We regularly hear the words at the commencement of a Divine Service that we seek to worship the Lord in ‘spirit’ and in ‘truth’. What does that mean? The Lords word’s, recorded by John, give us one reason. God is a spirit and His spirit communed with mankind in the Garden of Eden. That intimate connection, however, was one of the things lost upon earth when the fruit of corruption came into the world.

With Jesus’ victory, He was able to reinstate the connection and then sent the Holy Spirit within cleansed hearts to assist in this relationship. The Spirit of Truth was now able to be part of the intercession between mankind and God. John 14:16-17, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you”.

As always there are different layers of understanding within the Lord’s teaching. Having taken upon himself the flesh of mankind, Jesus was also referring to the two ways we interact with His Father. In our modern language we would call them ’emotionally’ and ‘cognitively’, and we can see another link to ‘spirit’ and ‘truth’.

These two aspects of mankind make us different to the animal Kingdom. God has given a range of emotions for us to experience. We are to have the emotions of love, joy, peace, longsuffering as fruits of the spirit within our lives and in our worship of the Lord. We are also asked to think about Him, learn of Him and know Him as the truth, which in turn can only be done with the help of God’s Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3, “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”

Jesus as the living Word of God and the Holy Ghost are required within us, for both of these aspects and for the balance that is necessary within our lives and within our worship. According to the Lord’s words above, if we only worship emotionally we are in danger of missing the truth. Similarly, if we just study the truth without feeling, the word has no life within us and won’t bring forth fruit.

It has been stated by many in this Christian era that the Word of God should cause the believer to think, and the thinker to believe!

We read in the gospel of Matthew of a miraculous event, a sign we could say, that Jesus, the son of man born of the Virgin Mary, was of a truth the son of God. There are many aspects of this event that teach us about faith and its enemy of doubt. By reading of these things, we should understand that we are all the same. These were the disciples, that our Lord later ordained to be His Ambassadors, but here they demonstrate that they were all regular men with the same doubts and fears that this weakness of flesh inherits. We, therefore, should recognise the enemies that we still have to overcome of doubt and of fear in this example.

The Lord came to them while a storm was occurring, and they were already distressed and troubled. They saw Him coming walking on the sea and they thought that He was a spirit, or a ghost and they cried out in fear which was a very human reaction to seeing something that they could not understand. As He always had to do whenever He performed something of a miraculous nature or whenever He showed something not of this world, the first aspect of the message always had to be, do not fear, be not afraid, be of good comfort. In this example our Lord said, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid”. Peter showed his faith that, if the Lord was able to walk on water and the Lord asked him, he would also have that power over the natural elements. Peter said, “Bid me come unto thee on the water”, and Jesus then said, “Come”.

We see in that lesson, that when our Lord calls us to fulfil something it does not matter whether we have the capacity and it does not matter whether it is beyond our natural understanding as to how that might occur. When our Lord calls to us and we answer that call then we are not to be afraid but to be of good cheer and He will provide those things that are required to fulfil that calling. The reverse lesson is also available to us. Had Peter just assumed that he would be able to walk towards the Lord without answering the call, then it may have been a very different story. So it is in our work for the Lord. We must never run before the Lord, but we must listen to that quiet still voice of the Holy Spirit within us and answer His call rather than instructing Him as to how we are going to fulfil our faith.

We see that, when faith and trust in the Lord abounded, the Apostle Peter was able to step onto the water and walk. We also see a very clear example in the next verse (v30), that when he took his sight off following the Lord, when he took his journey away from achieving the Lord’s goal and looked to the things that he could see, he saw the boisterous ways of the wind and he began to sink. Within our faith journey for us individually, if we start to shift our focus onto the things of this world or if we do not fulfil our Lord’s command to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then we will begin to sink in the cares and the troubles of this world. This recording also tells us the answer for when those things occur. When we begin to doubt, when we begin to fear and when we begin to sink, the Apostle Peter’s example should also ring in our heart and our mind, for he cried out to the Lord, “Lord save me”. ‘Hosanna’.

This instruction of God through His prophet is directed to a special group of people: “All ye meek of the earth.” We should explore the meaning of meek to ensure that it can apply for us.

