Welcome back to Secrets of the Secret Place
class.
We are in session six.
Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, we love you.
We are after you.
The knowledge of Christ, we pursue you with
all our hearts.
We ask, Lord, as we together are studying
how to come after you, how to pursue
you in the secret place.
We're asking that you would help us, empower
us by your Holy Spirit.
May the anointing of the Lord rest upon
our study now today.
In Jesus' name we ask.
Well, I'm an advocate of prayer retreats.
They've actually been a lifesaver for me, and
I would like, if I could, to talk
you into the power and the joy of
encountering Jesus in a very focused way by
going on a prayer retreat.
Now, I stumbled onto this personally in a
way that the Lord had just kind of
starved me out and cornered me, and so
I went into a prayer retreat on one
occasion that I have in mind where I
was just desperate for the Lord, and I
stumbled onto the ingredients that really make a
prayer retreat significant.
I want to share those with you.
First off is fasting.
I encourage you, when you go on a
retreat, if at all possible, fast on your
retreat.
Now, if you are physically able to, I
highly recommend a water fast, and if you
need to do otherwise because of health issues,
that's certainly understandable, but if you can do
it, a water fast actually adds intensity, and
the Lord just seems to honor it.
So, that's my recommendation.
Now, the second element is solitude.
I have found, if I can get away,
I've done a few retreats where I've actually
just unplugged from everything and gone away, be
it a facility, a retreat center, an apartment
somewhere, or a campground, or whatever you can
do to just get away and just be
with the Lord for however many days you
can manage it, and then word immersion, just
devouring the Word, living in the Word of
God, minimal distractions, the Lord's Supper.
I personally take the Lord's Supper to almost
every retreat that I do.
I just, I love Jesus, I love His
cross, and I love the Lord's Supper, and
that goes with me, and prayer.
So, those elements combined, I have found to
make a prayer retreat, those are the elements
that really make it work for me.
Let's look at Jesus' comments in Matthew 6.
He said, when you fast, verse 17, anoint
your head and wash your face so that
you do not appear to men to be
fasting, but to your Father who is in
the secret place, and your Father who sees
in secret will reward you openly.
There is no such thing as apostolic Christianity
without fasting.
It doesn't exist.
If we are to uncover the fullness of
apostolic Christianity, it must include fasting.
Fasting has been such a gift in my
life.
I'm so grateful I have fought.
I would say my number one battle that
I have fought with in the 17 years
that I've struggled with this vocal affliction, my
number one struggle has been with depression.
I hate that beast.
I've smelled demon's breath.
I've engaged that thing in a pretty significant
way, and beloved, I'm just going to say
it real clear.
I would not be here tonight if it
wasn't for the gift of fasting.
The book Secrets of the Secret Place would
have never been written.
This class would never be happening.
I am here tonight because I'm so grateful
to God for the gift he has given
us in fasting and prayer.
Fasting is a gift helping us to pursue
the kingdom of God with spiritual violence.
I don't fast to change God.
I fast to change me.
I'm the one that doesn't hear.
I'm the one that has a hard heart.
And so, I fast in order for my
heart to be softened, for my hearing to
be sharpened, that I might hear what the
Lord is saying to me.
God is shifting everything in the church right
now.
The church is going through birth pains as
God is changing the understanding and expression of
Christianity in our generation.
And beloved, you will never make the transition
to what God is doing in these end
times without fasting.
I believe that.
I know it's a strong statement, but I
believe fasting is significant to helping us make
the transition to what God is doing.
So, get to the wilderness.
Get along with God.
Fasting, prayer, the word, the Lord's Supper, getting
along with God.
Get yourself to the wilderness.
Follow in the steps of Jesus.
Follow in the steps of John the Baptist.
And let's hear what the Lord is saying
to the church in this hour.
So, a personal prayer retreat.
Put it on your list.
Must do.
And may the Lord meet you in that
in a mighty way.
Now, in this session, I'd like to talk
about being awakened to the word of God.
There is an awakening that comes to us
in the word of God.
And I want to encourage you to pursue
it with everything you have.
When you're awakened to the word of God,
one thing that happens is this book goes
with you everywhere.
You just can't get caught without it.
You'll just take it everywhere you go, because
it means so much to you.
