In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing our inheritance as children of God through Jesus Christ. He encourages believers not to live as if they are paupers or disconnected from the abundant blessings available to them. The speaker also highlights the significance of the tree of life as a symbol of receiving eternal life through Jesus. He discusses Satan's deception in tempting Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and how Jesus' sacrifice on the cross brought darkness and a moment of hesitation in the Godhead. The speaker concludes by explaining that just as we received Jesus by faith through grace, our growth in Him also happens through a series of steps and a continued relationship with Him.

Would you turn with me to the Colossian Letter, Colossian Letter Chapter 1. I'm going to read from verse 12. Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell. And through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross. Through Him, I say, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before Him. If so be that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which He heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven, whereof I, Paul, was made a minister. Just a further word of prayer. Beloved Lord, we are thankful that we are gathered here in your presence this evening. We are glad, Lord, that you are here to welcome us. We are not asking you to join us. We are coming to join you. And we praise you, Lord, that you have made provision for us this evening, full provision. We want by faith to stand into that anointing grace and power, both for the speaking of your word and the translating of your word, and the hearing of your word. Lord, by your Spirit, make this an eye-opening time for many of us. Touch the eyes of our hearts, Lord. Give us that spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. The eyes of our hearts being enlightened that we might know Him in a very full and deep way. Hear us, Lord. We commit ourselves to you with much praise and with much thanksgiving. In the name of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah. Amen. My responsibility in these times is the eternal purpose of God as seen in Christ. And it is in particular this Colossian letter of the Apostle Paul. I had to say right at the very beginning that there is indeed no eternal purpose of God apart from Christ. That is the message of the Colossian letter. The eternal purpose of God is, first and foremost, not to do with things, not to do with experiences, not to do with physical or spiritual things, but first and foremost it is to do with a person. And that person is the Lord Jesus. The church at Colossae, we don't know if the church at Laodicea was also involved, had somehow opened itself up to some very powerful and intriguing new theories. What they were we don't really know, except that it was something to do with angels and principalities and powers, and that Jesus was in some way demoted so that he, instead of being everything, was just one in a pantheon of other great spiritual figures. And Paul, by the Spirit of God, wrote this letter to seek, as it were, to bring back the saints in Colossae and also in Laodicea back to the center again. There is no salvation apart from the Lord Jesus. There is no new birth apart from him. There is no Christian life apart from the Lord Jesus. Salvation is not an it, it is a person. The Christian life is not a thing, it is a person. It is eternal life, the life of Christ by the Spirit within a human being. There is no growth apart from the Lord Jesus in this very letter. We are told, he puts it very simply, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. We are told that we have been reconciled to God through and in the Lord Jesus. We are told that as ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. Walking is a series of steps. And just as you receive the Lord Jesus, so in a series of steps you progress. You grow in him. How did you receive the Lord Jesus? By faith through grace. It was the grace of God that brought you to a place where you received the Lord Jesus. How do you grow? By grace through faith. It is exactly the same way. It is not just experiences. It is a tremendous thing to experience. But to think of new birth as an it, rather than being forgotten again through the Lord Jesus, through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. There is a great difference in looking at new birth as an experience, an it, something, a kind of experience in itself, rather than it being a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Now I don't know whether you are following me, but I can go on and on with this. There is no union with God apart from the Lord Jesus. There is no way a human being can be one with God apart from the Lord Jesus. There is no fullness apart from the Lord Jesus. