Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelambert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates.
In today's episode, we'll be listening to Chapter two of the audiobook for the Importance of Covering by Lance Lambert. In this chapter, narrated by Michael Cross, Lance shares that covering means being spiritually positioned in Christ. As Christians, we don't need to fight to get undercovering, since God has already placed us there. But we must learn to stay where he has positioned us and return quickly when we move out of that place of safety. The complete audiobook is available for purchase and you can find the link in the show Notes. For now, let's listen to Chapter two of the Importance of Covering.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: The Meaning of covering Psalm chapter 914 he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the lord, he is my refuge and my fortress my God in whom I trust for he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the deadly pestilence he will cover thee with his pinions, and under his wings shalt thou take refuge.
His truth is a shield and a buckler.
John 15 verses 1 to 11 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away and every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit already. Ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit for apart from me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father, glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and so shall ye be my disciples. Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you.
Abide ye in my love if ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Psalm 118:1 17 O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good for his loving kindness endureth forever.
Let Israel now say that his loving kindness endureth forever. Let the house of Aaron now say that his loving kindness endureth forever.
Let them now that fear the Lord say, that his loving kindness endureth forever.
Out of my distress I called upon the lord. The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place.
The Lord is on my side I will not fear.
What can man do unto me? The Lord is on my side among them that help me. Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me. It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
All nations compassed me about.
In the name of the lord I will cut them off.
They compassed me about like bees they are quenched as the fire of thorns. In the name of the Lord, I will cut them off.
Thou didst thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous.
The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord.
The matter of covering is a vitally important and necessary subject overlooked by the vast majority of Christians.
It is because it is overlooked that there are so many casualties in the work of God, not only among young believers, but more especially among those who are older in the Lord.
Let no one think they are safe in this matter.
Not even the apostle Paul was safe.
No one is safe unless they first see the danger that surrounds them and always hide themselves in the Lord Jesus Christ in a deliberate defined act of faith. Day by day, whenever we feel a threatening from the enemy or from other things, such as circumstances or problems, we're we feel the enemy is in it. There should be a definite and deliberate act to hide ourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, for the walk of the believer, for the work of the believer, and for the warfare of the believer, this matter is absolutely vital.
This matter is one of the most profound and mysterious subjects in the whole Word of God. For the simple reason that it is not just to do with time.
Covering is not just to do with sin.
It goes right back before Sin was even found the anointed cherub that covereth above the glory of God. A covering.
I cannot explain it. All I can tell you is that there is beyond us an infinity in this subject.
Therefore, it behooves every one of us to be very humble in the presence of this matter and to recognize together that we are all learners.
Our position in Christ what does covering mean? It is summed up in a New Testament phrase which is used over 200 in Christ, the child of God, the believer, the sinner saved by the grace of God, has been placed by the sovereign power of God in his Son.
That is your position.
If you are a child of God, if you are a believer, if you have been born of the Spirit, if you have been saved through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary, then whether you know it or not, your position is in Christ.
You are not just a subject of Christ or a person related to Christ, but your position is in Christ.
That is where you are in the sight of God.
You are in Him.
He is not a child of God who is not in Christ.
There is no such thing as a Christian who is not in Christ, for it is synonymous.
It is impossible to be a child of God and not be in Christ.
If you are a child of God, you are in Him.
We have been through a survey of the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi.
God seemed to be, to put it almost irreverently, harping on this matter again and again and again.
On everything he did. He spoke of covering.
We even find the cherubim with three pairs of wings, two of which they use for covering the face and feet, and only one pair for flying.
It is a most extraordinary message. But it all starts to become clear when you understand that every true believer is in Christ.
That is your position. To be in Christ is to be covered.
You are covered by what he is, his holiness, his purity, his spotlessness, his righteousness, all that he is. Before God covers you, you are in Him.
If you are in him, you cannot be seen out of Him.
Why do so many Christians have consciences of evil?
Why do so many Christians have hang dog expressions? Why do so many Christians continually carry around this body of death moaning all the time about is? Because they have not seen that they are in Christ.
Many Christians will say, oh yes, of course, that is kindergarten, but they do not understand it. They think it is kindergarten, but have never seen what it means.
What does it mean to be in Christ?
It means we are in his holiness, covered by Him. When God looks, He sees Christ. When heaven looks, it sees Christ.
