MEETING GOD'S NEED AND PRESENT NEEDS IN THE LORD'S RECOVERY
Message One
God's Need in the Present Age
Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26, 28; Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11; Matt. 6:10; 7:21; 12:50; 24:37-39
I. In order for His will to be done on earth and for His eternal purpose to be fulfilled, God needs our cooperation—1 Cor. 6:17; Matt. 7:11; 12:50:
A. God can carry out on earth what He has planned in heaven only when He has people who will cooperate with Him—John 7:17; 15:4-5:
1. God needs to gain people on earth who will cooperate with Him and work with Him according to His mind—Phil. 3:15; Col. 3:2.
2. As long as there are those who are of the same mind as God and are willing to work with Him, God's work will be carried out on earth—1 Cor. 15:58; 16:10.
B. Our eyes need to be opened to see that God has His limitations and to see how we should cooperate with Him—Matt. 6:10; 18:18-19; 2 Cor. 6:1:
1. God is omnipotent, but His omnipotence is subject to limitations because He must have certain conditions suitable for His working—John 7:17; Matt. 7:21.
2. Man was created with a free will; the limitations of God began at this point—Gen. 1:26:
a. In creation God put His almighty power under the limitation of the human will—v. 28; 2:9, 16-17.
b. God wants the human will to be on His side; therefore, He accepts the limitation that this desire entails—John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; Rom. 12:2-3.
3. As members of Christ's organic, mystical Body, we are either expressing Him or limiting Him—1 Cor. 12:12-13, 18-20, 27:
a. The Lord needs to bring us to the point where we have nothing to hinder Him from doing whatever He wills—6:17; Matt. 6:10; 7:21; 12:50; Eph. 1:1, 9; 5:17.
b. Once the Lord has brought us to a place of total responsiveness to Him, He will have a free and unhindered way to accomplish His will; then there will be nothing that God cannot do to carry out His purpose on earth—Matt. 6:10; 26:39, 42; Heb. 13:21.
II. God needs man to recover the earth—Gen. 1:26, 28; Matt. 6:10; Rev. 5:10:
A. Man was created by God to have dominion over the earth, to subdue it, conquer it, and thereby recover the earth for God—Gen. 1:26, 28.
B. God's intention in giving man dominion is to subdue God's enemy, Satan, who rebelled against God—vv. 26, 28:
1. Subdue in Genesis 1:28 implies that a war is raging on earth between God and His enemy, Satan; whoever gains the earth will have the victory.
2. God has a problem, and this problem is Satan, the archangel who rebelled against God and became His enemy in the universe and especially on the earth—Isa. 14:12-14; Ezek. 28:12-18:
a. In order to subdue His enemy and thus solve His problem, God gave man authority to rule over all things created by God—Gen. 1:26.
b. Man especially must rule over the earth and even subdue the earth because the earth has been usurped by God's rebellious enemy—v. 28.
c. God needs man to exercise His authority over all the creeping things and to subdue and conquer the rebellious earth so that God may recover the earth for His kingdom—Matt. 6:9-10; Rev. 5:10.
3. God wants to use man to deal with His enemy, and He created man for this purpose; God wants His creature man to deal with His fallen creature Satan—Gen. 1:28.
4. If we do not restore the earth from the hand of Satan, we have not yet achieved God's purpose in creating man to subdue the earth and have dominion; we need to deal with Satan and recover the earth for the benefit of God and to satisfy His need—v. 28; Matt. 6:9-10.
III. God needs to end this age—Rom. 12:2; Eph. 2:2; 2 Cor. 4:4; Titus 2:12:
A. The situation before the Lord's coming will be like that in the days of Noah—Matt. 24:37-39:
1. Noah lived in a crooked and perverse age—Gen. 6:1-22.
2. In Matthew 24:37-39 and Luke 17:26-27 the Lord Jesus likened our age to the days of Noah:
a. The conditions of evil living that stupefied the generation of Noah before the flood portray the perilous condition of man's living before the great tribulation and the Lord's parousia—Matt. 24:21, 3, 27, 37, 39.
b. If we would participate in the overcomers' rapture to enjoy the Lord's parousia and escape the great tribulation, we must overcome the stupefying effect of man's living today—Luke 21:34-36.
