Romans chapter 12, please.
Let's see, who's joined us today?
Who was not here yesterday or the day
before?
Anyone?
A couple?
Thank you.
Praise the Lord.
We're speaking about dedication these days.
I'm sure you can realize that's too big
a theme for one week or five times.
It's too big a theme for a year.
It'll take us all eternity to really find
out what dedication means.
And so, I'm just trying to give us
just a few little of the details as
we see the important things in this twelfth
chapter of Romans.
We started out the first day answering the
question, what is dedication?
What is dedication?
Remember we said that it is God, through
his mercy, that redeemed us by his own
precious blood.
He bought us, he bought us out, and
he loosed us.
In order that, now that's his mercy, in
order that we might what?
Dedicate or present ourselves.
So, we're just saying dedication is present.
What else can I do, Lord?
You know it says in the scripture that
he bought us with the precious blood.
He bought us with a price.
Therefore, glorify God in your body and in
your spirit, which are his.
Lord, I really can't do anything else but
give myself, present myself to you.
So, without going into this, we saw then
that to present is one thing.
Then he receives what has been presented.
I'd like to get into that because I
think there's a lot involved in the sense
that God receives or accepts what has been
presented.
And in the accepting of it, we saw
that he applied the blood to our ear,
opened our ear, he applied the blood to
our hands, that which we do, what we
do, and then to our feet, determining where
we go.
Yesterday, we went on to another portion, and
we were dealing with the fact that this
dedication is not just a blind doing something
for God.
It just isn't, let's get out and work
for Jesus.
Dedication is according to renewed knowledge.
Renewed knowledge.
You notice we have put the word renewed
in.
We started out by saying that Israel had
a zeal, a dedication for God, but it
was not according to knowledge.
There's a renewed knowledge.
And the great struggle that's going on today
in the religious realm is that people are
dedicated according to their own vision of what
they think God wants.
They're giving God something, their time, their energy,
they're burning out for the Lord, but all
the necessity of saying that it's according to
renewed knowledge.
This morning, we're going on to the third
phase, an element that's involved in dedication.
And it is this sense that we are
to prove the will of God.
The proving.
Prove the will of God.
Now you know where we're getting this, don't
you?
Romans 12, 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that ye present
your body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable.
Well, let's all read it together now.
A living sacrifice, wholly acceptable under God, which
is your reasonable service.
This little word reasonable means intelligent, and I
like to say that it is a dedication,
that it's a reasonable thing for me to
do, but that my service likewise is to
become an intelligent service.
Oh, I think God has so much trouble
with His lovely children.
They are so busy doing and so eager
to get things accomplished for Him.
He says, but I didn't tell you to
do that.
And we come back with our mess, we
come back with the thing that He can't
approve, and we wonder why His blessing, why
it isn't upon it.
He says, but you did that on your
own.
You meant well.
So there is the coming into renewed knowledge.
And we were saying yesterday, that as we
go on with the Lord, according to the
teaching or the word we have, we're within
guardrails on the highway, but when we get
out, there's reproving.
The reproofs that come, there's the corrections, and
all of it is to instruct us that
we might come into renewed knowledge.
And then we closed yesterday by saying, one
of the most wonderful things in renewed knowledge
is to discover that you just can't present
your old self to the Lord and say,
Lord, use me.
The only thing that can really be presented
to God is that which has been through
the cross, through the grave, comes up on
the resurrection side.
All I can present to Him is that
which is on resurrection ground.
It's my new life that's presented to Him.
Not just my old energy, not my old
hands, as it were, my own strength and
all that I think I can do for
God.
The talents, all these things, this isn't what
God wants.
We summed it up by saying that that
which has passed through and is under the
blood, He anoints, the oil always comes upon
that where the blood has been placed, you
see.
It's quite a drastic thing when we discover
that our presenting, our dedication is not just
according to our understanding, but God's very careful
about it.
And He anoints, and He only anoints, that
which is really through on the resurrection ground.
Well, we'll get into that as we go
along.
So, you see, this is something we are
learning.
There's a constant supply, a constant renewing of
our mind that we might come into a
real understanding of God's ways.
Now we come to this, and be not
conformed to this world, but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind.
This is the way we get our renewed
knowledge.
Renewing of your mind that ye may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.
I know it may sound strange, but there's
a lovely two-fold proving that goes on.
He says in Malachi, Prove me.
God is speaking.
He says, Prove me.
Try me.
Prove me.
And guess who else gets proved when we
prove the Lord?
Are you with me?
Who else gets proved?
I tell you, it turns around wondering who's
getting proved, doesn't it?
Prove me, he says.
Prove me.
Try me.
And in the midst of it, we're the
ones who are likewise proved.
So I'd like for a little bit this
morning, well, maybe we ought to continue on.
We begin to prove what is the will
of God.
Proving.
We'll see what that involves.
Now we're headed for tomorrow, I think, for
this dedication that finds its fulfillment.
