Programme: Anamnesis 2023 (Day 2 - Evening Session)
Date: Thursday, 7th December, 2023
The Lord’s appearance is a tangible reality that the Apostles experienced. Jesus gave Paul that promise of a second appearance and Paul recounted this experience in Acts 26:16. We see in Acts 9:18-20, that by the reason of that first appearance, Paul arose and preached Christ immediately. To Paul, the person of Christ was not just what was being preached but a reality in Jesus. The appearance of Jesus to Paul made him a minister and a witness of that appearance (Acts 26:16).
John, in 1 John 5, also wrote about an appearance (1 Jn. 5:20). He was not talking about rapture. The kind of thoughts that were being demanded from the people John was writing to made it evident that a Being had come to them. There is no doubt about that. They knew that the Son of God is come and they knew this by the kind of thoughts they fellowshipped with and the kind of commandments that came to them.
In the early church in Revelation, those stars knew that the Son of God came. During the Anamnesis Prayer Meeting, God's servant said that He knows that the Son of God is come. Pastor Emeka also said last night that we have come to Mount Zion and many of us did not receive this. Similarly, in the early church, the congregation might not believe that the Son of God has come but the leaders who led them knew this. We find the same pattern in the Old Testament when the priests went ahead of the children of Israel as they entered into the land of inheritance (Josh. 3:13).
Pastor Emeka was talking about the manner of the Lord’s dealings around him and those dealings are ways. James 5:11 says, “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy”. By the reason of that pity, it was evident that the Lord came for Job. The Lord was of tender mercies. Being very pitiful and tender mercies are ways (James 5:11). When the Lord was coming, Job was proclaiming those names. The apostles could read the coming of the Lord by the ways. By the ways that we begin to experience in our lives, we have signs that the Lord is coming to us. We can tell the manner of the Lord’s coming to a people by the ways of His dealings around them.
The manner of the way everlasting is different from that of Christ. One of the ways the apostles designed and can tell the manner of the appearance and the coming of the Lord is by waiting patiently to see His ways.
In 1 Thessalonians 1:8-9, Paul spoke of the coming of the Lord Jesus to the Thessalonian Church. By reason of that coming, they turned from their idols to serving the living and the true God and were waiting for His Son from heaven. According to Acts 3:20-21, the coming of the Lord from heaven that they were waiting for is the restitution of all things. They were waiting for God to send Jesus (1 Thess. 1:10).
The kind of commandments you are keeping tells the manner or ordinance of the coming of the Lord to you. It is when the Son appears that we will also appear. For people in countries with different weathers, the clothes they wear and the way they appear is determined by the season they are in. This present manner of commandments was not very clear in the season of hope. In that time, different kinds of ministers were around because the way then still allowed some things. But we cannot deny that the Lord was coming in those seasons. But when the Lord changed His manner of coming and His demands, some people could not take it and offences set in.
In John 6, Jesus spoke at length about the bread of life, and the people desired that bread when they heard of it (Jn. 6:33-34). But when He heaved it up and spoke of the living bread, they murmured (Jn. 6:51-52). They were ready for the bread of life, but with the new appearance, His ways and manners, they were not ready to accept it. When an appearance is heaved up, it brings a new way, new commandments and new dealings, and many cannot endure it. We can tell the manner of appearance that a church or a person is going through by understanding the manner of the ways of the Lord around them. We should be able to read the ways of the Lord and the manner of commandments. By this, we will be able to discern the manner of appearance of the Lord around a person.
The Son of God cannot come until there are servants. The manner of appearance that we are calling for cannot come until there are servants because that appearance is to serve God. Hebrews 12:22-24 describes the manner of the Lord's coming and the High Priest on Mount Zion amongst other things. In the later part of Hebrews 12, Paul speaks of a voice that was speaking and he noted that the voice is speaking so that we can receive a dominion (Heb. 12:25-28). That dominion is to raise a manner of servants (Heb. 12:28). The church was at that point because there was a crop of servants that had to arise.
The essence of the appearance and the coming of the Son of God is to make available a crop of people that are servants already. These ones would have served God and done service after the manner of good, having served Christ after the order of the good. By the reason of their service to Christ, these have been raised and are regarded as loving enquirers and holy seekers of the next appearance and coming of the Son of God.
The apostles introduced themselves as servants in their writings. What makes servants is the appearance and the coming of Christ. You cannot be a servant of Christ if you have not experienced the coming of Christ. The appearance of Christ is to raise servants of Christ. Heaven knows that they cannot raise servants of Christ except they reveal the good will which is the appearance of the person of Christ, so that we can be free from what we have been serving before. Every man on earth is a servant of sin by default (Ps. 51:5). The labour of Paul in writing to the Romans was to break this service of sin (Rom. 14:17-18).
Christ has His testimony (1 Corin. 1:5-9). The testimony of Christ is His life. How you know the testimony of Christ is amidst a people is by the fervent love that among them. The people in 1 Corinthians 1:5-9 already had Christ formed in them, but they were waiting for something, which is to be blameless. The purpose of the Lord’s appearance and coming is to produce servants.
The appearance of the Lord is not just for rapture but because He wants to raise servants of God. You cannot serve two masters because there will always be conflict. You cannot be a servant of God if you have not been a servant of Christ. We cannot serve Christ without Him appearing to us. Jesus was made both Christ and Lord (Acts 2:36). He went through a process of making wherein He served something.
You cannot serve God without light and thoughts or without fellowshipping with thoughts and ways. The faith of the Son of God is the way of Christ. Serving by faith is serving unto the unseen. The essence of hope is to see another hope that is not vain (Rom. 8:24). Every man has a hope under the sun; and hopes under the sun are vanity because they cannot endure.
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). These things try to move us into a realm of life that abideth because the world passeth away and the things therein. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5). Every man leans on his own understanding.
It is possible for a man to be hearing knowledge when the Lord has not yet come for him. But when He starts to come to us, He will come in commandments and ways and we will start seeing some kind of ways. The ways of the Spirit will change over us and that is a sign that the Lord has come for us.
The Lord led the children of Israel and suffered them to hunger, which was a way (Deut. 8:3). You cannot know Him without discerning the ways of His coming. You can read the manner of the Lord’s coming when you study the ways around His people. God overlooks us during the time of ignorance but with the coming of light, the ways of His dealing with us change (Acts 17:30).
When they want to make us servants of Christ, we have to be ready to see the way we are to serve. The essence of His appearance is to produce servants out of us. He has the details of how those servants are to be and what they are to look like. When talking about the Lord’s appearance to men, one thing we find is that the Lord was raising them as servants. There is a way Jesus served His Father when He was on earth and we do not know it. He has to come and appear to us for us to see how He served His Father.
“Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts?” (Malachi 3:14). Ordinances are ways and lines. Walking mournfully is the manner of those who are serving God. It will take the Lord’s appearance to put that kind of fear and reverence in us. Revelation knowledge will not put that kind of fear in us. It is not improper to serve God mournfully— that is the accurate way to serve Him. Every high priest goes into the most holy mourning. What brought this way in them was the appearance of the Lord.
They that fear the Lord are they that serve the Lord (Malachi 3:15-17). Sonship is not for showmanship; it is for service. You cannot serve God without first serving one another. Serving one another with unfeigned love is a service manual. It is a massive service manual that we have to be taught continually, and the Lord will empower us. Amen.
Blessings!