I've known this young man since he was
probably about 16 or 17, I can't remember,
and we've been through a lot together, and
I just asked him to share what the
Lord's been doing in his life and saying
to his heart, and I believe it will
be a warning maybe even to some of
the young people here to take heed, amen?
And I'll try to get through this, over,
when I first received baptism in the Holy
Spirit, really when I first began trying to
walk with God at the age of about
16, I dearly loved the regular, you know,
I would spend, during the summers then, you
know, I had a lot of free time,
and I would just sit and read for
hours and hours, and one day some unknowing
soul who intended no harm whatsoever walked through
and said, I guess they were concerned about
my mental state or whatever, they said, you
know, you don't have to read that all
the time, and that, you know, I didn't
immediately just put the thing down and go
about my way, but it, that planted a
seed in my mind, and I thought, well,
maybe I am being a little, and so
over a period of time, I began to,
I read less and less, and I was
still going to services and worshiping the Lord
and all that, and I didn't, at the
time, I didn't think much about it, but
anyway, over a period of years, some things
happened, I had some, what I consider to
be some pretty severe failures, and I really
got away from the Word as a source
of strength, and when I, when I would
go to the Word, I would read the
Word out of a sense of duty or
whatever, and I found lots of condemnation that
was a fearful thing for me, and this
went on for a number of years, and
finally here, here recently, I just needed to
seek God about some things, and I knew
that I needed my own answers, I didn't
need somebody else to tell me a bunch
of things, and what came to my heart
was that I should know, I should know
the answer, and I thought, well, how, you
know, how can I do that, and I
thought, well, you just, you just need to
read the Word, you need to go to
the Word and find out what the Word
says about it, so I would get up
at night, sometimes after I would work late,
long hours and all like that, but I
would wake up about two o'clock, two
or three in the morning, and I'd jump
up and grab the Bible and go in
there and see what it said, and I
would read for hours at a time, and
through doing that, the blessedness of the Word
has come back, and the joy of reading
the Word has come back, and the deliverance
and the peace that the Word can bring,
and the appreciation for what God gave us,
has come.
And I don't, you know, whatever that's worth
to you, I don't know, maybe you've never
been through any, you know, may not have
taken the steps that I've taken, but I
know this, I was telling Paulson, I guess
at one point I knew this, I believe
that even if you read this without faith,
but if you just sat down and read,
and you read enough to give it a
chance, it will create, and I, you know,
I've often, I've heard that over and over,
that faith come up by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God that there truly
is something alive and wonderful about the words
written in this book, and I don't understand
it.
I lean towards, I'm not that smart, but
I lean towards an intellectual approach to life
in virtually every area.
I don't pretend to understand, I can't imagine
how mere words can change your life, but
I know that they can.
And if you're not reading, if you're not
reading because, like I was, it has become
a fearful thing to you, or because maybe
you think you're not getting what you need
from it, probably the problem is just that
you're not reading enough, or you're not spending
enough time on it.
Because speaking virtually as someone back from the
dead, it can bring life and
deliverance and peace when it doesn't appear, when
there doesn't appear to be any, to be
half.
And if I have a thankful heart this
morning for anything, it's just for the fact
that I again appreciate the Word of God,
and that's something that's been missing for a
long time.
Amen.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Oh, Father.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you, Lord, for rejoicing in me.
Amen, Father.
Oh, God.
Thank you, Lord.
One thing I'm convinced of in this hour
is I remember the parable of the hunter
sheep.
The Lord had 99 of them, but one
of them wasn't there.
And he said he left the 99, and
he went and found the one sheep.
The parable of the prodigal son, I think,
speaks of what God's going to do.
He's going to go out and find his
children, isn't he?
Every last one of them.
Amen.
And bring them home.
I think we need to pray that those
that are out in the high plains, you
know, you've been out there for a while,
you don't know you're starving to death.
You don't know you're living with a swine.
You don't know that you have just hushed
to eat, you know.
And that's what it is when you backslide
and you go into the world.
Amen.
But finally, the prodigal son, by the grace
of God, I think God opened his eyes
to realize where he was.
And it seems like it's strange.
It took him a long time, but all
of a sudden he remembered what?
In my father's house, there's plenty of food
to eat.
Even my father's hired servants are better off
than I am.
He said, I know what I'll do.
I wouldn't even claim to be a son
anymore.
I'll go back and hire myself out to
my father.
Of course, we know the father would not
accept that, would he?