Finds its fulfillment in placing, or we could
call positioning.
And this fulfillment, then, God's very careful about
the way things get done.
How many have ever discovered that?
He just doesn't leave things to the slightest
bit of our own imagination.
This fulfillment, this real dedication, the fulfilling of
it, is in the placing, the positioning that
he has given, and it's in power.
But guess where the power comes from?
It says, no energy of your own, none
of your own strength.
I'm going to position you, I'm going to
place you, but I'm also going to give
you all the energy of the power.
And so, when we get to the next
verses, you see, after the proving of the
will of God, we come to verses 3
and following.
I don't think we'll go into it now.
But we discover that in God's reckoning, in
God's way, we are placed in a body.
We become a member in the body.
And as a member in the body, it
is there that we function, we find position,
we find place, and we find the anointing
or the power for all of our dedication.
This thing, before we get through this week,
I trust God will help narrow down until
we see how lovely is the dedication, but
how sharpened is the focus.
And I'm sure God appreciates what we've done
to the measure of our understanding, but all
the renewed knowledge as He sharpens the dedication.
I believe the last ten years have been
discovering in the lives of people and in
our own life that God keeps sharpening and
sharpening the focus until you see how much
of the time you've wasted doing good and
helpful things, but not really according to that
which He really wants, you see.
So, there comes a whole new set of
priorities, dedication according to what God is after,
the fulfillment then.
And we will see.
I like to picture sometimes, I didn't plan
to get into this until tomorrow, but we
just, well, start off wrong, so.
Here we are, we were saying yesterday, we're
in Adam.
And this is the family tree in Adam.
How does He move us out of Adam
and bring us into Christ?
Well, God's way of taking us out is
that here on the cross, He literally wraps
the whole family of Adam, every one of
us, He carries us to the cross in
His Son.
And when God looks down on the cross,
what does He see?
He sees His lovely Son, the Lord Jesus.
But He sees something else.
He sees all the wretched family of Adam
wrapped up, as it were, and nailed there
in Him.
And isn't it interesting that He was called
the first Adam, but Jesus is called the
last Adam?
And so when God says, I'm going to
get rid of the whole family, the thoughts
and the imaginations, the intent of their hearts,
this evil continuum, I can't get anything good
out of it, He wraps the whole thing
up in His Son and nails it to
the cross and He buries it in the
tomb and He says, that's the last of
Adam, the last Adam.
And so, God looks down and He sees
us in His Son.
When He was buried in Joseph's new tomb
down here, we were buried with Him.
When He rose from the grave, what happened?
We rose, resurrection.
Scripture actually pictures that when He ascended, ours
was an ascension.
But here we are now, when God the
Father has poured out the Spirit upon His
Son, upon the head, we also get a
glimpse that the Holy Spirit's outpouring comes upon
the head plus the whole of the body.
How do I get from Adam into a
position in Christ?
How do I move from one family to
become a member of the body of Christ?
Now we look at it from God's viewpoint
for a moment.
We see what He sees.
And here is an individual who comes and
just in the most simple way says, Lord
Jesus, I thank You for dying for me,
shedding Your blood.
And the moment an individual comes by faith
to look to Calvary, to what Jesus did,
in that moment, guess what God does?
He puts the whole thing to your account.
And He says, there you are, a hand
positioned in the body.
And the tragedy is that while God sees
it, God recognizes all of this.
The great majority of people only get it
by bits and pieces, just by bits and
pieces.
For example, the individual who comes to see
that Jesus died says, thank You, Lord, for
dying for me.
How much does he know of all of
this?
How much does he experience of it in
reality?
The reality of it comes just according to
the measure that he has apprehended.
And he appropriates the precious blood.
You see, God looks and He sees the
whole thing.
But all we see, all we see is
according to the apprehension that we have.
And by simple faith we say, thank You,
Lord Jesus, for dying for me.
As our brother was saying last evening, a
little bit later on we discover that our
problem is not just that we needed to
be redeemed or saved from the things we've
done, but we discover that God needs to
deal with something in our life, that we
are.
We begin to cry out, oh, wretched man
that I am.
Lord, I'm tired of plucking fruit off the
tree all the time.
Lord, isn't there something else, something better?
He says, yes.
Just look back to Calvary again.
Don't you know that when you were born,
you were born crucified, but all you knew
is that you were born?
Are you following me?
When you were born, that is when you
were, when you were there at the cross
and you saw Jesus dying for you, that's
one thing.
But now look back again and you see
that He not only died for you, but
He died as you.
You died in Him.
Oh, it's a wonderful thing.
Wonderful thing.
When we look back, I say we take
another look at Calvary.
There we discover God's remedy for the old
life.
And it's a blessed day when you realize
that He buried the whole stinking mess in
the tomb.
I just will be very abrupt about it
because that's what it is.
You see, so much of the time we've
tried to consecrate, we've tried to dedicate something
of the old as though God could use
it.
The flesh cannot please God.
The old creation cannot do anything for God.
