I would love to achieve this, that love
grows and magnifies and multiplies, so it even
touches your will.
Our hearts are more and more broken and
contrite.
The word contrite is a very interesting word.
Most people don't realize what the word means.
It can be very well translated, pulverized.
Actually, it's an old English word from the
pharmaceutical or apothecary.
And you take chalk stone and put it
in a mortar and pestle and beat it
and beat it and beat it until it
is face powder that you put on your
face.
That would be chalk stone.
Contrite would be the word they used.
Because it's one thing to be broken, and
a broken thing can be mended, but pulverized
can't.
Not even two pieces that glue together.
And that's really the word contrite.
It's really what it means, to have that
continual breaking until there's just no way it
can ever get repaired.
I found a long time ago that a
person can come through a breaking.
For instance, I'm thinking right now of a
conference in Japan.
And a missionary was very happy because their
children, who were a bit rebellious, were touched
by the Lord and broken.
But before they went home, I said, Now
look, they were touched by God.
They were broken.
It was real.
It was genuine.
It's fine, but don't be disillusioned.
That's only one brick of light in their
building of light.
It takes a lot of bricks to make
a building, not just one.
But you go back and you'll find there's
not much change.
They wrote me later, so glad I told
them that, because otherwise they would have been
really thrown, because there wasn't much change.
Because it takes a lot of breaking, time
after time.
It takes a lot of bricks to make
a wall.
And we found long ago, we used to
be so, we ourselves used to be disillusioned
in our first years of ministry, to see
people so broken, and boy, now they've really
met the issues, and they're repenting, and oh
God.
And the next day, here we were again,
right with the same issues to meet all
over again.
Oh God, what's going on here?
But we thought if we could keep them
there for about six months, that then things
began to change.
And from then on, the longer the better.
But otherwise, it's just, it's not deep enough
really to affect the will, and to affect
the character, and affect the personality.
It shows the right inclination, it shows the
possibility.
That's why the churches have such problems.
I was just in Hawaii where there's a
beautiful movie, The Spirit.
And the church is flat on the floor
for an hour or two every night, as
they meet before God, every service night.
And I said to the pastor, I said,
how is your counseling?
He said, in fact, we don't have any
anymore.
And that's true.
Because when God begins to take care of
the spiritual issues, then the problems just don't
even become problems.
They're all met.
But when it's, the more and more it
becomes a form, and a ceremony, and a
religious thing, our minds are met.
But we just happen to be more than
peanut brains, that's all.
And because our minds can be met, does
not mean that the rest of our personality
has had an encounter with God whatsoever.
And so we don't have the wherewithal to
meet the problems with.
We don't have the faith, we don't have
the understanding, we don't have the living word
to be able to face the issues of
life.
Because as we break through, in the meltings
and breakings, and we break through in the
presence of God, it has a way of
opening our ear.
We begin to hear.
Jesus said to his disciples, it's a foolish
heart still hardened, having ears you hear not,
and having eyes you see not.
Actually, the hardness of heart can be one
of the worst sins that a Christian can
fall into, and one of the most common.
And when that happens, according to the words
of Jesus, it closes the ears and closes
the eyes.
Because remember, Paul prayed that the spirit of
revelation, wisdom and revelation would come, that the
eyes of their understanding might be opened.
Because the eyes of our mind can be
opened, and the eyes of our understanding not.
That's why it's frightening here in the United
States, I hear so much about teaching and
teachers, and it's frightening.
Because people's minds are so satisfied and their
hearts are so empty and dry.
A couple years ago, I was talking to
a couple in a church in, a Pentecostal
church in San Jose.
And after the service, and the Lord had
moved a small measure, they were so thrilled,
and they said, Oh my, this is so
wonderful, we're so starved, and we're so thirsty,
we just want to have something, and where
can we go?
And I said, Well, where do you go
now?
And they said, the section such and such
a church.
So I said, I've never been there, but
I haven't heard the best report.
Oh, but brother, he's such a beautiful teacher.
Oh, have you ever heard of him?
He said, No, I haven't.
Oh, but he's such a wonderful teacher.
And I said, Where else do you get
any help?
Well, we go to such and such a
thing.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, that's worse.
Oh, have you ever read their book?
I said, No, I don't want to.
Oh, but he's such a wonderful teacher.
I said, All right, all right, you explain
it to me.
You're sitting under such a wonderful teacher, but
you tell me your heart's so empty and
dry.
Now you figure it out.
But you see, because the mind can be
easily satisfied, because it can put things together,
it's an illusion and a deception to think
that now we have it.
