To begin with, I shall read several Scriptures which apply to tonight’s message, as well as to the continuation in two weeks. 

2.Cor.1:21-22: “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God,
who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge (or down payment).”

1.John 2:20: “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.” (N.A.S.V.; Interlinear) (‘and you all know [the Truth]’. Amplified).

Eph.1:9-10: “He [God in Christ] made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention (Lit. good pleasure) which He purposed in Him
with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him.
i.e. {Christ}”.

Col.1:24-27: “[I Paul]...do my share on behalf of His Body (which is the Church) in filling up that which is lacking in (Lit. of) Christ’s afflictions...to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery...which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

1.Tim.3:16: “...great is the mystery of godliness...”

2.Thess.2:1-7: “...For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work;...”

Psa.133: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment poured on the head, that ran down on the beard, even the beard of Aaron [the first high priest], that came down upon the collar and skirts of his garments [consecrating the whole body]. (Exod.30:25,30).             
It is like the dew of [lofty] Mount Hermon and the dew that comes on the hills of Zion; for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, even life forevermore [upon the high and the lowly].”  (the Amplified)                                   

As was said earlier when we started these meditations, one of the purposes of the Church in God’s mind is for the suitable habitation of His Son upon the earth, a place separated unto God for heavenly purposes.

The foreshadowing of this was to be seen in Shiloh during Samuel’s day.

And, as we have seen earlier, Jehovah’s intervention at that time was a re-direction of the people toward His purpose and design.

It is the Church that is now separated unto God for His heavenly purposes.

It is made up of sanctified believers, who are to be that habitation that stands true to the reality of Christ in its midst.

Here, Christ is in completeness in the heart of His people who have become His seat of government.

It is here that He is in His rightful place upon the earth as He ministers from His heavenly, exalted place.

For this, His Church, needs to know two very important heavenly features of the Lord God: first, is the significance of His anointing in its very heart of life.

And, the second is the importance of acknowledging His Sovereignty in all its Being.

We have seen both of these features in the light of individual ministry.

Now, let us view them in the light of the Church and its ministry and function, starting first, with His anointing of the Church.

A few weeks ago we looked at what the condition of the Lord’s people was during Samuel’s time.

The priests, individually, were sadly lacking in the personal commitment of their calling.

Except for a remnant, the state of the relationship of the entire nation to Jehovah was in a great spiritual emptiness.

The very heart of it was far from the living God, far from seeing Him as their ruler and King, far, far from a conscious and endearing love for Him.

As I mentioned last week, the nation, as a whole, stood still and the Lord went right on past them as He moved toward His full intention and design.

He went straight to Samuel and placed upon Samuel His anointing that would carry His intention onward through the kings and prophets that followed, and on through to the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Samuel spoke, it was God’s anointing that was the spark that said: ‘This is coming from the mouth of God.- 
This is My divine message that will land and take root in divinely-prepared hearts who will become My vehicle to carry on the grand purpose of My heart upon the earth.’

And, thus, the Lord was able to move, right down to His Church, where we, as a very small part of it, are today. 

Here is where my burden lies in this part of our Lord’s Body.

We are part of our Lord’s full Body and the very heart of us, to continue carrying on His program in the earth, needs some strengthening, needs some lifting-up, needs some corrections in attitudes, needs some admonitions to go on.

You have heard me say before, in regard to individual ministry, that there cannot be anointed preaching without anointed hearing.

That is just as true in a corporate sense.

The very heart of Christ’s Body must desire from its very core of Being, the anointing of the Holy Spirit to thrive and blossom to full bloom.

It must hunger, even have a craving appetite, for the oil of His anointing, that oil that “runs down Aaron’s beard from his head to the hem of his garment.”

Nothing less than that intense desire for our Lord’s anointing will do.

Oh, how my heart is burdened for a deeper desire and love for Him that would course throughout His Body, where everything else is set aside and the intent of being together is simply to hear from Him.

The Church is to “dwell together in unity”, brought together in the consciousness of the glory of God among us characterized by a blessed joy.

We cannot expect His anointing to run from His head to the ‘hem of our garment’ when we are occupied with other affairs under the pretense of listening to His message to us.

To be occupied like that and not be fastened on our Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, from Whom the anointing comes, is making a mockery of the ministry of His Church.

This anointing is too, much too important to treat it so haphazardly.

The oil was strictly forbidden to be used in common life.

The sons of Aaron were only sprinkled with a few drops of oil.