Just impossible.
And so this is why if our dedication
is to become very real and meaningful, we
must look back to the cross again.
And there we see that God's place for
the old Adam life and all that it
is, is in the tomb.
But, thank God, there's a rising from the
grave.
We've been crucified and buried together.
We rise together in Him.
And I believe that some people have suddenly
got beyond the negative aspects of things to
see that they begin to live by His
life.
I think you can go on for a
long time before that really begins to lay
hold of you.
I did, for years, emphasize nothing but two
aspects of Calvary.
Jesus died for me, and I died with
Him, but I didn't get out of the
grave.
God saw me out, but I didn't.
I don't know how to say this.
You see, you can be so involved and
so wrapped up in the negative aspect of
what God has done, that you pound your
fist and say, I'm going to keep dead.
I'm going to live a crucified life.
And one day, we begin to see that
we're, we not only have all the negative
work that's dealt with, but now we come
to see that we live by His life.
And that is a whole new apprehension.
Praise God, I'm nothing but a failure.
Hallelujah!
The day I discovered I couldn't live it.
I shock people every now and then.
They come up and say, Brother, I'm just
not going to try.
I'm going to quit.
It's impossible.
I can't live a Christian life.
And you know what I say?
Hallelujah!
What a blessed discovery.
They say, What are you talking about?
I say, That's the day when God can
show you that you're living by the life
of the Son of God.
Oh, I can't emphasize it too much this
morning.
I'm convinced that in our deeper life and
Bible conferences, there are throngs of people who
have never come to the living appropriation of
Jesus Christ as their life.
They doctrinally know it, but they don't know
it in experience.
They don't know it in reality.
They don't know it in its livingness.
So, praise the Lord the day you get
out of the grave.
Now remember, God sees it all, what?
Done.
Finished.
Here we are.
Resurrected.
But not only resurrected to walk around in
newness of life, I think he just takes
sort of a shortcut right over and he
says, Frankie, you be a good toe down
here.
I'm going to position you.
I'm going to place you.
I see folk all the time who've gone
on in the enjoyment of the life of
the Lord and the privilege of being a
partaker of his life.
And then they suddenly discover that this life
has some very restrictive aspects to it.
Uh-oh.
It's not just life to use.
This life of the Son of God, it
works only in a certain way.
I can't use this life just for myself.
This life begins to bring me into the
relatedness of one another, of others, you see.
And so, while God from the beginning saw
the whole thing that happened, again I get
another bit in peace, you see.
And I say, praise the Lord.
I see now why I enjoy being with
the company of the Lord's people because I
am a part of a body.
I'm a part of a body.
And so this is why he says in
1 Corinthians that by one spirit we are
baptized or we are planted into the body
of Christ.
I get a position, a placing.
I'm planted into the body of Christ.
But that isn't all.
What's the next phrase?
Planted into the body of Christ.
Baptized into the body and what?
Made to drink of one spirit.
Well, get way ahead for tomorrow.
But anyway, it's a wonderful thing when we
begin to discover that here we are, a
member, a part in the body and our
dedication, our dedication in fulfilling the thing that
God really wants is the realization that we
are a member, hand, leg, ear and eye
and nose, a member in the body of
Christ, but that along with it we've been
made to drink of one spirit, one spirit,
and the power by which God works is
a two-fold power.
There's the inward, made to drink, made to
drink.
And there is the outward because God has
not only put, as it were, the supply
of the spirit within, but when the promise
of the Father came, the Holy Spirit came
down as an anointing upon this whole body.
And the Holy Spirit has been poured out.
Now, the tragedy of tragedies is that people,
somehow, have thought that it takes an awful
long time to get through to the appropriation
of all these that God has made real
and complete.
And would I shock you if I say
that what I see happening more and more,
I don't think that it's a full apprehension
of it all, but I believe that God
is doing some rather quick work today and
is showing us that an individual who is
rightly instructed in the Holy Spirit bringing illumination
can come through with some full understanding and
very quickly begin to just sort of be
planted in the body and know the anointing
of the Lord and good drink from God's
own life.
And Lord, I thought that used to take
ten years or twenty.
Like one dear pastor said, well, if this
could all happen, I mean, if God, if
you can come to awareness of your member
in the body and the anointing is there,
if you can all do that in one
Sunday, what would you tell them from then
on?
Can I say to you this morning, brothers,
sisters, we've spent so long getting to the
gate where we could begin.
We've been fumbling the fundamentals so long that
now it's time, let us not lay all
these foundational things, but now let us go
on.
This is pretty big stretching for me because
I've enjoyed taking people, at least, you know,
every six months through anew, you see.
And I'm not saying that you can understand
it all or that you apprehend the fullness
of it.
I'm not saying that.
But I am saying, I'm saying that all
of this is very elementary.
Did you hear me?
It's the ABCs.
I used to think that when someone had
something of the anointing and the Spirit of
God came within, that they really measured up
to a high mark and they'd arrived.