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form. And in him, in him, you are made full. It pleased the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell. You see, the message that begins, as it were, to dawn upon us, is that everything to do with being a child of God is relationship to a person. It is to do with the Lord. This is the message of Colossians. And this is where we begin to understand the eternal purpose of God as we see it in Christ. It is in him that we have a relationship with God. It is through him that we have a relationship with God. But let me go on, let me take you a little further. There can be no completion apart from the Lord Jesus. Just as he is the Alpha, so he is the Omega. Just as he is the Beginning, so he is the End. He is the Amen of God. So that in every part of our life, from its initiation, from its introduction to its completion in glory, it is the Lord Jesus every step of the way. The enemy's whole plan is somehow or other to wean us away from the Lord Jesus, drive a wedge between us and the Lord Jesus, alienate us from the Lord Jesus. Once we begin to see this, then the Christian life becomes something very exciting. It is a relationship with a person. It is a question of being made alive to a person, hearing a person, walking in that person. There are many other things I can go on, but I don't want to labor this point. But it has to be labored, otherwise we miss the whole lesson, the whole meaning and significance of the letter of Paul to the Colossians. There is no hope of glory apart from the Lord Jesus. The hope of glory is Christ in you. He is the hope of glory. Let me go further. There is no church apart from the Lord Jesus. We have made such a mess of this whole thing we call the church. We have set up something that is institutional, that has become traditional, that is a system. It is absolutely true that there is doctrine, and we must be faithful to sound doctrine. It is absolutely true, and I say it, I think, without fear of contradiction. We cannot do without theology, true theology, for it is the pure word of God. We cannot do without it. But the idea that the church is a set of ceremonies, a few rites, something to do with water either being sprinkled on you or you being somehow immersed in it, or bread and wine or oil put on you, or I don't know what else, hands laid on you, sometimes by unsaved men, as if that is the church. It cannot be the church. What is the church? If you go into the old covenant, that could have been the church to a certain extent, because it was all to do with special people, a special caste of people, special places, special ceremonies, special rites. But when you come into the new covenant, you suddenly discover that Jesus, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, is the head of the body, which is the church. That, in all things, He might have the preeminence. In other words, when you set up a system, there is all the possibility that He will not have the preeminence. But when He is the head of a body, He has to have the preeminence. Do you understand? I put it, many of you will have heard me put it this way before. Why is it that the Holy Spirit uses this extraordinary picture of head and body, body and head? Why? Many Christians think of the Lord Jesus as head, as they would someone who is head of the hospital, someone who is head of the government, someone who is head of a school, a principal of a school, someone who is head in the army, or whatever else. We make a fatal mistake. The picture is not someone who is a detached person, individual, who sort of gives orders merely. It is a head and a body, and you have never seen a living, headless body. And you have never seen a living, bodiless head. Yes, you can see a head, sometimes, may you not have to see it, detached from the body. And you may sometimes see a body detached from the head. They are always dead. For the whole point of a head and a body is that it is a living organism. It is something alive, something integrated, something expanding and contracting, something that has an incredible organization, but the organization comes from within. It is not imposed upon it from without. It is not some blueprint that you can set up. Oh, that we might be delivered from all this idea that the church is an it, the church is a thing, that somehow or other we can set it up. God help us. As soon as people begin to see the church, the enemy prepares a trap, and the trap is, set it up. But really, the point is this. There is no such thing as the church apart from the Lord Jesus. And when the Lord Jesus is the head of the church, the head of the body, they are functioning together, the whole world is turned upside down. It does not matter whether it is the early church turning the whole Roman Empire upside down and inside out, without great theological seminars, without great Bible schools, without great fundraising organizations, without great missionary organizations. Don't think of me just being critical of all these things. What I am saying is, we think them of absolutely necessary for the church to function. But in the beginning, when the body was created by the coming of the Holy Spirit and joined to the head at the right hand of God, it turned the known world upside down. It turned the Jewish world upside down. It turned the Roman world upside down. And wherever it has gone, it has turned the world upside down. So simple this little truth. A head and a body, that in all things he might have the preeminence. When he is the living head of the body, the church, and we hear him, something happens. When we give him the place that God has given him. Preeminence in all things, not prominence, preeminence. A vast difference. Well, I mustn't stay too long here, but I mean, it's exciting just to dwell on it for a few moments. I mean, Paul goes on when he talks about some of the problems that the Colossians have. He says, I'm not holding fast the head from whom the whole body, knit together through that which every row increases with the increase of God. When the head, you hold fast to the head. When you've got members that hold fast to the head, not every member of Christ will ever hold fast to the head. But when you have a number of those who hold fast to the head, there is increase with the increase