I'm not trying to expound on these scriptures
or read, it's more of a starting point,
springboard.
Because I feel the Lord does want to
begin in a far more meaningful way than
we have known, to impart truth to God's
people, not only to their minds, but to
their hearts.
And I think I mentioned last night, God
starts with the heart, but we seem to
have reversed that, and we get it in
our minds first, so often.
And God wants to bring about that change
of the heart, as well as of the
mind.
And I don't in any way try to
disannul what God would do in our minds.
Our minds certainly need total transfiguration.
But the truth we get there is generally
in the form of knowledge, and God wants
us to have true knowledge.
But until knowledge is integrated into the mind,
absorbed into the mind and becomes truth, it
still remains far from God's desire.
God wants the knowledge we have to become
living truth.
And I believe God wants to do that,
and I believe this is the time when
He wants to do it.
My own desire is that I would not
go around ministering to God's people just to
try to give them a little more instruction
in the various visions that we have concerning
what God will do on this last day,
but rather to, Jesus says, feed my sheep,
to impart living bread to God's people.
Something that's not only sweet in the mouth,
but something that, when digested, will bring bitterness.
I don't mean a bitterness toward God or
man.
I mean that inward dealing of God that
is bitter in its experience, but the result
of which is to eradicate the bitterness.
Yes, Lord.
And so I warn God's people, you know,
don't hang around too much listening to the
living word of God unless you intend to
digest it.
And John said, Thy words were found and
I did eat them, and they were unto
me as honey in my mouth.
And God said to Ezekiel, Take the little
book and eat it.
And he ate it, and it was sweet
in his mouth.
John and Patnos, the same.
But when I had eaten it, it was
bitterness in my belly.
And then right after that, He says, Thou
shalt prophesy again to many tongues and nations
and peoples.
And I believe God wants a prophetic people
in the earth.
I'm not looking for the arising of another
great prophet.
As much as I am expecting a prophetic
people in the earth, a prophetic people, a
people that becomes the testimony of Jesus.
For Jesus said, The testimony of Jesus is
the spirit of prophecy.
And I pondered over that scripture a lot.
But I just believe that God wants that
witness of Christ in the midst of His
people, that expression of Christ in His people.
That whether they speak or don't speak, exhort
or don't exhort, prophesy or don't prophesy, teach
or don't teach, whatever enablement God has given
them, the total expression of that witness of
Christ in the midst of His people will
be the testimony of Jesus.
The witness of Jesus, the expression of Jesus
going forth from the house of God.
And I believe God wants that in His
people.
And I believe when Jesus went away for
that purpose, that the witness that He was
when He was here, the testimony that He
was, He was a true witness.
He was a faithful witness.
He was the very witness of the Father.
Anything that men needed to know about the
Father, Jesus was that true and faithful witness.
He was God's spoken word in the earth.
The word was with God.
The word was God.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among
us.
And that word is the very expression of
the heart of God.
God's word in the flesh.
God's own heart and mind expressed in His
Son.
So John was able to say that the
word, the word of life which we have
seen, which we have looked upon, our hands
have handled, that the word of life, that
the life was manifested.
We have seen it bear witness and declare
unto you that eternal life which was with
the Father and was manifested unto us.
It was the very word of the Father,
the very life of the Father.
The very expression of God the Father in
the earth.
I can't go along with the Trinitarian expression.
God the Father, God the Son, God the
Holy Spirit.
Three separate persons.
Three distinct separate persons.
I'm not getting any theological arguments about it
this morning.
But I want you to know that when
Jesus Christ walked this earth, it was the
revelation of the Father.
It was the revelation of God the Father
walking in His Son in the earth.
It was God's mind.
It was God's heart.
It was the very expression of God Himself.
And God who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in times past, unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last
days spoken unto us by His Son.
And the Greek says two words, in Son.
As pointing out, there's one Bible I have,
he points out on a footnote, the two
words in Son.
It's putting that in distinction, in contradistinction to
the Father who revealed Himself in times past
through prophets, through angels, through visitations, through dreams.
All kinds of expressions that came forth in
the Old Testament by way of revealing God.
But God's final revelation of Himself in fullness
was when He wrapped Himself in Son.
In Son.
The Son was the very expression, the very
word, the very shining forth of the Father.
And so if theologians would be content just
to leave the word as it is without
trying to analyze it, and we wouldn't have
all these doctrines and conflicts.
We'd have church councils to settle the theology
concerning the Godhead.
And the controversy has been going on ever
since in the church.
And John simply says, in the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God, and the same
was in the beginning with God.
Now, you can't figure that out.
But isn't it beautiful just to receive it?
Oh, He was God, yet He was with
God, and now He's gone back to God,
and He's the mediator there in the heavens.
That man is the right hand of God
the Father, and He's the mediator between God
and man.
But He was God, and when John saw
the Lamb coming, He stood up there in
the throne, took the book, and then He
was absorbed as it were in the throne
of God.
And John saw one sitting on the throne.
And in the midst of the throne was
the Lamb, right in the midst of the
throne.
We want to see the glorified Christ as
the very expression of God Almighty.
In the earth and in the heavens, except
that when He came to earth, He laid
aside those prerogatives of deity.
He laid aside that He might be a
man in all respects as we are, yet
without sin.
That is, man, He might deal with our
sin, fully deal with it, having become sin
for us, and you know sin.
Having dealt with that, then He might bring
that man back into the image of God
and back into His own heart on a
far higher plane than Adam ever was before
he sinned.
As we mentioned last night, the first man
is of the earth, the second man is
the Lord from heaven.
God's desire to redeem and renew the human
family until He has a people back in
the image of His Son, which is the
image of God, the perfect image of God.
Adam being but a type of that perfect
image of God, a type of Him that
was to come.
But He went back to heaven, and that's
what left people so desolate and so disappointed,
so discouraged.
You came here from heaven to set up
a kingdom, now you're going back, we don't
understand it.
And it took Him a long time, little
by little, He tried to show them that
He came to set up a spiritual kingdom
in the hearts of men.
That's what He came to, set up a
spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men.
People say, don't spiritualize the Word.
Well, I don't want to spiritualize the Word,
but it's God's purpose to give spirit to
the letter of the Word.