B. Today there are only two things on earth—the crooked and perverted generation and the church as the corporate expression of Christ—Acts 2:40; Phil. 2:15; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12, 27.
C. If we would be the corporate expression of Christ in the church life, we need to be today's "family of Noah" building the corporate Christ as the ark that will deliver us from the crooked and perverted generation and usher us into the coming age of the kingdom of God—Gen. 6:8—8:3; 1 Cor. 12:12; Phil. 2:12-13; 1 Pet. 3:20-21.
D. The ark built by Noah is a type of Christ as the salvation of God's elect; the ark that we are building today is the corporate Christ, the church, as our salvation from today's crooked, perverted, and evil generation—vv. 20-21; 1 Cor. 12:12, 27.
E. The church life is today's ark to terminate the present age and bring in God's kingdom—1:2; 12:12, 27; 1 Thes. 1:1, 9-10:
1. The Lord desires "the family of Noah" to build the ark and testify against the trend of the age so that He can use them to terminate the age and bring in the kingdom age—Heb. 11:7; Rev. 11:15.
2. What we are building in the church life is the corporate Christ as the ark for our salvation and for the salvation of the ones under our care—1 Cor. 12:12; 14:26; Phil. 2:12-13.
F. God wants the church, the ark, where we can be saved from today's evil generation—Acts 2:40-47:
1. God wants to save us—through this ark—from the crooked generation and usher us into God's kingdom to fulfill His eternal purpose—Matt. 6:33; 13:43; Luke 12:32; Rev. 11:15.
2. God cares for whether or not we are in the ark, the proper church life; He wants us to be a part of the corporate Christ, part of the testimony of Jesus—1 Cor. 12:12; Rev. 1:2, 9, 11, 20; 22:16.
G. When this ark is built up, the Lord Jesus will return—19:7; 22:7, 12, 20:
1. The Lord has not come back yet because He is still waiting for the ark to be built—Matt. 16:18, 27.
2. When the testimony of the church in the Lord's recovery is matured, the Lord Jesus will return—Rev. 19:7; 22:7, 12, 20.
IV. God needs the man-child for His greatest dispensational move—12:1-5, 7-12:
A. The man-child refers to the overcomers in the church, to the portion of the people of God who are overcomers—2:26-27; 12:5.
B. The overcomers are the instrument that enables God to achieve His purpose; the manchild enables God to move—vv. 10-11:
1. The man-child consists of the overcomers who stand on behalf of the church, take the position that the whole church should take, and do the work for the church—2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21; 12:5, 11.
2. When God gains these overcomers, His purpose will be attained, and He will be satisfied.
C. The universal bright woman represents the totality of God's people, and the man-child is the stronger part within the woman—Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12:1-2, 5:
1. In the Bible the stronger ones among God's people are considered a collective unit fighting the battle for God and bringing God's kingdom down to earth—vv. 5, 10-11.
2. God will use the man-child to fulfill His economy and to accomplish His purpose—1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9; Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11:
a. God needs the man-child to defeat His enemy and to bring in His kingdom so that His eternal purpose might be accomplished—Rev. 12:10.
b. The Lord's recovery is the practicality of God's economy today, and His economy can be carried out only by the man-child—v. 5.
D. The man-child is related to God's most important dispensational move—Matt. 6:9-10; Rev. 12:10; 11:15:
1. God wants to end this age and bring in the age of the kingdom, and for this He must have the man-child as His dispensational instrument.
2. The rapture of the man-child brings an end to the church age and introduces the age of the kingdom—12:5, 10.
3. The rapture of the man-child to heaven, the casting of Satan to earth, and the declaration in heaven signify that the man-child will bring the kingdom to earth; this is God's greatest dispensational move—vv. 5, 9-10; 11:15.