the seed of the alabaster box 06-01-2002

8/9/2019 The Seed of the Alabaster Box 06-01-2002

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Saturday, June 1, 2002

Lord Lister and Clean Feet

LORD LISTER AND CLEAN FEETThere is something that I find to be of utter most enjoyment,and that is when the Jehovah Witness come to my home.

Recently when the Jehovah Witness came, I managed tochat with them for nearly an hour on my back porch aboutthe deity and person of Jesus. As is the case with many, theJehovah Witness are trained to operate out of a theological

position rather than a display of that exclusive person, theLord Jesus Christ.

PONDERING THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD JESUS

CHRISTThere is a difference between growing up into the headshipof the Lord Jesus Christ and the cunning slight of manshand whereby they lie in wait to deceive by thesystemization of error. To be free of the theological positionis to be free from the systemization of error. It is the

systemization of error that is satans greatest weapon inpreventing Christians from growing up into the headship ofthe Lord Jesus Christ. It is the display of a person, the LordJesus Christ, not theological position, that is the central

desire the Almighty is seeking in man. Unregenerate manand religious man in a most peculiar way stand in the way ofthe display of the Lord Jesus Christ. To understand theministry of the Lord Jesus, one must understand His relation

to the arche. The arche is the place of the dateless past. It iswell before the creation of men, and well before even thecreation of angels and the fall of the anointed cherubim. Thearche is the dateless past before creation itself. This is where

you find the ministry of the Lord Jesus. This is where Hisentire prayer life is related to. In the beginning, or the arche,was the Word and the Word was with God and the Wordwas God, John writes under the inspiration of the HolySpirit. Fourteen verses later he writes that this Word wasmade flesh and came to dwell among us that we wouldbehold His glory. The glory that He abode in with HisFather before the beginning. The display of this glory is theministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

WE BEHELD HIS GLORYWhen Jesus came into this earthly life, He brought the life


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that He had with His Father before the arche. The display ofthis life was the display of the glory of God. The chiefvocation of the Christian is to behold His glory. It is not in

many activities whereby the Christians social life isenhanced but the cross is absent, but it is in revelation,something quite organic and full of life. It is something thatholds the attributes or the glory that the Father had with theSon before the beginning. We are to behold that glory andreflect that glory by the unveiling of everything that He is.The display of the Lord Jesus in us. Christ in you the hopeof glory.

THE GATHERING OF THE REMNANT ELECTIt is in the divine thought and desire of God that there wouldbe an election of men, a remnant out of the human race thatwould be gathered into the Lord Jesus Christ. The Almighty

desires that gathering for the awesome purpose that in theLord Jesus the Almighty would be manifest. We are to begathered into Jesus so that in Him the Father Almighty Godwould be manifested before our eyes.

CONSIDER THE ACTUAL LORDS PRAYERI do not believe that what people call the Lords Prayer isthe Lords prayer at all. What men call the Lords Prayershould be called Our Prayer because He teaches us to prayand He gives unto us words that have become called TheLords Prayer. I think the real Lords Prayer can be found inJohn 17. It is there where we find that His prayer is that HisHeavenly Father would glorify Him and with that glory, Hecould glorify His Father. We learn in this prayer that theFather has given men unto Jesus for the express purpose ofkeeping the Word. We have been given unto Jesus, who isthe Living Word, that we might keep that Living Word whois a person, greatly joined to us, dwelling in us for alleternity. The eternal life that is before the beginning, comesto be manifest in this way that men would know the trueGod and the Lord Jesus Christ who was sent by the Fatherand came out from the Father into this fallen creation. In Hisprayer there comes to be something manifest that is most

unique. For the Lord prays to the Heavenly Father and thecry of that prayer is, Father glorify me with thine own self,with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

JESUS DESIRED THE LIFE AND GLORY

FROM BEFORE THE ARCHE TO MANIFESTIsnt it most interesting that the Lord Jesus desired to beglorified with the glory that He had with His Father beforecreation. Isnt it most interesting that He desired to bemanifest before the men whom the Father had given to Himby giving eternal life. Take a moment to think, the glory thatHe had with His Father before the world. He desired to havemanifest in Him before those who He had called. As menwere drawn into this organic relationship which is eternal in


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the heavens, He would manifest that glory before them asthe Father dwelled in Him and manifested what was frombefore the foundations of the world. We can begin to

understand what it means in the scripture when it states, Webeheld His glory. The glory of the relationship that He hadwith His Father before the foundations of the world.