And then the Lord said, they've arrived at
the gate.
It's not because they are spiritual.
It's to help them become spiritual.
You see?
Just because someone may have the anointing of
the Lord come upon them and they burst
forth in a heavenly language and praying unto
the Lord, I'd say, Lord, Lord, that's wonderful.
They haven't arrived at anything but the gate.
You see, our problem as fundamentalists is we'd
look at some folk who we thought they
had arrived at some great spiritual experience, and
then we'd see all their babyhood elements and
all these things come out, and we'd say,
Lord, that's a disappointment.
They haven't arrived at much.
Really?
Lord, how am I getting off on all
this so far?
Well, we had a young fellow.
He was in a conference some months ago.
The Lord brought him into the meeting.
It was in a hotel ballroom.
He slipped in after the service.
He walked up and he said, my, all
these people seem to love the Lord.
They're so joyous.
What is this all about?
I've never been in anything like it before.
The leader turned to him and he said,
well, we're just people of the Lord who've
come to discover that we're one body in
the Lord and we love Him.
Do you know the Lord?
No, he said, but I'd sure like to.
So in a few minutes, after just a
bit of instruction, they led him to the
Lord.
He bowed his head and said, oh, God,
I knew there was something.
I just give my life to You.
I trust Jesus.
I wasn't there.
I'd gone up to my room.
There were three or four of us.
He stayed around.
He came to such a realization of knowing
the Lord Jesus.
His life was just, well, you could just
see the difference of encountenance, they said.
And five minutes later, the brother said, you
know, would you like to have the fullness
of the Spirit in your life and have
God's anointing come upon you so that you
can be a real witness and you can
really know how to walk a dedicated life?
He said, I want all there is.
So ten minutes after he'd been saved, when
the brothers laid hands on him, the Holy
Spirit so sweetly came upon him without any
instruction or anything.
He just began to magnify the Lord in
another language.
I've been seeing this happen so often in
the last few months.
I began to say, Lord, what are you
trying to get through to me about?
And he just seemed to say, we've gotten
things so separated so long.
One year here, five years later here, ten
years here.
The Lord says, no, I'll give you 15
minutes.
I'm trying to stretch this this morning.
I've had some real stretching.
I'm not saying that that dear fellow knew
all that really was involved when Jesus died
and he died in him.
He'll discover that, but the Lord will take
him back for another look.
Someday he'll discover maybe in a new way
what it is to live by the life
of the Lord.
He'll look back and say, oh, that's what
resurrection means.
I'm living by his life.
You see?
If you knew how this crossed up some
of the things I've taught through the years,
you'd shout hallelujah about now.
But I am convinced God is doing something
in our hour that's beyond our explaining.
What I'm trying to say is basically this.
God sees us complete in who?
In Christ.
When?
When's the now?
The moment a little babe lifts Abba Father
and says, Dada!
God sees.
That's right.
Complete in who?
You've all said that, but you didn't believe
it.
We've got to take some time and work.
I'm not saying that this whole total thing
of dedication and all is worked out just
in 15 minutes.
But I'll tell you, there's a reason why
we've fumbled along with fundamental things so long
and we've not brought people on to the
fuller thing that God is after.
Well, first half hour's gone.
We haven't started.
But anyway, do you see this morning that
there is an inward a drinking, made to
drink of one's spirit?
And this is God's qualifying, the inward life
character developing within us, the inward strength, you
see?
But when the spirit is outpoured, outpoured, it
is something of God positioning.
Tomorrow we're going to see that position and
anointing go together and we're going to see
how the inward, inward strengthening, the inward might
that God gives as the Spirit of God
fills and controls the life within.
But all of dedication, all of dedication comes
to its fulfillment in the individual as we
get into position and we learn the power
that God's made available.
There's two lovely words for power or authority.
One is ecstasy.
It's the outward thing.
And the other is dunamis, which is the
inward.
Well, you know where we're headed.
But let's get back today, see if we
can't labor and make it a little harder
to get into it, huh?
Complete in Christ.
Well, let's take three different aspects in which
the proving comes about.
First of all, there's the promise that He
gives.
Second, there's the proving.
And thirdly, there's the entering into the possessing.
I do believe that as we begin to
come into some renewed knowledge and our longing
is more and more to know a real
dedication unto the Lord, we get a hold
of the blessedness of some of the promise
that God has made.
And wouldn't it be wonderful if just in
giving us the promise we could automatically possess?
I'm afraid far too many folk have got
the promise and the possessing mixed up.
As one of my friends says, he sings
it so often, every promise in the book
is mine.
But how about the reality of the promise
really being brought out?
Really possessing the reality of it.
Take a couple examples.
Look at the life of Abram for a
moment.
We'll not spend much time.
One day when God brought Abram out of
Chaldea, He gave him the promise.
He said, I'm going to make a father
of you.
You will have a family that will number
the stars of the sky and the sand
of the seashore.
Oh, how Abraham was thrilled with the promise
that God had made.
