The Tragedy Of Departing From the Heavenly Vision by B.H. Clendennen

and I hope you've got yourself all adjusted and wide awake and ready deep here this lesson as we continue in our pastoral theology series of the church when you realize the church is the ultimate thing with God everything that he's done has been to this end and that history absolutely has no meaning apart from the church but what men called the church may very well be something other than God calls the church that's the reason I've asked you to leave all presuppositions on the outside when you come in here let us look at the church as God sees it now the church we know that was born on the day of Pentecost is the only church to reach their generation for Christ in the book of Acts we have the story of that church and the glory of God that rested upon it but now in the end time we know and I you know and I know that the church that Christ is coming after is a church that he'll never prevailed against that means that that church that he comes after must be equal to the church that he begun with now something has happened in these years in between and we've won we've come to the end of an age with something different than Christ started with and what created that we've seen what it's going to take and we'll see what it must be but we're going to look today at what has brought the church to this place where she is something other than what God intended and in seein the cause I know we can further know how to affect the cure the title of this lesson is the tragedy of departing from the heavenly I'm gonna read in John chapter 20 and verse 21 then said Jesus to them again peace be unto you as my father has sent me even so send I you the tragedy of departing from the heavenly vision in these lessons we have brought into view the essential heaven leanness of the church which we've said is a basic governing law of god's purpose for this we have seen to be a factor of great importance in God's dealing with Jerusalem the more we read and meditate upon the matter the more we see that this lies behind Jerusalem's history Jerusalem coming into position her revival always related to those elements which speak of a heaven - never of the earth on the contrary the loss of peace of her place of power of glory was due to earthly and worldly elements giving the upper hand to least Jerusalem reached her supreme crises when the Lord came into the midst of Earth at that point two things marked the crisis of her history and you know she's a type the first thing was the heaven leanness of christ's own person and life and ministry and mission the second the earthliness of judy is vision interest and association now the contrast is one of the most astounding and outstanding elements of the gospel never was Jerusalem's world in his more apparent than when the Lord was in her mist he brought heaven in his own person and by reason of his presence the the state was dragged down into the light so with that on mind is history we see that as a facts of God and the facts of history then we come to this thought there heaven leanness of Christ and his own now the first of these two things the heaven leanness of his personal life and ministry and mission is about brought out most clearly in john's gospel john's gospel is mainly concerned with matters within the compass of judaism also in that Gustin gospel jerusalem stands very largely now against that fact we see in john's gospel the heaven leanness of christ as that which represents him more particularly than anything else then so far as his own people are concerned john's gospel makes the spiritual life of the believer our heavenly thing and every point the spiritual life of the believer is seemed to have its beginning in heaven when he says we're born from above in John the Lord takes great pain to keep his own from this world he allows the shadow of his going away to fall very heavily upon them with a definite purpose of showing first that their life is to be a heavenly life their hope our heavenly hope and not an earthly one now the trouble of their heart was largely due to disappointment as to their worldly expectations to overcome this false expectation that was in every one of them he carries them away from the world and fastens their hope upon himself in glory their service is also set forth as a heavenly service as the father sent me so send I you John chapter 20 and verse 21 now listen this verse says that our ministry the true church's ministry is to be the exact Ministry of Christ here as the father sent me so send I you now that is to be the exact Ministry of the church as the body of Christ you can understand them why all hell is going to be drawn out against you as you begin to move in this ministry because as we hear the Christ as we are here as he was in the earth began to manifest Christ then the other this religious world its worldliness and earthiness is going to be drawn out in comparison and you're already seeing the hatred that's being drawn out against the truly born again believers all the time and in every place we begin to be referred to as a cult and worse because when you look at his life and his ministry his holiness his walk his stand his mission that is exactly the mission and ministry of the church all of this is gathered up and made clear in John they are not of this world the earth boundless of Judaism just look at it there's no doubt that