Meekness, many say is to be humble, but if we follow the scriptures, we will find that meekness follows on from humbleness and lowliness, as in Eph. 4:2 “With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering forebearing one another in love.”

We have already learned that it can only come after humbleness, so that is the first step. Meekness is the translation of the Hebrew word ‘anah’, which means to be bowed down to God’s ways, and from the Greek word ‘praotis’ which means ‘gentleness’. If we link these together in a spiritual sense, we begin to see that meekness is an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God in which we accept His dealings with us without disputing and resisting. This meekness which is first a meekness with respect to God, must then flow on to those around us, even those who may be against us, out of the thought that they are only used by God as an example to make us look to ourselves. It is when a meek person does this, that we realise that we are also a sinner amongst sinners and as such bear a sinner’s doom and this draws us to the instruction to “Seek ye the Lord”.

This is summed up in Gal. 6:1 “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” We can read in Numbers 12:3 “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” and because of this, God spoke from the cloud to Moses. Aaron and his sister Miriam, who was going around criticizing Moses, heard God’s message very clearly, that if He wished to speak to the people, he would use a Prophet, or Vision, or Dream, but with Moses, because of his meekness, He spoke with him mouth to mouth. Because Miriam was speaking against Moses. God struck her with leprosy, and she became as white as snow. Moses showed how a meek man must react, and in verse 13 we read his plea to the Lord. “And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee.”

Christ while on earth, certainly took the place of Moses as the most meek man to ever walk this earth, and He taught of this in Matt. 11:29 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Truly Christ’s life is a living testimony of the meaning of meekness to be bowed down to ‘God’s will’ and to do all this in ‘gentleness’. If we search the scriptures, we will see many more promises given to the meek, and that great promise of the Lord Himself in Matt. 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” We know this will be the 1,000 years of peace on the earth, with Christ as the King, after the first resurrection, and so we see the great promise in the last part of our text, “it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.”

We can see now how very important it is for us all, to seek this meekness in our lives to gain all those blessings. To us, it must begin in humbleness, in confessing our Lord Jesus as Lord, in taking His yoke upon us, to be bowed down to God’s will and to do all this in gentleness one to another. Recognise we are dependent on a higher power. With the help of God’s Spirit, we can all achieve this.

These words of the Apostle Paul were the summing up of his letter of warning on how we should receive the spiritual Gifts of the Holy Ghost into our lives, where he emphasized the need for love (or charity) to go hand in hand with those gifts, or they will be of no benefit to us. He wrote if we speak in tongues of men and angels but do not have the gift of love, our sound is empty. How often do we hear today, if one does not speak in tongues, one cannot have the Holy Ghost? Is this showing love? Of course not.

He writes, if I have the gift of prophecy, or understand all mysteries, or have knowledge, or faith to move a mountain, or give to feed the poor, or give up my life but, do not have love, then I have gained nothing. All these gifts only supply in part the pieces as it were in a jig-saw puzzle, that collectively fit together to give a picture that will aid our journey to see the fulfilment of our Lord’s promise for all believing souls. As the Apostle pointed out, these gifts individually can fail, and history certainly has proven this; so we should use them when they are given, but not let ourselves lose sight of the total picture and switch our faith to only those things that we have at that time, or if we do and they fail, then we are likely to fail also.

He writes of a more excellent way that will never fail, and that way is the way of love (Charity). We have the proof of this clearly, for we know that Jesus Christ is the love of God that came into the world, and if we follow His life, we can see clearly that He was never side-tracked from His mission with those things that He knew would fail, like the time He declared what was to happen to Him, and Apostle Peter said on behalf of His disciples, “Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee.” This showed a great act of faith by Peter, but Christ knew that it would fail.