He received him back as a son, killed
the fatted calf, gave him a robe, which
I believe is again the robe of righteousness.
Amen.
Put the signet ring on it, which means
he gave him back authority, didn't he?
And took him back.
And may we, as God feeds us, may
we be burdened by the spirit, cry out
for the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.
Amen.
And for the prodigal son, and plead that
God will restore them and bring them back.
Amen.
You may not be touched by this as
much as I am, because you have to
know some of the history, some of the
things that's happened, but this has blessed me
so much.
Amen.
Well, the Lord bless you and we hope
you're enjoying the services the word that God
is bringing to us.
We hope that you're feasting on the table
that God set before us.
Amen.
So anything else I need to add?
I don't know.
Again, we're going to have food after the
services.
If you'd like to stay with us all
afternoon, the church is going to be open.
And again, service tonight at seven and then
it's seven o'clock each night next week.
Okay.
So without any further ado, we'll turn it
over to Brother George Warnock.
I know these days we're emphasizing a lot
the spirit of truth.
We haven't emphasized the Bible as such, because
there is a great imbalance between the written
word and that living word that God wants
to bring forth.
But we certainly honor the word of God,
the Bible very much, steam it very highly.
And people say, well, the letter killeth, just
the dead letter.
The spirit giveth life.
So let's concentrate on the spirit.
And Paul isn't dividing the literal word from
the spirit.
He is saying that if you divide the
spirit from the word, then the letter will
kill.
He isn't saying it's not necessary.
It's very necessary.
They tell me that's a pecan tree out
there.
I don't know if you've ever seen one,
but I've worked with pecan wood.
It's very, very hard stuff.
But it has a shell on it, and
that shell is totally essential.
You wouldn't have, I don't think the kernel
would develop without the shell developing around it.
Very essential.
But the shell has to be cracked open
before you get the kernel.
And so as a young man, knowing that
God had some purpose in ministry for me,
and I never was a speaker, a preacher.
I didn't have that kind of eloquence.
I thought, well, I'll just memorize Scripture.
And one time when we moved to the
coast from the parish where I grew up,
I grew up in a little town and
landed in that big city of Vancouver.
And I had to find a job, and
jobs weren't plentiful in those days.
Anything I hated was looking for work.
I like work all right now, but I
don't mind work, but I hate looking for
it.
So I grew up in that big city
and go to a half a dozen places
looking for work.
And always scared, you know, goodness, I don't
know if I could work in this place.
Glad when they said no, there was no...
I'd go home and memorize the Scripture.
I did that all one summer.
And then in the fall I got somewhat
of a job.
So about three months there I memorized Scripture
almost every day.
In which time I memorized about a chapter
a day.
Started with a book of Romans.
I memorized in that one summer most of
Paul's epistles.
Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philistines, Colossians,
1st, 2nd Thessalonians, and Hebrews.
I thought, well, I'll leave the smaller ones
until the last, Titus, Philemon, 1st, 2nd Timothy.
And then I sort of got bogged down,
and since then I don't know if I've
done hardly any memorizing.
And I can't say I can go through
it all now, but I do thank the
Lord for that.
I know it was just a letter, and
it didn't mean that much to me as
I read it and memorized it.
But I knew enough about God's ways that
I knew he honored this book very highly.
He gave it, and I came across a
writing concerning Ivan Panin, and I got his
works on it.
As a mathematician and a very godly Christian,
it come to him that if that Bible
is the infallible Word of God in its
original writing, it had to be mathematically correct.
And he spent the rest of his life,
he spent fifty years proving that the original
Scriptures in the original Greek and Hebrew were
perfectly mathematically correct.
So that gave me, not that I studied
it a lot, but it gave me added
assurance.
And he also says, according to mathematics, there
are sixty-six books in that Bible and
no more.
That's the canon of Scripture.
You come across a writing in the Old
Testament, you know, is it not written in
the book of Jasher or whatever?
And people say, oh, we've got to find
those books.
They're lost books.
So they come up with supposed to be
books that belong to the Bible.
I believe in this we have the canon
of Scripture.
Not to say there are not valid historical
records.
Paul wrote a letter to Laodicea, told the
Colossians to read it.
It's not in the Scripture.
It wasn't intended to be part of the
canon of Scripture.
And so I believe we have that evidence
that it is the canon of Scripture.
And I didn't intend to go into this,
but when I was a young man in
Vancouver, I sat under the ministry of Brother
Ern Baxter, who has just gone on to
be with the Lord and found great profit
from it.