I sit on airplanes sometimes, and I just
groan in my heart when I look at
the stuff people are reading.
You are using this time to read People
magazine.
You could have life coming into your spirit
right now, and you're eating vultures food.
And my heart just groans for me.
The stuff that people will do when they
have time, the things they read.
And I go to churches, and I'm like,
can I just be a bit transparent?
And I hope you can hear my heart
in this.
I go to churches, and it pains me
that believers come to the house of God.
They have no Bible in their lap.
They have no pen, no paper.
They got nothing to treasure the word of
God with.
I'm like, oh, and here's what I realize.
The church of Jesus Christ, and I'm speaking
broad general strokes, if for the most part,
generalities, body of Christ, has not been awakened
to what we have here.
We have the living word of God that
feeds the human heart, that empowers us.
And somebody says, well, it was just a
prayer meeting, and so I didn't think I
needed it.
But this is exactly what you needed at
the prayer meeting.
31,103 verses to empower your prayer life.
Somebody says, well, it was just a night
of worship, so I didn't take my Bible.
What?
You didn't take your Bible to a worship
night?
31,103 verses to empower your worship life,
and you didn't take it with you to
the worship service?
Lord Jesus, my prayer is, would you awaken
the bride of Christ to what she's got?
Now, I'm just going to tell a little
bit of my own journey in this thing,
if you don't mind.
I took over a pastorate of a church
when I was 29.
So, in my age 30 to 35, in
that vicinity, I was a pastor of a
church, and at the time, I was quite
disciplined in my prayer life.
I would come to our sanctuary at six
in the morning, and would spend, I don't
know, much time, maybe a couple hours in
prayer, just be by myself.
And I would read through different translations of
the Bible every year.
And my point being, I had a measure
of discipline, and it was a part of
my everyday life.
But here's what I found.
I would pretty much always be relieved when
it was over.
I'd be like, you know, put in my
time, and then I'd be like, check the
box off, did my prayer for the day.
Okay, now we can go.
And then the Lord helped me to see
it.
And the way the Lord helped me was,
basically, through this, went through a profound darkness,
darkness, grievous trial.
And in the process of that, the Lord
began to show me all this stuff.
How many know that when God's got you
in the fire, He doesn't just deal with
one little area.
He kind of, while you're there, He just
deals with the whole thing.
So, God's getting me at multiple levels all
at once.
And one of the things He's showing me
is the motivations of my love life with
Him.
It was a duty.
He was showing me I had been living
out of a performance kind of mode with
the Lord related to my secret place.
It was like this, you know, I'm a
pastor, and they're paying me to do this.
And if I'm going to be a good
pastor, I really ought to pray.
And if I'm going to preach on it,
I ought to, you know, I don't want
to be a hypocrite, so I guess I
better do it if I ever want to
preach on it.
And so there was all this performance, because
if I didn't do it, I felt like
an incompetent pastor.
And the Lord started revealing all this stuff
to me.
And I remember that the time when the
Holy Spirit helped me to see this.
He says to me, Bob, you come to
the secret place like a gas station.
You come to get filled up so that
you can go do what you want to
do.
How many folks here know you don't enjoy
going to the gas station?
I mean, I don't go to the gas
station because I like the gas station.
I go to the gas station because I
like to drive.
And the Lord was showing me, Bob, you
don't come to the secret place because you
love to be with me.
You come to the secret place because you
like to get in your vehicle called ministry
and run the thing.
And I said, oh, Lord, and in a
pain in my heart, I said, Lord, I
have a gas station relationship with you.
And when I saw that, I mean, I
wept deeply before the Lord.
I said, I don't want you to be
a filling station for me.
I want you to be the love of
my life.
I want to come to you because you
energize my heart, because you are the center
of my universe, because I am in flame
with love sickness for you.
Lord, I want to have a divine, glorious,
living romance with you.
I want this to be a love thing.
And I could imagine the Lord saying, yes,
and I know that's what you want.
And here we're getting there, okay?
We're on a journey here.
So that's kind of the way the Lord
took me.
I found that I came to the secret
place absolutely for one reason, to survive.
It was like, God, I have got to
get something from you today, because if you
don't talk to me today, I'm going to
lose my mind.
If you don't give me something from your
word today, oh God, I think I'm just
going to go insane.
My God, what's happening in my life?