of God. It is not psychological manipulation. It is not human's methodology and system. But it is the increase of God that it increases with. The eternal purpose of God as seen in Christ. Beloved brothers and sisters, the church is a matter of relationship to the Lord Jesus. When you have two or three in a living relationship to the Lord Jesus as head, giving Him the place that the Father has given Him, then there comes a relationship to one another. And when you have that relationship, you have the church. I say it because I think sometimes, our idea of the church is we get church truth into our heads up here, and it becomes a bondage. Instead of it being a living experience of the Lord Jesus, a question of being alive to Him, a question of hearing Him, a question of obeying Him together, it becomes like a straitjacket. We become superior, exclusive. We look down our noses at other believers. They don't understand. But when it is a living thing, there is a love for the whole family. There is an openness, a readiness, not to touch the sin, not to touch what is wrong, but to serve and to care for every member of the body. But I must go on. There is no bride apart from the Lord Jesus. I know the feminist movement has done a good job on this matter. But biblically, woman was taken out of man. And though it is absolutely true that He created them, male and female created them absolute equality. In fact, I sometimes suspect that the female species are much more clever than the male species. We see that in Genesis chapter 3. I will leave the matter lest I am lynched. But the fact still remains that you have something tremendous here in that incredible picture in Genesis chapter 2 when God brings all those animals before Adam and says to him, I am not going to name them, you name them. And I always used to say to myself when I first read this passage, I used to think, why did the Lord do this? He created the animals. He knew. Why didn't He call them by names for Adam? This is a giraffe. This thing with this long neck. It's a giraffe. Have you got it? And Adam would have said, yes, Lord. We'll call it a giraffe. And He said, this is an elephant. We shall call it an elephant. Is that right, Adam? And Adam would have said, yes. I mean, it's quite obvious to me. But the Lord never did anything of the kind. He just brought all these animals before Adam and said, Adam, you call them a name. And that meant that Adam had to look at them. And in some very wonderful way, which only the Lord could do, He was bringing out something in Adam. Really what He was bringing out was the loneliness of Adam. And really He was trying, as it were, to say, now Adam, could you live with this? Could you settle down with this? You will see that the passage begins with, and there was no help meet found for Adam. No one who met him. No one who complimented him. Then the Lord put Adam to sleep, opened his side, took out flesh and bone, and created woman. And Adam said, his name in Hebrew is Ish. He said, this is Isha, woman. She is not something I can say goodbye. I will call her something else and say goodbye. This time He said, this is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone. This is me in another form. When you go right through the Bible, you will discover that there is a bride that God is seeking. And this bride is, may I put it as simply as I can, made out of Christ. She is produced out of Christ. Do you remember when the soldier came and pierced the side of the Lord Jesus, and out of it there came blood and water? And John said, I saw this. I saw it, he said, and my witness is true. As if it was very, very important to John. Some say, well, this is the salvation of God. No, no, no. Jesus had already cried, it is finished. And the veil in the temple had been torn from top to bottom. This was something else. Much later John said, there are three that bear witness. The Spirit, the water, and the blood. What was he saying? The Spirit of God, by the water and by the blood, will produce a bride. But there can be no bride apart from the Lord Jesus. You can't clone her. You can't produce her. That's so much of what has happened in Christendom. We've cloned a bride. We have manufactured a bride. We have made something that we believe has to be, as it were, the complement of the Lord Jesus. You can't do it. This bride comes out of the Lord Jesus. Now, what I am trying to say, because I don't want to tread upon my brother's toes in this matter, but you see, in Christ, God gives everything. And apart from Christ, he gives nothing. It is so simple, I'll say it again. In Christ, God gives everything. He that spared not his own son, how shall he not freely with him give us all things? But outside of Christ, apart from Christ, nothing. Only religion. Brother Stephen this morning very ably spoke about what I call self-centered Christianity. Of course, we all begin there. We can't help it. When we're born of God, we don't think of the purpose of the Lord, the interests of the Lord, the service of the Lord, the joy of the Lord, the goal of the Lord. Of course not. We think of me. It's the first thing we think. The moment our eyes open spiritually is me. He's mine. He's mine. Mine the crown. Mine the glory. Mine. He's mine. Do you understand? It's very natural for us. And the whole church tends to circle around us, especially if we're not too difficult. They bring us spiritual toys and spiritual dummies and rattles and all the other things to play with, to mock us, look after us, to coo over us, think we're wonderful. This is self-centered Christianity. Before