And we don't have it at all.
Because man can really only know things by
experimentation, by experiencing.
You take the man, let's put a hypothetical
case.
Here's a high school teacher, and he's teaching
Introduction to Science, and he wants to teach
how an electric current reacts in the human
body.
So he takes a six-month course, has
a book fully written to show how the
electrical impulses pushes the electrons through the nervous
system and how the nervous system reacts in
such a way and how the muscles and
how all the muscles work.
And he gets a six-month course on
it.
Here's another man that doesn't want to waste
time, and so he lines his students up
in a line, has them all take hands,
and he takes hold of an electric current.
They know more in one split second than
after six months of study.
You see what I mean?
Because man learns by experience.
That's what he really knows, is what he
experiences.
The rest is only theory.
It's a putting together of mental concepts which
may or may not be right.
But when you have an experience, then within
yourself you have a knowledge.
And that's why God says he walks with
a broken and contrite in heart.
He always uses that other word.
If you notice, time after time it's added.
It's not just a breaking, it's a breaking
and contracting.
That is the over and over and over
and over and over and over again until
the heart becomes very sensitive and very tender
and very responsive to God.
Then the ears are open.
Then the eyes of the understanding are open.
Then I hear from God.
Then I know.
Then when I hear the wrong person or
I hear the wrong message, I don't go
after it.
Even though it might put together well in
my mind.
As we've traveled over the world, we've seen
and heard many people say these things to
us.
And oftentimes they're not the most intelligent people,
not the sharpest people.
And yet sometimes it has been.
But it's usual or it's not.
But that is, they'll be in some place
where there's a real subtle error being taught.
And there's much of it today.
Much of it.
It's right.
Most people don't even know the difference, actually.
There's much error being taught.
And it's very subtle.
But I've had people say this.
Well, it sounded right, but something in here
just didn't.
And they talk about that something in here
that's undefinable.
And if I've had one person say it
to me, I've had dozens.
But here's another person all that way, all
for it.
Because something in here doesn't say anything.
And their minds can put it together.
And I've had people, it sounded right, but
something in here didn't know.
I remember a couple in, a precious couple
in England.
They run into some teaching that's just torment.
The discipleship teaching, actually, which just tore the
charismatic church in England, it's just tearing it
apart.
And this couple said, well, it sounded, everything
sounded right.
But in here we're just, we're yard balls,
because our little group doesn't go with it.
And they think we're crazy.
But something in here just says no.
And they don't know why.
But you see, there's been an ear that's
opened.
And if there's enough breaking of heart, then
there'll be that ear that can hear.
Whereas if the heart is tarnished, I won't
have that.
I'll just have the mind to hear with.
And I won't know.
And God has set loose, in the charismatic
stream especially, in Pentecost especially, at this hour
in which we're passing through, the hour of
history we're passing through now, God has set
loose much subtle deception and error.
Moving away from the foundation truths.
So much so that now when I preach
things, that I learned when I was ten
years of age, people say, wow, we've never
heard that before.
And I'm just astounded.
I've got to go back.
Many places I go, I have to go
way back and start at zero.
And here I'd like to go on and
go way back, because they've been taught a
lot of things.
About the, oh, I tell you on eschatology,
that means the doctrine of the future.
They've got all the answers.
They know about the sons, and they know
about the brides, and they know about everything.
But I was just in a church recently,
and I spoke on sanctification.
And two passages, which, wow, we've never heard
that before.
And I said, dear Father, where you educated.
And there's a lot of it.
It's a lot of mind-building teaching out.
And I talk to people, oh, so-and
-so, oh, he's such a wonderful biologist.
I listened to him last year.
What they're telling me is their ears aren't
open, because I know the man, I know
what he's teaching me.
They can't hear.
They hear all the circus.
It sounds good here, and what he sounds
good, and this sounds good, and they just,
just like little fish, swallow everything that comes
by, you know, pretty soon they get the
hook.
Because God has set it, and the reason
he has set it, Paul wrote of Corinthian
church, it is necessary that heresy come, that
those who are approved among you may be
made manifest.
In other words, it's a sifting.
It sifts out those who are really following
God with their heart and their spirit, and
those who, Paul calls it a feigned faith,
a mental thing, not that which comes from
God.
Paul often speaks of feigned love and feigned
faith.
We call it religiosity, it would be more
a modern term for it.
It's a put-on thing, and done with,
oftentimes not the intention of feigning, it's just
the fact they don't have the real.
Not having the real, they put on the
false, and we encourage them to put on,
I mean, we pastors, instead of getting them
all over the world, instead of getting them,
for instance, into repentance and into a real
relationship with God, they get them into religion.