the earth boundless of Judaism was a background and the cause of its rejection of Christ the earthbound the grip of historic tradition upon their minds resulted in spiritual blindness to that to everything that was heavenly this became manifest as blindness is always manifested in various ways John's Gospel gives us a clear unveiling of the outworking of that spiritual blindness and jealousy in the hatred smallness suspicion passion etc these all run riot in the Gospel of John and the Jews then are seen in a very bad light and when you reflect upon that in connection with the heaviness of everything in relation to Christ you see how utterly blind they were to all that was really heavenly now that blindness working out in all these ways led to a full and final rejection of him by the nation and from that point Jerusalem became the center of intensified religious earthliness in its outworking now at this point you hear we at this point we need to remind ourselves that we are having to do with the church we're now this is this is our lesson this is why we are here we're having to do with the church our great concern is the church which is his body and we must know the nature of the church what it is that spiritually constitutes the church we can see quite clearly that jealousy envy hatred suspicion passion etc are marks of spiritual - spiritual vision and spiritual revelation should always work out - the absence of such things as we just mentioned now that is which jealousy that in which jealousy hatred envy and such a found is not the heavenly church that's not the heavenly church the state to which we've just referred found in the earthly Jerusalem in the days of Christ has been the state of Jerusalem and Judaism ever since in Christ risen two things can be noted he did not appear again to Jerusalem not to official Judaism he took the church away from the earth spiritually and centered it in himself in heaven and from their history begin to develop a two long two lines a true and a false the church as a heavenly and spiritual thing developed under the control of the holy ghost and a false expression of Christianity as an earthly and man governed system begin to begin to come into being alongside that true there you have the bride and the harlot both of them simultaneously move into history now the Jerusalem beneath has from very early in this dispensation become the seat of the most intensified expression of their false conception of the church the over run of Christianity by Islam is a very forceful lesson that victory was a results of weakness produced by spiritual division this points to the absolute necessity for the church's oneness in spirit as a heavenly Jerusalem if she is to rise to her place of UNAM Versalles supremacy if it is true that the Lord Jesus was moving out of this world and taking his church spiritually with him recognizing that Jerusalem's undoing was coming because of these awful conditions how essential it was for him to pray that they all may be one John 17:21 era whether it be ancient or modern will always gain its advantage by the spiritual weakness produced by divisions among the Lord's people now no matter how many books the neo-pentecostal world publishes and its effort to stifle a voice it deals with truth no matter how much they decry the expose of error in the church and call it heresy hunting and headhunters or whatever they want to call it era reduces them and to the church to a certain impotency where the devil can run rampant in it and reduce it to a thing of Earth all of this we see today you and I I believe been called of God to be that instrument where we can regain that place of the heavenly vision look at it the earth boundless of Christendom we looked at the earth boundless of Jerusalem as the thing that caused it to lose its place under the Sun where Christ never returned to it now we look at that instrument brought into being the church it's earth bounce we've seen this earth boundless clearly in the triumph of Islam over Christianity the three of the crusades affords another very strong evidence of this weakness lasting over a hundred years they're really the story of Christianity's most disgraceful times that was not and is not heavens way of doing things anymore is political the way of heavens new anything our warfare is not with flesh and blood my kingdom is not of this world if my kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight said Jesus in John 18:36 these are bedrock laws of the heavenly Jerusalem Palestine today is a nauseating spectacle every place connected in any special way with Christ's earthly life is marked by something which is a shameful misrepresentation of Christianity the place that rejected the heavenly Christ has become the scene of the expression of the most intense conception of the false church if man apart from the Dominion of the Holy Spirit intrudes into the things of God be it in thought intellect reason or feeling the effect will be a proportionate measure of death division confusion and contradiction therefore men must go out as men Christ the heavenly man must be the Sun over God's house must be the head of the church his headship must be administered by the heavenly Holy Spirit God today is not coming down it's not coming back brother after a brokedown religious machine he's not coming after a mixture of Romanism and Pentecostalism nothing God hates worse than a