How long did it take before he came
into the possessing of it?
It was a long period of proving, wasn't
it?
The promise had been made.
Abram tried to help God all this long
period of proving.
And finally, through Isaac, he comes to possess
a son and just about the time that
you think a family is going to come
from Isaac, he says to Abraham, now I
want you to give Isaac to me.
Is this approving?
The Lord.
How are you going to fulfill your promise?
Just kill him and prove me.
Who gets proved?
Did you hear me now?
Prove me, God.
You see, there's this simple obedience.
He says, Surrender, yield Isaac.
The Lord.
Don't worry about my part, just prove me.
See what I do.
Go ahead, kill Isaac.
But how are you going to do it?
He brings it right to the brink, as
it were.
Prove me.
And of course, in the proving of him,
we get proved.
We have a better example of it in
the history of God's people, Israel.
Turn to Deuteronomy, chapter 6.
Verse 1, Now these are the commandments, the
statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your
God commanded to teach you, that ye might
do them in the land whither ye go
to possess.
He's giving them a promise.
The promise is that he's going to give
them a land to possess.
He says, I have brought you out, and
put it to what?
Bring you in.
Brought you out of bondage, brought you out
of slavery, out of Egypt, as it were.
You present, you give yourself to me.
I will bring you in.
Read on with me.
That thou mightest, verse 2, fear the Lord
thy God, to keep all his statutes and
his commandments, which I commanded thee, that thou
and thy son and thy sons' sons, all
the days of thy life, that thy days
may be prolonged.
Fear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do
it, that it may be well with thee,
and that ye may increase mightily, as the
Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee,
in the land that floweth with milk and
honey.
So, in the process now of the promise,
and bringing them into the possession, why can't
God just immediately let you possess a thing?
What really is involved?
God says, I'm going to give you this,
and then immediately he gives it.
I believe it's a law in human nature
that you cannot give things, certain things to
individuals, without hurting them.
Except they be prepared, the heart be proved.
And I think we get that in the
next verse here.
Verse 4, Hear, O Lord, hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God is one God, and
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy might.
So, you see, the proving that takes place
right in here is the taking of a
new heart and making it wholehearted before the
Lord.
How many of you know that when you
were redeemed, he gave you a new heart?
But there's a vast difference between a new
heart and a wholeheartedness.
Oh, the fickleness of a heart that's never
been proved.
It's never really been through the testing, you
see.
The fickleness of it.
You can stand and look over, say, praise
the Lord, that's what I want.
Lord, I want to go.
I want all that you have.
And I believe that in the midst of
this, God's desire was not so much just
to give them a land.
The land is incidental.
He was wanting in the land to give
them himself.
When they got into the land, what did
they do after another generation got in and
took and possessed the land, so to speak?
They used the land for themselves, for their
own interests.
It wasn't that God had been able to
really prove in this place the proving of
their heart.
The land was so good that over a
period of 490 years, they failed to let
it lie idle.
Seventy sabbaths.
Every seventh year was a sabbath unto the
Lord.
Oh, the land was so good.
It was so wonderful.
And they used it for whom?
For themselves, without any carefulness.
They were in the proving, you see.
And so the Lord allowed the northern Babylonians,
the Assyrians to sweep in and took them
into captivity.
How long were they carried away before Cyrus
the king was finally allowing them to come
back?
Seventy years.
And I'd have you keep your finger in
Deuteronomy now, but just go over for a
moment to Jeremiah 29.
Verse 10, For thus saith the Lord, that
after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I
will visit you and perform my good word
toward you in causing you to return to
this..." God was going to bring them into
the place, to the place that He wanted
them, where they could reach fulfillment.
To the place.
"...For I know the thought..." Verse 11, "...for
I know the thought that I think toward
you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and
not of evil, to give you an expected
end.
Then shall you call upon me, and ye
shall go and pray unto me, and I
will hearken unto you, and ye shall seek
me and find me, when ye shall search
for me with all your heart."
Oh, the proving work, then, is to develop
a wholeheartedness within us.
Can I just gently say something to you
this morning?
I know the mentality of a lot of
good fundamental people is, well, praise the Lord,
I want everything that He wants for me.
And if He wants to give it, I'm
willing to take it.
That sounds so spiritual.
I've got news for you.
You know where you're sitting?
You know where you're stalled?
Right here.
Thank you, Lord, for the promise.
There is something that God requires about the
wholeheartedness within our life.
Lord, my dedication unto you, my dedication for
the full thing that you want, is that
my face is set, and I learn to
live in my will.
I want to give a message sometime on
what it means to live in the will.
I'm convinced that the great majority of God's
children live in the fickleness of their feelings.
One day I feel up, and the next
day my feelings are something else.
How many of you have discovered the fickleness
of your feelings?
Well, you can go to a meeting, and
you can get all stirred up and inspired,
and you say, I will serve the Lord.
Your will acts while you're there.
