During the past days, several have asked a
little bit about the matter of tape ministry.
Let me just say a word.
I haven't up until now, but during the
time that I was in New York for
10 years, every service was taped, or at
least every service that the tape machine was
working.
And consequently, when I left the tabernacle in
1966, the men of the church asked if
I would want the tapes.
And of course, I was grateful for them.
A pastor up in Lexington, Massachusetts, knew, learned
of this, and he said, look, I'd like
to take them and to classify them and
edit them and get them ready so that
they might be used.
Well, he kept them for a year or
two, and then one of the workers at
the International Students in Washington asked just a
simple little question, where could I get a
tape?
Well, I mentioned this young man, this pastor
in Massachusetts.
She wrote to him, asked for a tape,
and he said, look, let me send them
all to you.
So she got boxes of them, two, three
hundred of them, which Ruth Lowe has edited.
She's gone through them.
She's taken them and put them into categories
and into series and has made them available.
Well, she asked about a series that I've
been bringing here in the evenings, if that
was available.
And I said, well, if you want them,
you will just have to go to Summit
Grove and record them.
So that's precisely what's been done.
So any of you that would like to
have the series of the morning or the
evening or both can obtain them.
You say it, brother.
Iriam Jaya, okay, said, you know, we had
you with us for a missionary conference.
I said, is that so?
He said, yeah, it was great.
He said, when we got tired of you,
we could just shut you up and didn't
offend you.
And if we didn't understand, we could make
you repeat until at least we knew what
you said, whether we understood it or not.
And we didn't have to feed you.
We didn't have to listen to your old
jokes, and we didn't have to push you
over the mountain trail to get you from
one place to another.
Come back that way and do it again
sometime.
Well, this is one of the opportunities of
serving.
And I think the tape ministry, wherever and
however and whose tapes you might use, is
a wonderful way of extending the ministry, and
I'm very grateful that this is possible.
And I'm sure that you'll find not only
the tapes of these messages, but for many
others.
It is a new way.
It's called, in this case, the spoken word.
We have the written word, but I think
that increasingly with busy people who have time
driving, they're going to find that just putting
a little cassette recorder down, and even if
you've got others in the car, you can
still get one of these little ear clips
and listen while you drive, while others are
listening to something else.
So I think it's one of the new
ways that God has of enabling us to
assimilate his truth.
Now that's just by way of us calling
your attention to it.
Now we've been considering in the epistle to
the Ephesians, what I call the developing your
full potential in Christ.
I see this epistle, as I've said day
by day, as a manual of instruction.
To enable us to become everything that the
Lord Jesus wanted us to be and to
do.
Now I haven't time this morning to go
back over the ground we've covered.
I merely call to your attention that we
have seen that we are partakers of his
grace, the grace that God purposed before the
foundation of the world, that the Son provided
and the Holy Spirit will perfect in us.
This grace includes the plan of God's working.
He wants to live in us and know
his own life.
And the place from which we minister, seated
with him in the heavenlies.
That God has provided this grace for us
when he knew the very worst about us.
There's nothing we'll ever find out about ourselves
that'll surprise him or make him change his
mind about loving us.
And that encourages me greatly.
Then we have seen that God made a
plan for our lives, a distinct tailor-made
plan for you.
He has a plan for your life and
it begins today.
And you can call to him today and
say, Father I want thy will to be
done in my life on earth today, even
as it is perfectly done in heaven.
Now we want to see that this plan
is so wonderful, it's so far above everything
that we have dreamed about ourselves, that the
only way that it could possibly be brought
into being and become effective was for the
Lord Jesus Christ himself to live his life
and accomplish his purpose through us.
Now we need to understand that.
You know that verse in that sort of
summarizes it in John 15.
Abide in me and I in you.
Look at it for a moment.
Abide in me, crucified with me, that you
might have victory over yourself, your habits, your
attitudes, your disposition.
Victory over yourself through your union with Christ
in his death, your moment by moment looking
to him for release from the power of
temptation.
Then abide in him, buried with him, that
you might have victory over the world.
This world that seduces and allures, that would
draw us and did draw us and does.
But there is victory.
Abide in me, said Christ, buried with me.