You believe in Jesus?
Oh, yes, I believe in Jesus.
Do you believe you're a sinner?
Oh, yes, I'm a sinner.
Do you want to be saved?
Oh, yes, I want to be saved.
Who doesn't?
Who wants to go to hell?
And so we build a feigned thing rather
than taking it through to experience.
And that breaking is so necessary.
Over in Isaiah, if you'd like to take
a word, and I find so many people
against it.
Pastors, they're frightened to death of tears.
They'll turn it off, and especially if there's
very much of it.
They're just absolutely panicked.
I think one reason is, in fact, I
know one reason is because they've never had
enough to know what it's all about, and
they can't handle it.
And they can't allow anything they can't correct
and handle.
For instance, I was in Japan, and I
was in Nishihara's church.
He had a beautiful flow of praise, and
that's so unusual in Japan.
So I asked him, I said, Nishihara, how
did you do this?
How'd you get into it?
Well, he said, I used to praise the
Lord in my own study.
I danced and sang and rejoiced and had
a glory time.
But he said, I didn't know it was
for my people.
It was for me.
Then he said, I went to this great
Bible church in Hawaii, a beautiful big church,
and I saw that the people were rejoicing
and dancing and singing like I did alone.
I said, wow!
It's for the people!
So then he took it back to his
church.
Now there's a great secret, you see.
He's come into it first.
So now when he takes his people into
it, he can handle it.
He can direct it.
He's fully experimented in it.
He knows all about it.
And the reason pastors are so panicked by
these things is because they haven't been in
it.
They don't know what it's all about.
They can't direct it.
They can't...
And so turn it off.
And it becomes quite a problem.
For instance, I was in Sydney, Australia, and
I was deeply grieved.
I was incensed, actually.
I was angry.
At the end of the service, there was
a little girl that the Spirit was dealing
with.
And while the pastor was closing the service,
I went to talk with her.
And I said, I said, the Spirit's talking
to you, isn't he?
She said, yeah.
I said, you need talking to, don't you?
She said, yeah.
I said...
The conversation was somewhat lengthy, but just the
essence of it.
I said, I said, you're in a lot
of sin, aren't you?
She said, yeah.
I said, the Spirit's calling.
This is your night.
And what did you say?
I said, just open your heart.
Don't run from Him.
Just open to Him.
I said, come on.
I'll just kneel down here and just pour
out to God.
And tears were coming down her cheeks.
And she was just at the point of
turning and kneeling with me when two dear
saints of God came.
Put their arms around her.
Now, dear, don't cry.
Don't be condemned.
Jesus paid it all.
Just believe.
Just fill your heart with joy and turn
the whole thing.
Oh, I could have horse-whipped them with
pleasure.
Maybe they could have repented then.
But anyway, after the service, I asked the
pastor who they were.
Who she was, I mean, not who they
were.
She was a girl that used to attend
the church.
She was 15 years of age.
She'd just had an abortion.
Her life was all messed up.
And here God was reaching out to her,
and the dear saints of God turned it
off.
You see, because they don't understand.
They've not had it themselves.
I've had church after church and place after
place and people after people tell me they've
never known repentance.
They don't know what it's all about.
And yet they're charismatic and they're filled with
the Spirit and all the rest of it.
Actually, it's all the same.
They don't have anything that's real.
But over here in Isaiah, you see, Paul
talks about to the Corinthians, another Jesus, another
gospel, and another...
And that's what they brought to the Corinthians.
And that's what's being brought to church after
church after church after church is another Jesus.
Another Jesus in the sense He's sweet, loving,
kind, good, beautiful, wonderful.
And the ice, the flame of fire, the
sharp sword out of His mouth.
No, that's not there.
You see, it's a human Jesus.
Paul says, Henceforth we know not Christ after
fire.
And they're not even a fair picture of
a human Jesus because He could turn on
His own disciples and say, Get thee behind
me, Satan.
They take off that whole side.
And so it's a false Jesus.
It's a false spirit because no Holy Spirit
will come into an unholy place.
So that speaking in tongues and all the
rest is just a matter of saying banana
backwards and away we go.
It's not the true.
It's a false thing because the true thing,
He is holy and He will only come
where holiness is where there's been cleansing.
When Moses stood at the burning bush, the
first thing God said to him was, Don't
you come any nearer.
Already you're on holy ground.
Take your shoes off.
That's the kind of God He is.
He said, You can't even get any closer
to me yet.
Later He called him up into the fire,
but that's after some demons.