It's God's intention to spiritualize the Word.
So when someone comes off with some far
-fetched idea of the Scripture, you say, don't
spiritualize it.
He's not spiritualizing it, He's carnalizing it.
But God wants to breathe life into His
Word, He wants to make spirit out of
it.
And all that is written in the Old
Testament is written in type, I shouldn't say
all, perhaps, but it's written in type and
shadow and picture form.
And God wants to show us the spiritual
truth in it, He wants to bring life
out of it.
He wants to spiritualize it, if I can
use that terminology.
Spiritualizing it, if it's God that spiritualizes the
Word, it doesn't carnalize it, it brings forth
God out of it.
We call spiritualizing it and bring forth a
lot of crazy ideas from it, that's carnalizing
it, that's not spiritualizing it.
God wants to spiritualize His truth, He wants
to spiritualize you and me.
Spiritualizing doesn't mean that you just sort of
go away into vapor.
The manna that came down from heaven was
spiritual bread.
It went out and they picked it and
they ate it and the women cooked it
and made cakes out of it.
And Paul says it was spiritual bread because
the real life in that manna was the
life of heaven.
When Moses smote the rock and water gushed
out, Paul says it was spiritual drink.
It was real, but it was more real
than real.
It was spiritual.
And if God spiritualizes the Word as He
wants to do in your heart and mine,
it doesn't minimize it or take from it
or detract from it.
It adds to it, it adds God's Spirit
to it and changes it until it becomes
life rather than death.
And so God grants that even these days
there will be a spiritualizing of the truth
of God into our hearts and minds until
He spiritualizes you and I.
God wants us to be spiritual.
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, I'm sorry
I can't speak to you as I'm just
spiritual.
He wants to speak to spiritual people.
It doesn't mean people who have mystical ideas
and stuff like that.
It means the people who are taught of
God.
People who are drawn away from the natural,
caught into spiritual realities.
Because there's a great chasm between the heart
of God and the hearts of man.
And that's what this whole story of redemption
is all about.
As God in redemption comes down Himself and
takes upon Himself the form of man, even
in the person of His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, to abrogate the sin that Adam
brought and to bring an everlasting righteousness that
He might establish in the earth a race
of people after the likeness of the last
Adam as surely as we have a race
of people here today after the likeness of
the first Adam.
Another race of beings.
Read Romans 5, it's so clear that there's
two races.
Two races.
In the one we find death, in the
other we find life.
In the one there's a kingdom of death
and sin, in the other there's a kingdom
of righteousness and life.
As by the obedience of one we were
made sinners, so by the disobedience of one
we were made...
He contrasts the one with the other to
show that God is in the process of
bringing forth this new creation.
This new race of beings.
He started it.
There's a people in the earth who are
members of that race.
You and I are members of that race.
And yet the problem is that until God
completes that transforming work, the old Adam lingers
with us and lingers with us.
Oftentimes we fail to realize that within us
God has put a new seed, a new
life.
And is nurturing that life.
And that's what the new covenant is all
about.
Nurturing that other life that in the fullness
of God's workings, this man will be replaced
by the new man.
And will walk as sons of the last
Adam, brethren of the last Adam, as he
walked in the earth.
As he walked, bone of his bone and
flesh of his flesh.
I know it's too high a calling for
most people.
Too high for any of us.
The only difference being that with you and
I who realize it's too high a calling,
we're trusting in the Lord to make it
happen.
Others here say that's too high a calling.
I can't attain to it.
It's not something for you and I to
attain to.
Or any kind of fleshly striving.
It's by submitting to the dealings, to the
work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts
and lives that he might do which he
alone can do.
For his praise and honor and glory.
Do you have any trouble sinning?
Do you have any trouble being carnal?
Do you have any trouble walking after the
flesh?
Can I ask you why you don't have
any trouble in that way?
Why don't you have trouble sinning?
Walking after the flesh.
Lying, cursing.
Do you have any trouble doing that?
Oh, you say, I was born in Adam
and so I just do those things.
Because Adam sins, so I sin.
Oh, simple as that, is it?
Aren't you born in Christ?
Do you have any trouble bringing forth righteousness?
Do you have any trouble loving?
Do you have any trouble showing mercy?
Do you have any trouble showing kindness?
Oh, yes.
Aren't you born in Christ?
God's purpose then is to bring us into
that new man where we don't have any
trouble doing those things.
Not only that, but it's going to be
easier.
It's going to be more restful.
There's going to be more power in that
life for you and I to live like
Jesus than there was for you and I
to live in the other realm like Adam.
You see, I can't see that we could
ever come to that.
But then if we deny that, we're saying
that the law of sin and death is
more potent than the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus.
You know the potency of the law of
sin and death.
And God has the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus for us.
And you say, well, I know, under the
law of sin and death, I know I
can just sin.
I can be carnal, mean, bitter.
I can do all those things because I've
got the law of sin and death working
in me.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made me free from
the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in
that it was weak through the flesh.
God sending his own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin
in the flesh that the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk
not after the flesh but after the spirit.
Paul declares his language as clearly as anybody
could declare that the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus is more powerful,
more potent, more beautiful, more wonderful, higher, overshadows
the law of sin and death.
And to deny that God has a place
in the spirit where we can walk in
the spirit, we're not subject to the law
of sin and death, is simply to declare
that the law of sin and death is
more powerful than the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus.
You say, have you attained to that then?
Well, no, I haven't attained to it, but
that's God's purpose.
I don't have to have attained to it
in order to declare it.
I know people say, well, if you haven't
experienced these things, you have no right standing
up there and declaring it.
Well, I'm sorry.
Paul the Apostle says, I confess I haven't
attained, but he says I press on toward
the mountain to the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ.
Not that I've yet been made perfect, but
I press on.
And the presumption comes, as our brother said,
when we say there it is in the
Scripture and God says I've got it and
therefore I've got it and that's where presumption
comes in.
Faith doesn't presume.
Faith believes God, but it doesn't presume to
have attained.
So if we keep that principle clear, I'm
sure we won't run into all this error
that creeps up from time to time as
men presume things, presuming we're not going to
die physically because the law of the spirit
of life is more powerful than the law
of sin and death.
Sure, that law is still functioning, the old
law, but the purpose of the new law
is to disannul the old.