And I believe it gave me, sitting under
his ministry, was the meaning of a sure
foundation of the Word in my own life.
Not to say that there was any increased
revelation beyond what God had given to the
church at that hour, but he had a
great ministry of bringing forth the established truth
that we knew in those days.
And he took a study in the tabernacle
in the wilderness, and so I made a
model of it, which I still have.
It's pretty well beaten up now.
It's traveled far more miles than the tabernacle
that Moses built in the wilderness.
And it's got beat up a lot.
But I made it from the Scriptures.
And I thought I'd look up a Bible
dictionary if I thought I'd need a little
help, and other versions of Scripture.
But when it came to the candlestick, it
is quite difficult.
There was no dimensions, and it sounded a
little complicated.
And I'd see diagrams of it in Bible
dictionaries, and I couldn't seem to get that
to conform to what was written in the
Bible.
So I just went by the Scriptures when
I built the model of the candlestick.
And I came up
with something like this.
It speaks about the bowl, the knot, the
flower.
The bowl, the knot, the flower, and the
candlestick.
In other words, each section was in three.
A bowl, knot, flower.
And I don't know what it was.
It seems to have been different forms in
which the almond came forth.
And so there was a bowl, a knot,
and a flower.
And then a bowl, a knot, and a
flower.
A bowl, a knot, and a flower.
Four of them.
Bowl, knot.
I'm Out of the candlestick, there was a
branch with three parts in it.
A bowl, a knot, a flower.
And a bowl, a knot, a flower.
And a bowl, a knot, and a flower.
One, two, three.
And each one was in these three parts.
And the same the other side.
That's not quite right.
That comes under.
Don't cough again.
It came out of, in between them like.
Oh, I'm getting all confused here.
These all came in between here.
This one, two, three.
They came in between here.
And so there's, each one of these was
in three.
And there's one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, three, three, two, nine, three,
there's twenty-seven pieces.
And the other side, twenty-seven pieces.
And one, two, three, four in the middle,
which I believe is the Christ, the stem.
I am the vine, you're the branches.
He's the light.
And there were lamps on these seven.
You see the lamp.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Seven lamps.
And then so twenty-seven, there are twenty
-seven.
One, two, three, four times three is twelve.
Sixty-six.
And I wasn't looking for that.
I wasn't looking for anything.
I was just making it the best I
could from the Scriptures.
It comes to sixty-six pieces.
And to me that was a confirmation of
the canon of Scripture.
And then this tremendous finding by Ivan Panin,
confirming that the Apocrypha does not belong to
the canon of Scripture.
Not to say it's not historical, but God
saw fit to have sixty-six books.
So I honor that.
And I don't encourage people to read these
other writings.
I've read a bit of the Apocrypha.
I don't accept it as the, on a
level of the Word of God, there's perhaps
historical facts in it.
But I hear people getting all excited about
getting to know the book of Thomas, for
instance.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong.
I haven't read it.
But these people don't necessarily know this book
and Paul's writings and Peter's and James', but
Thomas.
We've got to hear what Thomas has to
say.
And it's not proven to be part of
the canon of Scripture.
But you see, they weren't all pinned together
or welded together, all these pieces.
God says take a solid piece of gold
and beat it out of that.
So there were sixty-six parts, but it
wasn't pinned together, it wasn't welded together.
What a tremendous amount of work.
And there's no dimensions to it.
All the other things, there's dimensions to it.
No dimensions to it.
Because it's the Word of God, yes.
But it's dead in itself.
But it is necessary to carry the lamps.
The Bible.
But it's more than the Bible.
It's the living truth.
It's Jesus.
Jesus is the Word.
He's not the Bible, but He's the Word.
And the Bible, like the candlestick, is that
instrument, that vessel, intended of the Lord to
reveal the Christ.
And so Genesis is the first book of
the Bible and Revelation is the end, because
the whole sum and substance of the Bible
is to reveal Christ.
Not a lot of knowledge about Him, but
to reveal the living Christ so that in
the revelation, in the consummation of the book,
it's the book of the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
The unshining forth of Jesus Christ.
That's why John saw Him in the midst
of seven lampstands.
Standing in the midst of the seven lampstands.
I believe we often wish somehow, and I
know, I believe the time will come when
the book of Revelation will be that in
the midst of His people, instead of a
book of obscurity.
A book of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And we're going to see that, because as
we come closer and closer to the time
of the revelation of Jesus Christ, God is
going to be pleased someday to come forth
and stand in the midst of this candlestick.