Because you know, however enthusiastic we may have
been about the new models of the automobiles,
after we're dead, the salesman doesn't go out
to the cemetery and stand at our headstone
and tell us how high the tail fins
are that year.
It doesn't make much difference.
We just aren't interested.
Buried with him sort of, shall we say,
insulates us against that sort of thing.
Then the next thing is abide in him,
quickened with him, that your life, the life
that brought you from the dead, is the
very resurrection life of Christ.
Raised with him to return to your old
community and your old associates, but not in
your old strength, but in his.
Seated with him.
Abide in me, said Christ, seated in the
heavenlies in me, that you might enjoy my
victory and understand that I have entrusted to
you the enforcement of that conquest that I
made over the God of this world.
So he said abide in me, and I
will abide in you.
Now one is conditioned upon the other.
Christ abiding in us is not synonymous with
being forgiven.
It's not synonymous with being pardoned and saved.
It's synonymous with, or it depends upon, our
understanding what it means to abide or live
or dwell in him.
Well we've been seeing this from Ephesians.
I just call it to your attention from
John 15.
No scriptures of private or single interpretation.
The scripture supports itself and bears itself out.
Now today I want you to look at
that aspect of it, if you please, and
I will abide or live or dwell in
you.
We see this in Ephesians chapter 3 and
verses 14 to 21.
Here the apostle is writing to the church
at Ephesus and through them to us, and
he is telling us that the desire of
God is that Jesus Christ might dwell, live,
reside in our hearts through faith.
That Christ may dwell in your heart through
faith.
It's a prayer, and I was years ago
tremendously helped by the ministry of Brother George
Mundell from Maranatha Tabernacle in Upper Darby, and
they asked me there for a conference some
years ago, and I was so delighted that
they prayed in the worship service this prayer.
The whole congregation had learned it and they
prayed it in unison.
For this cause I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth
is named, that he would grant you according
to the riches of his glory to be
strengthened with might by his Spirit in the
inner man.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith.
That you being rooted and founded in love
may be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth and length and depth
and height, and to know the love of
Christ which passes knowledge that you might be
filled unto all of the fullness of God.
Isn't it interesting that the only one of
the letters of Paul where the Apostle puts
the benediction in the middle of the letter
is in Ephesians?
Every other one, he can wait, he can
control himself until he finishes the letter, but
he can't hear.
Why?
Why he's just told these dear people of
Ephesus that they can be filled unto all
of the fullness of God.
And so his hands go up, and remember
he's dictating this in Mamertine prison in Rome,
in that prison for the household jail of
Nero, of Caesar.
And he has a chain around his wrist,
and a chain to a soldier on the
right, and another chain around his wrist to
a soldier on the left.
And he is there in that little place,
only about 18 feet square, kind of an
eight-sided little room that I've been in
repeatedly.
And there he raises his hand, and he
shakes them.
I hear the chains rattle as he says,
Now unto him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or
think, according to the power that work is
in us.
Unto him be glory in the church by
Christ Jesus throughout all ages, worlds, without end.
Amen.
Then he starts out with the rest of
the letter.
But he's got the benediction right in the
middle, because he couldn't wait.
It was so exciting, it was so thrilling.
It was one thing, you know, for these
Gentiles to be built into the temple as
the habitation of God, the middle wall of
partition broken down.
But to think that Christ will dwell in
their hearts, and that they can be filled
with the fullness of God.
My, that is exciting.
Well, is it exciting to you?
Do the people that you live with see
Christ living in you, in me?
They should, you know.
We often hear people talk about the deeper
life, or the Christ life, or the exchanged
life, or the sanctified life.
And all of those are good words, and
I think I understand a little bit of
what they mean, depending upon who uses the
word.
But the thing here is different.
This is just the normal Christian life.
Which means that if I'm not living here,
I'm subnormal.
I'm below standard.
I'm below par.
I'm not what I ought to be.
Okay, if that's true, then the question is,
are you, are you today a normal Christian?
Is this prayer answered in you?
Is Jesus Christ living in you?
Now, years ago, when I was, I had
a marvelous background, in the sense that I
thank God for it.