In everything that Christ did He showed love, even when He rebuked, it was for the love of the souls of those involved. We see then in our text that the Apostle Paul was likening our spiritual journey to our own lives, as we try to look into the future through a glass, but that turns into a mirror, and we see ourselves, but do we really see ourselves in our entirety, no of course not, no matter how we look, we can only ever see part of ourselves, as we move the mirror around, we see another part but loose vision of the first part, and so it is in God’s plan for our future, for that is hidden from us, as written in Proverbs 27:1. “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

This does not mean we should not try to visualize or dream in our mind of a better spiritual being, but it must be as the Psalmist writes in Ps. 17:15. “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” This total knowledge is withheld for our betterment if we follow God’s word, because it could be perilous (Gen. 2:17) because we do not have the ability to understand (John 16:12) it is a gradual revelation in God’s plan (Eph. 3:5), and it gives us an opportunity to display faith, (1 John 3:2) “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.”

The important thing for us to strive for, is the last words of our text; “As also I am known.” To be known by God as His saints at all times is more important than for us to know, and this is achieved if we believe His words:-

• “And he knoweth them that trust in him.”
• “Nathanael saith unto him, whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him. Before that Philip called thee. I saw thee.”
• “To him the porter openeth and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name.
• “I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”
• “But if any man love God, the same is known of him.”
• “Nevertheless the foundation of God, standeth sure, having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his.
• And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

We can see we should not waste too much of our time trying to see us as we will be, but rather put that time in making us as we should be today. If we can achieve this in love, the rest will take care of itself.

These words of the Lord (The Golden Rule), should influence us as we contemplate on life and what we leave behind as a legacy to the world.

I was reading an article recently on Henry Dunant, who was born into a very wealthy Swiss banking family. He is not remembered for his banking skills and in fact was so unsuccessful in business that he was declared bankrupt in 1867. In those days, this was a life sentence to have to spend the rest of one’s days in poverty and so he did.

But Henry Dunant left the world something greater than anything that a lucrative business could. He was the founder of the International Red Cross, which he began with very humble means, but a strong belief in our text word. For over 150 years and still to-day, through that teaching, has bought humanitary aid to many thousands all over the world through volunteers following that teaching.

Because he witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Sobferino and saw the plight of the wounded on both sides, he travelled and lobbied governments, churches and organisations to set up an organisation to bring comfort and help to soldiers and civilians affected by conflict. This was not done by having wealth behind him, but only by the strong desire and belief in Christ’s teachings and those given by the Holy Spirit through the early Apostles. Romans 12: 14-17. “Bless them which persecute you: bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.”

In his zeal, he was instrumental in setting up the Geneva Convention and was part of the final laws to abolish slavery in 1875. This was all achieved while penniless and at times having to sleep on park benches. What a legacy he has left behind.

We know we all cannot become noble prize winners, but we can all leave a worthwhile legacy for the future that can continue on. The greatest example of this can be seen in life and community where parents, grandparents and teachers not only provide the children with food, clothing, education and a home in this life, but go the next step in providing an ongoing legacy for the world by instilling in them reverence for God, belief in His Creation, the love and Grace of the Lord, the value of church life, to love life, respect for people and property, courtesy and kindness to all.

By achieving this, what we leave behind, will be a legacy that will make the future world a better place, as more try to emulate the virtues of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 4:13 “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ.”