That's right.
But God's order is, as Paul declared, I
pray that your whole spirit, soul, and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of the
Lord.
That's God's order.
So that the body is last and God
is seen fit to reveal the law of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus here
and now in our mortality.
In our mortality, while we're yet to infirm,
we can know what it is to bear
about in the body, these mortal bodies, the
dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life
also of Jesus might be made manifest in
our mortal flesh.
God forbid, and I've never intimated or taught
that people should begin declaring that they're not
going to die physically.
God has left that to the last thing.
At the last trump, He says, the dead
shall be raised.
And there's many trumpets sounding.
Many have been sounding, and I believe there'll
be others yet to sound.
And I don't look for immortality until the
last trump and the dead in Christ shall
rise.
I'm not saying God couldn't raise up some
before the full sounding of the last trump.
I don't know, and I don't even think
about those things.
If God's order is to change us in
spirit, then in soul, and eventually our body.
So that even now then, God wants us
to begin to appropriate and experience the working
of the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus.
Paul says it's made us free from the
law of sin and death.
I've illustrated it this way.
A fire deluges some building, and the firefighters
come in, and they extinguish the blaze.
And that fire is extinguished.
You can walk through it, and you know
the fire has done its work.
It's been extinguished.
But the ruin is still there in the
old building.
And that takes the working of God to
change that ruination.
But the fire has been put out.
And Christ destroyed the law of sin and
death when He suffered on the cross and
rose from the dead.
It doesn't mean that the damage has all
been taken care of.
So God is in the process of renewing,
restoring, transfiguring the damage that has been done
in the old creation.
The fire has been extinguished.
I mean the fire of the law of
sin and death in Christ Jesus.
And God, by the law of the spirit
of life, wants to renovate our spirit, our
soul, our body until we are transfigured into
His own image.
Right here in mortal flesh to live the
life of Jesus.
Right here in mortal flesh.
Didn't Jesus live that perfect life He lived
in mortal flesh?
He lived that beautiful life that we see
in the Scriptures as He walked here in
the realm of mortality with a mortal body.
A body that was subject to death.
Not because of any sin that He committed,
but because of Adam's sin.
He didn't have to die.
Had He chose to go on living without
dying, He could have done it.
But He didn't come into the world with
any agenda on His mind except one.
He came with one agenda on His lips.
I believe it's a pattern for you and
I.
Because the teaching is He came to set
up a kingdom.
And He came to heal the sick.
He came to raise the dead.
He came to cast out devils.
I know the spirit of the Lord came
upon Him to do those things.
But in His agenda, coming into the world,
He had but one.
That's declared in the Old Testament in the
voice of the psalmist David, the singing prophet.
He declared it.
Sacrifice an offering Thou wouldest not, but a
body hast Thou prepared for me.
Invert offerings and sacrifices for sin.
Thou hast had no pleasure.
I often think of that.
I remember one time thinking of that.
David there composing this song and then it
became one of the songs in the temple.
And while the priests were out there slaying
the bullocks and the goat offerings and the
sheep and the turtle doves and blood was
flowing freely on the altars, somewhere the musicians
were singing Sacrifice an offering Thou wouldest not.
Sacrifice an offering Thou wouldest not.
And the blood was flowing from bulls and
goats and sheep.
Sacrifice an offering Thou wouldest not.
And the blood continued to flow.
I wonder if they ever stopped to think,
what's David singing?
What do you mean God doesn't want this?
God told Moses that this is what we're
supposed to have.
What do they mean?
What do those singers mean?
I wonder if they ever stopped to think.
I sometimes wonder if people ever stopped to
think the songs they're singing.
As far back as I can remember, in
Sunday school and later on, to be like
Jesus, to be like Jesus, all I ask
to be like Him.
So meek and lowly, so humble and holy,
all I ask to be like Him.
Do you ever think of that?
But it's good to sing it.
It's a nice song, but when someone says,
God really wants to make us like Jesus,
then you're a heretic.
That's right.
Sacrifice an offering Thou wouldest not.
David says, God, You don't really delight in
these sacrifices, but a body has Thou prepared
for me.
In burnt offering, in sacrifices for sin, Thou
hast no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come.
In the volume of the book it is
written of me to do Thy will, O
God.
That became his one agenda, coming to this
earth.
If we see that, it clarifies so many
things.
Why he didn't set up the king.
Oh, well, the Jews didn't receive him, so
they crucified him.
All that happened.
God entwined it in His eternal purpose to
fulfill that glorious prophecy that David uttered, a
body has Thou prepared for me, so that
he came to be that body that would
be sacrificed.
Then my calculating mind got working when I
was younger.
You know, he came to die.
He came to die for our sins.
And so then did God have to manipulate
things?
Was God manipulating the high priests so they
wouldn't like Jesus, so that they'd arrest them
and kill them so Jesus could die for
my sins?
You know, you get calculating how God works
out these things.
Not realizing that he came to do the
will of the Father in a world of
sin and wickedness, in a world that hated
God, he came to do the will of
the Father.
He came to be a light in a
world of darkness.
He came to be the expression of everything
that's in the heart of God the Father,
for he was that thought, heart and mind
of God robed in flesh.
He came to reveal that in a world
that hated God, a world full of hate
and rebellion and sin of every description.
He came into that kind of a world.
Light came in against the gross darkness.
What's going to happen?
If light comes against gross darkness, if love
comes against hate, if truth comes against error,
there's conflict.
So they had to crucify him.
It was inevitable because he was light.
It wasn't that God put it in the
heart of that old priest there, I want
my son to be slain so it will
be a sacrifice for sin.
And so I compel you to do it.
I mean, hate was in the hearts of
the people.
It was in the hearts of the religious
world and the hearts of the multitude.
And here was love, here was truth.
Here with him was total light and there
was confrontation and hatred against him and crucifixion.
He was born under the shadow of the
cross.
He lived under the shadow of the cross.
He carried that cross to Calvary because he
was confronting darkness in all its forms and
overcoming it while he was doing it.
Giving us once for all the secret of
victory, which is overcoming evil with good, overcoming
darkness with light, overcoming error and deceit with
truth.
It's a secret.
And so they write books and books and
books on the cults.
Christian leaders read them.