As He does in the heavens, stands in
the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
So in our gatherings together in His name,
we want to see Him revealed, because what
goes on in heavenly places, it's the office
work of the Holy Spirit to take that
which is transpiring in heavenly places, that which
is in Christ, and reveal it to His
people in the earth.
It's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to
do that.
Know how we long and pray for that
day when we'll be so aware of that,
so conscious of it, and that the burden
of it will become so great upon our
shoulders that we won't want anything else but
for the Spirit of God to take the
things of Christ and reveal them to us.
God will be all forms of gimmicks, entertainment,
all that music, all the rock-and-roll,
and all that stuff that they use to
try and bring people in.
And God's bringing forth such a measure of
the Spirit of God and the lives of
His people that people won't come in, and
you won't go trying to bring them in
unless they're seeking God, unless they're seeking the
light, because God is going to have a
brilliant light in the midst of His people.
And in the early church, no man dared
join themselves to the congregation of the saints
unless they were ready to forsake the darkness.
They were coming into the light.
They couldn't stand it unless they were ready
to see the Lord dissolve that darkness.
They weren't out, come, come, come, come to
our meeting.
No man dared join themselves to the people
of God unless they were really seeking God,
unless their hearts were open towards Him.
Sinners would come, yes, we want the light,
and they would come.
So we look for that.
We look for the Son of Man standing
in the midst of the candlestick, this candlestick
here, right where you are.
The Son of Man to reveal Himself in
such a way that there's a shining forth
of a light.
And that's what the Word is supposed to
do.
And so God gives great instructions that this
candlestick would be made according to proper form.
And we thank the Lord that He's seen
fit to give us this holy book that
is intended to be in God's time and
in God's way, that candlestick from which the
light of God might shine forth.
And so, you know, you memorize it, you
read it, you read it, and virtually people
say, I'll just study the Bible.
Virtually, just read it and memorize it.
And I thought once I should get books
and get a little bit of theological understanding.
And I did get a few books, but
somehow, you see, why do you sort of
speak disparagingly of books when you write them
yourself?
I'm not really speaking disparagingly of books, but
I'm saying there's most of it is theological.
It's not the shining of a light.
And I'm not saying there's no value for
that.
Perhaps there are certain theological books that God
intended to lay out certain patterns and structures
and so forth.
As long as we recognize that God's desire
is not for theology, but for the theoslogos
to be revealed in our midst.
Because that's where we get theology from.
And I'm not high on Greek either, but
theos is God and logos is the word.
And that's the word from which we get
theology.
That's where the word theology comes from.
The word concerning God.
The science concerning God.
Psychology.
The science concerning the soul.
But that's not my job to do that.
And I don't want to condemn any theologians
who feel it's their job to analyze the
Scriptures in that way.
But God doesn't want us to be theological.
He wants us to know Him.
He wants us to know the theoslogos.
The word that was with God and was
God.
In the beginning was the logos and the
word was with the theos.
And God, theos, was the logos.
The same was in the beginning with theos.
He was God and He was with God
and He was God and He was with
God and He was God.
And the word became flesh.
The logos became flesh and tabernacled among us.
And so the logos is higher than the
Bible.
Because this tells about God and it gives
us instruction concerning God.
If perhaps we might seek after God and
find Him.
And you can read the Scriptures and find
God if your heart is open for God.
You won't find it if you just read
it to criticize or to refute the Bible.
But nevertheless, you're in dangerous ground if you
start reading it for that purpose.
Because there's dynamite there and you might, God
by His Spirit, might see fit.
Like Arthur Katz mentioned one time when he
was brought up in Orthodox Judaism.
But he was constantly confronted with Jesus and
he tried to shut it out of his
mind.
And he went to Jerusalem because he knew
they'd have books there that would refute the
idea of Christ being the Messiah.
He walks around Jerusalem looking for a bookstore
where he could find books that would refute
the fact that Jesus was Messiah.
And he dropped into a bookstore and it
was a Messianic bookstore.
And so wherever he went, he was in
trouble.
And anyway, he took a New Testament and
he thought, I'll read the New Testament.
I don't know if it's on that occasion.
I'm just going to read it through.
And so he read it through and he
said something was grabbing him, you know.
And he came to the story of the
woman that was taken in adultery.
And he thought, now I'm going to close
the book here for a minute.
He said, I can't see how he'll ever
get out of that one.
The law said you got to stone her.
And he knew by what he'd already read
that Jesus wouldn't go along with the law.