You have got to show me.
Do you do this kind of stuff with
your friends?
And if you do, who are you?
And where are we going with this?
And I found myself with this desperate, coming
after the face of God.
And then what would happen was, he would
begin to speak a living, ramble word to
my heart.
And when I would get that thing, I'd
be like, oh, the knowledge of Christ God.
And then I started to become awakened to
the word of God.
Because when the word of God is literally
your lifeline, when it becomes a matter of
survival, when you literally live because of what
God has given you in his word, now
something becomes awakened in your heart.
Whoa, I've got something here in my hand.
This is a gift from heaven.
Man lives by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God.
So, that's kind of in a nutshell how
the Lord worked in my life.
And it's a lot different for me now.
Now, if I miss my secret place time
with the Lord, I don't feel condemned.
Now, I feel ripped off.
I'm like, oh, I just got robbed.
And because the secret place becomes your oxygen,
it becomes your life, it becomes, when it
becomes the place you live in, and you're
awakened to that thing.
Now, if I've been robbed of that thing,
so now I come to the secret place
because I know this is the only way
that I can live in God, is to
sit at his feet, hear his words, allow
the exchange of love to happen, the flow
of the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Those who devote themselves to the secret place
because they're trying to gain the Father's affection
or approval need to recover the freedom of
the gospel.
Because God doesn't love you.
He loves you not because of something in
you, but because of something in him.
You are never going to be able to
perform your way into earning God's affections.
If you spend an hour in the secret
place, two hours in the secret place, three
hours, the more time you spend, it's not
like he likes you more.
It's not like, oh, now he thinks you
aren't you something.
Now, if you pursue the secret place to
try to satisfy an insecurity or a valley
in your soul, you will never find the
joy of the secret place, and you will
be burdened because that's a burden that the
Lord never intended for you to carry.
I don't pray in order to gain his
smile.
I pray because I have his smile.
I don't pray to get his affection.
I've got his affection, and that's what gives
me the confidence and the courage to come
with boldness into the throne room and live
in the presence of God.
And when we get ourselves into a performance
mode, you know, when we start doing that
and we start trying to perform to somehow
meet God's expectations or whatever, you know, it
actually makes God angry.
Romans 4 verse 15 says, the law brings
about wrath.
Now, for law, just substitute the word performance,
because the law was all about performance.
If you did this, this, this, and this,
then God does this, this, and so the
law performance was the basis of the law.
But Paul says, this performance thing brings about
wrath.
Why?
Because when we try to perform our way
into gaining Abba's acceptance, we are actually dishonoring
the performance of Christ.
It's not my performance that gets me accepted
to Abba.
It's Jesus' performance on the cross, and so
by faith, I accept the performance of Christ.
The righteousness of Christ is now mine, and
I am accepted before Abba because I believe
in the performance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What he did on the cross, I believe
not in my work, but in his work.
Not in my performance, but in his performance.
It's all about faith in the performance of
Christ.
One of the most common feelings among believers
is this feeling of never doing enough.
Now, we are recording these classes at the
International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and
I haven't talked with any of you about
this, but I've talked to a couple people
here and there, and you know what's amazing
to me?
Is that here we are at a place
unique in the earth where we are praying
literally 24-7, 365, around the clock, all
year long, and we have a community with
so many people who feel like they never
do enough.
At a 24-7 prayer ministry, and it's
still not enough.
My point is that the enemy tries to
use this against all of us.
It's universal.
You're never doing enough, and if we come
to our secret life in God with this
thing going inside of us of, I've got
to do more, I have to give more,
I've got to give more time, I've got
to read more, and if we have that
kind of a negative motivation of it's just
never enough, we will never find the fullness
of the joy of the secret place from
a negative motivation.
That's what I'm trying to say.
So, what is our motivation?
My best answer is to be awakened to
the glory of the Word of God and
prayer, and when your heart comes alive to
what you've got, they can't keep you away.
You will do whatever you have to.
Distractions get out of my way.
Calendar you will submit, and you will start
doing whatever you have to do to safeguard
the secret place, because you have learned man
does not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God, and this beloved is the whole reason
that this class is happening.
That's why we're taking this course.
Lord Jesus, we have to be awakened to
the glory and the joy of the Word
of God.
Would you do this kindness in the heart
of your saints?