I've got to know the cults so I'll
know it.
Read this book and then there's another one
out because they've become bestsellers.
In no time, we want to know what
the cults are.
I'm not saying there's no value in it.
But you won't know the truth that way.
You can understand the errors in all the
cults, but that won't lead you to the
truth.
But like the bank manager said to the
young teller who was new in the job
and he wanted to be sure he didn't
make a mistake with the counterfeit bills that
come in.
Has he got a number of counterfeit bills
here that I could study up?
Because I don't want to go wrong here
at the till.
He says, no, we don't do that.
He says, you just take the real currency.
You study that.
And then you'll detect the false.
And that's God's way.
That's God's answer.
Know the truth.
The truth shall make you free and it
shall enable you to see that which is
erroneous.
You can't just go by, okay, the Bible
says any man confess that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh, he is of God.
Oh, that's a good test.
I'll just ask him.
Do you believe Jesus Christ is in the
flesh?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Sure.
I know a place where they use this
test on a man.
Well, he's sure of God then and let
him speak and minister.
And the man is full of the devil.
And he wrought a lot of havoc in
their midst because he passed the test.
Do you believe Jesus has come in the
flesh?
Oh, sure.
But you say, what about the Bible then?
You better know, you have a discernment to
know whether he's telling a lie or not.
He says it's a so-so.
Well, then he must be of God.
Do you know if he's lying or not?
Well, I think it's weird.
No, you don't.
God wants us to be so walking in
truth that we'll know and understand what is
truth.
And we're going to have to come to
that.
I don't care how many cult books you've
written.
I know my name's in one of them.
It amused me a little bit.
Anyway, just the other day, a man told
me about a son of his.
He was in a meeting and he said
after the meeting, Everybody here wants more of
God.
Come up to the front.
Well, why wouldn't you?
So he went up and a lady came
over and laid hands on him.
And from that time on, he had trouble.
He got into difficult troubles which lasted.
I talked to the father of the lad
just a couple of days ago.
He said he feels he's coming out of
it very well.
Well, his son was over visiting a certain
area on the eastern coast.
There was a farmer there, I believe he
was, who somehow he got working with him.
He phoned this boy's father.
And he said, The Lord revealed to me
that in a certain place, is this right?
In a certain place, a lady lays hands
on him?
And that's where the trouble came from.
He says, Yes, that's right.
Isn't that something?
So, besides that, witches and wizards are coming
into fundamental circles.
Pentecostal, Baptist, whatever.
Learn their language, mingle with them, talk in
tongues as if they're charismatic people, prophesy, get
involved in teaching classes.
Witches.
Their vision is to destroy that church.
And they're patient about it.
Wait a few months, a year or so,
and the first thing you know, they do
something that causes disaster.
So, you see, you ask them, Do you
believe this?
Do you believe this and this and this?
Do you believe in Jesus?
Do you believe in the blood?
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Never stop to think maybe they're telling lies.
How will I know if they're telling lies?
You've got to know God.
You've got to know the spirit of truth.
John said, These things write on you concerning
those that seduce you, but we have an
unction from the Holy One.
You better begin to recognize.
You and I have got to begin to
recognize.
Without that unction, we're not going to be
spared the deception that's coming on the church
of Jesus Christ.
It's that unction of the Holy One.
John says, That anointing that you have received
of Him because of the same anointing that
Jesus had teaches you all things that you
need not that any man teach you.
But the same anointing will teach you, and
that anointing is truth.
Truth is not knowing all that which is
erroneous.
Truth is that precious Holy Spirit who comes
down to mingle Himself with the Body of
Christ so this meal offering that God is
preparing is thoroughly mingled with the oil of
God and which will be the testimony of
Jesus that will be free from deception and
free from error in virtue of the anointing
which is truth.
See, the Word of God is truth.
The anointing is truth.
Therefore, there can be no distinction between the
Word and the anointing.
It must become one, as it was in
Jesus who declared the words that I speak
unto you, they are Spirit and they are
life.
The time has come we can no longer
separate the Word and the Spirit, the Word
and the truth.
Yeah, the Spirit, that's fine, but you've got
to go by the Word.
There must come a place in the Body
of Christ where they're one, where the Word
goes forth by the anointing, where the anointing
speaks forth from the Word, for there to
be one, not two.
Jesus said, the words that I speak unto
you, they are Spirit and they are life.
And so when that Word made flesh was
dwelling amongst us, revealing the heart of the
Father, declaring the intentions of the Father, the
purpose of the Father, He had one agenda,
as I said, and that was to do
His will at all times.
No other agenda.
Though God had much on His agenda for
His Son, the Son came with one thought
in His mind.
I'm not here to set up a kingdom.
I'm not here to heal the sick, raise
the dead, cast out devils, walk in the
water, change water into wine, multiply loaves and
fishes, all of which He did, but that
wasn't on His agenda.
His agenda was, I come to do Thy
will, O God, in the volume of the
book it is written of me.
That's why when we understand that, it all
becomes so simple.
Why He would walk into the midst of
the cripples at the Pool of Bethesda, where
multitudes were gathered together waiting for the moving
of the water, hoping to be healed as
they stepped into the water.
And here was the healer.
Here was the Lord of Heaven who had
life.
They could have walked down along the rim
of the pool there and healed everyone and
caused them to walk away, but He didn't
come to be a healer or He would
have done that.
He came to do the will of the
Father, and He stepped over the cripples, I
assume, as He found His way to the
one that the Father had pointed out and
said to him, Would you be made whole?
And he said, I have nobody to throw
me into the pool.
He wasn't talking about that pool.
Here was the pool.
Here was the living water.
He says, Rise up and walk.
He didn't tell them to have faith.
He didn't just say, Now if you believe
the Scriptures, I'm a prophet from God, and
if I can just convince you to believe
that healing is in the atonement, you can
rise up and walk.
And I'm not saying you don't teach those
things.
But he was moving at the will of
the Father, and the Father said, Go and
heal that man.
I'm not asking him to have faith or
anything.
Just go and give him a word.
Rise up and walk.
He couldn't help it because here was the
voice of the Father walking in human flesh.
So he rose up and walked.
And Jesus walked down, left the others there
infirm.
And that puzzled us.
On another occasion, it says He healed all
that came unto Him.
