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Transcript 361A — The Expectation of Believers Concerning this World
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Hello. I listen to your program often, and I get a lot out of it. The other night you made a comment like, "Being a Christian isn't at all very exciting." And it disturbed me. And I was wondering what we can hope for as a Christian. Can we take seriously the verse in the Psalms that goes, "Delight thyself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart"? In other words, what can we expect in this life? Or do we have the right to expect anything from the Lord? And I'll take my answer on the air.
HC: Our caller raised a very interesting question, and she put it in a very nice way, also. If the believer is called upon to live by faith, and because of this he cannot expect anything very exciting in his life, what can he expect, when the Bible declares that we can ask for the desires of our heart and He will grant them?
You see, we have to remember that as a born again believer, our citizenship is not in this earth. It's not on this earth. Now the secular world all around us, their big thing (to put it in the vernacular) is to make the most of this life, because that's all they are looking at. That's all they're looking for. So this finds its expression in the things money will buy, in a bigger or more beautiful home, in a new car, in fame, or in power of one kind or another. All of these things, the pursuit of pleasure, the exercise of sensual delight, all of these things are big for the secular world.
Now Satan gives an added dimension to the secular world, which is a very interesting dimension. And that is, he opens the occult world, the world of the supernatural. And so he comes through E.S.P., through ouija boards, through witchcraft, through fortune telling. He comes into the church through occult activity. And this all is very exciting. This all is something that has substance for right now.
But the born again believer, you see, is living, realizing that on this earth he is a stranger and a pilgrim. He's an alien, actually, because he's been taken out of the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of Satan, and he's been transferred into the Kingdom of Christ. And he's only a tiny, tiny minority of all the peoples of the world. And his homeland is not this sin-cursed earth. His future is not in this sin-cursed earth. His hope, his security, is not in the things that money will buy, or in the pleasures of this world, or the sensual desires, or occult activity. His whole future is in Christ.
Now Christ is in Heaven, and that's His homeland now. That's the believer's homeland. He is simply on this earth to operate as an ambassador of Christ, patiently bringing the Gospel, marshalling all of his energies, all of his efforts, that the Gospel, might go forth into this world, so that others, too, might be able to have this marvellous eternal life.
Now he lives in hope, not a hope that maybe someplace down the way God is going to give him a more glorious heritage, but it's a hope that is a fact. It's a hope, however, that does not exist right now. That is, he right now is not living in the New Heaven and the New Earth. He's not living right now in the glorious personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is in Heaven. True, God the Father and the Son indwell him in the person of the Holy Spirit. But he can't see the Holy Spirit. He can't see Christ with his naked eye. Only when he goes to Heaven, when his work is finished, can he see Christ as He is. And only in the New Heaven and the New Earth will he receive his resurrected body, so that he'll live forever in the glorious presence of Christ. This is where all of the real action is going to take place for the born again believer.
Now this doesn't deny the fact that he's already born again. He's received his resurrected soul, but he can't look at a resurrected soul. You look at a believer walking down the street, who's truly born again. And he doesn't look any different than someone who's unsaved...not a bit different. You can't see a resurrected soul. Oh true, you can see the fruit of the Spirit, to some degree, in his life. But you also look at a lot of unsaved people who are decent moral citizens, and outwardly you can't really see any difference there all the time, either. It's only when you get right down to the Bible itself, and you begin to sense what that person is doing with the Bible itself, that you really begin to see a difference.
The fact that the born again believer always is concerned about the authority of the Bible, and he's constantly desiring to be pleasing to Christ, out of his love for Him. And under no circumstances is he doing it because he thinks he's going to get a reward, or some kind of pay for what he is doing. This is the life of the born again believer.
Now those who are unsaved who call themselves Christians, they are not content with this. This is all future. They'd like something that's like the world. They want something right now. They want something they can get hold of and look at, and feel. They want something that is going to satisfy the senses today. And that's of course what makes them vulnerable to the blandishments and the enticements of Satan, as he comes as an angel of light, because he will bring these things to pass.
Now when the Bible says that God will give us the desires of our heart, yes, that's true. But if we're a born again believer, the desires of our heart will be that God's will be done. And when we begin to think in terms of the pursuits that the world is so interested in, or that gospels which are contrary to the Word of God are interested in, the born again believer does not desire those things. He knows that that isn't part of God's program. And if he even is wondering if he's part of God's program, he very carefully will think out in his heart...that is, he will have this sensitivity about his appeals to God...and certainly from time to time he'll express it to God: "Oh Lord, your will be done, not mine. And if I've asked for something, or if I'm talking about something that I would want from you that happens to be contrary to your will, oh Father, take it away. Take it away. Don't ever let my will be superimposed upon your will. Your will is the one that has to be paramount. Your will is the one that has to override my will, because I don't really know what is best for me."
You know, some people have the idea that when God says that He will give you the desires of your heart, all you have to do is ask whatever seems to be attractive at the moment, and God will do this. But the born again believer knows better than this. He knows that he still has an old nature, and that in his old nature he might be asking for things that are quite contrary to God's will. And certainly there are many things that he can't know God's will about, and therefore, once he has expressed the desires of his heart, he also makes sure that God's will will win out. And that is the ultimate desire of his heart. That is the overriding desire of his heart, that God's will might be done.
Now living this way, living in hope, that is, living with our eyes focused on a future, with our eyes focused on Heaven, realizing that we're aliens and strangers and pilgrims here and that this isn't where we're to find our big thing, but still having that ongoing joy and security and confidence that my sins have been forgiven, that I'm a child of God, and these are all tremendous blessings that come right now, nevertheless there is nothing to write home about. There's nothing that you can taste and feel and touch. And this is very very unglamorous. That's not a bit glamorous to the world. The world wants something that's right here and now.
And so there are many gospels that have been produced, and they're coming increasingly fast as we approach the end, that do bring an exciting gospel, an exciting relationship with Christ, apparently is evidence that Heaven has opened up and God has very definitely, in a dramatic way, laid his hand on this one or that one. And that's the kind of thing that people like, and they fall for. And Satan knows about this, too, of course. And so he capitalizes on this.
In Revelation 13 it speaks about him making an image, and giving life to that image. Now the image is really a figure of gospels invented by Satan. And to give life to them means that he brings his occult powers to bear in these gospels, so that they produce a gospel that is patterned after the true Gospel. It has many of the same evidences. That is, it talks about Christ, and about the blood of Christ, and the resurrection, and the atonement, and all of these things. But it comes with occult activity, so that it looks a thousand times more alive than the true Gospel.
The true Gospel is a walk of faith. "The just shall live by faith" even as Abraham walked by faith. He was looking for a Heavenly City. But he walked as a stranger and a pilgrim. Do you know that Abraham, who is called the father of all believers, both Gentiles and Jews, lived in the land of Canaan 100 years, and yet in all of that time we find that he only purchased only one piece of ground, and that was to provide a burial place for his wife Sarah, when she died. Except for that he walked as a stranger. He lived in a tent. He wasn't a poor man. He was a rich man. He could easily have built a city, like Cain did. He easily could have built a beautiful mansion. But he lived in a tent, herding sheep. He was a stranger and a pilgrim because his focal point was where every Christian's ought to be. It was on Heaven. He looked for a Heavenly City, whose builder and maker is the Lord, as we read in Hebrews 11.
Well, thank you so much for that good question.