At that point in his life, stay there.
Don't you come any closer to me.
So let's look at this scripture over here
in Isaiah.
It says the Lord, Heaven is my throne.
66, the last chapter.
Excuse me.
Heaven is my throne.
The earth is my footstool.
Where is the house that ye build unto
me and where is the place of my
rest?
For all those things hath mine hand made.
All those things hath been, saith the Lord.
But to this man will I look, even
to him that is poor and of a
contrite spirit and trembleth at my word.
And here's how you are to tremble.
He that kills an ox as if he
slew a man.
He that sacrifices a lamb as if he
cut off a dog's neck.
He that offers an oblation as if he
offers swine's blood.
He that burneth incense as if he blazed
an idol.
In other words, it goes on in the
fifth verse.
Hear the word of the Lord ye that
tremble at his word.
The fear of the Lord is to be
so upon us that even the best is
unacceptable.
You know what I mean?
That he's a great king.
I think one of the things most lacking
today is I find in church is the
fear of the Lord.
In Australia, in New Zealand, in fact I
spoke on it sometimes.
There was such a comradee, you know, high
mate sort of thing.
Hi God.
There's a book titled Hey God.
Oh, it's atrocious.
The concept of who he is.
And so there's no trembling at the word
of God.
There is no coming before him with fear.
And because of that, the fear of the
Lord is a hatred of evil from Proverbs
8, 13.
And because of that, there is much evil
in our lives.
We're not afraid of it.
We're not ashamed of it.
We're not concerned about it.
God's a good God.
He loves me.
And so there's no contrite-ness.
And there's no trembling.
And there's no broken-ness.
And because of that, God says that's the
man I'm going to look to.
Or again in Isaiah, where is it there?
47th chapter, is it?
I've forgotten.
No, the 57th.
Verse 15, For thus says the high and
lofty one that hath of eternity, whose name
is Holy, I dwell in the high and
holy place, and with him also, that he
is of a contrite and humble spirit, to
revive the spirit of the humble, to revive
the heart of the contrite one.
That's the kind of person I'm going to
walk with.
Or again, in Psalm 51, you probably know
that verse quite well.
For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I
give it.
Thou desirest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifice of God, I a broken spirit,
a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou
wilt not despise.
And it's that, you notice each time it's
that word contrite.
It's an overlooked word.
But it means that continual breaking, breaking, breaking,
breaking before God.
And in that, there comes a working of
the spirit, a broken-ness.
No more is that resistance, and no more
is that high-mindedness, and that high pride.
Then the fear of the Lord begins to
come, and the ears begin to open.
Jesus said in Psalm 40, I delight to
do thy will, mine ear hast thou opened.
And when that will begins to break, because
it's not only a broken emotion, it's a
broken heart, and a broken will, and a
broken spirit that he speaks of.
That breaking's got to get way down inside,
and then will come forth.
I delight to do thy will.
Then you see, the ear gets open, and
we begin to hear from God.
And there's such a, a panic in churches
when God begins to do a little bit
of breaking.
They just, they like to have it, but
very, very little bit, especially for sinners.
And then turn it off, joy, he's done
it all.
It's a finished work.
Jesus has done it all.
You just take faith, and move ahead, and
conquer mountains, and conquer kingdoms, and king's kids,
and away we go.
It's interesting, in John 17, 4, Jesus said,
I have finished the work thou gavest me
to do.
Now there he states clearly that it's a
finished work.
It's all done.
And he hasn't started yet.
That's before the Gethsemane, that's before the cross,
that's before the resurrection, that's before the trial,
that's before the denial, that's even before the
betrayal.
He hasn't started yet.
But he said it's finished.
And if he'd gone home then, we'd have
no redemption.
Because he could say it's finished, his faith
laid hold of the finished work of his
father.
Because it was finished, he went ahead and
did it.
You see what I mean?
Okay, it's true, it's a finished work, that
is a truth.
Because it's finished, I'll go ahead and do
it.
And there's the work of faith.
You see what I mean?
But if I just rest on back, it's
finished, and then don't do it, it isn't
finished.
Because faith without work is dead.
And so if I only lay hold of
the faith of it, it's a finished work,
and you hear so much of that today,
all over you hear it.
And if I only lay hold of that,
I've missed it.
I've missed it totally and utterly.
And Paul speaks to the Thessalonians, he says,
your work of faith, that's what's necessary.
Of course he's faithful, if he hadn't done
it, if he hadn't finished it, we wouldn't
have either courage or faith to go ahead
and work it.