And we know that that compassion was there
in His heart to heal all that came
unto Him.
It was there.
We know.
But He came to do the will of
the Father.
Wasn't it the will of the Father to
do that?
Those are things in God's own heart and
mind that we puzzle at.
Why would it be the will of the
Father to heal that one man and not
another?
Those are questions that's not for you and
I to puzzle over.
Just to see the beauty of the incarnation
of this one who was the Son of
God walking in the flesh, doing the will
of the Father perfectly, being that perfect witness
of God the Father in the earth, having
one agenda to do the will of the
Father, none other.
Leaving the disciples frustrated from time to time
when they knew very well that was the
Messiah.
The Messiah was supposed to set up a
kingdom, and why wasn't He doing it?
Encouraging Him to do it.
And His own brothers.
Why don't you go down to the feast
and show yourself?
You have these miracles.
I don't know if they really believed He
did or not, but taunting Him a little.
Why don't you go down there where the
action is?
So much of that concept has flooded through
the church of Jesus Christ and particularly through
the ministry.
Go where the action is.
Go where the crowds are.
Naturally.
Aren't you out here to reach people?
Well, then go where the crowds are.
I mean, that's the concept.
Go where the people are.
You want to have a good evangelistic meeting?
Go to the big cities.
Get the biggest auditorium.
Get all the facilities.
Do it big.
And the Son of God didn't do that.
He just did what the Father bid Him
to do.
That was sufficient.
That's why He lived in rest.
Total rest.
Not to say that His burden was light
from our standpoint when we see the weight
that He carried and eventually the weight of
the cross, the weight of Calvary.
But Jesus' testimony is my yoke is easy
and my burden is light because He didn't
have to figure out anything.
He didn't have to carry the burden of
it all.
He just had to carry that burden that
God laid upon Him.
And it will be a great day for
ministry when they come to the realization that
their total responsibility is to carry the yoke
in union with Christ.
To take His yoke upon them and learn
from Him.
For Jesus says, I am meek and lowly
in heart.
And then He shall find rest unto your
soul.
Take my yoke upon you and you shall
find rest unto your soul.
Because it was rest in doing the Father's
will because the Father did the work.
He bore the persecution.
He bore the suffering.
But the Father did the work.
He got the reproach.
He got the enmity.
Finally, He got the cross.
But it was simply the Father's will that
He was doing.
So that all that reproach, all that cross,
all that enmity was a natural reaction of,
as I said, the light confronting the darkness.
So, God forbid, you and I should go
around trying to do stupid things so we
can find persecution for the name of Christ.
Begin to do the will of the Father.
And we'll find all the reproach we need.
And rest assured, God is preparing a people
who will have the testimony of Jesus.
Rest assured that you'll be confronted of the
law of strife.
And may God even now in these days
of rest, of waiting, of learning, of discipling,
may the Lord burn the way of victory
into our hearts and minds that when the
confrontation comes, we'll know the way.
We do not overcome evil with evil.
We overcome evil with good.
Therefore, if you're having any hunger, feed Him.
If you're thirsty, give Him a drink.
If you never went or were that way,
I know, maybe not here on earth, that
Jesus won the greatest battle of the ages
that way.
Amen.
When they came and arrested Him and crucified
Him, He let them do it.
He didn't have to.
The Father says, Do it.
Father, He said, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from Me, but not My
will, Lord.
I mean, He knew it wasn't God's will,
but He said, Father, if possible, let it
pass, but not My will, but Thine be
done.
And the Father insisted He must drink that
cup.
Hallelujah.
Because the Father knew, and I think the
Lord Jesus knew too, but in the moment
of extreme anguish, He couldn't help but try
that prayer with an if in it.
If it be possible.
But God said, No.
It has to be this way.
8th of Heaven.
He being total truth, total righteousness, total holiness,
total love, was confronting all the hosts of
wickedness in the hearts of men and in
principalities and powers in the heavens.
And the cross was inevitable.
But as He hung there on the cross,
when they thought they'd finally got Him in
a place of total defeat as they defeated
the first Adam, and as they were perhaps
beginning to rejoice, we finally got Him on
the cross, suddenly they began to feel they
were losing every bit of power and authority
they had.
As the Son of God was light and
love and truth and holiness and righteousness, any
other virtue of God the Father that you
can think of was revealed in the world
and came against all that darkness.
He was overcoming it with light and life
and love and truth.
He was overcoming the evil with good.
And He overcame by the cross.
Let's not lose sight of that.
For the teaching is that Jesus was defeated
by Satan on the cross and triumphed in
the resurrection.
That's not right.
He overcame on the cross.
Paul tells us in Colossians that it was
on the cross that He destroyed principalities and
powers and made an open show of them,
triumphing over them in His cross.
That's where He triumphed, in His cross.
Because this is an expression of the goodness,
the love, the life, the light of God
confronting evil.
Teaching you and I.
In this time, He's left us in the
battle.
He overcame already.
And so the teaching continues on.
And He overcame so we don't have to.
Jesus said, He that overcometh as I overcame
will sit down at My throne even as
I overcame and sat down at My Father's
throne.
It's through His cross that we also overcome.
Through His cross.
In identification with that cross.
So He leaves us in mortal flesh that
in mortality we might be able to suffer
and experience somewhat of the sufferings of Christ.
Never the full measure of it.
But that in some measure we might be
partakers of His cross.
That we might also be partakers of His
resurrection.
I came across this one time.
I hadn't thought of even reading it, but
it seemed to fit in right here.
If thou impatient do let slip thy cross,
thou will not find it in this world
again nor in another.
Here and here alone has given thee to
suffer for God's sake.
In other worlds we may perfectly love Him
and serve Him and praise Him and grow
nearer and nearer to Him with delight.
But then we shall not anymore be called
to suffer which is our appointment here.
Canst thou not suffer then an hour or
two?
If He would call thee from thy cross
today saying it is finished, that hard cross
of thine from which thou prayest for deliverance,
thinkest thou not some passion of regret would
overcome thee?
Thou wouldst say so soon?
Let me go back and suffer yet awhile
more patiently.
I have not yet praised God.
Whensoever it comes, that summons that we look
for, it will seem too soon.
Let us take heed in time that God
may now be glorified in us.
