“INTERCESSION: summons to the Church - present day 
                 concern for an intercession ministry”

Let me start out by saying that the call for the Church to prayer and intercession is no small thing! 

It is a very serious ministry, one that requires the “seeing” eye, along with the concerned, tender, moved heart toward carrying forward God’s work upon the earth, and the willingness to be called to the work of intercession.

Such a call to the Church is God’s sanction upon it, an indication that He is regarding the Church as the faithful Trustee of His ultimate Thought in His salvation history.

If this is, in fact, God’s call upon this particular part of His Church in the earth today - and, I firmly believe it is, and some others to whom I have spoken are also increasingly realizing it - then, I do pray that its seriousness will be received with the kind of heart in which the Gospel of His Son sits enthroned.

For the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, not only a message of the divine heart to the world, but it is also a divinely-given life, both of which require a divinely-wrought vigilance, lest the truth of Jesus Christ and His work is compromised or obscured in present day suppositions.

Therefore, tonight, I would like to concentrate on some of these current thoughts that make the Church’s call to intercession so imperative.

By this time, it is clear to the Church that God does not misspend His divine empowerment on those whose motives are selfish.

No - His purpose is to carry on the work of Jesus Christ in His redemption of fallen humanity, to continue onward toward the designs purposed in His eternal counsels.

We have seen, thus far, that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is to be revealed a conception and a design with which every movement and act of God throughout the ages is related one to the other in an ordered advancement.

And, it centers on the Sovereignty of God, in His Son Who is the focal point, the circumference, and everything between these two points; in other words, Who is “all in all”.
(1.Cor.12:6; 15:28; Eph.1:23; Col.3:11).

The ‘all-in-all’ness of Christ is the present revelation toward which God is moving and the impact of that truth is becoming progressively closer and firmer as God continues His advance.

In this series, we noted that the Good News of Jesus Christ had its foundation in Eternity past.

I pointed out, from the start, that Israel was the corporate vehicle of establishing this plan upon the earth, a plan in which the people would be His possession, a possession through whom a kingdom of priests and kings would develop for the furtherance of God’s full Thought.

It was through Samuel, after the priesthood had fallen into deep corruption, that God restored His divine communication with His people following a long period of silence between them.

He chose Samuel to whom He opened up the windows of heaven to His people, to let the revelation of His plan, the love of His divine heart, pour forth and press onward.

When things were set in divine order, thereafter, the Lord appeared once again in Shiloh, the city of His dwelling place. (1.Sam.3:19-21).

The city marked out His dwelling place upon the earth, the witness of His presence, and the restoration and continuance of His divine plan.

This dwelling place in the city symbolized the corporate personality of His mind and thought, - a thought,- later, - that was to become actualized in Zion, God’s Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem.

It was to become His Church, united in Spirit, as the great spiritual force that would reign upon the earth, a body of ‘kings and priests’ unto Himself. (Rev.5:10).

This City of God would operate within His governing thought as the way of unveiling His omnipotence, His sovereignty, His glory, His faithfulness, and His righteousness.

His governing thought, His anointing message by which the Church would operate, would concentrate on His ultimate goal of His divine Son’s ‘all-in-all’ness. 

The very heart of the Church would be enshrined in the mystery of godliness, the perfect righteousness of His Son, and would be the answer to the lawlessness that seeks to pervert and misconstrue the truth of God in Jesus Christ - the truth of His glory, the fullness of His Person, and the truth of the fullness and flawlessness of His accomplished work.
We have come to the place in our present world situation where this truth of the Gospel of God’s glory in Jesus Christ is so very, very much on trial that it is being persistently and deliberately set against the worldly standard of ‘educated’ thought.

I do not know if you remember Marian’s sharing in the beginning of summer or not.

It was about Job, the righteousness that was put to the test: ‘will Job serve God for nought?’ (Job 1:9)

And, after the testings and all the hard, harsh trials, the crux of the matter boiled down to a face-to-face sight of the sovereignty, glory, faithfulness, and righteousness of the Most High God that caused Job to look at himself in that light and to repent for even considering his petty problems - they had become as ‘dung’ to him in that glorious heavenly light.

So utterly great and so utterly important and so utterly, superlatively divine is God’s glory in comparison that all that mattered to Job was to embrace only the Most High God.

It swallowed up every other interest that gripped him. 