But three hours later, you're away from the
climate and away from everything, and the fickleness
of your feelings have come in.
And your will is a plaything of your
feelings.
Anybody know what I'm trying to say?
I've come to hate my feelings, to hate
the fickleness of it.
You see?
I think there are others who live in
their reasonings all the time.
When they're in the bright light of a
good meeting, and they see things clearly, they
say, praise the Lord, I will do that.
How many of you know three hours later,
when you get out from the light, where
it's so bright, and you start reasoning, reasoning.
You know what I mean?
Reasoning.
Then your will becomes subject to your what?
Reasoning.
Well, maybe it is kind of foolish to
be so wholehearted.
Maybe God doesn't want all that really, you
see?
And once again, my will gets taken captive
by my reasoning.
Oh, I pray, I don't want to get
into this now, but anyway, I pray, Lord,
help us to know what it is to
set our will.
Now, the will doesn't perform.
Paul says, for me, the will is present.
Thank you, Lord, you do the performing.
But for me, the will is what?
Present.
And I think it's good.
I hope we can all affirm it this
morning and say, Lord, I will be proved.
I will have my heart, my wholeheartedness, brought
to real proving.
I want today to tell you, listen to
me when I'm strong, not when I'm weaker
now.
Listen this morning.
I will that you shall prove and work
all around the roots of my heart and
tell it's a heart that's proved.
And I set my faith.
I will, dear Lord, that the proving shall
bring about the possessing.
You've brought me out to bring me in.
But you'll never get in with the dilatory,
well, I'm willing if the Lord is.
You'll never get there.
I press towards the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.
It's a press.
Everything, everything will move into hindering forth.
And it's this proving area, right here, the
promise.
Oh, so many of God's children think they
have the possession because they have the promise.
As Brother Sparks used to say, we have
the knowledge, but we don't live in the
good of the reality of what we know.
Well, back to Deuteronomy again.
Chapter 6, verse
15.
For the Lord thy God is a jealous
God among you.
Lest the anger of the Lord thy God
be kindled against thee and destroy thee from
off the face of the earth.
Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God.
Now, let's just stop for a little bit
and ask the question.
If God has made a promise and we're
proving what is the will, the good, the
perfect, the thing that God wants.
If we're proving the good, acceptable and perfect
will.
He's made a promise to Israel.
I've brought you out to bring you in.
He made a promise to Abram.
We're going to see the promises that have
been made to us.
Here's the issue now.
How in the proving do we slip away
from proving to tempting?
What is the difference between proving and tempting?
He said here that they tempted.
What's the difference?
Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God
as ye tempted him in Massa.
Ye shall diligently keep the commandment of the
Lord your God in his testimonies and his
statutes which he hath commanded thee.
And thou shalt do that which is right
and good in the sight of the Lord,
that it may be well with thee, and
that thou mayest go in and possess the
good land which the Lord sware unto thy
father.
And so forth.
All right?
We'll just be open a little bit.
When does my proving God?
He says prove me.
Prove me.
But when does it slip over into tempting
God?
I need help.
Who will help me?
Have you considered it?
He wants us to prove.
But when does it become a tempting of
God?
When we arrange the circumstances.
I think you're all pointing and I think
some of the statements have been very close.
I found a brother's definition of tempting God
and I share it with you.
I'm not wholly satisfied but it's the best
I've found.
We're learning, you understand, and trying to improve
all the time.
I think that you might consider that tempting
God is asking a sign from God that's
greater than he is pleased or willing to
give.
Tempting God is requiring or demanding a sign
from God.
Greater than he is pleased or willing to
give.
He says here ye tempted me.
Well, turn to Psalm 78 for a moment.
Can you see I'm not wanting to just
get some knowledge but we need the practicality
of getting a hold of this that it
can be a principle working.
You see, can I illustrate?
You can't be a dedicated person but what
you need all around you, you say, Lord,
with all this desperate need and the blindness
and the whole world system crowding in, Lord,
you want somebody who will dare to believe
and dare to take and dare to stand
for you.
And sometimes as I have started to get
into my reasoning, I said, Lord, this just,
it seems to me that you want somebody
who won't limit you but will be able
to take and claim and whose dedication will
be more all out than poor little me.
I think you want to expand.
I get almost to the place where I
want to pull some great thing out of
the sky, some real evidence for God's glory.
You understand?
Well, in Psalm 78, verse 41, Psalm 78,
did I say 76?
Oh, Psalm 78, verse 41 says, yea, they
turned back and tempted God and limited the
Holy One of Israel.
They limited Him.
They tempted Him.
Read verse 18 now.
Well, let's go back to verse 17.
78, 17.
And they sinned yet more against Him by
provoking the Most High in the wilderness, and
they tempted God in their heart by asking
meat for their lust.
Yea, they spake against God.
They said, Can God furnish a table in
the wilderness?
I wish I could put it in the
Spirit.
I think they said it.
Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Behold, verse 20, He smote the rock that
the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed.