It says here it was written by an
old Italian in a monastery.
For no doubt many of those men in
their desire to serve God and in a
time of great hardship and suffering from the
world about them, not having the power to
cope with it perhaps, whatever it was, many
of them fell to withdraw and serve God
and patiently waiting before Him.
Not that God ever intended it would be
a continual way of life for anyone.
He sent us into the world.
But I believe there are times when God
would call us apart unto Himself for a
season.
So we do see much of the virtue
of Christ in many of these old men
and women who suffered for Him.
I know there is a lot of emphasis
on partaking of the life of Christ.
And I know it's for our bodies too
in our mortality.
And I look for that.
I believe there is yet to be a
great wave of not only healing, but health
from God because of the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Because Paul says, If the Spirit of Him
that raised up Christ from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus
from the dead shall quicken, give life to
your mortal body by His Spirit that dwells
within you.
And he's not talking about the resurrected body.
He's talking about mortal flesh, a quickening of
the life of Christ in that mortal flesh.
I believe that must come in this world
of sin and death.
As we see the whole environment being overcome
by poison, evil, we've got to know that
life-giving power from the life of Christ
here in our mortality.
When the air is becoming polluted and the
water is becoming polluted and the land is
becoming polluted and the environment is becoming polluted,
environmentalists are so concerned and worried about it,
and rightly so, I guess, because this is
the only hope they have, this old world.
And yet there's nothing they can do about
it.
They're trying their best and making it difficult
for themselves and everybody else instead of realizing
that God knew that this age would end
in this kind of a mess.
And He let it linger on until it
came to a point where there was no
other recourse but for Him to come forth
in might and in power.
And we know He's going to do that,
so we have hope even.
As others are mourning the loss of this
old planet, what can we do?
They used to think it was good for
another couple hundred years, and now they're wondering.
And we're not worried about it.
By that I don't say we should not
be wise in the way we live here
in this world, to live simply in Christ
Jesus.
But we're not worried about it going into
pollution because Jesus said.
One of the psalmists said that this earth
is going to wear out as a garment
and that the Messiah, the Christ, would take
it and fold it up like an old
garment and set it to one side and
bring forth a new heavens and a new
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
And so the Word conquered.
The Word came forth into the earth and
did the work that the Father gave Him
to do and He triumphed by overcoming evil
with good.
God help us in every area of our
life to recognize that's God's way to overcome
evil with good and then to know as
we seek to walk in the Spirit what
that good thing is that He wants us
to do.
Not saying, well, you know, He's evil to
me, so how do I manifest evil and
go about it in our own ways?
But just waiting on God in any situation
that you're confronted with that you can't handle.
Help me, Lord, to do the right thing.
The right thing.
To suffer under it.
To say a word that the Father would
give.
Do some act of kindness or whatever it
might be.
Come to do Thy will, O God, is
always the way.
And God will show us the right way.
And eventually it will lead us to victory.
Not denying that there might be a great
work of patience to be wrought before you
know the victory.
And not even saying that the victory that
you're going to receive is that which you
have in your mind at this time.
Because Jesus overcame in the cross.
That was His victory.
And we overcome by the blood of the
Lamb and by the word of our testimony.
It might not even seem like victory, but
I believe there should come that sense of
satisfaction.
God, I've been in turmoil over this.
I don't know how to handle it.
As you commit it to Him and do
His will, there will come that sense of
I'm free.
I'm free from this thing that has tormented
me.
Because we've simply walked in God's ways.
Isaiah 55, I think it is, says, As
the rain cometh down and the snow from
heaven and watereth the earth, because of the
things that are in it to spring forth
and bud, that it might give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater, so
shall my word be that goes out of
my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but
it shall accomplish that which I please, and
it shall prosper in the thing wherein to
have sinned.
So that's God's answer to you and I
in whatever ministration He might place in our
hands to do.
To know that as we seek to walk
in the Spirit and it's God's word coming
down upon the earth, it will not return
unto Him void.
It shall accomplish what He pleases.
It shall prosper in the thing whereunto He
sent it.
And to leave it in His hands.
If we have the confidence that it was
God's word, to leave it in His hands.
To see that it accomplishes the purpose.
To see that it prospers in the purpose
for which He sent it forth.
As I pondered that one time, I suddenly
remembered that the ultimate word was Jesus, the
Logos.
That was the ultimate.
Isaiah spoke and Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
They all spoke God's words and God would
not let them return unto Him void.
And if in their lifetime there was no
fruit from it, the word remains there in
the earth.
Because God says, I will not let it
come back empty.
I remember reading Jeremiah and Ezekiel and seeing
the frustrations they went through and the agony
of their soul as they realized they spoke
the word from God and yet didn't see
the fruit of it.
And Jeremiah came to the point where he
said, I'll never speak again in the name
of the Lord.
That's it.
No use.
You can't shrug it off that easy.
He says, the word started working me like
a fire.
And he says, it is easier to speak
than to try to hold it in.
Hallelujah.
And God made Ezekiel to be a watchman
to Israel.
Put him through some very severe tests.
Became that true watchman.
And gave him a word to the house
of Israel.
And then after he had prepared him through
all these tests and trials, I won't go
into it right now.
He said, I made you a watchman to
the house of Israel, but you'll be dumb
until I tell you to speak.
And when you speak, you'll speak with my
words.
And then he told them that they will
not listen to you.
How would you like that?
How many here would like to be a
prophet?
It's customary for young men.
I want to be a prophet.
You can tell a man his name and
his address and where he lives.
I know prophets can do that.
I'm not making fun of that.
But a real prophet is a man that's
so disciplined of God that he speaks with
God's words.
When God gives him a message and he
eats that little book, eats it and digests
it, it becomes bitterness, hard trials, sufferings.
I don't mean it makes him better, but
it produces suffering, hard trials, fires, persecutions.
A real prophet, I mean.
And they're not going to hear it, Ezekiel.
They won't listen to it.
Nevertheless, God caused it to be written down
here.
Isn't that tremendous?
Ezekiel, Jeremiah, written there in the Bible.
Because God said, I'm not going to let
it come back to me, boy.
And the secret counsel is He says, I'll
see to it.
That is written in a book that will
be read from every generation following Ezekiel's death.