We read that the Apostle Paul went into a strange land and he came across a group of men who were espousing God, and he
asked them had they received the Holy Ghost and they said that they had not even heard of the Holy Ghost, and they told him
they were baptized by John to repentance and John baptized in the name of God the Father and Paul said unto them that they
need to take that further and he then baptized them in the name of Jesus Christ, then laid hands on them and they received the
Holy Ghost. Their baptism was now complete: it was done in sections: they were now baptised according to the
commandment of God to His Apostles, to go forth into all the world baptizing them in the name of God the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and they began to prophesy and speak in tongues that all could understand what they were saying
in that land. The Apostle Paul was given great power to go about and heal the sick and to cast out the spirits so that the word
of God could be blessed. We read of that incident where the sons of the chief of the priests, saw that they were all converting
to this Christian faith. They saw their power slipping away and they then tried to cast out this evil spirit. They used the name
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and Paul, but there was no faith with their using of that name, they wished only to use
that name for their own betterment and the evil spirits said Jesus we know and this Paul we know, but who are you who are
taking these names and expressing that you have power; showing that the only power that can do this is the power of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Faith in His power, the power of righteousness that we can take within our body and the man with
that evil spirit tore into those people and stripped them naked and wounded them and they had to flee before the power of this
spirit. It is the same with us. Unless we get the thing right, unless we get that preventative action in place, we too, through our
faith, can order that evil spirit out of ourselves but without that faith many others will be destroyed through our non-belief and
through trying to take that power upon ourselves.
We may well ask ourselves what is this now to do with us in our day of Grace, for we rarely at times, witness these evil spirits
working within our midst. According to God’s word, He sent forth the angel that said: Woe, woe, woe to the earth, for now
God was going to allow to come into the earth what the people were desiring, they wished this evil so He was now to release
unto them the means of this. We can read in the book of Revelation, where God allowed the depths to be opened and the
smoke and brimstone comes out and Satan comes out of that place and is allowed to send his evil spirits within the world.
Those evil spirits are like locusts the Scripture says and God put a condition on Satan, that he was not to harm those that were
sealed with His Father’s name in their forehead. They were not to harm the green grass of the earth, they were not to have
destruction over the creation of God, but they could only go forth and exercise their evil power against mankind.
They went forth, it is recorded, as scorpions and they were shown as a description with their power was in the smoke that
came from their mouth, their power was in the sting within their tail and they did not have the power to kill man, but they had
the power to inflict upon man, great misery and for five months man would be tormented and would want to find death. We
begin to see a picture building up within our minds of what we see happening in the world today as Satan’s followers are
moving through the world and inflicting drugs upon the people of this world. Smoke that comes through the mouth, stings that
come into the tail and it does not kill people, but they are afflicted and they are tormented for months as this evil power,
through these evil spirits, are working its way through the world. Anyone that has spoken to a person on rehabilitation, they
will understand the meaning of this and they will recognize that this is being brought about by an evil spirit. For all of those
people will tell the same story that they hear voices, voices enter into their mind and tell them to do all kinds of evil things and
they cannot understand why others cannot hear these also.
We therefore see that it is a living thing that is happening and we read in the Scriptures that these are all servants of Satan
being sent into the world to exercise and to show this power that Satan has. We have to be extremely careful. We are standing
in a period of time where once again, these evil spirits will be seen everywhere in the world and we have to protect our homes,
we have to protect our hearts, we have to protect our families. There is only one protection that we can place within our
hearts, within our homes and within our families and that protection is the righteousness and the Word of God, the
righteousness of Christ. Make our homes the first place of worship, make our homes for our children to understand that they
need this protection in their lives. Do not become lax with attending service. Take upon ourselves this righteousness within
our hearts to have this seal of God in our foreheads and we will have the armour within us that even the evil spirits will
tremble. James 2: 19 “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” We are
offered the fullness of God’s blessing in the Apostle Blessing “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the
Fellowship of the Holy Ghost.” Let us accept it in faith.