Can He give bread also?
Can He provide flesh for His people?
Therefore the Lord heard this and was wrought.
So a fire was kindled against Jacob, and
anger also came up against Israel, because they
believed not in God and trusted not in
His salvation, requiring a sign from God that's
greater than He is willing or pleased to
give.
Well, maybe that doesn't wholly satisfy us yet.
Lord, what is a sign that's greater than?
Now, here is a poor fellow by the
name of, who was Gideon?
Do you remember Gideon?
And you know the fleeces of Gideon?
Lord, how can I know that you're going
to be with me?
Lord, let the fleece be dry and wet
all around.
I wonder if you can see in this
that after Gideon got the answer to it,
he still had to what?
Still had to believe God.
That's the problem with signs, because you wonder
if you interpreted it right.
You still have to believe.
So what did he do?
Lord, it could have happened that way.
How many have ever been through that?
It just could have happened.
So he reverses it.
Make the fleece wet and dry all around.
Lord, you can't funnel all the rain down.
And what happened?
I think God must have been pleased.
This is a good sign.
I don't know that it's the proper way,
but at least I don't think he was
tempting God.
I think that at the root of all
of this, it's the Spirit with which you
approach the Lord.
I think God will be very patient with
our reasonings to a point.
Lord, I don't really know that you're sending
me out against all this mighty number.
I think I can sense that there's times
when questioning is legitimate.
Is that the right word?
You see what I'm trying to say?
Lord, you know there's more at stake than
just me.
I've thought so many times, Lord, I'd go
out.
There's no problem, but here's all these hundreds
of others that are alive.
If I get killed, that's all right, but
what about the thousands of others that are
involved?
What about your name and your glory?
And I think this kind of a come,
let us reason together, sayeth the Lord.
Do you follow what I'm trying to say?
Come, let us reason together.
And I don't know, but it doesn't seem
like this was too great a sign.
It's what it was.
Lord, let this fleece, let it be dry
or let it be wet.
But after it was all over with, he
still had to what?
He still had to believe.
It seems to me, in finality then, that
the spirit in which you approach the Lord
is either a murmuring, a complaining, or God
is very severe toward a rebellious sort of
a spirit.
He will be very patient long as it's
a questioning.
Lord, I just want to be sure I
heard you right.
You see?
I don't think we're tempting at this point.
Huh.
I know God caused the water to come
out of that rock, they said.
But can God, look at this wilderness.
Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?
Who does he think he is?
I mean, can you see the spirit of
it?
Oh, watch your spirit.
Be careful about your spirit.
I believe God is not only trying to,
as it were, deal in the transforming work
of the soul, bring our mind into renewing,
renewed knowledge.
But God, in the proving of our heart,
gets right down to the very innermost, the
proving of our spirit, the hidden man within
the heart.
How many of you have been really pressed
into a place where everything was going wrong?
You've preached and told everybody else how to
do and what to do and all the
rest.
And then he brings you right to the
brink.
And, of course, you know better, doctrinally, than
to ever put it in words.
But your spirit begins to...
Am I the only one?
I never voice it.
But my spirit within has gotten so close
sometimes to saying, Lord, I don't know about
this.
And then to quickly recognize.
And I think this is the awe, the
reverence with which our spirit has to say
as Ezekiel did, Lord, thou knowest.
I don't know.
Lucifer's heart was lifted up.
The spirit full of pride, you see.
And it's right at this point.
So, there is that rashness that comes out
of a moment where the spirit is wrong.
It's not just something of our reasoning, but
our spirit's wrong.
And then the brashness with which one speaks.
Asking something greater as a sign than God
is willing to give.
It's said there in Deuteronomy, you remember, as
they did at Massa.
As they did at Massa.
Turn back to Exodus 17 for a moment.
Now you recall that God has led the
people out of Egypt.
They've crossed through by a miraculous holding back
of the Red Sea.
And here they come to the very first
place.
They pitch their tent at Rephidim.
Verse 1, And all the congregation of the
children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of
sin after their journeys according to the commandment
of the Lord and pitched in Rephidim.
I want to ask you a question.
At this point, were they there in the
will of God?
Had God led them to Rephidim?
Were they there according to His will?
Yes, they were.
He'd gotten them through.
Lord, you got us here.
Well, then the next statement seems strange, doesn't
it?
And there was no water for the people
to drink.
Why would the Lord lead them into a
place where there was no water?
You see, we started out in a mentality
that said you come to know the Lord
and everything's going to be all right from
then on.
And let me say that's true.
But I need a renewing of my knowledge.
Right?
Right, yeah.
They were in God's will, the very center
of it.
How can I be in the center of
God's will and come to a no water
situation?
Lord, this can't be.
And the first opportunity the enemy is to
say, huh, you sure missed God's will.
Because you surely wouldn't have a no water
situation.
No job.
No money.
No friends.
Nobody understands.
Some place I must have missed your will.
No.
He's just taken you into the first chapter.
What is it?