Every generation until the end of time will
hear those words that you're writing, Ezekiel.
The sad part being that when we read
Ezekiel today, when I say we, I'm speaking
of the church in general, we apply it
to a time when they're going to build
a temple over there in Jerusalem.
So it doesn't really apply to us either.
Totally unmindful of the fact that all these
temples that are referred to in the Old
Testament, whether they were built or not built,
they speak of the temple that God had
in mind of eventually finding a home in
man.
The only temple God ever desired at any
time was the habitation that He was preparing
in the harpsichord.
So God preserved that word.
And that word is there for you and
I.
Let's read it and apply it to God's
purposes and His people.
The time is coming when He has finished
with this temple that there's going to be
a river of life flowing up from this
temple.
With us wherever the river floweth is going
to bring healing to the land.
Trees of life will be growing on the
banks of the river which are for the
healing of nations.
That's God's plan.
That's God's vision.
That's God's purpose.
And the word that He gave will not
return unto Him until it happens.
It will not return unto Him empty.
So God gave all of us in whatever
state we find ourselves in this life, in
whatever gifting or ministry we have from God,
whatever enablement He gives us to serve Him,
for He desires to do that with every
one of us.
A gifting of His Spirit according to His
purpose, according to His plan, whereby we can
become a part of that living testimony of
Jesus in the congregation.
Not a thousand different witnesses because there's a
thousand people, but together they become that one
testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of
prophecy going forth to the earth about us,
to the world in which we live.
And so the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us and revealed the glory of the
Father.
And His agenda was to do the will
of the Father even unto death, even the
death of the cross.
And because He was faithful in doing the
will of the Father, that's why God raised
Him from the dead and exalted Him at
His right hand in the heavens.
Father of all principality and power and might
and dominion, every name that is named in
this world and in the world to come.
And so the thought is, generally it seems
to me, the thought is in the church,
well, He's gone away now.
He did the work.
He's gone away and left us to carry
on the best we know by getting one
or two, three experiences from the Lord and
turn the work over to us.
And I'd like to point out that Jesus
said just prior to His departure, I'm going
away.
To put it very bluntly, He said, I'm
going away.
But He said, I don't want you to
grieve about it.
Let not your hearts be troubled.
I'm going to prepare a place for you.
If I go to prepare a place for
you, I'll come again and receive you unto
Myself.
I'm not going into this in detail, but
if you read John 14 with an open
heart, you'll see that He's talking about going
away to the Father that He might come
again in the Spirit to His people to
prepare that place in the hearts of His
people.
And He goes on to say, it is
good for you that I'm going away.
It's expedient for you that I go away.
It's your advantage that I go away.
Because if I don't go away, then I
can't send this Spirit that sent me to
abide in you.
And you know as well as I that
if suddenly the Lord Jesus, the One who
went away in flesh and bone because He
rose from the dead in a glorified body
with flesh and bone but no blood, Spirit
became the life of that resurrected body.
But it was corporal.
It was real.
It was tangible.
And they could handle Him and see that
it was the same Christ.
Flesh and bone, but not blood.
Spirit was the life.
We know that if He walked in and
sat down, especially as is the custom to
do it every time we gather together, we'd
rejoice when we saw Him come.
And we'd all sit there in great expectation
that the Lord Jesus is in our midst.
And everybody will say to us this.
And so we would hope that He would
sing with us.
We would be sensitive to the voice of
the Lord.
Sing a song that we felt would somehow
please His heart.
One would give a witness, something the Lord
has done for them.
Or give an exhortation, a prophecy, a word
of wisdom, a word of knowledge.
He would do that when He was sitting
there in that corporal flesh.
But now that He's gone away, He has
sent His very own Spirit to abide in
each of us.
Just as He would do it if He
was there in one body, He would do
it now in a corporate body.
And once we see that in reality and
long for it more and more and yearn
for it and desire it, that when we
come together, the Lord Jesus might be there
in our midst, I believe that time is
going to come when our gatherings together will
be a true testimony of the Lord Jesus
in our midst.
Not necessarily with everyone saying something, but everyone
being ready to be prompted by the Spirit
of God to do what His will might
be for that particular service.
Because Jesus said, If I go away, it
will be better for you if I go
away because the same Spirit that's in me
will come and abide in you.
Can you and I really say this morning,
testify, yes, it is better.
I'm glad He went away because it's better
now that He's not here.
Can we really say that?
I don't know if we can, but I
believe that's God's intention to make His presence
so real to us that we'll say, Lord,
I'm glad that You suffered the agonies of
the cross.
I'm glad You went to the throne room
because now there's a people all over the
earth that can gather in Your name with
Your Spirit in the midst, the same Jesus
that walked here on earth, confined to a
little land in Palestine, confined to one physical
body, has now been pleased to take up
His habitation in a temple that fills all
the earth.
I know we can't quite say that yet
because we know we haven't come to that,
but we're going to before we see that
one glorified man.
And I expect to see that glorified man.
I don't believe He just disintegrated into the
body as I think some have been teaching.
You and I are going to be in
the resurrected state, very individual, and see one
another and fellowship with one another.
But the head, the chief cornerstone, somehow He
has said to just disintegrate into the whole
body.
No, we're going to see Him.
The man Christ Jesus, the head of the
body, in union with the family whom He
has begotten through His shed blood and resurrection,
and joined unto that same head, joined unto
Him to be one body with Him.
Though now we see Him not, but He's
there.
The head and how He longs to fill
this body with His glory.
His presence, His own Spirit.
That in every gathering in His name, we
know that the Lord Jesus is there.
Not sitting in a chair somewhere as we
tried to imagine a while ago, but everyone,
every member of the body is ready to
speak, to sing, to pray, to prophesy, to
love Him, to encourage one another, to show
mercy, whatever it might be that God wants
to do in that particular gathering in His
name.
Or is it better if He had stayed
here on the earth as one man in
this little congregation, this little town?
I guess it's large compared to where I
live.
I wonder if we put our application in
if maybe He would be able to visit
us once a year.
Because He'd be very busy.
You know, going to every country on the
earth wherever there's a body of people assembled
in His name.
Would it be better to have Him come
once a year, once five years maybe in
a little group where we are?
Only 17,000 people in our town.