I AM GLORIFIED IN THEMWhen Jesus prayed, He stated I pray for them, not theworld but for those who the Father had given eternal life to,and whom the Father had given unto Him. Jesus makes avery remarkable statement. All of the Fathers is His, and allthat is His is the Fathers and that He is glorified in them. Inthem His Father is manifested with the glory which He hadwith the Son from before the foundations of the world. Jesusdesires a church that is consumed with the reality of being

gathered unto Jesus Christ, and as the Father glorifies Jesuswith His own self, within their spirits where God abidesthere rings out the cry, Christ in us the hope of glory, ChristJesus in us glorified with the glory which He had with HisFather from before the foundations of the world.

PRISTINEWhat I am speaking of is very pristine. It is very eternal, it isvery full of glory, and it is very opposite death. Death isseparation from all that is glorious between the Father andthe Son and those in whom He chooses to glorify Himself. Irepeat, this is indeed very pristine. It is not earthen, but it isheavenward. Have you ever noticed that Jesus really had noplace in the earth? The foxes have holes, the birds havenests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lie His head. Whenyou notice the pristine prayer life of Jesus that is consumedwith the relationship that He had with His Father frombefore the arche, you will notice that the earth has no roomfor this display of life. Here Jesus is beaten and made lowand humiliated, but in the heavens he is exalted. Here is noroom for Him in the inn. Here is no home like the bird andfox have, but in the Heavens, He is seated at the right handof His Father.

PRISTINE VS EARTHEN SYSTEMS THAT

PRETEND TO WORSHIP GODIn Galatians 6 we find a unique expression of earthentheological systems that outwardly worship God butinwardly are enemies to prestine eternal life. In Galatians

6:12 we learn that within the realm of the church, there arethose that desire to make a fair show in the flesh of themembers that have gathered to worship Jesus as His body.Why do they desire a fair show in the flesh? So they do not

suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. They themselveswould not keep their systemization of error, but constrainedthe members of Jesus body to. Why? That they may glory


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glory which the Father gave Him would be given to theLords followers, and they would be one even as the Father

and the Son are one. He prayed to glorify them with theglory that they shared from before the foundations of the

world, that they would be one as He and His Father are one.What a difference between the Lord Jesus and the Galatians.What a difference in the types of glory. One glory is of theflesh, the other glory is of intimate eternal relationship. One

glory will manifest, one will be denied, and the eternal glorycan only manifest by the application of the mystery of thecross. Paul wrote it this way, God forbid that I should glorysave in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom theworld is crucified unto me and I unto the world. Can youdiscern the two glories at work in the church today? One is

very outward, one is very inward. One is full of muchactivity, the other is filled withstillness out of reverence. One is that man would look good, theother is that man would look awful, so awful that only hiding himin the cross would bring relief, and only beholding to the glory ofthe one who tabernacled amongst us would bring life.

MAN, MURDERER OF GLORY

MAN, BEARER OF GLORYDo you know the differences between the Gospels?Matthew, Mark, and Luke are to Galilee. Galilee representsthe Jews, Romans, and Greeks that were addressed by thewriters as to the person of Jesus. They were written byMatthew, Mark, and Luke as young men. John, however, isaddressed to Judea in the latter part of Johns life. Matthew,Mark, and Luke are about the person, but John is writtenfrom the perspective of man being in union with that person.The union is Jesus revealing His glory and man beholding it.The union is man in Jesus Christ as the Father glorifies Jesuswith His own self. The union is man meeting God in Jesusand beholding His glory.

JOHNS GOSPEL,

RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS ATTEMPTING TO MURDER

THE UNION

There are six separate words for the miracles of Jesus in the

Gospels. The expression of miracle that Jesus manifests themost in the Gospel of John is semeia, which is the miracle ofsigns. It is not the kind of signs that most men think of whenthey think of Jesus ministry in the New Testament, but it is

the ministry of a sign prophet. An example of a sign prophetcan be found in the book of Ezekiel where the messenger isno longer separated from the message, but he is the message.In Ezekiel 24:24 God states that Ezekiel is a sign unto Israel.

How is Ezekiel a sign? He stands in front of the wholecongregation and states that his wife will die and he does nothave permission to weep over her. Ezekiel stands in the


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temple. God married Israel according to Jeremiah theprophet on the night of the exodus during the times of signs

and glory. Now Israel has moved away from beholdingGods glory into an outward form of Judaism which

inwardly worshiped Bael, a condition I believe one can verymuch find in the American church today. Because the Israelitemple had lost sight of the glory of God, she was dead toHim, and God was no longer weeping over her apostasy. It

is interesting that the Greek word for adultery has the samemeaning as apostasy. The glory of God had been lost toIsrael and would not be again seen until Jesus came andJohn would write, we beheld His glory.