I was saved in a old, old Methodist
holiness camp meeting.
I told you about it the other night.
It was thrilling, because it gave me a
flavor, an openness.
But you know, it wasn't long until I
went to a Bible school that was thoroughly
dispensational.
Now, the camp meeting people believed that you
were saved, and you were sanctified.
And that was great, and I, I just,
God saved me there.
I believed anything they taught me, wouldn't you?
When I got to Bible school, I learned
a different language.
And I was taught there that, well, that
just wasn't what happened.
You were saved and sanctified at the same
time.
And you got everything God had to give
you, at that time that you were saved.
Well, there were a lot of problems involved.
And of course, you know, some of the
dear friends in the holiness side, and they
said that the Spirit of God was with
you when you were saved, and in you
when you were, were sanctified.
And that didn't make sense to me, because
I read, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he's none of his.
So that immediately made me question whether what
I'd been taught was, was true or not.
And then I took the word saved, and
I found that it was used in many
different ways.
You could say, I have been saved, I
was saved, I am being saved, and I
shall be saved.
You know, and that's what the Bible teaches.
It's true, every one of those expressions, it
could be used.
I have been saved from the pleasure of
sin, I was saved from the penalty of
sin, I am being saved from the power
of sin, I shall be saved from the
presence of sin.
And that made sense.
And then I heard also sanctified, and before
the foundation of the world, we were sanctified.
In the fullness of time, we were sanctified.
We were sanctified, and we shall be.
Well, I ended up, boy, I ended up
kind of confused.
But I wasn't confused enough to know I
was confused.
I was just confused enough to be dogmatic,
and to make absolutely sure that everybody knew
how dogmatic I was, even though I didn't
know how confused I was.
But this was the teaching, that when you
were saved, you got everything there was to
get.
And then they used to say, and I
used to say, you know, you get all
there is to get of God when you're
saved, it's just for him to get more
of you.
Well, you see, a person can't come in
parts, and if you get the Lord, you've
got all there is to the Lord.
Well, if he can't come in parts, he
can't go in parts either, can he?
If he can't come in parts, then he
can't get more of you either, because you've
got to make sauce for the goose, sauce
for the gander.
It's got to be a two-way street,
you know.
Can't all be one-way traffic.
So there was a lot of confusion about
this.
But isn't it marvelous?
God doesn't get confused.
And there was a hunger in my heart.
I remember John Wengates, a great Methodist missionary
from Africa, came to Taylor University, and he
would speak, and the presence of God was
on him, and the glory of God was
through his ministry.
And I went to his room one time,
and I said, please explain to me what
you have.
And he started to explain, and all my
teaching rose up.
I was polite enough not to do it,
but when I left, I said, boy, is
he confused.
He doesn't know a thing.
I could shut him straight if I was
a little older.
But the next day I went back, and
he spoke, and I was straight, and had
all the answers, and he had the glory
of God.
So I went back the next night, and
I said, brother, I want you to pray
for me.
Don't try to explain it to me.
Just pray that whatever it is God's done
for you, he'll do for me.
Well, he prayed for me, and I'm sure
that, but I was so chocked full of
all my own egotism, and my own dogmatism,
and my own, you know, my own argument
that even God in his grace couldn't slip
very much in.
But I went to the mission field, and
there I discovered myself.
I found out that I'd taken with me
a critical mind, a sarcastic tongue, a censorious
spirit, that I wasn't as spiritual as I
knew I ought to be, and the only
way I could live with myself was to
prove nobody else was either.
So then the sarcasm and the criticism found
its way out, and I can recall when
I'd said something unkind and cutting to a
fellow missionary, going to my room and getting
down, and groaning before God, and saying, oh
God, if you'll forgive me this once, I'll
never do it again.
Press my fingernails into my hand, and grit
my teeth till I loosen them, you know.
Lord, I promise you, God forgave me, and
I did it again.
Because victory doesn't come from your, how deep
your fingernails are in the heel of your
hand.
It doesn't come from how you grind your
teeth.
That's not the source of victory.
Victory's in Christ.
Christ is our life, our victory, and I
didn't know how to appropriate it.