Because He's got to come to the whole
earth.
You know?
Some people actually believe that Messiah will come
back to that old temple in Jerusalem and
then go around traveling.
Jesus says, It's better that I go away
because the same Spirit that's in me will
come upon my people.
He'll be in you!
He shall glorify me because He shall take
of mine and show it to you.
He will take everything that I am, that
I have, all the riches that the Father
has given me and show it unto you
in your midst, reveal it unto you.
He will lead you into all truth for
He shall not speak out from Himself but
whatsoever ye shall hear, that shall He speak.
He comes to abide in this temple not
that you and I as individual ministers might
feel free to do anything we want but
that in union with Him we'll only speak
what He speaks, we'll only do what He
does, we'll only say what He says, we'll
only travel where He says to travel, we'll
stay home where He says to stay home
because the same Spirit that was in Jesus
and motivated Him when He walked here in
the earth is to be in His body
and will motivate us in the same way
that it motivated Him as we learned to
take our place in abiding union and relationship
with Himself.
In consequence of which He shall lead you
into all truth whereas now, oh, don't get
into deep doctrines, don't get into, it divides
the body of Christ.
Truth will divide the wheat from the tares
and will divide the chaff from the wheat
but truth will bind together the people of
God into one body.
He's going to lead His people into all
truth.
It will not forever be the situation where
to know truth you've got to dig through
all the books and all the cults or
even dig through all the books of the
theologians to find out what's right and wrong
but God will have a clear witness of
truth in the body of Christ based on
the Word of God, loving the Word of
God, reading it, memorizing it, seeking to walk
in it but knowing that the living truth
is not that which you have read and
studied but that which cometh forth out from
the heart of God as a living Word.
Because people will recognize that surely as all
Israel recognized that the Word of the Lord
was in Samuel in that apostate old order
of Eli when it seemed there was no
hope for Israel God raised up a clear
voice that was so clear that all Israel
from Dan to Beersheba and all over the
realms of Israel knew that Samuel was established
a prophet of the Lord and God did
not let one word fall to the ground.
God's going to do the same in this
body which is the pillar and ground of
the truth.
When they become living epistles of Christ known
and read of all men they're going to
read in that book the living truth.
Because it will be Christ inhabiting his temple
Christ coming to his temple to cleanse it
and purge it from all defilement that that
temple of God in the earth might be
the place where God's glory rests and dwells
and out from which will shine forth his
truth and all men will know this is
the place of truth this is God's habitation
in the earth.
Hallelujah.
Yes Lord.
Hallelujah.
Yes Lord.
Thank you Lord.
Yes Lord.
I feel
to just say one thing here as well
as what I mentioned about calls God gave
me a new definition of it.
You know that we've been telling this some
time ago we looked it up in the
dictionary and one of the meanings of a
call is an obsessive allegiance to a person
or a cause.
Okay.
Then in the true definition Jesus Christ was
a cult because he had an obsessive allegiance
to the Father.
Amen.
And to a cause and that cause is
what?
To do the will of the Father.
Amen.
And the Lord told me that the true
meaning his meaning of a cult is anything
or anyone that makes the Word of God
of none effect.
How about that huh?
Okay.
If we ourselves make the Word of God
of none effect then we're a cult.
And some things are obvious they're cults but
the thing that's the biggest cult of all
is the thing that comes the closest to
being his church.
The counterfeit, the false thing.
He even uses his name as our brother
was saying.
That's the greatest deception that we face.
I just want to share this because you've
got to go for your heart.
You've got to be led with the spirit.
At this stage if you get into your
mind you'll miss it.
You'll lose out.
Many are missing and God allows it.
It's sometimes heartbreaking to have discernment and see
what's happening in people's lives.
But it's your heart.
It's your heart that determines.
We've had some I want to share this
I haven't shared it but we've had some
people leave here lately because they read in
a book that we were a cult.
And I believe these people were greatly blessed
to the Lord here.
And they were led here supernaturally.
Okay.
And I think they're here and they're there
in a sense.
But they saw the name of our group
in a book.
We're not even associated with that.
We just have this name Living Word Fellowship.
Okay.
And so but that we're a cult.
And they've been withdrawn from us because of
this.
So you have to you know you have
to walk in the Lord and know what's
God saying.
And like our brother was saying you have
to be willing to suffer for his name's
sake.
The fear of man is a snare.
Okay.
And you can't fear these things.
The word says all those that shall live
God in Christ Jesus what?
Shall what?
Shall.
I like that word.
Shall.
Suffer persecution.
Now maybe my would, if, could any other
word.
Right?
But shall.
And one time I looked that up in
a dictionary.
Shall.
Wow.
It was amazing.
It's a commandment.
It's one of the most definite words in
the English language.
There's no if.
Nothing.
No other way.
You shall suffer persecution.
The writer of Hebrews said let's go outside.
Said Jesus went outside of the camp bearing
his cross.
He said let us also do what?
Go outside the camp.
What's the camp?
It's the established thing.
Now we're not being rebellious or anything like
that that's happened.
But it's always God always goes outside the
camp.
Every time he's done something that I can
see he pretty much went outside the camp.
Whatever that camp might have meant for any
time period or generation.
Look at John the Baptist.
The full writer.
What did God do?
Took a man and took him for her.
Outside the camp.
Amen.
Where'd he come from?
He didn't come out of the temple did
he?
Yet he was the priest.
Priestly order.
His father was a priest.
And so likewise God would speak to us.
We've got to go outside the camp bearing
his reproach.
If we suffer with him we'll reign.
We'll reign.
That's just it.
I feel glory.
I won't say that anymore but I felt
he would have me just say that much.
Be loving of your heart.
What's God where you getting fed?
What's making your heart?
Walk in that.
Because the enemy will come to try to
cheat you out of it.
He'll try to do you like he did
to Esau.
Sell your birthright for a mess of they
say porridge but it was really I think
red a red meat stew.
Amen.
OK.
Well Lord I won't say anymore but Lord
bless you.
Thank you for this word Lord.
Thank you for this word.
Thank you Lord.
Yes.
Thank you for confirmation.
Amen.
Thank you Lord.
Comforting us.
Assuring us.
Comforting us with this word.
Thank you.
We worship you Father.