long, everything is centered in me. We're not even interested in anything that doesn't have us at the heart. It's my joy, and it's my will, my everything. It is a colossal surgical operation spiritually when the Lord turns us onto another foundational principle, and we begin to think of Him, His purpose, His joy, His inheritance. No child of God will survive the days that lie ahead of us. Unless he or she is delivered from self-centered Christianity. On September the 11th, something happened in the United States which has changed the whole complexion of what was once thought to be the safest place on earth. Some of us, of course, have lived with bombs and outrages for years and years and years. But most people in the States always prayed for us without too much personal experience of this kind of problem. Now the whole thing has changed, and we hear it every day and all day. What is being done? And I don't have any doubt that things will get worse. I have no doubt about it at all. But that's not my point this evening other than to say that you and I, we have time for the Lord to do something in us that will bring us into a living relationship with the Lord Jesus. And those of you who have Christian parents, those of you who have Christian grandparents, remember there is no such thing as second-hand or third-hand Christianity. It will not last. It will be shaken to pieces in the troubles that will finally come upon the whole world. What we need is a direct, original experience of the Lord Jesus. Now that is the message of this marvelous Colossian letter. He is everything. Now tonight I just want to talk about one matter only. I'm going to just dwell on it, and when I'm next speaking on this subject, I will talk about another aspect and the third time another. But tonight I want to talk about something. Don't go to sleep, please. Some of you, especially you younger ones, because I believe it's tremendous, I want to speak about the Lord Jesus as the heir of all things. Christ, the Messiah, as the heir of all things. You see, we have got so conditioned, we only think of ourselves. And we are thinking, what are we going to inherit? What are we going to get as a reward? What are we going to be in? But the most marvelous thing for us to understand, it will be the beginning of your deliverance from self-centered Christianity, is that the Father appointed the Son as the heir of all things. Look at your Colossian letter. The firstborn of all creation. Here it is, verse 15, chapter 1. Who is the image of the invisible God? The firstborn of all creation. For in Him were all things created in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through Him and unto Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Now, dear child of God, think for a moment. So few people think, especially amongst Christians. I don't know what it is. They do not think. Think. When was the Lord Jesus appointed heir of all things? Someone says, Ah, when He was raised from the dead. Someone quotes Psalm 2 and says, This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. But just wait, just wait. Firstborn of all creation. What is the firstborn? In Jewish life, as I think in most Asian life, the firstborn is the heir. So simple. The firstborn is the heir. The firstborn of all creation. Right from the beginning, God had in His mind that the Son should be the heir of all things. Now, we are dealing with something that is so profound, so tremendous, and God has had to use Sunday school language for us to understand it, even in part, and most of us, myself included, understand very little of it. The firstborn of all creation. Now, just wait, just wait. I'm quite sure I'm right on this matter because it says, it goes on to say, For through Him all things were created through Him and unto Him. In other words, God created everything through the Lord Jesus. That is before He was born at Bethlehem. Everything created through the Lord Jesus and for the Lord Jesus. And then, just so that nobody has any misunderstanding on this, it says, Things in the heavens and upon the earth. It's not just to do with the earth. It's to do with the heavens as well. Not only things visible, but things invisible. And then, we find this tremendous word. Whether phones, visible or invisible. Dominions, visible or invisible. Principalities, visible or invisible. Powers, visible or invisible. Through Him everything was created. For Him everything was created. Now, listen to this. And He is before all things. And in Him all things hold together. The word is not such an easy word to understand. But what we are being told is this. That the whole universe, its basic energy is something to do with the Lord Jesus. It holds together in Him. That's why when He became our sin and died on the cross, when God divorced Him, darkness came over the face of the earth for three hours. It wasn't an eclipse. There cannot be an eclipse lasting three hours. Something happened to the basic energy of the universe. If I may put it without speculating, it was as if God, the Godhead, shuddered. As if for a moment the Godhead hesitated. As if somehow a sword went through the very heart of everything. So tremendous was your salvation and my salvation. I hope that what I'm saying has some influence upon you. If I read Hebrews and chapter one, and I will just read the first, the second verse. God hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. You see, I find this tremendous just to think about for a moment that God has appointed the Lord Jesus the heir of all things. Just for a moment forget