I would like to just say to you
this, say it to you this way, my
desire is that you would be awakened to
the Word of God as I have, and
that you wouldn't have to walk through the
darkness I had to walk through to get
it.
Pray the Lord would have a gentler way
for you, but I also pray whatever it
takes, awaken your bride to the power and
the glory of the Word of God.
There's two words in the Bible that are
translated for us into English word.
There's the Greek word logos, which means word,
and there's the Greek word rhema, which means
word, and one way that they are commonly
distinguished, we will often say that the logos
is the written Word of God, and the
rhema is the spoken Word of God.
Here's how I distinguish the two.
A logos is a rhema God gave somebody
else.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
When the writers of scripture got their download
from heaven, it came to them as a
rhema.
They were like, whoa, that is incredible.
That rhema set them on fire, and they
put that thing on paper, but when you
got it on paper, it came to you
as a logos.
They got a rhema from heaven, but when
you got it from them on paper, you
got it as a logos, because nobody can
give you a rhema.
They can only give you a logos.
The only way to get a rhema, you
have to get it directly from heaven.
Not a soul on the planet can give
you a rhema.
There's not a book can give you.
There's not a conference can give it to
you.
There's not a speaker.
There's not a pastor.
There's not a preacher.
Nobody but God can give you a rhema.
Have you ever gotten a rhema from God
and then told it to a friend?
Like you got this rhema, like, yes, that
is it.
That's my answer.
Lord, I've been after this thing for four
years, and that's my answer.
It lights you up like light bulbs.
You get on the phone.
You tell your friend, listen to this.
God just gave me the answer, and you
tell your friend your rhema, and your friend
goes, praise God, and you just want to
slap her.
Is that the best you can manage?
I just gave you the hottest download I've
gotten in years from heaven, and that's the
most excitement you can muster?
Well, remember, you got a rhema.
She got a logos.
You get it from heaven, it's rhema.
Share it with somebody else.
It gets downgraded to logos.
But now, we have a localist right here,
but here's what I've discovered.
The more time you spend in the logos,
the better your chances of getting a rhema.
Now, I just gave you a jewel with
that statement right there.
That's why we pursue the secret place.
That's why we come after the Word of
God, because sometimes the Word can just be
a little bit dull, a little bit logosy,
if you know what I mean.
But if you will stay in it, there
will come a time when a rhema will
come to your heart.
Galatians 6 verse 8, he who sows to
the flesh will reap of the flesh corruption,
but he who sows to the Spirit will
of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
And if you will sow to the secret
place, beloved, I think I can say this
with confidence, sow to the secret place, you
will eventually reap to the secret place.
God will give you a rhema, and once
you get a rhema from heaven, you're hooked.
Once God feeds your spirit with the living
Word from heaven, oh, you will become awakened
to the glory and the wonder.
This is such a remarkable book.
I love this book.
Every time I get depressed, I come back
to this book.
You cannot get depressed reading the Bible.
It is such an awesome book.
In fact, the most depressing chapter in the
Bible, I think Psalm 88.
I used to think Psalm 88 was one
of the most depressing chapters in the whole
Bible, because it starts with pain, it's filled
with pain, and it ends with a cry
of pain.
That's all Psalm 88 is.
There's no thanksgiving, there's no praise, there's no
joy, there's no hope.
There is just one massive cry of pain.
I used to think it was a morbid
Psalm, but when I found myself in the
throes of depression, I came to Psalm 88,
and I realized the Scripture validates a place
in God where all you feel is pain,
all you see is blackness, and all you've
got are tears, and there's a Psalm to
validate being in that kind of blackness, and
even in your darkest hour, the Word of
God encourages you and says, God has a
purpose even in this darkness, and He will
bring you through.
I love this book.
It lifts my heart.
It empowers me.
It's my life.
It's my sanity.
It's our source.
Beloved, I pray for you and awakening to
the Word of God.
Let's just pray right now.
Lord Jesus, I am asking that you would
awaken the Church of Jesus Christ in this
hour.
I am asking that you would use somehow
in a small way even this course, this
book, Secrets of the Secret Place.
Would you help us in our discussion groups?
Would you empower your people to be awakened
to the joy and the glory of a
secret place, living relationship with you and your
Word?
I ask you to do it.