And I came back home, and as a
missionary, asked to do deputation work, and I
went to this little conference, Crystal Beach, down
in, near Clearwater, Florida.
I didn't know what it was, who it
was, and what it was, but I heard
this, this preacher from Philadelphia, and he started
to speak.
First time I heard him, I said, he
knows the Word.
The next time I heard him, I said,
he knows the Word very well.
Third time I heard him, he said, why,
he knows me.
And the fourth time, I said, he knows
the Lord.
And I was there in the listening to
him, and I recall his telling one day,
you know why you've been living at such
a poor, failing rate?
Why you're in such a mess?
Why your life is such an up-and
-down experience?
You've never looked at the cross from the
inside.
You've only seen the outside, Christ dying for
you.
And you didn't realize that he not only
died for you, but he died as you.
Turn around, dear heart, and look at the
cross from the inside.
And it was like running a shade up,
when it was dark inside, and the sun
was bright outside.
And God allowed me to see that the
day Christ died, I died.
I don't have to think dead, or play
dead, or act dead, or crucify myself, or
anything else.
The day the Lord Jesus Christ died for
me, I died with him.
And I don't have to feel it, I
have to know it.
Knowing this, not pretending, knowing that that you,
that you are, died in the eyes of
God the day, just as Christ died for
you, you died with him.
So I went home to my room, and
I took a piece of paper, and I
wrote down a little contract.
Father, from today on, as long as I
live, that I, that I am by nature,
is going to stay here crucified with Christ.
Buried with him, quickened with him, raised with
him, seated with him.
I reckon myself to be dead.
And the next day, another missionary from another
society came on the ground, and he got
me against the tree, and he started to
tell me what was wrong with our mission.
And then he started to tell me what
was wrong with me.
And normally I'd have been like this, you
know, waiting to get my word in.
All of a sudden, I realized that that
criticism and censoriousness and sarcasm wasn't working.
It was like looking at the stage from
the upper balcony through the wrong end of
a, of a pair of opera glasses.
There was an element of distance.
And, and when there was a chance to
get a word in, I said, please brother,
you'll have to pardon me, something marvelous has
just happened.
And then when I walked away, I'm sure
he thought among all my other problems, I
just lost my mind.
Because I didn't tell him what he was
expecting, didn't have a reason to expect from
me.
And I went back to praise the Lord.
Why, this was a delight to be able
to tell people that God does give us
victory.
I was up in a meeting in a
little church in Louisville, Kentucky, and talking about
union with Christ and identification with Christ.
And a dear little lady came to me,
and she said, you know, this is wonderful.
But oh brother, I'm praying that God is
going to fill you with the Holy Spirit.
Boy, you don't talk about knowing how to
hurt a guy.
You're putting a pin into his little balloon.
She sure did to me.
Well, I said, you know, and then I
said, well, thank you sister for praying for
me.
Like D.L. Moody has those two women
in Chicago, you know.
And every time they'd have an altar call,
and people come, he told them, he said,
pray for the sinners.
No, Mr. Moody, we're praying for you.
And he got so he would walk around
the building rather than see them.
Because he'd say, Mr. Moody, we're praying for
you, that you'll be baptized with the Holy
Spirit, that you'll be filled with the Spirit.
Well, that's the way it was with his
sister.
Every time she came to church, she'd say,
thank you brother, but I'm praying you'll be
filled with the Holy Spirit.
Well, this cut right across.
I knew, didn't I, that when I was
born again, I got all, I didn't know
identification.
Now I had it.
Then I began to study the Word.
And you know what I discovered?
I discovered that the Word teaches to my
satisfaction that there are two very clear, distinct
crises in the Christian life, as far as
I'm concerned.
One is preceded by a process that issues
into a crisis.
And then that's followed by a process that
issues into a crisis, which is followed by
a process.
Now let's talk about the first.
The first crisis is being born of the
Spirit.
Now there's a process.
We're awakened by the Spirit.
We're brought to conviction, brought to repentance, faith
that reaches out to receive Christ.
What's happening?
The Holy Spirit is presenting Christ to us.
Christ the Savior.
We're sinners.
And he's presenting Christ to us as Lord
and Savior.
Telling us what sin is, and what repentance
is, and what salvation is.