But knowing that it is a finished work,
and knowing that he has done it all,
and knowing that it's all accomplished, then we
have the courage, and the hope, and the
faith, to go ahead and work it out.
Because everything's under control.
There's no doubt.
But you see, it's more than a position,
it's a work.
And those days, I gave you that scripture
because it's a very strong scripture to show
how fallacious, how false it would be to
stay with a finished work without the work.
Because if Jesus had done that, we'd have
no redemption.
It would have been an unfinished job.
And yet he said so completely, it's a
past perfect tense, I have finished the work
thou gavest me to do.
And yet he hadn't done it.
And that's a position, let's say.
We can look at it, like Paul, I
fought a good fight, I finished the course,
henceforth.
And we can say that if we're willing
to go ahead and do it.
And then that's fine, that's a beautiful position.
But if I say it and don't do
it, it becomes a total error.
And so it's necessary to come into those
deep breakings of God.
Until your hearts are just completely, we become
very sensitized to the things of God.
Very sensitive of the spirit.
Years ago, there was a man that spent
much of his life in jail.
He was a criminal, he was a robber,
a professional thief.
Then was converted and later was preaching in
the ministry.
And this man's name was King.
I was just a teenager when I knew
him.
And he was telling me one day, how
when he would go to rob a safe,
he would take sandpaper and he would work
his fingertips on that sandpaper until they bled.
To make them so sensitive.
That when he'd work that safe over, he
could feel the clicks of the tumblers as
they turned over.
He couldn't even hear them, but he could
feel them.
That's how God wants to be sensitive to
him.
So other people won't know anything about it,
but you'll know.
There'll be that sensitivity.
In fact, I personally like the word, and
I prefer sensitivity to this, to, you might
say, discerning of spirit.
Because that can be a gift that operates
and tomorrow you have nothing.
But if we're sensitive, you'll know what's going
on all the time.
You'll just, you'll step in a place and
you'll know it.
You'll hear a man speak.
When I go into a church, I'm oriented
within five or ten minutes.
I know where the church is and who
they are and what they're doing.
I have to.
I wouldn't know what to bring them if
I didn't.
I wouldn't know where to meet them.
I found out quick, I couldn't just meet
them on my level.
I had to go where they were.
I remember one church back in Virginia about
four years ago.
I was there for a week and I
spent the whole week back trailing.
I don't think I ever did find out
where they were.
They were so far back.
I don't know if they had ever even
gotten started.
But the thing is to orient, to be
sensitive, to know what's there, so that you'll
go to a place or you'll hear a
message on the radio or television.
It can sound so good.
Is that all now?
Not again.
Turn it off.
Tapes, there's all kinds of tapes.
Some of the finest names.
But I found long ago that when a
thing gets too popular, look out.
Because the high things of God are never
popular.
The bigger the name, the bigger the suspicion.
Because the scriptures say, Woe unto you when
all men speak well of you.
And the bigger the church, so often, the
less the moving of the spirit.
I've been in many churches that had a
beautiful beginning and they date their decline when
they moved into a new building and started
growing.
One of the hardest things to handle is
growth.
One of the hardest things to move into
is bigness.
Very few, I know a few that can
handle growth pretty well.
But only a few can handle growth.
One reason is that it so occupies our
time that we do not have time to
keep that broken spirit before God.
Time to keep that relationship with God.
Time to keep that sensitivity developed and operating.
Because we quickly harden up.
Very quickly.
Can I say, I think, one of the
most serious sins of Christians is hardness of
heart.
And it's among the most subtle.
In fact, most of the sins that are
serious are not recognized even as sins.
Hardness of heart is one.
Profaning the holy is another.
Being offended, moving out of love is another.
We can have all of those three and
we'd not be conscious that we're offending at
all.
Another one is unbelief.
See, there are things that to us do
not seem in any way evil.
Now, certain things seem evil to us.
There's no one who's going to be tempted
to go out and get drunk who loves
the Lord.
There's no one who's going to be tempted
to go out and move in some filthy
area of life.
But that we know.
Our spirits tell us that's evil.
Our minds tell us.
Our consciences tell us.
But whose conscience tells him that faith is
evil?
Nobody.
We all have a bit of unbelief here
and there.
It doesn't seem all that bad to us.
But God says it's evil heart of unbelief.
It doesn't seem that way to us.
He says, Love us not, his brother, abide
us in death.
Well, it's easy to get offended with somebody
and get your love cut off, but it
doesn't seem all that great, you know.
That's serious a thing.
And so there's many things that can get
in so easily.
But whether it's a sensitivity, whether it's a
broken heart, and the ears are open, then
the Spirit can speak to you.