We are in him, hidden in Him. We are covered by what he is.
Of course, this is what it means to be justified.
It is so simple. It is quite fundamental. But do not think that anything fundamental is to be left behind.
The foundation governs every single part of the building and carries all the weight of the building.
This whole matter is tremendous.
Old Testament Pictures and Symbolism Suddenly we begin to find all the Old Testament pictures and symbolism start to mean something. They are summed up in this matter of being in Christ, covered in Him.
Here are a few as they are found in the stronghold.
In Hebrew, metsuda means stronghold.
Christ is that to the believer you can get right into him. You are hidden in Him. A whole city can be hidden in that great rock. He is fortress. He is stronghold. He is strong. Tower.
The righteous run into it and and is safe.
Refuge.
He is refuge. He is the wings under which we have come to dwell.
It speaks again and again of wings in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy it speaks a number of times of wings. Also in many of the Psalms it speaks of wings. But it is all the same thing. We have come to dwell under his wings.
His wings are like a protection that cover us in Christ.
Shield and buckler I don't really fully understand what a buckler is, but a shield is one kind of shield and a buckler is another kind of shield.
Therefore he is shield and shield, shield and buckler. He is the rock in whom I take refuge.
House.
He is the house.
Now that is something to think about. He is the house of God to which I come.
One thing have I asked of the Lord. That will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Psalm 27:4.
When you are in Christ, you will find he is the house of God.
The house of God is not a building. The house of God is not an organization.
The house of God is not an institution.
The house of God is a person. It is Christ.
We come into him as the temple of God. The Lord Jesus said, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
They thought he spoke of that great building called the temple. But in fact he was speaking of his body.
He spoke of something that was going into death, into burial, and into resurrection.
When it came out into resurrection, it was going to be the house of God. The temple of God forever in him.
Sanctuary.
The sanctuary is Christ.
When I came into the Sanctuary. Then I understood. I saw thy ways, O God. In the sanctuary in Christ you are hidden, covered in him.
Tabernacle the tabernacle had curtains all around. These curtains were of blue, scarlet, purple and white. They all spoke of Christ, of his redeeming work, of his heavenly nature, of his kingly nature, and of his absolute righteousness.
Over that there was another covering of goatskins, and over that another covering of badger skins or seal skins. We are not quite sure what they were.
There was covering after covering.
Every single thing speaks of some aspect of the Lord Jesus Christ. The tabernacle is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some people say the tabernacle is the church. But this is not wholly true.
The tabernacle speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the aspects of his being, of his character, of his nature, of his work. And you and I have come into the tabernacle of God.
Pavilion this is a word spoken of more as the palace.
He will hide me secretly in his pavilion.
In another place it says, he will hide me in his pavilion from the strife of tongues.
Psalm 31:20b.
It is like a king taking someone into the palace and hiding him in a secret place of a strongly fortified and guarded palace.
The Lord Jesus Christ is a pavilion into which you and I can come and be absolutely safe and feast with the king himself.
Hiding place in many places in the Scripture he is spoken of as a covert and covered place, something that is sort of secret.
He is the secret place of the Most High.
All these scriptures begin to take on meaning when you understand that they are all symbolic and all in picture form, are setting forth the fact that the believer, the child of God, has been placed by the sovereign power of God in in His Son.
These are all different aspects of that work, but it is all finally coming to the same thing.
Offerings.
However, there is something far more about this matter of being covered, and it is found in Leviticus in the first seven chapters.
Now I know what some young believers may feel, because I can remember myself as a young believer just starting to read Leviticus and dying a million deaths.
I could not think what all that business was about this offering and the law of this offering and that offering and the law of that offering. What did it have to do with us? In the 20th century, there was page after page, chapter after chapter, about details of each of these offerings, and it was obviously very important.
It was years afterwards that I began to understand how vital and how practical all this business was about offerings.
There are five offerings in those chapters. There is the burnt offering, the meal Offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering.
Christ is every one of those offerings. He is the fivefold offering for us.
He is the fivefold sacrifice for us. And it covers every single aspect of our relationship with God and with man.
In other words, we are covered by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are covered by the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the offering up of himself once for all time.
Burnt offering.
This has not so much to do with sin. The burnt offering is all to do with service, with worship.