yourself. Let me forget myself. Jesus, our Lord Jesus, no one more worthy has been appointed heir of all things. That, for me, is tremendous. The eternal purpose of God as seen in Christ. Appointed heir of all things. Do you think the Father is going to be frustrated? Do you think the purpose of the Father will be neutralized or nullified? Do you think for one moment that Satan will get the better hand? Do you think that even if the world is filled with demonic principalities and powers, all mobilized, all working together against the purpose of God, that they will succeed? Never! Already the Lord Jesus has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, because He has already won the battle at Calvary. It is a question of its being outworked. We are now in the time when the enemy, you folks who are Chinese will understand, when the enemy is called a dragon, thrashing his tail around in fury. He knows his time is short. So little time he has left to him. As we move further and further into the last days, so we have that old dragon, that old serpent. I don't want to call them devil names, but God has already called him. Breathing fire and venom, thrashing about in turmoil, seeking to, as it were, cause all the nations of the earth to be in tumult, so that out of them will come the beast, and out of them will come the false prophet. We have no need to fear. The battle is already won. The Lamb is seated on the throne, as He has been slain. But I must leave this matter. All I want to say is this isn't this wonderful? I think it's wonderful anyway, because I think to myself I am so weak, I am so poor, I am so failing, I am so disobedient at times. The Lord has to always get me into His will by manipulating me. And then I find by the grace of God I am where I ought to be. It is the grace of God. But it is a tremendous comfort to me to know that He is the heir of all things. Not for a single moment is the purpose of God concerning the Lord Jesus going to be neutralized or nullified. In the end there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. In the end the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. There will come a day when all the nations will be the inheritance of our Lord Jesus, and when the uttermost parts of the earth will be His possession. It's coming. It's tremendous, therefore, to look at this Colossian letter and to understand it in this way. Let me sum up this and then go on to another point on this matter. You see, this simply means everything created, including you and me, was made with the Lord Jesus in view. Now, did you hear that? Everything created was created with the Lord Jesus in view, including you and me. But let me go on, if you are still with me. And if we are not confusing you even more than you were before you came in. What was God's original purpose for man? What was God's original purpose for the universe? You know, in dealing with this kind of thing we have to be very careful. I've always learned one single thing. Never get into speculation. There are so many things that are speculative theories, very fascinating, very interesting, but not clearly taught in the Word of God. Yet, there is something extraordinary, we see it in Romans chapter 8, when the Apostle speaks of the whole natural creation groaning and traveling in pain. The natural creation. That is, the hills and the valleys, the seas, the oceans, the lakes, the rivers, the atmosphere, the earth, the animals, the birds, the reptiles, the fish, everything, everything created. I think it is amazing to think that these things were created with Him in view. Every time you look at a cat, it was made with the Lord Jesus in view. Now, think of that, you who like cats. Or think of a dog, or think of a lion, or think of an elephant, or think of anything. It's not being stupid. Actually, all these things were created with Him in view. That's why man was put on the earth to tend and to guard, to keep the earth. And that's why we are in such danger today with pollution, the destruction of so much of this that was created with the Lord Jesus in view. But just wait, just wait. You were created with the Lord Jesus in view. Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. You were created. Once you begin to see this, it will change your whole view of this matter. You will suddenly see, I will never be satisfied apart from the Lord Jesus. I will never be fulfilled apart from the Lord Jesus. I will never ever be truly joyful and happy apart from the Lord Jesus. Why? Because you were made with Him in view. That's why. When God created you, He puts as the little, as the preacher says in the book of Ecclesiastes, a vacuum in your heart and He called it eternity. That means you can fill it with sport, you can fill it with hobbies, you can fill it with business, you can fill it with money making, you can fill it with sex, you can fill it with a thousand and one things and you will not be satisfied. Even the legitimate things. You try to fill that void within you with those things you will never be satisfied because whether you like it or not, you were made with the Lord Jesus in view. You were made for Him. I don't know whether this dawns upon you, but you see, when God first made us, He planted a garden and in that garden He planted two trees. I mean many trees, but they were two particular trees. Now, there's been all you get into such arguments as to what the tree was. What was the tree of life? Was it an apple tree? Was it an orange tree? Some say it was a lemon. It wasn't a grapefruit because that's a cross. That's something