He's in a fix.
And he closed the book and he thought,
how will he get out of that one?
And he couldn't figure out how he was
going to get out of it.
And he who was the Logos incarnate, who
came to redeem men, who loved sinners, and
loved righteousness and hated iniquity but loved sinners,
turned to the woman and said, where are
thine accusers?
Hath no man condemned thee?
First of all, he said, he that is
without sin, let him first cast a stone
at her.
Infinite wisdom clothed in human flesh.
Believing in the law of God, knowing that
God gave the law of God, but knowing
also that he came to change it, to
fulfill it, and to bring forth what was
the true substance of the law, which was
righteousness and mercy and truth and lovingkindness.
It was God's intention in the law.
And so little by little it led him
to Christ.
Reading a book, reading it hoping to find
something that he could know for sure that
he had an answer to contradict it.
And it became a trap.
So we thank the Lord for the written
word of God.
But now that we're anticipating and looking for
the coming of Jesus Christ, and one of
the words that's used very often concerning the
coming of Jesus Christ is the Apocalypse of
Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And therefore it's the last book of the
Bible.
And as we read that and we bear
that in mind, let's understand it's the shining
forth, the unveiling, the brilliant shining forth of
the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Logos.
Shining forth in the brilliant light which is
inherent in this word as a seed.
It comes forth in the fullness of revelation
in Jesus Christ who is the word, God's
word in the flesh.
So that this is inadequate in itself.
It is the shell.
Christ is the kernel inside.
It's necessary.
And God has preserved it through the centuries.
But God has preserved it that people reading
it or hearing it sent forth by the
Spirit might see the unveiling, the revelation, and
that's what the word means, the unveiling of
Jesus Christ.
The book of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
The first book is the book of Genesis.
The book of the seed.
The book of the sowing of the seed.
The last book is the book of the
harvest.
And I know there's still a lot of
mystery in the book of Revelation.
And we know that God will in his
time and as we need it, crack that
kernel and cause us to see the substance
in it.
But little by little we can derive much
benefit.
Not only from all the other books of
the Bible, but from the book of Revelation
itself.
If we're faithful just to read it as
John said, blessed is he that heareth and
that readeth and that heareth the words of
the prophecy of this book for the time
is at hand.
And so I've read it many, many times.
And very little yet do I feel that
I've really understood concerning it.
But there are glimpses of truth.
There are rays of glory here and there
that I think are very clear.
And God will be faithful, I believe, in
the outworking of his purposes in the church
to make everything that's in this book to
be very vital in the congregation of the
people.
Because Jesus is that word and that word
has been pleased to take upon himself to
join unto himself others.
For he is that Son of Man, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, that center, that central
stem out from which flows these branches, the
vine.
And we're the branches that in union with
him we would be the light of the
world.
Or you say Jesus is the light.
I know, but Jesus said as long as
I am with you I'm the light of
the world.
And then he said you are the light
of the world.
We have no problem saying Jesus is the
light of the world.
The problem is he's not here.
He's way up there in heaven.
We're going around telling people to somehow receive
Jesus who is the light of the world.
Where is he?
He's up there in heaven.
God says as long as I'm with you
I'm the light of the world.
I'm going away and that you might be
the light of the world.
If there's anything that's a revelation of the
Spirit of God for the church of this
hour, it is this.
That Jesus went away that everything that's in
him, everything that he is, might be poured
into the church of Jesus Christ in the
earth.
That we might be of one substance with
him.
Not mechanically joined together, but formed together in
him.
Just the branches of the scandal stick were
formed out of him.
Mystery that we can't explain.
We're not trying to, but something God wants
us to believe.
I think David caught a glimpse of it
way back there in the book of Psalms
when he marveled at God's greatness and his
power and his might.
Then he goes off and he says something
that can only apply to the Lord Jesus
Christ and his body.
He said my substance was not hid from
thee.
When I was made in secret and curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,
couldn't have been speaking of himself, but as
God was forming this body, it was necessary
that the head would suffer and die and
go down, Paul says, into the lowest parts
of the earth.
Then he came again from the dead, from
the lowest parts of the earth and ascended
on high, giving gifts unto men, giving some
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some
teachers, all in the context of what Jesus
did in going to the lowest parts of
the earth, that he might go down to
the lowest depths to be raised to the
highest heights of glory, giving gifts unto men,
apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of
Christ, till we all come unto the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man.
We're all mingled together with him.