And then we're born of the Spirit.
Then God witnesses to us that we're born
again.
We move on in the Christian life, and
some failure overtakes us.
We stumble and fall.
We deal with it on the basis of
brokenness, confessing it, forsaking it, knowing the cleansing
of the blood, but yearning and longing for
victory.
And then hopefully someone's going to tell us
that victory comes through our union with Christ
in his death, in his burial, in his
resurrection.
And then we're going to say, well isn't
that glorious, now I've got victory.
And here I was, teaching victory.
And God even aggravated a little further, because
he gave me an anointing for missionary ministry.
And so I was, I was ministering, and
God was honoring, and giving us young people
permission, service, and money permission.
But my heart was so desperately hungry for
the fullness of Christ.
And I began to read the word.
In the scripture I found that they were,
they were repented of their sin, and they
believed, and they were baptized.
And then the apostles prayed for them, and
that they would be filled with the Spirit.
Paul met Christ on the road to Damascus,
and then a certain disciple, Ananias, prayed for
him, that he might be filled with the
Spirit.
So there was a second Christ, born of
the Spirit, the first one, and filled with
the Spirit, the second one.
When that point of, of simply abandoning to
him all that we were, and all we
had.
Now someone might ask me, but can't that
all happen at once?
Sure, I suppose it can.
There's some evidence that may have done that
for chameleons.
But you know, very few people can look
two places at once.
And I'm not going to argue, if God
filled you with himself when you were converted,
when you were born again, praise the Lord.
There's only one thing, don't presume.
Don't presume you're converted, you have the opportunity
to have the witness of the Spirit.
And don't presume you're filled with the Spirit.
Don't presume.
No, no, no, everything in the Christian life
is to be known.
Reality.
You can know, just as you can know
that you aren't converted and aren't saved, you
can know the charge.
And just as you know that you've been
born of the Spirit, you can know that
you're filled with the Spirit.
I remember Dr. Chosley spoke at the tabernacle
so many years for us in our missionary
conference, and almost every year I asked him
to talk to us about how to be
filled with the Spirit.
And he said this, everyone filled with the
Spirit knows it.
Everybody filled with the Spirit knows when.
And everyone filled with the Spirit was filled
suddenly.
And if you'd like that, you buy his
little book that's out there at the bookstore,
I'm sure, on how to be filled with
the Spirit.
And you'll see precisely what he gave to
us year after year.
Now that's what the Apostle is praying for
this church at Ephesus.
That they'll be strengthened with might by his
Spirit deep in the inner man.
Obviously they're converted.
They've been born again.
They're saints, faithful in Christ.
And he's crying out to God for them
that they will be prepared to meet the
condition so that Christ can take up his
lasting dwelling place.
It's an interesting construction in the Greek.
That he would grant you according to the
riches of his glory to be strengthened with
might by his Spirit deep in the inner
man.
Please turn your cassette over now for side
two.
In order that our Christ may be able.
Now that's a literal exact translation of the
words that are there.
In order that our Christ may be able
to take up his lasting dwelling place in
your hearts through faith.
Now obviously he was there.
But what he yearned for was that the
entire personality might be filled with him.
F.D. Meyer gave it.
Have you ever bought that little book?
Moody Colported number number 37.
And it's called The Christ Life for the
Self Life.
And F.D. Meyer tells in that book
of he says everything done by Christ in
the three years of his public ministry was
done by the third person of the Trinity,
the Holy Spirit.
Not the second.
You see if Christ had performed his ministry
and his own intrinsic essential deity of son
he'd never been like us.
But he laid apart laid apart his the
right to act as son.
He accepted the limitations of his humanity.
He presented his body to the Father and
everything done by our Lord Jesus was done
by the Father through the Holy Spirit.
So that he could be just like you.
So what are we?
We are, he was born of the Spirit.
Sure conceived by the Holy Ghost.
Indwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
But the Spirit of God came upon him.
Then he said the Spirit of the Lord.
He didn't say the Spirit of the Lord
is in me.
But in him he said the Spirit of
the Lord is upon me.
He has anointed me.
He has sent me.
And 47 times in the book of John
he says I don't speak of myself.