And he can point out things that are
displeasing, or you just know, just because suddenly
that presence is gone.
What did I do?
I offended somehow.
What was it?
And get before the Lord, and the Lord
will show you where it was.
Whether it was a hasty word, or a
slanderous word, or a critical word, or a
unbelieving word, or whatever it was, because there's
a hearing ear.
But the hardness of heart closes the ear,
and I can't hear.
I can't hear what the Spirit's saying.
And then I go to church, I get
my mind filled, and that satisfies my head
and my religious nature, and so I can
keep on going down trail, farther and farther
and farther away from God.
In Australia, several pastors in four or five
places said more or less the same, I'll
just use one, but more or less the
same.
This one pastor was driving me up from
Brisbane up to his church.
It was about 30 miles.
And on the road he was saying how
happy he was, he just got rid of
two members of his church, actually on his
board.
He called them the old guard.
He said, oh I'm so glad to get
rid of that old guard.
Steeped in the old ways, you know, and
God was moving, they wouldn't move with it.
And he was just rejoicing that he got
these two families out of his church.
And I'd heard that by more than one,
actually.
So I said to this man, I said,
you know, do you ever stop to think
that once upon a time this old guard
was once upon a time a new guard?
And today you're happy to get them out,
but there was a day that another pastor
was happy to get them in?
And I said, the people you get in
today are going to be the old guard
of tomorrow unless you find out the answers
why they became the old guard.
Why they became those set in their way,
old, religious, hard, people in church, if you'd
call them saints, that have totally lost out
with God.
As Peter says, they've forgotten that they were
once purged from their old sins.
And the thorn in the pastor's side, their
misery in this church.
If God begins to move, they'll be the
first that are against it.
They've got their old ways.
Bless God, we always do it this way,
and that's the way they do it.
And around they go with their own little
cycle of religious activity, whatever happens to be
their way, their cut and dried way.
But when they started out, they weren't that
way.
They were flexible, they were leadable, they were
available.
Now, there they sit, just hard old lumps.
So a pastor's thankful to get them out
of his church.
And so after a while, the pastors themselves
get that way, and so everybody's happy.
And when God moves, he's got to go
someplace else to move because they would never
be allowed in that church to move at
all.
But the thing is, how did they become
old guys?
They didn't start that way.
But just that hardening, just that closing, until
they never get to the place where they
are really a people that seek God.
They're not led on into God.
They're not taken into breaking upon breaking upon
breaking until God can reach them through the
emotions to the deeper parts of the inner
nature, the will, the heart, the mind, the
spirit, until I become a changed person.
We are changed beholding the glory of the
Lord from glory to glory.
It's a process.
We saw in our work in Argentina, the
longer we could keep our young people in
that state of brokenness and breaking before God,
and those that would stay there were those
that had the great glorious changes in their
life.
There were those that go into it all
right, maybe stay there a month and then
they drift out and maybe three months later
come back for another month and they drift
out.
They were slow goers.
But those that we could get and we
could keep in there, their hearts would stay
tuned with God and sensitive and broken.
Oh, what changes would come?
She was a medical student and she was
a lively, kind of a crossbow girl, but
nothing spiritual whatsoever really and all going with
the others of her class and she was
with her peers and God got a hold
of her and she was one that stayed
that way.
I think a year went by, I don't
think her eyes were ever unswelled.
I mean, I've seen her come out in
the morning with her eyes literally swollen shut
from praying all night, just crying out to
God.
And that girl had such remarkable changes in
her that today, she's my son's wife, Peachy.
Some of you might have met her.
Today, she's no more like the girl that
she first was, the girl that we once
knew.
She's a beautiful woman in God, but she
came through those daily, just every day, every
day, breakings before God.
In fact, when my son saw her, he'd
just come down on a visit.
He was going to a Bible school in
the United States, up here in New York.
He had him a nice job, he had
a nice car, and he had a nice
girlfriend so they could get married the next
year.
He came down on a visit.
God was moving.
He hadn't been there a week.
He said, Hey Dad, who's that girl?
Oh, just one of our Bible school kids.
About another week.
He never went home.
He stayed there and married the girl.
Because there had been such changes.
But if he saw her at first, he
wouldn't have been attracted.
He wouldn't have any other thoughts.
He had a good girl, and that was
the end of it.
And those are the things that God wants
to produce and to keep it there.
And the more you can go on it,
the more you'll develop.
As soon as you harden up, then just
mark it down.
That's the end of your development.
I told Philippa more than once, would God
give you the gift of tears to wash
his feet every day?