Some people think that all you've got to do is consecrate yourself to God and fling yourself into the work of God.
That is the surest way you will get uncovered. How does God receive anything? He burns it up. He takes the whole and consumes it. Is there anyone ready for this?
But our Lord Jesus Christ has been offered up as the burnt offering.
Listen to him.
Lo. I come to do thy will. I delight to do thy will, O God. My ear hast thou digged or opened?
Psalm 46, 8. God has got his ear. But my service must always fail.
Why, if I had the zeal of the apostle Paul and were to labor like he did, or if I had the revelation and understanding and passion of the apostle John, still I would need the Lord Jesus Christ as my burnt offering. I could not plead anything of myself. I could not say, O God, see me. See what I have offered to you. See how devoted I am.
The further I go. The deeper I go with God, the more I must plead. The covering of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is my burnt offering. No service from me is acceptable apart from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Meal offering.
The meal offering speaks of humanity.
God always mixes this in with the other offerings because it is meal and not meat. It speaks of the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has anyone got perfect humanity?
No.
Oh, the kind of service we find so often in Christian circles. Mechanical, cold, hard, legal. According to regulation, it is not human.
The one thing we see about the Lord Jesus Christ is humanity.
The thing that shines through him when God is most revealed in him. As God is his humanity.
How can I know that the Lord Jesus was offered as that for me? And he is the only one who can bring that kind of humanity into me as the new man.
If I try to bring my old nature in and polish it up and rehash it and present it to God as a new kind of humanity, and it is an awful mess.
However, God can produce something in me as I take the covering of the Lord Jesus Christ as the new man.
Peace offering.
The peace offering was the one offering that we all shared. If you took the offering to the temple in the old days, you went in, sat down and ate it.
First the priests had their portion, then the Levites had their portion, and then it was handed back to you. And you and your family sat down in the temple courts and had a jolly good feast. It was called the peace offering not only because it spoke of peace between you and God, but peace between you and your brother and sister. You could commune together, you could participate together, and you could share together.
Do you know Christ covering you as the peace offering?
Our relationships are continually subjected to pressure. We have an enemy all the time. He breathes into our ear insinuations about one another all the time. He is trying to press things and relationships to the breaking point. Woe betide anyone who rests on this kind of line.
Well, I like so and so. He and I will never get parted. She and I will never get parted because we are buddies, we are friends.
You will find that when the devil gets to work, the dearest natural relationships will come to the breaking point. There is only one way through covering. The Lord Jesus Christ covers us because he was offered as our peace offering. And it is him that we share.
It is Himself.
Who is this offering that is offered up and given back to us to eat?
It is Christ.
As I offer up Christ. As I take back into my hands what God has offered for me. I share him with you and you share him with me.
Our relationship is Christ. Our unity is Christ.
We do not agree to agree. We do not just try to make our opinions the same. We hold to the oneness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is covering sin offering and trespass offering.
If someone has committed sin, we all understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is the sin offering.
But what about the trespass offering?
In these democratic days when there are such cockeyed ideas all over the place, you find that many Christians get this attitude.
God won't hold me responsible for doing something that I didn't even know was sin.
But that is just where you are wrong. You are being subjective. When you think that sin is only what you know to be sin. God help you. If you knew what sin really was, you would probably go into a mental home. It is in the mercy and grace of God that we do not understand the full capacity of sin and understand what we are capable of as human beings. We do not even understand what is inside us.
When a person sinned unwittingly, there was still an offering.
When a person sins, they sin.
The trespass offering speaks of God passing over sins because people did not know, but they were still sins.
Just because they did not know it, it did not keep it from being sin.
This is the thing that comes down again.
Sometimes we come to a meeting and it is so heavy and so dark, it. It is unwitting sin.
There is not a single soul in the company that could hold the Lord Jesus up as trespass offering.
We have found again and again that in the brothers time on Sunday morning when there has been a sense of heaviness and we have pleaded the Lord Jesus Christ as trespass offering and peace offering, immediately the atmosphere has been broken.
How do you explain that? Is it psychological or is it a matter of covering?
Sin has been committed. People have talked unwisely, people have prayed unwisely, or someone has done something unwisely.
Because we are all bound up together, we affect one another.
The invisible forces around us know all about it.
Ha. They say we've got them and they come in like a flood.