But Moses poured the holy oil on Aaron’s head signifying the high-priesthood in all the fullness of its divine consecration.

The ‘dew of Mt. Hermon’ in verse 3 of the Psalm is likened to this holy oil of this consecration.

As the holy, precious oil trickles down Aaron’s beard to the hem of his garment, permeating throughout, so the Spirit of God permeates the Church and binds it together in unity.

It is like the pristine dew of the morning that brings a freshness to the start of the day, a refreshing, a quickening power of awakened life.

Such is God’s anointing of His Church: a possession of all possessions, a blessing of all blessings.

Jesus always spoke with anointed words, words for which the very heart of the Church ought to be listening, always, and - especially when we are together corporately.

The Church has been given the authority to be the channels of those anointed words, but it cannot be pure, clear channels if its heart does not care and refuses to put out from its mind these obstacles that obstruct His anointing.

We need to pray, -  oh, how we need to pray that this would be our desire in this part of His Body.

I do hope you will join with me in that prayer in your private times of ‘intercession’ before the Lord.

We need to pray that His oil of anointing is allowed to flow freely - with no blockage - through every vein in His Body - not only this part of His Church, but throughout all of His people upon the earth.

All of us together must seek to live wholly in this City of our God, His Church, looking for and expecting His constant, consistent, conscious anointing among us, this part of His people.

For it is this unity, the concord of kindred souls, that commands the Lord’s blessing.

The ointment from Aaron’s beard suggests a pervading influence of the fragrance of Christ.

It is most holy, sanctified and priceless, and not to be used for ordinary things.

It brings refreshment and joy, spiritual richness to us all, and to those who have yet to be reached, and a fulfillment of that longing for a wider fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

We need that which we, in ourselves cannot command, but which comes naturally, as the dew of Mt. Hermon, if we put ourselves into that attitude to desire to receive it alone.

It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that will drive out all the attitudes and temptations contrary to His anointing so that what remains is knit together ever more firmly.

This anointing is a ‘secret’ known only to God and to the Church that has been so blessed.

Deut.29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” - 
this ‘law of the Spirit of Life’.

That special, ‘unknown-to-the-world’ divine consecration of His Church is a blessing we do not want to lose or treat lightly.

That is ‘the first aspect’ of His anointing, which brings us to ‘the next aspect’ of His anointing that deals with ‘the mystery of godliness’ and its opposite, that of ‘the mystery of lawlessness’.

Lord willing, we will look into that two weeks from tonight.

Next week is Easter so - as I said earlier - we will not be here for the evening meeting.

The Easter message will be combined with the worship service on Easter Sunday morning.

In the meantime, would you seriously take this matter of the anointing of the Church before the Lord, please.

Let us seek Him earnestly about it in our hearts; have dealings with Him about this matter.

Let us search out our hearts honestly in His very presence and see what the Lord will reveal in them that may hinder His going on in the corporateness of His Body.

If there is something there, let us not be afraid nor slack about getting this taken care of within ourselves.

Ponder again Psalm 133: -
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to             dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment poured on the head, that ran 
down on the beard, even the beard of Aaron [the first high priest], that came down upon the collar and skirts of his garments [consecrating the whole body]. (Exod.30:25,30).   
It is like the dew of [lofty] Mount Hermon and the dew that comes down on the hills of Zion; for there the Lord has commanded the blessing, even life forevermore [upon the high and the lowly].”

The anointing of the Holy Spirit coming directly from the hand of our God through Jesus Christ is God’s hallowed, sacred, untouchable, ever-enduring order for His Church.

May we, as His Church always regard it with the greatest of reverence and awe.
 
Amen.

Continuation:

1.Tim.3:16: “...great is the mystery of godliness...”

2.Thess.2:1-7: “...For the mystery of lawlessness is already
              at work;...”

Two weeks ago we were occupied with ‘the first aspect’ of God’s anointing of the Church which is now separated unto God for His heavenly purposes.

Tonight we want to reflect on ‘the second aspect’ of His anointing that deals with ‘the mystery of godliness’ and its opposite, that of ‘the mystery of lawlessness’.

We want to notice, as we go on, that within the walls of the 
representation of His heavenly City is ‘the hidden mystery of godliness’ in which God’s self-revelation continues to be revealed in Christ and is made effective in the very heart of the Church.

In the Corinthian passage that I read last time, (2.Cor.1:21-22), Paul addressed the Church concerning the problem of vacillation and motive.

In his answer, Paul pointed to the constant activity of God in producing stability in all of God’s people.