There wouldn't be a day.
Because it's that hardness of heart that closes
our inner being.
God says, the humble, the constant.
How many times would you have to pound
a stone?
How many times would you have to break
it to make it contract, to make it
face-powdered, pulverized?
We were sent some dishes, a set of
English china tea sets from England.
And it arrived broken, some pieces.
No matter.
A bit of crazy glue, and there they
sit just fine, all mended.
Because they were broken in three pieces.
Each article had broken by chance into three
pieces.
But I assure you, if they'd been pulverized,
they wouldn't have been mended.
And we can have a touch, or two,
or three, and the devil gets out the
crazy glue, and we're not long before we're
mended again.
We're right back where we were.
But if we can keep that place, and
become contrite before God, and walk humbly before
God, and tremble at his words, that's a
different story.
That person, God said, I'll look to that
man.
He said, I'll dwell with that man.
That's the man that I'm going to put
my habitation with.
The only other place you're going to be
able to dwell with is a high and
lofty place, and who can get up there?
You only have two choices.
So, it's not only that the emotions have
to break, because you can have broken emotions
and they're well as hard as nails.
You can have broken emotions just out of
self-pity.
You can come in prayer, Oh God, help
me Lord, look what these people are doing
to the old God, and you just pray
and cry at the storm.
And there's no breaking at all.
But, if your heart is open and tight
and tender before God, don't worry, you'll have
tears also.
And so, in all your seeking, seek to
keep your heart tender before God.
Keep your heart broken before God.
Keep your heart sensitive before God.
Whenever you find it hardening up, let that
be the first red light.
Let that be the understanding, Hey wait, something's
going wrong.
I have seen so many people all over
that have never known what it is.
I remember, just about four months ago, I
was talking in Poole, England, with a pastor's
wife.
They were on their way to the United
States on a ministry tour.
He had been invited over here, and they
were coming.
Pentecostal woman.
And after service, she came up to me
and said, You know, I don't think I've
ever had any real repentance.
I said, Woman, what are you saying to
me?
You mean that?
She said, Yes.
I said, You mean to tell me that
you have never washed the feet of Jesus
with your tears?
She said, No.
I said, You know what I'm going to
do?
She said, What?
I said, I'm going to wash his feet
with my tears for you.
I said, You're in a pathetic state.
The pastor's wife, she was a woman some
thirty-five, four years a day.
She wasn't a novice.
I said, You're a person in your position
this long has to say a thing like
that?
I said, You...
You terrorize me.
And thanks to Lord, before the week was
over, she was very much washing his feet
with his tears.
But there's so many, so many.
To me, it has honestly become frightening.
I can go into churches and we can
go through the whole religious bit.
And I've seen them.
I've been in service after service, in church
after church.
And there's no moving of the spirit.
There's no breaking.
There's no melting.
There's no coming down before God.
It's all a mental thing.
And Paul would call it a feigned faith.
A false faith.
Another spirit.
Another gospel.
Another Jesus.
It's interesting that when you go into history
of revival, whether it was Wesley or whether
it was Evan Roberts in Wales or whether
it was Finney or wherever it is, you'll
find it's always marked with great crying and
weepings and stirrings and the inner being was
stirred before God.
The very fact my inner being is not
stirred is a first sign that you're so
far away that there's no reaching in to
contact.
So there's been such withdrawing because nobody can
draw near to God without being deeply affected
in his inner nature.
Nobody.
It's like no one could come in the
presence of an angel and say, Hi, angel.
If an angel stood before us, we'd all
be flat on the floor instantly.
Those tremendous beings, the awesomeness, the fear that
would be generated, the very magnetism, if I
could use a word that isn't scriptural, of
their personality.
Oh, how it would reach out to us.
You've been in the presence of a person
with charisma, we call it.
It's a human being.
Or you come in the presence of some
ruler, you'd be awed.
How much to one of those beings.
The very fact that I can come to
church and my inner being is untouched shows
how far away from God I am.
Or how far away from God the church
service is, one of the two or both.
So in all your seeking, seek to come
into that place where God can dwell with
you.
Because he wants to dwell with us.
And he cannot dwell in that hard, religious,
um, that false thing that we put on
that hides the real.
Or takes the place of the real.
Now this is totally unscheduled and unplanned.
But I think perhaps your hearts will be
able to understand as we see what we're
talking about here.
I don't talk this freely in most places,
but I think you're able to understand.
And hopefully able to to lay hold upon
it.
And you can just put it up on
your on your bulletin board of your life.