And what do people do as soon as a heaviness comes? They say, ooh, so and so.
We do blame flesh and blood. We really do blame flesh and blood.
I know I am just as guilty and probably more so than others.
We take hold of people and say it is so and so. If they pulled their socks up, it would be so different. If we had not sung that dreadful hymn at the beginning, it would all have been different.
Then we blame so and so because so and so chose that him.
It has nothing to do with flesh and blood at all. But this is where roots of bitterness begin.
It has nothing to do with that at all.
It has to do perhaps with something that no one knows about in a particular life and that one does not even know himself that he has unwittingly sinned.
The five fold covering covers something not only to do with sin, but with service, worship, presenting our bodies, a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God, which is your spiritually intelligent worship or service, and comes right down to sin committed unwittingly.
This is what it means to be in Christ.
It means that God has given us a salvation so great, so tremendous, so infinite, that not a single contingency, not a single emergency, not a single avenue of Satan needs to be opened up or needs to remain open. Because God has given us such a sacrifice, such a covering. We are covered.
I wish that there were those among us who could pray in this way, who by the Spirit of God knew when to take the Lord Jesus as burnt offering who knew when to take the Lord Jesus as peace offering who knew when to take him as trespass and sin offering.
You can only know that by anointing. But that is prayer.
Some people are so insensitive and so dull that the only way they would know the devil was among them was if he appeared physically in front of their very eyes and gazed at them.
Then they would say, oh, we must take the covering.
How tragic that really is.
If we were alive to God, if we were alive to the Spirit of God, then there would be times when we would know there is something going on here and the only answer is the Lord Jesus.
It is a question of covering or uncovering three Ways of Being in Christ.
There are three subjects that we find in the word of God in the New Testament which sum up this whole matter of being in Christ in many ways.
Name of the Lord if ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do. John 14:14 and whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:17 this is a very interesting word. It does not mean that when you pray, you are to just tag on the end of your prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus.
By all means say in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ when you know what it means. But it is not a charm. It is not an open sesame.
What does it mean?
How do you do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?
When you give a word, you do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But when you have a conversation, you also do it in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Have you ever thought about that?
That might shut some of us up.
Let your talk be in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts should be in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do your shopping in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm not being funny. Do your washing up in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do your cleaning or caring for the home, your work, at the office, or at the college, your studies, or whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Does it mean we become sanctimonious and say to the person from whom we buy our soap or whatever, I am buying it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Of course not. You understand that as well as I do. But what does it mean? The scripture is not foolish. It says, do all, whether in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus.
It means simply, you are in him. Do everything from a covered position.
Never do the most innocuous job outside of covering whatever it is.
Remember, there are invisible rays from another world that would hit you and bring you down. Once you are uncovered, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
What does it mean?
All the members of my body are in Lance Lambert. So everything they do, word or action, is in the name of Lance Lambert. When I eat, it is Lance Lambert. When I speak, it is Lance Lambert. When I gesticulate, it is Lance Lambert. When I walk, it is Lance Lambert.
Everything I do or say is in the name of Lance Lambert.
Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
You are in him. You cannot say, there is a spiritual side to my life and there is a secular side to my life.
When I go to a meeting, of course I am more godly there. Then there is another side. When I get home, put my slippers on and roll down my hair.
There is no such thing as that. You are either in Christ or out of him. You cannot do anything outside of him. If God has put you in him.
God says, remember that. Do everything as being in him.
Let me remind you of the Old Testament.
The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe.
That is where we are meant to be. In the strong tower, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The blood of Christ.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
1 John 1:7.
The blood of Christ speaks of peace. It speaks of being nigh to God. It speaks of access, immediate, instantaneous access to God.
It speaks of victory.
They overcame him, the devil, through the blood of the lamb.
It speaks of life.
O to know life.
The life is in the blood.
We know eternal life as continually. We know what it is to be under the covering of the blood.
However, some people think they can just use the phrase the blood of the Lamb, and that is enough. It works a miracle.
Not so. The scripture has an if.
If we walk in the light as God is in the light, it is not as we see the light. But if we walk in the light as God is in the light that is objective. We have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood I will pass over you. And there shall no plague be upon you to Destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.
Exodus 12:13 God sees the blood of his Son upon everyone who is saved by his grace.