I speak as I receive commandment of the
Father.
I don't do the works.
The Father that dwells in me, he doeth
the works.
Well why?
So he could be like us.
We too are born of the Spirit.
But we're not ready for our ministry until
we are filled with the Spirit.
And that's what Paul is praying for.
He isn't using the word Spirit here.
He's talking about Christ dwelling in their hearts
through faith.
You know you go into a church you
talk about the Baptist and the Holy Spirit
and they shut you off and perhaps close
you out.
You go in and you talk about Christ
dwelling in your hearts through faith and being
filled with the fullness of God.
A lot of them, I go to a
Presbyterian, a Baptist church and I talk from
Ephesians 3 and they say praise the Lord
brother that's what we want to hear.
But if somebody came and started talking about
being filled with the Spirit they just closed
them right down.
But why?
What's the difference?
He's saying that Christ may dwell in our
hearts through faith that we might be filled
with the fullness of God.
That's what he's talking about.
Meeting the conditions, relinquishing the right to our
right.
F.B. Meyer uses the illustration of keys.
And he says the Lord appeared to him
and said I want the keys to your
life.
And he gave all but one or two
little ones.
And the Lord said well if I if
I can't have those then then I just
can't meet your need.
And so he took the keys and put
them into the hands of the Lord.
And then he said it was like a
pitcher being poured.
And he just knew that his great deep
yearning longing that had driven him so long
had been satisfied in Christ.
All right.
That Christ may dwell in our hearts through
faith.
That Christ may take up his lasting dwelling
place.
That's what Paul was praying for these believers.
Now of himself he said I am crucified
with Christ.
Nevertheless I live.
Yet not I but Christ liveth in me.
And the life I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me.
He could have said I am crucified with
Christ.
I am buried with him.
I am quickened with him.
I am raised with him.
I am seated with him.
Nevertheless I live.
I presented my body to him.
And the Lord Jesus has taken up his
lasting dwelling place in my heart through faith.
And I'm walking in the fullness of God.
He just chose to express it.
The Spirit of God again had him give
it in another way.
That Christ shall dwell in our hearts through
faith.
Here that I live yet not I but
Christ liveth in me.
Now it's the same thing.
Two crises then.
Born of the Spirit.
Filled with the Spirit.
And I'm asking you.
Are you living this normal Christian life?
Are you?
Well if you aren't you should be.
Your family deserves it.
I told you the other day about Reginald
Wallace of England who said on occasion the
happiest day of his Christian life was the
day he discovered he couldn't live it.
And I remind you again.
Have you discovered that?
And I suggest again that if you haven't
your family sure have.
They know you can't live the Christian life.
They know I can't live the Christian life.
I remember one time Dr. Tozer wrote an
editorial.
And a lot of his dear friends suggest,
some of them said he shouldn't publish it.
And then he published it.
And a lot of them wrote to him
and said he shouldn't have written it and
shouldn't have published it.
And he wrote a retraction the next time
in the witness.
And he told how sorry he was that
he'd injured the dear brother that of whom
he'd spoken whose translation had offended Dr. Tozer.
And he said but you know something?
What you saw in that editorial was pure
Tozer.
That's all it is.
That's what I am.
And if there's anything other than that then
it has to be of the Lord.
Well you know in a sense that's a
great man that can turn his failure to
even make it further the gospel.
But you know you can't live the Christian
life.
And your family know it.
And your friends know it.
And your congregation knows it.
And the Lord certainly knows it.
I can't live the Christian life.
It's his life.
I'm not Christ.
I'm just me.
And if I'm going to live the Christian
life and all the pressures that are there
he can't be me.
I don't have that kind of ability or
intelligence or energy.
But oh here what's his plan?
That the Lord Jesus can take up his
lasting dwelling place in our hearts who faith
that we might be filled under the fullness
of God.
There's a dear woman who was a house
matron at Wheaton College.
I was speaking down at Ben Lippin Bible
Town.
No I was speaking at Camp Lomaco for
Hendersonville for the Alive.
And they came out.
And this dear lady said can I can
I talk with you?
So we were sitting on the porch of
the hotel at Hendersonville.
And she told me of this experience.