He made the statement that God has equipped them with the means of keeping the testimony of Jesus Christ true and sure.

And that means is by His divine anointing through His Holy Spirit.

He told them that this heavenly Gift has been established within their midst in Christ.

Christ has been implanted there, placed at their very center, by virtue of being in each one of them.

And along with this placement of Christ, there is also the anointing, the consecrating by God of this Treasure He has placed there as a security.

By this, the Church is established already in Christ so that God can make known ‘the mystery of godliness’ which would continue the uninterrupted course of God’s moving onward to His ultimate design.

This would be God’s constant activity that would continuously strengthen their faith in Christ and continuously enrich their knowledge of Him in ‘the mystery of godliness’.

This mystery would be the true and only way to the fulness of salvation, given by God in Christ Jesus Who imparts ‘the mystery of godliness’.

It involves, not merely the knowledge about Jesus Christ, His teaching and His Life on earth, but also supremely, the experience of the Living Christ in the lives of all who make up the Church.

It is a mystery, a secret, a here-to-fore unknown truth, a way of living in God which, in all previous history of the world, men, for all their ingenuity and knowledge, had never been able to discover for themselves, much less achieve.

The mystery was unknown and unattainable until God revealed it in His act of history through the life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ.

And now it has been made known to the heart by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the fact Paul has declared to the Corinthians.

There is no bestowal of it by men who imitate and falsify it through mystical initiations, ceremonies, secret installations, and other means and imaginings.

It is a mystery that outstrips human understanding and human devices.

Reasonable analysis cannot apprehend it.

Bitter debate cannot explain it.

Re-interpretations cannot change it. 

But God has ordained this to be a mystery hidden in the very heart of the Church as the means to protect His purpose to its very consummation in the age to come.

It is to keep the Church on the straight course without deviations and without surrendering to all the temptations that seek to block the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The mystery is simply the Christian Gospel of the salvation of Jesus Christ in its fullest realization.

It is the triumph of God’s Son worked out in the splendor and victory of His holiness emanating out from His Church.

It is His work of consecration that is true holiness and that keeps the Church in union with Himself.

In short, it is His abiding anointing as spoken of in 1.John 2:27.

And it is through this anointing that God has summoned the Church to guard this testimony of Jesus Christ.

With all the present attractions facing the Church today, it is important to understand fully this covering of the divine anointing and its absolute need as the distinguishing feature of its existence.

Since it is centered in Jesus Christ, and since it is through the Church that it is to be transmitted, the Church is the bulwark of its truth in the world today.

It has been marked by this anointing and has been set apart in holiness as a community that worships ‘the living Triune God’.

On the other side of this is ‘the mystery of lawlessness’ violently opposing this ‘great mystery of godliness’, the lawlessness that is seeking to lure Christians from their 
faith and stand in Christ.

This ‘mystery of lawlessness’ sells out to the immediate  that which is Eternal, negating the ‘mystery of godliness.’

It defies God’s history of His salvation work in Christ and seeks to blind eyes and dull the spiritual hearing.
 
It is that secular spirit that assumes that this material world is the end of things, with no spiritual meaning to it, with no spiritual purpose, and with no continuing activity of God.

It is the spirit of pride that prompts a man to put himself first with his own understanding of things, thus blocking the vision of God’s design, just as the priests of Samuel’s days had done.

John, in his letter of 1.John 2:18-28, took up this mystery of defiance against the testimony of Jesus Christ in the Church.

He warned that there are those seducers who are of the world (verse 18), who deny Christ (verse 22).

He actually called them ‘antichrists’ and ‘liars’.

In this passage, John is dealing with the discernment by the Church of these antichrists.

Over in 2.Thessalonians, Paul identified this lawlessness as opposing and exalting against God and taking ‘his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God’. 

They were seeking to subvert the living Truth of the living Person of Christ within the Church.

This should have been no surprise to any, since the world is always under the influence of this ‘mystery of lawlessness’, and so it has no need to waste its energies there to subvert Christ’s Truth.

The only logical place would be to be in the ‘seat of the temple of God’.

It was within the community of believers that there were those who denied that Jesus is the divine Son of God and introduced the lie of false christs, a blatant substitution of man himself opposing the actual Christ and His completed work.

This mystery of iniquity infected and distorted the truth of Christ from its very beginnings.

And its impurity continued and permeated through to this present age.

It is even now going so far as to negate Christ as the divine Son of God altogether and making man himself the mediator between himself and God Almighty.