You do not see it, but God sees it. And when God sees it, he passes over. You are covered.
It is possible to come out from under that covering by not walking in the light. But that is another matter.
When we are walking in the light, we remain under covering.
The blood goes on covering us. It goes on cleansing us.
What a victory it was when the firstborn of Egypt was smitten that night and died. It spelt the end for Egyptian power. The power of Pharaoh and the power of Egypt was broken that night by the blood of the lamb.
Any Hebrew who did not have the blood on his house was visited by the angel of death. And any Egyptian that had the blood upon his house was passed over.
Think about that.
The righteousness of Christ.
Him who knew no sin, he made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
2 Corinthians 5:21 in him we are prone to miss that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
God has removed my sin by the blood of the lamb, by the work of the lamb, but he has placed me in him, where I am made righteous, declared righteous, justified, acquitted, and covered.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.
Isaiah 61:10 do you know anything about the garment of salvation? Do you know how to use the garment of salvation?
Some people come in on Sunday morning, and it is quite clear they have on the spotted garment of their own doings. You could almost see it looking out of their eyes.
Oh, it is no good me praising the Lord.
And the devil says, quite right, you are hopeless. Look at that, look at that, look at that.
Oh God, here I am at your table. Do forgive me. I can hardly lift my eyes up.
But if you are not living in habitual sin, there is a garment of salvation.
What have you done, coming into the wedding feast without your garment on? The Lord could be angry and say, out with that person. How dare they come into my presence and think that something of their own doing is going to satisfy me.
Have I not provided the garment of salvation? They could have come in the garment of salvation. And I would have said, you are all fair, my love, there is no spot in you.
Some people get a terrible shock when the Lord says to them, I don't find anything wrong in you.
Do you remember when Balaam had to prophesy about the children of Israel? They were in one sense the most rebellious, godless lot you ever saw.
They were murmuring and complaining, chattering to one another about how they would like to go back to Egypt, why God had brought them out into the desert, and all the rest of it.
Balaam said, the Lord says, I see no iniquity in Jacob.
Have you ever heard of such a thing? Why did God see no iniquity in Jacob?
It was because of the Passover lamb. Their sin was covered.
Covered all my unrighteousness.
Do you know how to use the garment of salvation?
More Christians suffer from depression and in the end, oppression from the enemy because they do not know how to use the robe of righteousness, the garment of salvation.
Having been saved by the grace of God, they slip off the garment of salvation and start to walk before God as if they were something.
But it is the garment of salvation. Covered, hid with Christ in God.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3 when something is hidden, you cannot find it. It is lost to view.
Where is your life?
Your life is lost in God.
Hid with Christ in God.
Think of the infinity of what God is. God has hid your life with Christ in himself.
When the devil comes and says, where is Lance Lambert? I am going to get him. God says, I am sorry you cannot find him. He is hid with Christ in me.
That is just where Peter failed. Peter came out from the covering and said to the Lord, die. You die. Never. He contradicted the will of God.
Of course, it was the natural thing to do. Wouldn't you have done it? If the Lord Jesus said, I am going to die today? Wouldn't you have said, never over my dead body.
How did he get out of covering?
Most people think he was presumptuous.
No, he wasn't presumptuous. He was quite spontaneous.
He contradicted the will of God.
Some people say ignorance is bliss, but others say ignorance is dangerous.
He did not know what he was doing, therefore he spoke inadvisably. And Satan heard it. Satan went before God and said, peter, Peter, let me have him.
God was unable to say, he is hid with my son in me.
He said, all right, he has come out from under covering. You have him.
The Lord Jesus said to Peter, simon, Simon, Satan hath obtained thee by request. But I prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.
Luke 22:31 32 this teaches us one of the biggest Lessons in how we can get hid with Christ in God, when something is hid, it cannot be found except in him.
If I want to find you and you are in Christ, I have to find Christ.
If I am going to find you, I find you in Christ. I meet Christ.
Isn't it wonderful? When the enemy is after you, he comes up against Christ.
The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire came between the enemy and the people of God and confused the enemy so that he could not see that is covering.
Perhaps you begin to understand why this matter is so vital. Do you see the whole point of staying where God has put you?
Abiding in Christ?
I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit. For apart from me ye can do nothing.
John 15, verse 5.
Abide in me and I in you.