mixture that was a challenge of Elijah on Mount Moriah not the God that answers by fire be God if Bale is God then serve Bale if God is God then serve God but there but the but the answer was you cannot have both of them there can be no mixture to me God is calling out a vessel with the pure life of God within it to affect this last day important the church he comes after will be no different than the church he started with if Christ comes after a church less than he birthd on the day of Pentecost then he failed the gates of hell did prevail against it I can tell you he never failed and the church he comes after will be a church that is regained that heavenly vision that heavenly place herein lies the necessity for the cross as a constantly working active reality by which the whole realm and range of carnal mind is ruled out and kept out here in is a necessity for the fullness of the Holy Spirit if the church is to be the instant is to be the place seen for her as coming down from God out of heaven to be the center of God's universe God's government of this universe if she is to be that then the cross has to be a work in reality at all time to dispense with that which is not Christ and the Holy Spirit must be the absolute government of that church that we may be led in to all that is Christ we saw how this church is the vessel we saw how this church is to be that vessel and we cannot emphasize too much that that scripture that says as he was in this world so are we we are his representative right here in the place of his rejection so when we look at him when you read these Gospels his life his ministry his mission must be our life our ministry our mission we represent him we are here has that instrument of God on this earth and as we do as we as you and I truly move back to that place of the heavenly vision we're going to draw out against ourselves death all of the powers of Satan are going to be brought against us you're going to be seeing how you're going to see rather how that we're going to become heated by the neo-pentecostal world as it projects it's imitation its prosperity gospel that has to do with everything of this earth it is an earthly thing it's not a thing of heaven it's not a thing of the Spirit it is an earthly thing and it's whole emphasis is on material things of this earth you listen to them as they proclaim their prosperity gospel they they they bring a people whose greatest fear is to be without things whose greatest desire is material now this has become the gospel of the neo-pentecostal and their hatred for that true church though they they do not declare it to be the true you can be sure but their hatred for the true church and the reason they can pray for Holy Ghost machine guns to kill that church is motivated by the same hatred that Judaism had against the Christ when he was among them his holiness his life his ministry showed them to be what they were a worldly institution with no desire but for an earthly kingdom and for this they sought the killing that hatred against the truly elect of God by the religious of this world is motivated by the same cause as we walk with God in heaven and our ministry mission and life is what his loss then we expose that for what it is an institution of the earth that has nothing to do with God and His purposes with man this is the reason that you're seeing such a hatred being brought out against us that neo-pentecostal our appeals to religion trying to bring about a unity with Romanism and the true Church of God in Russia he find that greatest voice dealing with the Orthodox Church which is the total misrepresentation of what Christ is as we came there producing this ministry this vessel through which God could pour and through which in two years produced 700 churches then they began to say on their radio this religious body that I calling me by name was the greatest enemy in Russia that I was the most dangerous person in Russia group ads in the paper that we were a cult why because this life of Christ manifest through the believer exposes that to be nothing more than an earthly system that is where we are today as we the vessel of God begin to return and recover this heavenly vision then we begin to expose that that in departing from that heavenly vision become an earthly institution whose sole and absolute value is the earth they don't preach any heaven they don't preach any cross they preach big cars jet airplanes designer clothes all of it exposes it for what it is an earthly system and Christ is not coming back for such a system the tragedy of departing from that heavenly vision cannot be calculated in words there must be a return and for that return to happen there must be a vessel vessel formed in the fire by God through which again he can put this life in its fullness pour it back into that stream hallelujah while this brings us to the clothes have another lesson we're coming next and on we come back to our past Oriole theology lessons we'll be dealing with the church again and this time the church is a prophet this would be very profitable to you as we really see what the church is let us stand and worship God as we leave the class

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Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, B.H. Clendennen

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Length: 27min 15sec (1635 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2016