We should not close our ears to the earnestness of the words of this text. It shows us that God is firm to show us the difference between Seed and Harvest.
We think in hindsight about the rich blessings which we have received, then we are thankful and glad in our hearts. Not all people in this world have been richly blessed by God; a lot of the fault lies in the system which has a lot of faults. The text tells us that we must have the two, Seed and Harvest. All people are dependent on God in all their ways, and should have thankfulness for these blessings to govern our lives, and to forgo our ego, and make our hearts ready for the distressful time.
Therefore we should know, and not fear. Those that are in the western world, should take the opportunity to grasp the meaning of these words. If we take the blessings of these words into our hearts, they will keep our hearts from becoming dull or lazy, and our spirit, languid. We must admit our mistakes and whatever our situation, we should learn to control it; God is the giver of all good gifts, -we should thank him therefor, and for anything other, we should let it blow away in the wind. We see how people should see the impracticality, if they are earnest, in going against the Creator! How is it that many Christian people fall from Grace and do not fear the wrath of God? God is longsuffering, and is love, and will not tempt anyone. Between Seed and Harvest there is a great period of time. It is by God, lawful or legal, and it gives us time to think deeply so that we give time for the seed to ripen. It is for all Christians a blessing that God has granted all that period of time. If we wish to escape the Judgment of God, we should bring good seed to the harvest. God gives us, under Grace, room and time to think better, to return to Him, to better ourselves and make ourselves perfect. What a wonderful blessing we have! The misunderstanding and the folly of man lies therein, and man becomes feeble and weak. Man shuns God in His love and becomes ignorant of His existence, and tries to become God himself, and makes naught the command of God. Man then becomes a sinner through his misunderstanding, and all that is required of him is to repent and acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord. He will then know the difference between Seed and Harvest. The words written say it ­”Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”.
Not only does Jesus Christ go about in the world spreading the good seed as the Sower, but also the spirit of Satan is active in spreading his seed. But never forget that we are reminded that we have control over our own acre, our heart: but we have to be able to recognize the true Sower and to watch what field I sow through my speaking, and to make sure I build on the right harvest: the word is true and plain. “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting”.
According to the Bible the word “Flesh” means what is written in Gal. 5: 19-21. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery; fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelling, and such like” etc. Who will follow this harvest will be promised an evil baptism.
We give thanks to God for this holy commandment regarding Seed and Harvest (Gal. 6:8), for in this text we can see the workings of Jesus Christ. Through Him we can have everlasting life (John 11: 25-26). “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” The wages of sin is death, but in the words of Jesus Christ, through the re-birth we can attain life everlasting through the power of the Holy Ghost. It is strange that the word “success” appears very seldom in the Bible, but it comes from the fruit of the spoken “word” which is the success of the Harvest. We speak of our success by using the words gold, possession, glory, respect and power, but if they will all disappear at the last Harvest, there will be nothing left. The Harvest that is everlasting is in (Gal. 5: 22-23). “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law”.
It all comes to believing in Jesus Christ our Lord. God alone knows when the last Harvest Day will come. Will you be ready?

We see that man in his own wisdom thought that he should build this city to his glory and it should have a tower that would have access unto God and God came down to see what was happening and He said let Us now disperse the nations of the world. The word “Us” the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit for He said that they can now because they speak one language, they can see that nothing is impossible for them to do and it was not yet in God’s plan that he would build HIS city and begin the preparation thereof. It will be a city built by God not by man, but when we see and understand the wisdom that they had in those days we can see they already understood what was necessary and what God would put into place in this spiritual building for they firstly took the dust of the earth to make bricks.
Man and woman are made from the dust of the earth so they could already see that God intended to use living souls in this temple. As they tried to make the bricks they found they could not fashion them so they added water so that the bricks then would become viable and they could work around them and shape them. This showed that God intended also to use water, water of baptism, baptism that we can be baptised with which will then separate us from the world, no longer are we just the dust of the earth, we are then made pliable and we are then in God’s sight something precious that he can fashion according to his will. They then found that when that water dried the bricks fell apart and; “they had to take those bricks and put them into fire so that they would become hardened and not lose their shape, already prefiguring that God would introduce into the world the baptism of the Holy Spirit which came on that day as fire on the Apostles head so that we can be sealed by this anointing we can be made hardened and the Holy Spirit can dwell within us and bind us together and hold us in our faith and lead us and guide us and keep us ever needful and mindful that we need to be fashioned and held in that shape by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
They then stacked the bricks up but they found that they would fall and they needed something to bind them together so they took mortar and they were already heralding and foreseeing what would unite the church and we have in the Tenets and Faith the belief of communion with saints that God would leave for this earth, the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ which would bind us together. We are one when we partake of that, there is no higher or lower level, we are equal in the sight of God and we are bound together by the love of Christ as He binds this building together and binds the church.
We can see that God brought those things into being but brought about by spiritual being, not the workings of man for it is God who has to receive the glory in this temple, no man will receive that. And the end result of God’s work was seen by the Apostle John in the book of Revelation where he saw the Holy City and we can read in Revelation 21 :9-11 “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.”  As with any building the higher the walls go, then a reinforcement is needed to go right down to the foundation. This in God’s building is our faith and the Bible teaches us that faith cometh by hearing the word of God about the foundation Jesus Christ.
We see clearly what God requires in His Church; the spiritual building, firstly living souls, then the Sacraments of Baptism, Sealing and Holy Communion coupled with the preaching by the Holy Ghost of God’s word to strengthen our faith. We must ensure that these gifts are always preserved if the building is to be complete.