And with this I close.
She said that normal she'd been invited to
go back to her friends in Augusta Georgia
for Christmas this year.
This would have been back in 1958 or
9.
And she said she just couldn't.
There were some missionaries children that were there
at school and she felt she had to
stay.
And she wanted to seek the Lord because
her heart was so hungry for God.
And she just knew that there was something
the Lord wanted.
So she read.
She read various books.
She read the scriptures.
She prayed.
One afternoon she'd been up much the night
before with his homesick missionaries child.
And she took a nap in the afternoon.
And she had she said he had a
dream.
And in this dream was her stand in
her room there in her little apartment in
the dorm.
And a large bowl like a fishbowl.
And she had a Christmas tree there with
ornaments.
And these were ornaments but they didn't have
any hooks.
Just colored ball that filled this bowl.
And seemed to her that she heard the
Lord say you want to fill me.
Well this bowl is like your heart.
If you will take the objects out of
it I'll fill it.
And she said she in her dream she
got up and she looked at them.
And each one of these colored balls had
a name.
One was a person in her life.
Another was a possession that she was being
disputed.
And another was.
And each one had a name.
And she looked at them.
And the answer the word had been if
you'll take them out.
So she took out the easy ones first.
And then she got down to just two
left.
And she said Lord I can't.
I can't.
And then she prayed and she said Lord
give me grace to lift my hand.
Give me grace to put it down.
Give me grace to lift it.
Give me grace to let go of it.
And she said for each step she prayed.
And it was like strength being released deep
within her.
And then she did with the last.
Praying for grace.
Inward grace.
To release the things which were.
She didn't realize how precious they were to
her.
And she was now giving up the right
to her rights.
And she laid them by.
And then she said it was like a
pitcher that came out and filled.
And when she awakened she knew precisely what
she should do.
And she said brother ain't it I knelt
there by my bed.
Alone with him.
And I dealt with those things that I
had seen.
And then I just lifted my heart in
childlike faith and thanked him.
That he had shown me those things.
Standing in the way of the satisfying of
my heart with his goodness and his fullness.
And she said I knew.
Before I went to the evening meal that
night.
That he had taken up his lasting dwelling
place.
That I had been filled with the Spirit
of God.
What did Dr. Totjes say?
Everyone filled with the Spirit knows.
Everyone filled with the Spirit knows when.
And everyone filled with the Spirit was filled
suddenly.
I believe that.
And so all this morning I'm asking you.
What's he saying to the church at Ephesus
and to us?
That Christ wants to dwell in our hearts
through faith.
Oh this old dispensation which has come a
long way.
Come a long long way.
How glad I am that this is the
truth of God as it is in Christ.
Unanswerable.
If someone says well you how, how can
it be?
Well look the Holy Spirit was in Christ
when he came on Christ.
So he can have come to brought life
to you and not to have brought fullness.
As he is so are we in the
world.
Born of the Spirit to be filled with
the Spirit.
Let's bow together in prayer.
We're not going to give a long invitation
today because we don't think we should.
But if your heart is here and you're
hungry.
Then we invite you to come.
It's much better to seek him than something
else.
If the Spirit of God is stirring you.
How glad we are that what we're talking
about is reality.
Now Father of Jesus.
Before us are a company of earnest men
and women that have come out in the
middle of the day.
Simply and only because they want thy word.
And they want to hear from thee.
And there's some Lord that have needs.
Some that have deep hungers.
Some that have yearning and longing.
And we're praying today Father that those to
whom thou has spoken.
Those whose hearts thou has stirred.
Will do the wise and the appropriate thing.
And search for me.
And for you said ye shall seek for
me.
And ye shall find me.
And ye shall seek for me.
With all your heart.
How grateful we are Father that you've condescended
to dwell in us.
And live in us.
And walk in us.
And that we can be filled with thy
fullness.
And thou will do exceeding and abundantly above
all we could ask or think through us.
And this we pray will be our normal
Christian life.
Not subnormal.
Not exceptional.
Just the way we live and walk in
time.
So that we can glorify Christ.
So to that end seal the word to
our hearts for Jesus.
Now we're not going to sing.
We're not going to pray.