JESUS AS A SIGN PROPHET

Isaiah 7:14 identified that the Messiahs ministry would be a

sign. In John 2:11 we read the words, This beginning ofmiracles, (semeion-a sign), did Jesus in Canaan of Galileeand manifested His glory. With His sign ministry came themanifesting of glory with the express purpose that Hisdisciples would believe on Him. Follow the ministry ofsigns by chapter in the Gospel of John:John 2, The wedding at Cana; Jesus the Bridegroom of the newbirth by His blood water to wine.John 3, Jesus introduces to Nicodemus the sign of the cross;In likeness to Moses lifting up the serpent in the wildernessto put an end to death and a restoration to glory.John 4, As water would come from the heavenly temple toheal all the lands in creation, Jesus becomes the water of lifeto the dreaded Assyrian woman, (Samaritan woman at well),a sign that all nations can drink eternal water of life in Him.John 5, The Fountain Gate and Hezekiahs tapping Gihon tocreate a sheep market pool, where the man was impotent for38 years and needed Jesus to walk; A sign to Israel that after38 years in the wilderness, Moses would die representing thelaw, and after a two year period Joshua would lead thechildren of Israel into the promised land by grace. John 6:The Passover Feast of the Jews who constantly sought to killJesus is replaced by Jesus who Paul called the sign of the

Passover when he wrote, Christ who is our Passover, theone who makes sin pass over. John 7: When the Jews againseek to kill Jesus during the Jews Feast of Tabernacles,Jesus comes as the new feast of Tabernacles in whom

Zechariah says that every nation must come to Jerusalem tocelebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in the personal presenceof Jesus Christ or they will not receive water. John 8: Thewoman caught in adultery and given mercy while theproclamation to the religious system of the Jews was thattheir father is a murderer from the beginning without truth.That they in the systemization of error are liars and Jesus isthe great I Am, a sign at the burning bush, a sign ofdeliverance from bondage. We could go on and on to


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Chapter 11 and Lazarus, but it becomes necessary to touchfoot washing.

FOOT WASHING AND THE CLEANSING OFMEEKNESS

A careful observation of the book of John shows that ifworshipers serve the Lord without seeing His glory and thesigns of His glory ministry, that there is a certain terribleadulterous end. When men glory in the flesh and earthensystems are created, men become diabolically opposed tothe Lord Jesus and will try to kill Him. It is no differenttoday. Men will try to kill Jesus in you by burying you indirt. The dirt of gossip, the dirt of cruelty, the dirt of murder,the dirt of political power of numbers and churches, the dirtof hierarchy and apostasy. Jesus took His disciples aside andshowed them that the only way to escape the dirt of earthen

systems, that take us from beholding the glory He hadwith His Father, and being glorified with that glory, was bythe process of foot washing. The feet walk upon the earthand they absorb the earth. As we walk in this world, theearth will punish us and we will need to b cleansed by the

meekness of foot washing. What Jesus did with footwashing had a greater spiritual significance than the physicalact of cooling and cleansing tired dirty feet. That onlyrepresented the smaller part of something far moresignificant. We wash ourselves from the earthen intentionsof this world when we set our affections on things that areabove as we are instructed to in the book of Colossians andwhen we set our mind on things above we behold the LordJesus being glorified with the person of the Father. As weare gathered into Him, he glorifies us with the revelation ofthe humble lamb who came into the earth to taste death forus, that He might be the Highly Exalted Lamb that opens theSeven Seals that consummates the age. That we are to havethe mind of humility and wash one another by a corporategathering unto Him. Here we are made low, while He isexalted. For He was made low that we would be exalted andglorified to touch the heavenlies.

LORD LISTER

The meekness I speak of was such a threat to the Pharisaicalsystems in the times when Jesus walked the earth that theydirtied Jesus walk and reputation with lies. Theyendeavored to destroy who He was with false witnesses, if

they kept His walk with a dirt attack, they will keep ours aswell. In fact the Lord said that we should not be offended bythis and he warned us about this in advance. In the 1800swhen men were wounded they would largely die because

other men with earthen hands would operated on them.Within their earthen, unwashed hands was the bacteria of theearth, and such bacteria would invade and destroy the body


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in warfare today. In the 1840s, Lord Lister became aphysician and practiced in a conscientious way medicine

with a consciousness of cleansing the earth from his hands.The result was a dramatic increase in the health of his

patient populous, and a great criticism and persecution ofLord Lister and his medical practices. His consciousness ofbeing cleansed from the earth freed his hands to bring life toailing bodies who would be healed in an atmosphere of

cleanliness. The next time you use Listerine, remember LordLister because you wont be able to name his persecutors.The Bible states that the fear of the Lord is clean. Let ourhands touch the body of Christ in a foot washing way with aconsciousness that the glory that is in the Son who is above,forms in us to free us from the earthen, and the disease of

the systemization of error. Let us as Gods people have anawareness of the earthen being washed from us, because wehave been washed and cleansed by beholding His glory, thelor He had with His Father before the arche.

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the seed of the alabaster box 06-01-2002

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