It is a subtle, hidden opposition that is making its ‘last ditch effort’ to govern the hearts of men in place of Christ’s government.

So, ‘the antichrists’ have joined the lawlessness and, of their own free will, are insisting on choosing hell in their denial of Christ as they side with the seducer.

That is a very strong allegation that John has made in his letter to those who have left the company of believers.

In fact, it is such a serious charge that Jesus, in Mark 13:22, had already warned that, ‘if it were possible, even the elect’, that is - the Church - would come under its influence.

But, it is the Church that is to be the vanguard against this increasing onslaught that is against the testimony of the living Christ.

And, to equip the Church with the defence against this, both Paul and John have given the means to withstand this.

It is through the ‘anointing unguent’, the application of the Holy Spirit.

It is the anointing of His Spirit that is the token that we are in the Father and in His Son in the midst of the Church upon His seat of government there.

It is what governs the Church to ‘stay the course’ of Christ and know that it is to be God’s holy ground of operation upon the earth today.

John spoke it in 1.John 4:6: “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 

1.John 2:22-23: “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.”

Jesus, in Matt.11:27 prayed to His Father, saying, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

To accept Jesus Christ and be hidden in ‘the mystery of His godliness’ is to also accept the Father.

To deny Jesus Christ is to deny the Father.

And to say ‘God is my Father’ without acknowledging  Jesus Christ is a lie.

There are many who can freely speak of “God”, and yet cannot honestly give Jesus Christ His rightful place in their hearts.

As I have mentioned previously, we keep seeing more and more an attack on ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ as not being Who He said He is.

We really should not be all that surprised, since Jesus Christ has always been an enigma to the world, which cannot discern nor understand ‘spiritual realities’.

Of course, the same applies to “none-spiritual Christianity”, for it is impossible for ‘the natural mind’ to comprehend ‘spritual things’.

And so, being spiritually blind, they can see ‘the Son of God Incarnate’ only as a human being and His Divine claims as fraud.

To insist on knowing God without acknowledging His divine Son, Jesus Christ, Who is the Head of the Church, is a deception and a delusion - straight and clear!

And let me repeat again, that unless Jesus Christ stands conspicuously high and above all, then the Church is not the ‘Church’.

It is in the Church that only Christ must be recognized and exalted above all.

And to leave Him out is exactly what the ‘mystery of lawlessness’ is seeking to do. 

It is against the Lord’s Anointed, His Christ, that this ‘mystery of lawlessness’ is directed.

And, since the Church is Christ’s inner circle, this is the place where this lawlessness would seek to establish a footing.

But the Church need not fear this intrusion.

It needs only to recognize it and have nothing to do with it.

If the Church abides in Christ, in its everyday life in which it is indelibly stamped by the anointing received from Him, then that reality is what makes the difference in the Church’s function and program.

>The form into which the Church, then, is growing is in the >form of the One in Whom it dwells and in the One Who >dwells in it where it is continually being replenished by Him >(Rom.8:31-39; 2.Cor.4:7-12)

Regarded from the view of God’s eternal design, the Church is a family with an open heart whose motives are thoroughly and honestly searched in the light of the ‘mystery of godliness’, abiding in its midst.

When the Church centers itself in God’s claims, and intentions for it, it will always remember the One to Whom it is accountable and from Whom it draws its strength and direction.

Only His anointing can guarantee this and as the Church acknowledges this, its very doing of right shows that it is God’s established, anointed witness of Christ.

And it is only by His anointing that this position can be confirmed so solidly, so boldly, and so strongly.

It is only on that fact that the Church can resist the antichrists who seek to overthrow the testimony of God’s divine Son.

The psalmist’s wise prayer in Psa. 119:18 of “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Thy law.”
has disclosed the way to the mysteries of grace and godliness to the Church.

For “...a man can receive nothing, unless it has been given him from heaven.” Jesus announced in John 3:27.

With this heavenly gift, the Church abides permanently in the truth of Christ and is kept in it as the anointing abides in it.

It stands firm in the unmistakable and positive message that is to be proclaimed: Jesus Christ is the Divine Son of God!

It stands firm in the trustworthiness and faithfulness of God Whose sure Word is truth.

It stands established in the proclamation that it is under the unction of the Holy Spirit.

It attests to God’s constant activity of consecrating the Church unto Himself as He commissions and imparts all that is needful to know His truth, testify of His truth, and to live His truth.

In short, the Lord has equipped the Church to walk in 
‘the mystery of godliness’, its crown of His glory that keeps the testimony of Jesus Christ true and sure.