I want to prove to you that you'll
get through this wilderness and it'll be by
me as the supply.
We're getting on to what we need to
get into tomorrow, you see.
The whole of our dedication is not seeing
what needs to be done and rolling up
our sleeves and say, get out of the
way.
Here I come.
Because what God's end is to be must
be done by His means.
And so the first blessed part of the
proving is no water in the will of
God.
Don't accept the enemy's curve at this moment.
He'll do it every time.
Get you to imagine that just because a
difficulty comes, you must have missed the will
of God.
Wherefore, verse 2, the people did chide with
Moses and said, Give us water that we
may drink.
And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye
with me?
Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?
And the people thirsted there for water and
the people murmured against Moses.
I wondered why you could say they were
tempting.
And they said, Wherefore is this that thou
hast brought us up out of Egypt to
kill us and our children and our cattle
with thirst?
I think I see a wrong spirit in
it, don't you?
Lord, you brought us out to what?
Kill us?
They had not really understood the claiming of
the promise.
He brought us out to bring us in.
Their spirit was wrong.
And Moses cried unto the Lord saying, What
shall I do unto this people?
They be almost ready to stone me.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on
before the people and take with thee of
the elders of Israel and thy rod wherewith
thou smotest the river, take in thine hand
and go.
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon
the rock in Horeb.
And thou shalt smite the rock and there
shall come water out of it that the
people may drink.
And Moses did so in the sight of
the elders of Israel.
And he called the name of the place
Massah and Meribah because of the chiding of
the children of Israel and because they tempted
the Lord saying, Is the Lord among us
or not?
Well, my watch has runaways again.
But we'll go on.
Would you ask the Lord this morning, if
nothing else, would you ask Him this morning
how to make real to you that He
wants us to prove Him?
He wants us to step out.
He wants us, as it were, to take
a promise.
How many of you know you can play
it safe?
You can play it safe.
You can stay right back here and say,
If I don't have any promises, I'll have
no proving.
If the Lord's willing, I'll take one.
It's a lot easier to play it safe.
Yet I'm not sure it's easier because you
sit and stew with everybody else who's going
on.
You try to explain their foolishness so you
can justify yourself.
This doesn't sound like the Vern I used
to know.
But I'm just getting so fed up and
so weary of folk who are settling down
on the sidelines and criticizing everybody.
I just get more like Peter all the
time.
I'm saying, Dear Lord, get some folk out
of the boat.
Did I hear you say, Come, Lord?
You can play the cautious eleven who sit
in the boat.
But Peter says, Lord, bid me come unto
thee.
And he walks on the water.
And who had something to talk about that
day?
Huh?
The cautious eleven?
Wasn't that something what Peter did?
He almost went down.
But I can hear Peter saying, Oh, how
wonderful to understand the provision and the undergirding.
And hear the Lord say, Come.
Well, don't let me try to push anybody
out, dear Lord.
I pushed people out of the boat.
They drowned.
I can't swim either.
But I wrecked on you, Lord.
I wrecked on you.
You said, Come.
And here I come.
Lord, prove my heart.
I can't get this across.
But I pray this morning.
Somehow God will break through to us.
And he'll get our ear.
And it'll hear him saying, Come, Peter.
Come, Peter.
You've been living cautiously long.
Now, I'm for caution.
You know that.
Of a certain kind.
But God wants to enlarge.
And God wants to prove our heart and
give an opportunity for us not only to
have a promise box, but a heart that's
been proved and God's prepared that he might
bring some people into.
And this is what we're after when we
get to this positioning and this entering in
to what the land represented, where God could
fulfill through Israel what he wanted.
And guess what's going to happen when he
gets you into his body.
You're in, but you're rightly related.
You know the functioning and the placing and
all that's involved.
Oh, I get excited.
Lord, it's getting better.
Father, we thank you this morning.
We want a dedication that's really stretched.
And we want, dear Lord, the renewed knowledge.
We've all run out to work.
We've run out with zeal.
We've wanted to serve, but oh, thank you,
Lord, that there's a renewing of our mind
that will bring us into the real proving
of you, that we can come through in
the end and say the Lord was our
rock.
And we learned what it was to live
by the drink, the flow that came.
And we learned that he could set a
table in the wilderness, the manna fell every
day.
Oh, I claim this morning you'll teach us.
It's such a very sensitive thing, Lord.
Only you can teach us.
When we get beyond the proving of you
to the tempting, make it real for my
brothers and sisters.
But oh, I thank you, Lord, there's something
of the call of the Spirit.
You put the press within our hearts.
We've been in passivity.
We've been sitting on the sidelines long enough
and our heart reaches out and we say,
draw me and I will run after thee.
Call me, Lord, and I will step out
of my little boat.
Thank you, Lord, I believe you to do
it this morning that our dedication might come
into the fulfillment, the thing that you really
desire.
Thank you, Lord, we believe you to do
this.
In each of our hearts, in Jesus' name,
amen, amen.