that's come through history. But there are a whole lot of other things that have been suggested as to what does it matter. Some people say the tree is only a symbol. Well, I've no doubt that the tree is symbolic and full of significance, obviously. But I think it was an actual tree. It didn't matter what tree it was. God just took one tree and this is what He said. You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat of that tree, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Now, it wasn't the tree. It could have been an almond. It could have been a nut. It could have been a pecan. It could have been anything. It was the obedience. That was the point. I've no doubt it was a tree that He selected. And He said, now then, you see this tree here? Right in the centre of the garden, you eat of it. The day you eat of it, you will die. Don't touch it. He never said, don't touch the tree of life. I believe that that tree of life is a picture of the Lord Jesus. Because what God wanted from the very beginning was a people in union with Himself in the Lord Jesus. Right at the heart of the whole universe. The universe is built in such a way that it is like a wheel. All the spokes go to a hub. And the hub is man. And when that man was intended to be in union with God through Christ, in Christ, in the Lord Jesus, then everything would have happened. We don't even know where it would end. People sometimes have tremendous arguments about evolution and all the rest of it. Again, I don't want to get into that. But one thing I'm quite sure about is, will a tree remain a tree? When things are what they ought to be. When the first things have passed away and that whole cycle of corruption has gone, will a tree always be a tree? Will grass always be grass? I don't know. I only know it speaks of trees clapping their hands and hills and valleys singing for joy. I only know that the whole natural creation waits for the children of God to come to the place where they ought to be in the Lord Jesus. But at the beginning, to go back to this, God intended something to happen. Everything was centered in the Lord Jesus. Everything. It is very interesting. The tree of life. What a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus. You eat of that tree. You receive eternal life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan always uses half-truths. Oh, he said you will not die. But you will become as little gods. You will have the center in yourself. You will determine yourself what you shall be and where you shall go and what kind of life you will have. This is the epitaph that can be written on the whole of the human story from Adam and Eve down to the present time. It is the endeavor of man to run his own affairs apart from God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Always weighing things up. Always using reason. Not going by an inner sense of the life of God. Oh, I must not stop there. But when man took that tree, he did not die physically immediately. But spiritually he died. Something in him died. Many Christians, I don't want to get too sort of mystical, but many Christians having received the Lord Jesus, they live on the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And you can't do it. You get into a mess. There is no way you can live your life on that level. You have to go, but I must lead this. When man fell, he was disinherited. There was no chance of his ever being adjoined here with the Lord Jesus. He fell short of the glory of God. He was divorced. Alienated, as it says. Purposeless. You know, it is very interesting what is happening to society today. Because we are now in a place where we have never been since Babel. For the first time we are able to produce human organs. Growing them ourselves. For the first time we can clone animals. Actually, if we wanted to, we could clone a human being. Think of that. And then we have all the problems. Does that cloning, cloned human being have a soul? Does it have a spirit? Will they be open to demonic possession? When the people of Babel built a tower, they said they would reach to heaven. God, when he saw it, said, If they begin to do this, what will the end be? We have come back to Babel. We have undone what God did when he scattered us to the ends of the earth and divided us by tongue. That brought a paralysis, a kind of restraint on the whole progress of fallen man. But now we have got over it. It is almost as if the whole world is shrinking into one small, as we call it, global village. Dear brothers and sisters, what is happening to our human society? Men and women are living like animals. It is almost as if there is no spirit in the man. This is the consequence of the fall. But when we look at Colossians, we see something also very wonderful. For then we find in Colossians chapter one, in verse twelve, giving thanks unto the Father who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So something has happened. Now read on. Who delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear Son. What a tremendous thing has happened to every child of God. It is a population transfer. We have been taken out of one authority, delivered from one authority with all its bondage and evil, and we have been transferred into another authority, the kingdom of God's dear Son. Tremendous! In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. So it is in the Lord Jesus we have redemption. This word redemption is so beautiful. It is something being returned to its original owner through the payment of a ransom. In whom we have our redemption, we are redeemed. We, by