He went down into the lowest parts of
the earth, then ascended to the highest heaven,
giving apostles and prophets and so forth for
the perfecting of the saints.
Lord willing, we'll continue with that.
Let's go back to what David saw.
My substance was not hid from thee when
I was made in secret.
God has made his church in secret.
He's making his church in secret.
There are many powerful churches in this country,
many in this little city, that, well, we're
the church.
They might know about this little band of
heretics here.
I don't know.
God is doing a work in secret.
He's doing a secret work.
Jesus said, in secret have I said nothing.
And yet, few heard him.
So it was a secret that Christ revealed
to those whose hearts were ready for it.
Paul says God made him to be a
steward of the secrets of God, a steward
of God's mysteries, steward of the secrets of
God.
So it's a secret, but a secret is
something that's known to others who are close
to you.
But in this life, if you really want
to keep a secret, don't tell anybody.
But God wants to tell certain ones who
are able to keep the secret.
And so Paul said he was a steward
of God's secrets.
That you'd keep it and then share it
as a good steward of the manifold grace
of God.
And share it as a trust that's been
given to you.
Paul says, I have a stewardship concerning the
mystery.
A steward is one who has charge of
a man's property.
I turn it over to you because I'm
going away on a journey or whatever.
You be the steward.
It doesn't mean he just, oh, the boss
is gone now, runs out in the street
here, take this here, come on in and
help yourself.
But a steward of God's secrets.
God wants to share his secrets with others,
but he can only do it with friends.
And so God sees fit in his own
purposes to make us to be stewards of
the secrets of God.
Oh, yeah, openly declared.
I mean, my books are available everywhere.
They're getting around quite a bit.
They're in a bookstore in our little town
where we live.
I think a dozen will last them a
year or so, maybe.
But I mean, they're there.
They're open.
It's a secret, you see.
It's in plain sight, but it's hidden.
And so Jesus said, I don't call you
bond-slave servants anymore.
I'm calling you friends now because I told
you everything the Father told me.
Everything the Father told me, I told you.
So he wasn't keeping any secrets to himself
because the Father says, tell your disciples what
I tell you.
And so they'd ask him things and he
said, well, I don't even know that.
Neither the Son of Man nor the angels
know that.
Well, you say, wasn't he filled with all
wisdom and knowledge?
Yes.
But under the constraint of the Heavenly Father,
he was only able to reveal his secrets
to those whom God says here.
Tell this secret to Peter and tell it
to John, James.
Tell it to Bartholomew.
Tell it to Philip, Nathaniel.
And so God ordained his pathway and God
ordained the pathway of his servants.
That they might be able to go as
a good steward and tell God's secrets to
those that God wants to hear.
Well, when you understand that, that you're a
steward of the mysteries of God, it doesn't
matter if you've got two or three people,
a dozen.
Or if perchance God sees fit to gather
together a hundred thousand, God can still declare
the word openly and only the friends of
God will hear.
That's right.
So you see, it's no longer of any
significance whether God calls you to minister to
two or three people, a dozen, fifty, five
thousand, a hundred thousand, or over TV, ten
million.
It's not significant.
The only thing that's significant is that you
and I learn the voice of God.
Learn to do what he says.
So much and no more.
Just his will.
He can't do any more that would be
profitable.
Just to do his will.
Well, that's why we emphasize that an agenda
is not...
You don't come up with an agenda because
now God said, I'm going to be an
apostle, so we're not seeing...
I'll read what the scriptures say about an
apostle.
Apostles establish churches, so I'll go about establishing
churches.
And try and fulfill your ministry as an
apostle or prophet or teacher or something by
seeing what an apostle is supposed to do
and you do it.
But rather, walking in the spirit, letting the
Lord lead you, and do what he says.
My substance was not hid from thee.
I was made in secret and curiously wrought.
I looked that up, it means a sort
of an intertwining of threads.
The intricate work that they performed in the
temple, in the tapestry of the temple, and
different things that they used in temple worship,
intricately woven.
And that's the thought, curiously wrought.
Like with needlework, it's curiously wrought.
And as God is curiously working on his
people, we feel the needle, we don't see
much sense in the pattern because we don't
know what God is bringing forth.
This is something in which God poured in
everything he did.
There'll never be anything greater in the universe
than Christ in union with his bride.
There'll never be anything greater.
But there will be a continual unfolding of
that, and an unfolding of God's glory throughout
the ages.
But it's an unfolding of that which God
is about to reveal in the earth, the
unfolding of his masterpiece.
