and corporately to His glory. The grace and the power to fulfill that testimony is available to us and therefore none of us has an excuse and can say that we are not able. Because He who calls us is able to fulfill it.

Some lives from the book of Genesis

Now we’re going to have a look at a few lives from the book of Genesis and see how God works progressively through these different lives until in the end, He secures what He is after. Now before we have a look at these, I want to help you see something which for me is absolutely crucial. God does not ask you to come to something that has not already been prepared and done for you. Do you see what I’m saying? God never comes to you in an unprepared fashion.

In the New Testament there a various examples of people who are being invited to feasts. In Matthew 22, the reason why the invitation was extended was because the feast was already prepared. The table was already set out. The food was already on the table. What’s now needed is for guests to come. That is God’s heart. What He wants us to come into is, in a sense, already secure in His Son. That is the gospel, because the work is already done. ‘Come and take, it is yours’.

In a sense, there is already a man in glory and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the ground, the foundation of our assurance, that if Christ is there, if He has made it there, then we too can be there. He is there first for us, because when He has been glorified, He can then bring many sons to glory. We need to see that assurance of what is ahead of us, so that our faith has an anchor. This is why our faith has a sure foundation, because all that God wanted to secure in His people has already been finished and secured in His beloved Son.

Adam

Now let’s turn to the book of Genesis and we’ll have a brief look at the life of Adam. If I may diverge just for a bit: the book of Genesis is a book of biographies, we have the lives of many individuals which are all recorded in the bible for our example. What God has done in them, God intends to do with all of us. So these lives are examples which are meant to be an encouragement for us. God is really interested in man; that’s why He created him. We can say that God’s heart is after a man and that this man must be after God’s own heart. Now that is the Lord Jesus. At the beginning of the book of Genesis, God said ‘I want a man. A man after my own heart. A man who agrees with me in everything. Through this man, my will for the whole creation will be accomplished. Through this man, I will restore everything back to God and God will be glorified.

You remember that brother Christian shared last night that before the creation there was a rebellion? Whenever there is sin there is rebellion and the bottom line is that God’s rights have been violated. When God’s word isn’t listened to and God’s will isn’t obeyed, then God’s rights are violated. And so God uses man, created a little lower than the angels, to restore that right back to God. That is God’s glory and that is also our glory. When we become the instrument by which His right is restored, that is our glory. Bringing all things under subjection to Christ, this is our glory. Brothers and sisters, this is very important for us to get hold of.

In Adam, when he was created, God’s one desire for him was that he would partake of God’s life. Adam’s real beginning is simply by him choosing the tree of life. Because without life, there is no true beginning. Without God’s life there can be no beginning. God loved Adam so much that he went after him in the beginning and said ‘choose me’. Now if Adam had made the right choice, choosing God’s way and God’s life, then Adam would be on his way to fulfilling God’s destiny for him. But he did not choose God’s destiny, he chose his own destiny. Because of this disobedience, he was cast out of the garden of Eden.

Brothers and sisters, God wants you to have his life because everything begins with His life. The recovery of the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ begins with having the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without God, without His Son, there is no testimony. This is why the Lord said, “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly”. Not just to have life, but to have it more abundantly. God is a God of fullness. Anything less than fullness cannot reflect who God is. Later we will have a chance to share how Jacob made God very small. God refuses to be made very small. You cannot make Him small. He is too big for us. So the recovery of the testimony of God in His people begins with the life of the Lord Jesus. God loved us so much that He gave His Son, His life to us. Because the fulfillment of God’s full purpose begins with God’s very life. Even though Adam rejected God’s offer of His life, thank God that His purpose is the same forever. That did not change His purpose towards man. It may upset Him temporarily, and delay Him temporarily in carrying out His program but God cannot fail.

I want to say an encouraging word to you brothers and sisters: last year, myself my wife, brother Stephen Kaung and sister Dora went to the Philippines for a visit. At that time, the brothers and sisters in that small fellowship were going through a lot of trials and tribulations - external pressures, internal problems and some of those problems were unsolvable. So they tried to solve the problems and the more they tried to solve them, the more they were occupied with the problems. And the more that they were occupied with the problems, the less they were occupied with the Lord. They were in great agony because of this and they came to brother Stephen and myself and said ‘what can we do? We can’t find a way out and the number of brothers and sisters is reducing. Perhaps we’ll end up with only three brothers.’ And brother Kaung smiled and he said ‘if at the end you have nothing but you have the Lord, will that be enough?’ Now, is the Lord enough? That is the test of our faith, that is the test of our testimony - we have nothing but Christ and we have enough.

Brothers and sisters, that day is coming. A day of shaking is coming and all that can be shaken off will be shaken off. One brother has said, ‘the sooner we are shaken, the better’, so that we know if we are the unshakeable ones. Don’t be afraid of shaking therefore. Shaking is God’s opportunity to let us see what is truly real to Him.

Abel

So even though Adam rejected God, God was never discouraged since God has the way, He has the wisdom to recover what was lost to Him. Then we find Abel, the next character. Now Cain and Abel is a very interesting story. Cain and Abel were both sons of Adam and Eve. When Cain was born, Eve was very excited which is why she named him Cain. ‘With God’s help, now I have acquired a son’ . In chapter three of the book of Genesis, God told Eve that her seed the manchild would bruise the head of Satan and that Satan would bruise his heel. And so Eve was very excited; she was hoping that Cain would be the one to deliver them out of the curse of sin.

Now let me share this for the benefit of younger brothers and sisters. We will never ask for real deliverance from sin until we see the terrible awfulness of sin. Do you see what I’m saying? We won’t ask for it until we see the terribleness of sin and God knows its terribleness. Because of sin, we are separated from God and listen; that separation hurts God more than it hurts us. He is more desperate to restore us than we are willing to be restored back to Him. That’s why God was preparing to restore us even before the foundation of the world. The lamb was slain even from the foundation of the world because God will not endure separation from man. He knew that it was possible to be separated but He prepared a way to bring us back.