a ransom paid for our redemption, we are delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God's dear Son. That's wonderful. Again, if you read in this same chapter and verse 19, For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell, and through him to reconcile all things unto himself. When man fell, the hub of the wheel disappeared, and all the spokes just got, as it were, I don't know what the word is, jangled and all into a mess. Now the Lord Jesus, the firstborn from the dead, still dear, this time coming out of death, this time the first, the beginning, the beginning of a new man, the beginning of a new creation, the beginning of something altogether new. Now the Lord Jesus has reconciled through his blood, through his work on the cross, all things. That means there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. He is reconciling everything to God. And then listen to this, and you, it says in verse 21, And you, being in time past alienated, and enemies in your mind, in your evil works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him. Now isn't that amazing? If you want a further confirmation of that, again it's in Hebrews, and this time it's in Hebrews and chapter 2, and many of you will know this verse very well. And verse 10, For it became him, that is the Lord Jesus, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Isn't that wonderful? So, this is Dana's work, and Stephen's work. They are to talk about the church and the believer. But it's impossible to talk about the Lord Jesus, the eternal purpose of God, in Christ, and not talk about the church and the believer. The point is this. The Lord Jesus could have been the unique and only heir of all things. He didn't want it. He wanted to bring many sons to glory. We who have fallen short of glory, he wants to guarantee that we come to glory. And he has laid the foundation for it in his own work on the cross, and in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Dear child of God, this is tremendous. I must finish. I am quite sure that you are probably weary and find my going on and on about this inheritance of our Lord Jesus almost too much. But dear child of God, you may not know it. If you've been asleep, wake up. You are an heir of God. You may not even know it, but you are an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. One of these days the Lord Jesus will come. And when he comes, the kingdom of God will come with him in glorious power and public manifestation. Oh, what a day that will be. When all the saints from all the centuries will be gathered together for the coronation of the Lord Jesus. What a day that will be. Dear child of God, you are an heir, and you don't even know it. Let me tell you a story. Some of you will have heard this story, but it doesn't matter. Years ago, many years ago now, something like 50 years ago, we bought a house in Richmond. An old house built in 1688. That goes back to your William and Mary. And the other part of it was 1710. That was Queen Anne. This book had been on the dead book of the realtor for 13 years. So he hardly knew what was entailed, and we certainly didn't know what was entailed. But when we finally bought it for 400 pounds, which would be about $700, the whole property, we discovered that we had an old music professor next door who looked as if he was born in Queen Anne's time. He had Queen Anne legs for a start. And we found we had inherited an old hen, an old dog that had gone white, and an old cat who had a relaxed spine that meant her stomach went along the floor. But what we didn't know was that across the garden, in a run-down old studio, was a very old lady. But neighbours came to us and said, Do you know that you are the landlord of a very old lady who looks so poor? Don't you think as Christians you ought to do something about her? Now we understood that this lady was an artist and that she had rented this studio, that she paid a very small sum for each month. I went across, knocked on the door. She opened the door, and there there stood before me a lady I can only say she smelt of paraffin and fish. And she had old clothes, sneakers on where you could see her feet through them, a piece of string tied round her waist. And I said, Are you Miss Williamson? And she said in the most beautiful English, what we call Queen's English, I am. I said, We are your landlords, and we are horrified to find that you're living here without water and without electricity. I said, Could I have a look around? She said, Yes, come in. So I came in, we looked around. Well, to cut a long story short, we were all young people. We only had one older person amongst us who was in an awful lot of trouble. But we all young ones were from fire for the Lord. And we got to work on that. We scrubbed the walls. We painted them. We ran a line across, which was illegal, but never mind, from my study right across the garden and gave her light. We did everything we could. And finally she asked if she could see me. And when I went across she said, Mr. Lambert, I'm very thankful for all your young people that have been in cleaning up my place and doing that. But she said, I like to be alone. And she said, Do you think you could ask them if they would desist from coming? She said, They keep on coming with fruit and cakes and bread and everything else. She said, I'm not used to this. Now she had 16 cats. Every now and again they went up in number. And I said to her, Well, very well, Miss Williamson, if you don't want any help, I will tell all the young people not to come. Yes, she said. But I said, Is