When you come in the presence of God
and in your prayer times and your heart
is untouched and your emotions are untouched and
your inner being is untouched.
Let that be the red light.
Let that be the warning signal.
Hey, wait a minute.
Let's push everything out of the way for
a while till I get back into into
contact.
Into sensitivity.
Into a whatever the barrier that's keeping me
and God separated is brought down.
Whether it's carelessness or whether it's some way
I've offended him.
Knowing or unknowing.
If it's unknowing, well, David had that too.
He says, I'll take care of my secret
sin, my unknown sin, my hidden sin.
The sins I don't know about.
Until there is that sensitivity and that responding
to God.
We are extremely sensitive preachers.
We'll respond to sounds.
We'll respond to light.
We'll respond to sight.
We'll respond to touch.
We're very sensitive.
We're not an insensitive preacher by a long
way.
We're very sensitive.
A small sound can do something to you.
In the dead of night and you wake
up just a creek can do something to
you.
Or a roof adjusting in the heat and
the cold.
You can be very sensitive.
So that if we come in the presence
of God and are untouched, being as sensitive
as we are, well, that's the time to
take warning.
Now let it go on from that point
on.
Start finding out what is it that's moving
me out.
Just like if you sat in a place
and people are talking all around you and
you can't hear what they say.
Suddenly you can't hear what they say.
You just see their lips moving.
Why wouldn't you be frightened?
You'd go see a doctor the next day,
wouldn't you?
It would be amazing.
You might not even wait till the next
day.
You might get him up at night.
Because here is the stimula.
Here is what I should respond to and
there's no response.
I don't see anything.
I don't hear anything.
Oh my, that would get us into action
immediately, wouldn't it?
And the same is true if I move
in the presence of God and I begin
to seek God and draw near to God.
Well, there's nothing there.
Well, that shows something's wrong.
And let's move out and find out what
it is.
Dig right in there and don't be satisfied
until the barriers are down and we're in
touch again.
And that way we will be moved from
glory to glory.
We'll be developed by the Spirit of God.
We'll go from faith to faith, from strength
to strength, from grace to grace, from glory
to glory, all those scriptures.
And we'll move on up into God.
Otherwise, we'll have that great and almost universal,
I'm sorry to say, decline.
For people have one great experience in salvation
and perhaps two in the baptism of the
Holy Spirit.
And that's it.
Down, down, down, down, down they go into
the old guard.
And when God wants to move, He has
to bypass it and move with new and
fresh beginning of God.
Lord Jesus, we can talk about these things.
But Spirit of God, we need you to
work them into our hearts and into our
life.
We need you, O God, to speak to
our hearts and speak to our minds, speak
to our inner beings, speak the word that
would bring us into responsiveness.
Let our hearts tremble before you.
Let our hearts be sensitive.
And when there is a loss of sensitivity,
make us become even more sensitive to the
loss of sensitivity.
Let us know right there, God, this is
where I stop.
I don't want any barriers.
I don't want to drift on as a
river running downhill ever farther and farther and
farther away from its source.
I don't want to be like a fish
that's sick and drifting downstream heading for the
Great Falls.
I want to go on up to God.
I want to be like Paul that pressed
towards the mind.
Even though I haven't yet attained that pressed
towards the mind.
I desire, O Master, let us have the
wisdom of being very sensitive to insensitivity.
Let us have the wisdom and knowledge to
know when you withdraw, that's the time to
start running.
Let that be like a mighty trumpet of
alarms sounding in our souls.
Let us understand, O God, that that's the
place where we better stop and take inventory.
What's wrong?
Where did we make the wrong turn?
Where did we lose your presence?
Where did we offend you?
Where did we harden our hearts?
Where do we cease to listen?
What is it?
Where is that beautiful sensitivity and glory of
your presence and your love and your joy
that's spontaneous and effervescent within us?
O God, put such a cry in our
hearts that says, O God, I don't want
to stay this way.
I don't want this kind of a heart
thing.
I don't want a heart of stone.
You want not only us to be clay
in your hands, but you want us to
be wet clay, moldable, responsive, open.
O Lord, search our hearts.
All the hard areas, all the unresponsive areas,
all the rebellious places, all the places where
will is not yet broken.
Lord, take your pestle and pound again, and
pound again, and pound again, until that too
becomes pulverized, until that too becomes contrite, until
that too becomes broken.
Lord, deal with us.
Don't withdraw your hand.
Don't let us fall into self-pity when
you deal with us.
Let us be wise.
Don't let us fall into reactions and bitterness
and hardness.
When you deal with us, let us be
all the more sensitive and thankful that you
still love us.