We find this story in Abel and his sacrifice; it’s the way back to God. When God looked at Abel, he didn’t just look at Abel but He also looked at the sacrifice, since in the Old Testament, the one offering up and the sacrifice are one. Let me put that another way: God looked at Abel’s sacrifice and he saw Abel in that sacrifice. When Christ died, we also died. That’s how God concludes the old Adamic race. In Christ’s crucifixion, the old creation is once for all removed, finished. Abel’s sacrifice then, is the way for Abel to return to God because God accepted his sacrifice. He said ‘it is a more excellent sacrifice - the sacrifice that I approve’. Christ is the only sacrifice that God approved for our redemption since only the Sinless One can die for our sin. That’s why there is only one way. There’s no second way. There’s only the way approved by God and that is why Abel was accepted and returned back to God.

Brothers and sisters, our recovering work begins by our turning back to God. If there’s no life, there’s no beginning. If there’s hasn’t been a returning back to that life, then we haven’t even begun our walk yet. We all need to find a way to get back to God.

The way for us to return back to God is through the sacrifice of the lamb. It’s the only way and there are no other options. It’s God’s way and so there’s no need to choose since the way has already been chosen for you. Just accept it. This is all grace.

Once we’ve been reconciled to God, if we want God to restore his testimony in us, we need to respond. Once the need for us to return to God has been met, then the next thing we need is to walk with God. Once we are His, then we can begin to walk with Him. This walk with God is not a luxurious one. This walk with God is not just to make it easier to get through this life. All that we want is to be free from problems, trials and tribulations. We have a conception that if we walk with God, then all will go well for us. Then when people get into trouble, we say ‘oh, all you need to do is walk with God.’

Do you think that walking with God is easy? God is perfect. God is pure. God is holy. God is unchanging, the same forever. And He said to you, it is you who are going to walk with Me. It is not Me walking with you. If you’re going to walk with Me you’re going to have to learn to do it My way.

Now, married couples, be honest; in all these years of walking with the Lord as a couple, has there ever been any argument or tension between you and your husband or wife? Any disagreements? The more that we face difficulties together and through them we allow the Lord to draw us closer to Him and closer to each other, then all things work together for the good of those who love God.

Walking with God is never easy because He is unchanging and we therefore have to do all the changing. Now think about that; changing our way of life is the hardest thing. I’m going to share with you a secret of our brother Christian. When we came to this meeting place, we took a taxi and on the way we saw some neon lights blinking and they were blinking about Chinese restaurants. Now our brother Christian was very happy - ‘ah here, this one’. You see it’s hard to change your habits. But brothers and sisters, we need to be willing to change.

I’m going to quickly mention a couple of things. Amos 3:3 says “unless two agree, they can never walk together”. The first thing that we need to do, is make a deliberate choice on our part. That’s very important because God means business with us. It’s a deliberate choice, that you’re willing to go against yourself. That takes some courage. ‘I’ll pay any cost, I’ll make myself agree with God’. That is the life of the Lord Jesus. Before He came, He already made up His mind to agree with God’s will and nothing was going to change Him from that.

We are here to agree with what’s on God’s heart and in order to agree with Him, we need to deny ourselves. We have to will our will into His will. It’s not passive, it’s not, ‘whatever will be will be’. It has to involve making up your mind. If we don’t make up our mind for Christ, then God’s testimony will never recover. God has done His part and it’s now up to us. Together, we need to agree with God. Brothers, this is what is required to walk with God.

Now saying is one thing but doing is quite another thing. We all say ‘I want to agree with God’. Then God will come and say, ‘Do you really mean it? We will find out…’ . Because God means business. He is truth and He is after truth. With Him there is no lying - we cannot lie to Him. He sees through our hearts. If we say, ‘I want to agree with you Lord at any cost’, then the Lord will say, ‘OK, demonstrate that willingness. Take My yoke upon you.’ We are willing to agree but are we willing to take that yoke upon us? Again, saying it is one thing, but acting in obedience is another.

Brothers and sisters, let me share with you another important principle. We’ll touch upon it in these next few days. Listen - the measure in which we truly obey Him, that is the measure in which we truly know Him. That’s very important. God is real. Oh may He have mercy on us. So when we say ‘we want to obey you’ then He says ‘OK, take up your cross. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Live your life my way. Do your things my way. Think your way my way. That is the testimony of our true commitment to Him. If His yoke is not upon us, then there is still no true commitment to Him.

These are the things that we need to learn. Time is short. We need to rise up to be about His business. What I am sharing about the lives of Adam, Abel and Noah and others are our examples. The Lord wants us to follow these examples which have been put there in the bible for a reason: to show us the way to follow Christ.

Finally, it’s the way of faith. As I shared earlier, when we don’t see anything happening, do we still see or believe that He is still with us and still in us? Even when we go through dark days, thank God that morning is coming. Brother Austin-Sparks said that ‘when you see God doing nothing, don’t ever think that He’s doing nothing’. Because we don’t live by sight, we live by faith. We don’t live by feelings. When we don’t see anything and we feel nothing, God is still God. He is still determined to finish His work in us.

Brothers and sisters, God has already entrusted to us His beloved Son. He has already entrusted His testimony to us. Now all that we need is to be faithful to the end. May the Lord find each one of us faithful to the end, so that His purpose may be fully realized and He may get all the glory. Amen.

Abridged version of a message shared at the 2nd International Conference
Santiago (Chile), 2005.

Copyright © AGUAS VIVAS | CHILE 2006