there anything we can do for you, Miss Williams? We're very bothered that we don't we don't want to receive rent. And she was very upset about that. And then she said, No, there is nothing you can do for me. But as I was going out the door, she said, Oh, just wait. There is one thing. I don't receive my pension. I said, You don't receive your pension? Britain was a welfare state. You don't receive a pension, Miss Williamson? I couldn't ask her. You never ask in England a lady's age. But she looked as old as the hills. So I just thought to myself, I said, Miss Williamson, I will phone up the National Health People and I will get the ball rolling on this. Thank you so much. Well, I phoned up the committee and the committee said, What is the name? I gave the name. What is the address? Gave the address. I said, She's living in the most pathetic circumstances. I said, And she hasn't received a pension. Mr. Lambert, they said. She will receive every penny that has not been paid for her, going right back to when she was 60. I think it was 62 years of age. Now, I imagined that that would be nearly 20 years. So they said, Don't worry about it, Mr. Lambert. We shall go into it and we'll do everything we can. We will do it. I said, She doesn't want to move. She won't want to move. OK. A week later, it took them all that time, at least a week later, Margaret came and said, There's a Mr. So-and-so who's chairman for the whole of Surrey for the health, social services, and he insists on speaking to you. So I went to the phone and this very nice man said with a very cultured voice, Mr. Lambert. Yes, I said. About your Miss Williamson. Yes, I said. He said, We have investigated your Miss Williamson. And he said, You will be very surprised to hear that your Miss Williamson has more money than all of your church members put together. And the whole of Halford Road, Church Road, Mount Ararat, and a few other roads. So I said, How much do you think? He said, It's all invested in Giltedge Securities. He said, She's had it for years and years. He said, When I say an enormous fortune, I mean an enormous fortune. And he said, She will not touch it. And all the interest, she plows back every year so that it's increasing and increasing. He said, Her interest alone is so huge that she could live in the best place in Richmond, have three or four people waiting on her. Now he said, Mr. Lambert, we can't do anything. But you, you as a minister, you can go and talk to her. He said, I have spoken with the Richmond municipality. They are prepared to move her free and all her cats if she can only be persuaded to use a little bit of the money to buy a property. So I prayed about it. We all prayed about it. And I went across, knocked on the door, Miss Williamson. Oh, good day, good day, Miss Williamson. I said, About your pension, Miss Williamson. Of course, we talked about the weather, first of all. You always do in England. And then I said, About your pension, Miss Williamson. I said, It seems that you have a little money. Who told you that, she said? Well, I said, Miss Williamson, they investigated and they said to me that you have a little money. I said, She said, It is not mine. I said, It is not yours. Whose is it? She said, It is my father. Your father, I said. Is he still alive? I mean, she seemed so old. I said, Is he still alive? No, she said, He died in 1932. 1932, I said. Yes, she said. Well, then I said, Who did he leave the money to? But forgive me, Miss Williamson, I don't want to pry, but I am just trying to get to the bottom of this. Who did he leave the money to? Me. Well, I said, Miss Williamson, if he left the money to you, it is yours. No, she said, My father was a very hard man, a very strict man. He was a disciplinarian. I wouldn't dare touch his money. And so it was till she died in the workhouse in Richmond, Surrey. She never touched a penny. And when she died, all the millions went to the government. Now, you all say, Oh, how terrible. If only it had been me. I know just how you feel. I am not Jewish for nothing. But just wait, just wait. You laugh. And you think, Oh, how terrible. Just wait. Are you a Miss Williamson? Do you know that you are an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ? Do you know that God has appointed the Lord Jesus heir of all things? And because you are saved, and because He has reconciled you, and because of the redemption that is yours, because He has delivered you from the power of darkness and transferred you into the kingdom of His dear Son, you are also an heir of God and a joint heir with the Lord Jesus. He doesn't want to inherit everything on His own. He wants you to inherit with Him. But instead of enjoying what is ours, instead of appropriating what is ours, we say, No, no, no. If I was a John Wesley, it would be possible. If I was an Amy Carmichael, it would be possible. If I was a Watchman Nee, it would be possible. But I am not. And my father, my father is very strict. I dare not enjoy any of it. Dear brothers and sisters, God has appointed the Lord Jesus heir of all things. And there will come a day when if you allow Him to do the work in you He wants to do, you in Him and with Him will inherit all things. How foolish it is to live as if we are paupers, to live as if we are disinherited, to live as if we have no relationship to the unsearchable riches of the Messiah, the fathomless fullness that is ours in Him, the eternal life that is ours. May God touch our hearts this evening and give us a new vision, a new understanding of our Lord Jesus and His love for us all. Shall we pray?