And, finding his heart with God alone, his ripened spirit of consecration to God’s glory came through, loud and clear.

It is imperative that we, the Church, know the truth of these features of God - see them as Job saw them - in order to be rightly concerned in the furtherance of His superlative glory that is seen in the face of His Son.

The reason this fact struck me is because that is the true position of the tested and tried Church which, thereby, has been made ready to be true intercessors because only the glory of God has now become its concern.

We, personally, have been made aware that - through the many testings, trials, and hard situations, - the heart of His Church has been graciously opened to this majestic and awesome view of Himself through Jesus Christ. 

And it has become so captivated and delighted with it that the Church, with one heart and mind, will compassionately, willingly, and vigilantly give itself to His Purpose upon the earth, as Job did to the glory of God that was visible to him.

This brings us to our study for tonight in which we would quickly like to look at some of the perversions and the obscurings in some of the current thoughts surrounding the Gospel of Jesus Christ today, the good news as proclaimed by the Scriptures, and then see the actual Church’s call.

In this, I am staying strictly with that one subject and not addressing the various doctrines that have separated one from another in the various denominations.

And, neither am I addressing the new-age ideas that are simply offshoots to what Paul and the others confronted in the New Testament times, such as ‘mediums contacting the dead and proclaiming it to be the work of God’, chants mimicking the Holy Spirit, exorcisms, and the like.

Today’s Generation X’ers are being introduced to similar doses of mystery and atmosphere with the various touches from different religions and traditions, to induce worship of the living God.

The added mysticism and the mythological images are prevalent in popular films, such as Star Wars, that make allusions and comparisons to Biblical characters and principles, so it is especially easy for those not established in Christ as ‘all-in-all’ to be influenced toward opposing Scriptural thought.      

Even the current emphasis on ‘angels’, as right as the language might sound at times, has the tendency to usurp the place of Jesus Christ.

But these things can be easily recognized for what they are, obvious deviations of which Christ is definitely not part.

My position on that remains the same: Jesus Christ, in all His purity and beauty, must be the only attraction that the Church has to offer.

But, there are the subtle nuances concerning the work and present ministry of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit that the Church must see and be vigilant about as it seeks to intercede on behalf of God’s full Thought in His Son upon the earth.

First of all, you may be well aware that Christ’s atoning work as the only means of salvation is being violently attacked.

His deity is being denied, His Incarnation, His humanity, His sinlessness, and all the essential truths of His saving Person, both human and divine, are being cast aside.

His life of perfect righteousness that satisfied the divine justice of God is being held in the balances of either man’s approval or man’s rejection, as if man is in any position to set himself up as judge of that.
There is such a denial of the sad, fallen condition of mankind. 

It asserts, instead, that man is essentially good, and possesses his own divine qualities to master his own salvation. 

There is the outright denial that believers are justified by Christ’s righteousness alone, righteousness imputed to us by God’s gracious act of mercy in which He declares sinners “just” on that basis alone.

Some are declaring that everything depends on one’s works of righteousness, shunning and negating the fact that it is only “...according to His [God’s] mercy He saved us...”, (Titus 3:5), being “justified by the faith of Christ...” (Gal.2:16).

And the ‘works’ are carried on as the means of getting better, making the world a better place, doing good deeds toward becoming better people; in short, they see this as the means of sanctification that does away with the spiritual union with Christ Whose victory over sin is the only means of assuring the believer of a sanctified life in Him.

And, more and more - it seems - there is the present day acceptance of the Gospel as a mere tongue-in-cheek assent to Christ’s work without acknowledging one’s sinfulness as it is revealed to the heart in the blazing light of Christ’s righteousness.

Have you noticed how many can now speak the ‘religious language’ and yet be far from actually being a partaker of it? 

This deliberate continuing in sin in defiance to walking in reliance upon Christ is today’s norm in the Christian world, 
I am sad to say.

All of these subtle departures from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ depreciates His atoning work and His present exalted ministry.

These are the pitfalls that burden the Church’s heart to cause it to fall on its knees before the Sovereign God in effectual intercession.

It is absolutely no wonder that one of the highlights of Christ’s public ministry was the time of His transfiguration with the emphasis upon ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ and the message of “Jesus only” to His disciples. 

“Jesus only”! 