Does it mean that somehow I have to fight through to getting into Christ?
No, you abide in him.
The word abide means remain, stay, continue or dwell.
Continue where God has put you. Stay where God has put you.
Where has God put you? He has put you in Christ.
Don't get out. Stay there. If you have gotten out, get back. Get back immediately whatever the cost.
While you are uncovered, you are in terrible spiritual danger. Anything can get you while you are uncovered. And that is why the Lord Jesus intercedes.
Many people ask me why the Lord Jesus ever lives to intercede at the right hand of God.
Surely God knows what he is going to do anyway.
Surely God can do what he is going to do anyway.
Of course God knows what he is going to do and can do what he is going to do anyway. That is not the point.
The Lord Jesus intercedes for those who get out from under covering.
I have prayed for you, Simon, and in that one statement we have the foreshadowing of the intercession of the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God.
Oh, I thank God for the prayers of the Lord Jesus for myself.
No wonder the old puritans used to write whole books on intercession. You never hear of such things today. If you get a book at all, it is about our intercession. But the old puritans used to write books on the intercessory ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God because they seeing something of the sovereignty of God, know that the only thing that would ever get them finally before his face, would be the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Left to ourselves, we are so dumb, so stupid, so insensitive we would be out from covering straight away.
The whole armor of God abide in me, and I in you.
We are covered by that, and that is what it means to put on the whole armor of God.
You know those words so well in Ephesians 6, 1018, but have you ever noticed the little commentary in one sense on it in the night is far spent and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.
Let us walk becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.
It is the lusts of our flesh, or to put it another way, the natural desires of the flesh, which may be legitimate or illegitimate, which are the things that so often entice us and bring us out.
Put on the armor of light, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, so that it does not have a chance.
It is not only the enemy from without, but it is the enemy from within.
Notice in Ephesians 6 that it says, put on the armor of God.
It says nothing of the kind. It says, put on the whole armor of God.
It is a sobering fact that you can put on 90% of the armor and leave off one part, and the enemy will get you. There is no point in my dressing myself up like a human tank and leaving my helmet off. I am a sure target for the enemy to blast my head off.
There is no point in taking a shield and not having the breastplate of righteousness. For while I am shielding off something, there, something hits me and I am done for.
What is the point of being absolutely clad in armor and not having the shoes on? Do you realize how vulnerable feet are?
If you were in an army with all these people clad in armor, and you let one of them tread on your toes, you wouldn't even need the enemy. Your feet are vulnerable unless they are clad.
It is so interesting that the scripture speaks of putting on the whole armor and and this is where we all fail. Some of us have the helmet on, but we have not got the shield of faith on. Some of us have the shield of faith on, but we have not got the breastplate on, or we have not got our loins girt strongly with truth and reality.
Put on the whole armor of God, that we may, thus covered, be enabled to stand and to withstand. And having Done all to stand.
Isn't this just another way of saying abide?
Isn't it interesting that it says, having done all to stand and not having done all, you march forward a thousand miles.
This battle is not a question of going forward. This battle is won by abiding.
It is a victory already won, which has got to be ratified.
When we see that, it makes a great change.
This is not a kind of victory where we have got to go forward. It is a victory where we stand still. In him we abide. In him we are covered. And as we remain covered, so it is won, it is ratified, it is expressed, it is manifested, it is registered security.
We see that there is in Christ absolute safety, absolute security, absolute protection.
The youngest child of God has no need to fear.
There is a hymn we sing, A Debtor to Mercy Alone, in which the last verse has given some a bit of a problem.
Yes, I To the end shall endure as sure as the earnest is given.
More happy, but not more secure. The glorified spirits in heaven.
In some of our hymnbooks they changed that last line because so few people understood what it meant.
All those people in glory are not more secure than you and I down here.
If you let that sink into you, it will change your whole attitude to Satan, to the enemy and to darkness.
You think they must be more secure?
No. They are, of course beyond the reach of the enemy. But they are not more secure. You are beyond the reach of the enemy if your life is hid with Christ in God.
If you could only see that by remaining under covering you are as secure as they.
How can the enemy get hold of you if you are in Christ?
He has got to deal with Christ. And therefore, if God says, yes, you can come through Christ, he is going to do something in you that is absolutely marvellous.