We are his workmanship, we are his masterpiece.
This beautiful body of Christ, this bride of
Christ, this church of the living God, curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
And as he is curiously working in his
people, he's bringing forth that which is for
his own honor and glory to the praise
of the glory of his grace.
That throughout eternal ages we should be to
the praise of the glory of his grace.
Not just in what we say or in
what we do, but in what we are.
To the praise of the glory of his
grace.
And God is forming this people for himself.
And Paul says, I'm a steward of the
mysteries, that I might reveal these secrets to
God's chosen people, that he might make known
these secrets to them, that they might be
made heirs of this thing that God is
doing, that they might become a part of
it.
And the full gospel is not telling people
that Jesus died for your sins and redeemed
you.
And the full gospel is that you're filled
with the Spirit.
But the full gospel goes far beyond that.
And Paul says that God made him, set
him apart to be a minister of the
gospel, that he might preach the unsearchable riches
of Christ.
That he might preach the unsearchable riches of
Christ, yes.
But that I might make all men see
what is the fellowship of the mystery, which
from the beginning of the world was hidden
in God.
It wasn't just to declare the unsearchable riches
of Christ, but that he might remove the
scale from the eyes of people that they
might see.
So we haven't seen the full gospel until
that manifestation of the Spirit is there to
take away the veil from the eyes of
people.
That's why there's so much that goes forth
as the gospel that's not really the full
gospel.
It's telling people that Jesus died for their
sins and we must do that.
We must do the best he enables us,
preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
But Paul said that the fuller message of
the gospel was when you cause men to
see what is the fellowship, what is the
secret of the mystery, which from the beginning
of the world was hidden in God, who
created all things by Christ Jesus to the
intent that there's a purpose beyond that even,
to the intent that now unto principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be made known
through the church the manifold wisdom of God.
That's the full gospel.
We haven't seen it yet.
We're going to.
And let's continue to declare the unsearchable riches
of Christ, yes.
But even as we do, we must seek
God to take away veils from the hearts
of people.
Because I don't care how much you declare
the people are deaf, and if they're blind,
they don't hear it and they don't see
it.
But there is to be a penetration of
the gospel that will go forth into this
old world, the gospel of the kingdom of
Christ that's going to cause men to hear
and is going to cause them to see
the unveiled glory of Jesus Christ.
I just picked up that Reader's Digest out
there in the stand, and it talked about
the horrible things going on in Asia.
And I just read one paragraph of the
horror that's going on, not only there, but
all over the world.
Little children that are kidnapped for prostitution and
little innocent kids.
Oh, God!
Oh, God, send forth the gospel of the
kingdom that will open the eyes of people,
Lord, that will cause their ears to hear
the glorious message of deliverance from the Christ
that's reigning on high.
Let the feet of your people in the
earth become beautiful, Lord, with the shoes of
the gospel of peace, the shoes of the
preparation of the gospel of peace, that your
gospel may go forth to the four corners
of the earth, opening the eyes of the
blind and causing the prisoners to be set
free.
We send forth the gospel of the kingdom
of Christ to the ends of the earth.
Because Jesus said it's going to happen before
he comes.
He's not coming tonight.
He's going to send this gospel of the
kingdom to the far corners of the earth.
This gospel, not the one that you hear
on TV and so forth.
It's the gospel of the shining force of
the light of Jesus Christ causing blind eyes
to see, causing the veil to be removed,
causing the prison doors to be opened and
the captives to be set free.
To make all men see what is the
fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning
of the world has hidden God in Christ
Jesus to the intent, the intention of it,
is that now unto the principalities and powers
and heavenly places might be made known through
the church the manifold wisdom of God.
To the church, the many-sided aspects of
His wisdom.
You say, I'm not interested in making known
the wisdom of God to principalities and powers.
I want to preach the gospel to the
lost.
That's why the veil isn't being removed.
But when principalities and powers and heavens hear
the message of the cross going forth in
kingdom power, they're shaken.
They can't stand it.
They know that because they were there when
Jesus died on the cross and they remember
their time when they wilted to when Jesus
died on the cross and realized that they
were being destroyed.
You say, if they were destroyed then, why
did they be destroyed again?
They're not.
The sentence was declared there, but the execution
of it has been pending these 2,000
years.
What God is going to do in this
earth is nothing less than the execution of
the sentence that was passed when Jesus died
on the cross.
That's what the day of the Lord is
all about.