Every single soul who accepts Jesus Christ, Who He is, in His perfected humanity and in His divine Character, the atoning work He has accomplished, the salvation work He is ministering from His exalted place, - every single soul who accepts Him in all of His Person who sees, knows, and worships Him alone - is a vindication of God’s wisdom in His salvation plan through Jesus Christ.

Let me repeat that statement: ‘every single soul who accepts Him in all of His Person who sees, knows, and worships Him alone - is a vindication of God’s wisdom in His salvation plan through Jesus Christ.’

It says, “Yes, God’s plan of Salvation in Jesus Christ, ‘God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ’, is absolutely so!!  And - it is absolutely needful!”
Thus, with the conversion of each soul down through the ages, God’s salvation plan in His Son is verified, and He is vindicated.

It is His work actually taking place in His salvation history.

And the Church is called to be the means of God’s vindication in His salvation history, to be so concerned about this one thing, ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’, that it will stand in unanimity regarding this as it counts all else as ‘nothing’, as ‘dung’, in its sight.

Is this not exactly what Zephaniah meant in Zeph.3:9?

There, it is written: “For then I will give to the people a clear and pure speech from pure lips, that they may call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one unanimous consent and one united shoulder [bearing the yoke of the Lord]”, the ‘yoke’ referring to oxen in the yoke that draw evenly.

He characterizes God’s people as responsive people whose one heart has been purified to call upon the Name of the Lord.

Prayer was to be their spiritual offering by which they serve God with ‘one unanimous consent’ and with ‘one united shoulder’.

When God set the course of history toward restoration, He made the way by engaging His Church, His spiritual City, to mark out His dwelling place, to be the witness of His presence upon the earth, to be the instrument that would carry on with His divine plan.

It would bear the “yoke of the Lord” in the divine ministry assigned to it.

With caution and deliberation, His Church is to speak in a clear, pure speech, with words that will come from purified hearts, hearts that are vitally concerned with the manifestation of His glory upon the earth, as it is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

It is no wonder that the heart of God is set on His Son.

It is no big wonder that He is concerned that the light of Jesus Christ is kept in its purity and in its perfect, undiminished totality.

And, is it not a wonder of wonders, that the Church is the Trustee of this “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”?

This is one of the most marvelous proofs of the excellency of God’s power, - that an earthen vessel, - you, me, - all of the Church, - could bear such splendour and have such a Treasure in its midst, and the Divine Person entrusting this earthen vessel with Himself.

It is no wonder that His preparatory work in the hearts of His own is so thoroughly and completely executed through the power of His Son’s work in and among them, so they are able to see clearly the glory of God in His Church.

Re-read 2.Corinthians 4:6-7 once again in this light. 

It says: “For God Who commanded His light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this teasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

Imagine! - The light we see in ‘the face of Jesus Christ’ is the light that gives us ‘the knowledge of the glory of God’.

Jesus Christ, in the midst of the Church, brings the light of knowing God’s glory in His Person.

And when this ‘all-in-all’ness of His Son is realized, we can understand why Zephaniah prophesied that the Church will call upon Him with unanimous consent, with one mind set on the furtherance of ‘the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ’, one heart, with one united shoulder.

The Church - the tried and trusted Church - the Church that is now concerned with this one consuming issue - has been placed in the position to effectively answer the call to its ministry of intercession.

When you stop to think about it, can you imagine anything more bold on God’s part - knowing we humans as He does - to make the Church the Trustee of the Gospel of His dear Son?

Can you fathom why He would call the Church to be the ‘wall of intercession’ for the furtherance of the manifestation of His glory upon the earth?

Who could have thought that such a highly regarded divine Plan that God purposed in the Eternal Ages past would find its vanguard in the hands of human instrumentality?

And, here we are today, the Church, about to gather in unanimity, ready to devote itself to its ministry of intercession for the ongoing movement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

When it is summoned with this call it stands ready to devote itself to this ministry of intercession for the ongoing movement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that Gospel that is unadulterated, full and complete, just as it is - no additions, no other attractions, no subtleties, no substitutes.

So, Lord willing, with this as the beckoning summons to the Church today, we will look further into this ministry and start by viewing ‘Christ in intercession’, first, and then going on into some of ‘the Old Testament examples’. 

Lord willing, this will give us a greater understanding of intercession for the purpose of God’s glory to be perfectly manifested in the earth today.