It can be heaven. It is not in the same category at all as destruction, disintegration and deterioration.
More happy.
Oh, yes, they are more happy. I think of some we know up there.
I say up there they are probably all around because heaven is only another dimension.
I think of Auntie Anna. She is more happy, but she is not more secure. And I expect if she can hear me, she would say amen.
I think of others. They are more happy, but not more secure. They are in Christ. And where are you? You are in Christ.
Are they more in Christ than you?
No. Then what is the difference?
They are those who are dead in Christ. And we are, as it says in the old prayer book, the quick. In Christ there is no difference.
This is why the devil would blind you to it and try to make you think that you are second class citizens of heaven and those up there are first class.
Not so.
The Creed says, I believe in the communion of saints.
This does not mean the communion of living saints on earth. It means the absolute sharing of the whole. It is one church part in the presence of the Lord, the rest on earth.
I believe in the communion of saints, the one holy church.
There is something very wonderful about this whole thing. You are not more happy than they. I am not. That is something to come.
But you are not less secure. You are only less secure insofar as you come out from under covering.
Let the enemy entice you out. Let him get you to say something ill advised. Let him get you to do something in darkness. Let him get you to collide with someone and not put it right.
Let him get you to contradict the will of God and he has got you out.
If you do not know how to get back immediately, you are in for trouble.
You and I have got to learn how to get back under covering.
Those who have responsibility in the work of God, and in the end that shall be, every one of us must learn how to take Christ as our fivefold offering and plead him for the whole. For those who do not know what they are doing.
Do you remember that when Job's friends did some very stupid things, they angered the Lord because they got uncovered.
The Lord said to Job, stand back, Job, I will wipe them out.
They came to Job and the Lord said to them, you go and ask Job to pray for you. And if Job prays for you, I will hear so much for democracy. In that sense, they had done something quite wrong.
Oh, you say that is quite unjust.
No, it isn't. They had not suffered like Job. They should never have spoken in the way they did, using all those wonderful highfaluting phrases about this and this and this.
Some of the things those friends said are really rather wonderful. But it would have been much better if they had shut up and written a book of their own.
It would have been the book of Bildad. And we would have those wonderful thoughts of Bildad that had nothing to do with Job at all.
But they tried to apply them to Job's situation and say, job, you are a sinner. Job, you have done this. This is the reason for it all.
It was Job who had to pray. O God, forgive them. And God said, I will.
The children of Israel murmured against the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, stand back. I will destroy the Lot of them. Furthermore, I will make of you a nation stronger and greater than they.
That should have produced something out of Moses.
If he could only have been enticed, he would have come out and said, oh, now that is something. I have suffered this lot for 40 years. I think it might be better if they were like me, my type of nature and character.
But Moses would not come out from under covering. He said, lord, you just remember who you are. Just you think what the nations will say when they have heard that you brought them up out of Egypt.
The Lord smiled and thought, Moses is just like me. He has got the same kind of nature as I have.
Of course I can't destroy them.
Right, Moses, you pray for them and I will forgive them.
And Moses prayed, oh, for a ministry that can take hold of Christ the fivefold aspect of his offering and plead it for all.
I've seen believers kept in spiritual life by the secret prayer of people when they should have been struck down.
That is the question of covering.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The Lord Jesus taught us to pray a pattern prayer lead us not into trial.
The new English Bible puts it, don't put us to strong test, but deliver us from the evil one.
Every time you pray, Father, don't put us to the test, but deliver us from the evil one. What it really means is don't let us get uncovered when we are under fire or under temptation. Don't let us come out, oh Father, preserve us from it that the enemy does not get hold of us because we have been uncovered.
Shall we pray, Father, we do pray that Thou will in some real way write this tremendous subject on our hearts.
Some of us understand just a little about it. For others of us it is altogether new.
Lord, we don't want the wrong kind of fear and self consciousness to come upon us so that spiritually we are inhibited.
O Lord, we do need to know what it is to be in Thy Son in practice to know the provision which is ours, the fullness which is ours, the blessings which are ours.
All that is ours in Him. Protection, security, safety.
Father, hear us. We commit ourselves to Thee.
Write this lesson indelibly upon our heart.
May it be for all of us perhaps the beginning of an understanding of this matter that will stand us in good stead in the days to come.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors and bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Amen.
Washes over the.