When the victory of the cross is going
to be manifest in the earth, not only
in the earth, but before principalities and powers
in the heavens to the intent that now
under principalities and powers in heavenly places might
be known through the church the many-sided
aspects of the wisdom of God.
And be assured, what the many-sided aspects
of the wisdom of God is all about,
it's the wisdom of the cross.
That's what the wisdom of God is all
about.
It's the wisdom of the cross.
The wisdom of the cross.
That a man dying on the cross destroyed
all evil in the world.
Hanging there on the cross, he destroyed all
evil because it was there on the cross
that there shone forth the love of God,
the light of God, the truth of God.
The wisdom of God, the power of God
had shone forth on the cross.
The wisdom of God is the unveiling of
that not only to men on the earth,
but principalities and powers in the heavens because
that's where the authority is held over the
church.
And when the message of the gospel reaches
them, they're going to wither in the presence
of it.
That's why Moses said, hear, heavens, I've got
something to say.
I'm not interested in what they hear.
I'm here on earth.
I know.
But you won't hear it unless they hear
it.
Hear, oh heavens, and I will speak.
Listen, oh earth, to the words of my
mouth.
My doctor shall drop as the rain.
My speech shall distill as the dew.
The prophets called on the heavens to listen
in.
Because if they're not listening in, man's not
going to hear it.
He's deaf.
He's blind.
But heaven hears that those principalities and powers
are broken in the hearts and minds of
men and women, and they're able to hear
what you're saying.
My substance was not hidden thee when I
was made in secret and curiously wrought in
the lowest parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my substance yet unperfect,
and in thy book all my members were
written, which in continuance were fashioned.
And as yet there was none of them.
He's continuing to fashion this body.
Let's not think that the body of Christ
is just a group of people.
It's a people curiously wrought, intricately woven into
Christ until we become one with Him.
We in Him and He in us.
And let Him continue that work and let
us not fret under the workings of God.
Let us have faith to believe that He
is working everything right according to His good
pleasure, according to His good plan, that in
the day of the revelation of Jesus Christ,
when the sons of God are revealed, I
know that word has become a dirty word,
the manifestation of the sons of God.
It simply means the unveiling of the Christ
and His many brethren.
That Christ Himself might be glorified.
That His name might be exalted in earth
and in heaven and throughout all eternity.
Through a people in whom God is working
His grace with much trial and suffering and
testing in secret.
We wonder about it.
We ponder it and we fret under it
not realizing that the Master workman is bringing
forth this glorious church, this glorious body, not
just to rapture us and get us out
of the mess, but to clean up the
mess and establish the kingdom of righteousness on
the earth.
That's right.
Hallelujah.
Glory to God.
Glory.
Hallelujah, Lord Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Hallelujah, Lord.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Lord God.
Praise you, Father.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
We bow before you today, Lord.
Amen.
We welcome the change in our hearts.
We welcome the change in our lives today.
Yes, work it.
Earn it in the heart.
I want you to work, Father.
I want you to bless today, Father.
I want to be a disciple, Father.
Hallelujah.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Alleluia May our thoughts would become your
thoughts, O God, and that the Holy Spirit
would open us up, O God, and that
you would expose the inner parts of us,
O God, O
God, O
God, O Father, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you, glory
to you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory to you, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you, glory
to you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory to you, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you, glory
to you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory to you, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you, glory
to you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory to you, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you, glory
to you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory to you, glory to you, glory to
you, glory to you, glory to you,
glory
to
you, glory to you, glory to you.
Heavens are going to hear, amen, by His
grace and mercy in us, amen.
So we thank God.
We truly, I believe, have heard a word
that's part of what our brothers have quoted
in Ephesians 4, to perfect the saints for
the work of the ministry.
Amen.
So we eat this word, Lord.
We eat your flesh today.
We drink your blood today, Lord.
Truly, we want to be your disciples, Lord.
Dear God, we will to do your will,
O Father.
We will to do your will.
Because we know it's only those who will
to do your will that will know the
doctrines, will know the truth, whether it be
of God or not.
And Lord, we do want to know whether
it be of you or not, O Father.
So we set our hearts, Lord, humbly, Lord,
fearfully before you, that we would do your
will all the days of our life, Father.
Amen.
Hallelujah.
We thank you, Lord.
We're not going to dismiss, because this is
going to be one service, okay?
So we just want to fellowship and enjoy.
If you just want to sit and just
marinate in this, we'll have it.
Anybody have anything to share?
Thank you, Jesus.