By the washing of water, by the word,
by a living word, not that you know
the Bible or all the doctrines.
That word comes to your heart and mine
as a sharp two-edged sword dividing us
under soul and spirit.
Oh God, we pray this morning, we know,
Lord, you want a holy people, a righteous
people, a people totally given over to you.
Lord, thank you for that song and the
truth of it, Lord.
We are to be a living sacrifice unto
you.
That's all you want for us to give
ourselves to you.
You told us, Lord, that you would cleanse
us by your word.
We can't do the cleansing, but just as
the sinner in Israel would bring his sacrifice
to the priest and slay it, that's all
they could do.
And so, God is asking us to come
to the cross and receive the sacrifice of
the cross.
You say, I did that many years ago
and I received the Lord, but I don't
mean quite that.
I mean, you don't only receive what he
did for you, but you receive that cross.
See, I think I've done that.
Then may the Lord test all our hearts
whether or not we've done it.
It simply means that when you take up
your cross to follow him, A.W. Tozer
put it out so clearly in a little
writing I have.
We've got a new cross on the church
today, one you carry around on your neck
or one you put in the back of
the church.
But the cross that Jesus asks us to
bear is, if any man will be my
disciple, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me.
Tozer put it so beautifully.
He said, when they saw that poor fellow
walking outside the streets of Jerusalem or any
other place in the Roman Empire carrying his
cross, they were not saying, oh, he's looking
for a new direction.
Oh, he's looking for a change.
Oh, he wants a new way of life.
That man had said goodbye to his friends
and he went out there not coming back.
But now we've got a gospel that preaches
the cross as something Jesus did, and we
receive what he did for us.
But Jesus said, if you're going to truly
be my disciple, you've got to hang with
him on that cross.
I can't do it, and I'm not saying
I'm fully there either.
But God can do it by the mighty
operation of the quickening word of God that
pierces and cuts asunder and divides soul and
spirit, that joins in there and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart.
Oh God, I pray that this day, Lord,
this very day, there'll be a quickening word
from your heart that you'll put a bond
on every carnal heart, every carnal thought, every
carnal spirit that desires to take the place
of the living word in our midst this
day.
I pray this day, today, if you hear
his voice, harden not your heart.
God says to his people, today, not this
afternoon even, but now, if you will hear
his voice, harden not your heart.
Today, if you hear his voice, harden not
your heart.
Today, if you hear his voice, harden not
your heart.
Today, today, because you and I can't
cleanse ourselves.
We can't cleanse ourselves.
If you hear his voice, let that sword
cut, divide asunder, let it cut deeply.
Oh, oh my beloved people, God does want
to do a work, he does.
He wants to do a deep work in
our heart.
Oh, he wants to do a cleansing work.
God longs to come and dwell in us,
walk in our midst, in your life and
mine.
He wants us to be the home in
which he lives.
And he's longing, he's weeping, he's crying out,
I want to live in you.
You say, he's in my heart.
I know, but he wants to dwell there.
He wants to make you to be his
habitation.
He's longing to come and he can't come
yet till he cleanses, till he cleanses and
purifies.
Oh, let the word of God penetrate the
heart, dividing asunder soul and spirit, revealing the
thoughts and incense of the heart, that the
God of glory might come, that the God
of glory might come and take up his
habitation within us.
Do it, Lord Jesus, for your name's sake.
Do it for your name's sake.
Do it, Lord, for your name's sake.
Let's fall on our knees before the Lord.
Look to the Lord to do a deep
work.
Oh, God.
In the Old Testament, for the cleansing of
the people, God says, take a dish and
fill it with living water, water from the
stream that was flowing.
And he says, take two birds.
Listen, even as you seek God, listen to
the living word of God.
He says, take two birds, take the one
bird and slay it and let the blood
fill that dish that's full of water so
that the water might be mingled with the
blood of the bird.
And then he says, take the live bird
and dip it in this water, in this
water and blood and let the live bird
fly throughout wherever it would go, let it
fly away.
And he says, that would be for the
cleansing of the leper.
But Jesus is that blood.
Jesus shed that blood and he is the
resurrected one who went away that we might
be clean.
And so that is that living bird flew
away.
It flew away with its wings dripping with
water and with blood.
But Jesus said, Paul, the apostle said, by
the spirit of Jesus, if the blood of
bulls and goats in the ashes of a
heifer sprinkling those that were defiled would sanctify
unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much
more shall the blood of Jesus, who is
a lamb without blemish, how much more shall
the blood of Jesus, who through the eternal
spirit presented himself without blemish unto God, how
much more shall he cleanse those who are
defiled because his blood and the water that
flowed from his side has eternal efficacy.
And the spirit is truth because the spirit
is truth.
He bears witness to the water and to
the blood.
John said, I saw water and I saw
blood flowing from his side on Calvary.
John says, I saw it.
The spirit of God saw it also.
The spirit of God was there because Jesus
made that sacrifice through the eternal spirit.
You know why we're not finding the cleansing
that we want?
Because we do not let the spirit of
truth.
We do not let the spirit of truth
have his way in our midst.
We crowd him out of our lives as
individuals.
We crowd him out of the church with
all kinds of nonsense and paraphernalia that God
never ordained.
He wants the people who gather together in
his name and unto him and unto him
only.
God wants his people to take away all
the trivia, trivial things that come in to
magnify the worship of God.
All the paraphernalia, all the banners, all the
ribbons, all the tinsel, all the trash, the
comedians, the magicians, all this stuff that they're
bringing into the house of God.
God wants to purge it out of our
midst that we might gather solely unto him.
He wants to cleanse us by the washing
of water.
The water and the blood is mingled together.
And the spirit is truth and the spirit
bears witness to the washing of the water
and the blood.
Oh we thank you Lord Jesus for cleansing
by the water and the blood that flowed
from Jesus' side.
Just as efficacious today as it was when
it flowed when Jesus died in the cross
because the spirit of God was there at
that sacrifice.
Appropriating, absorbing in his own being the efficacy
of the blood.
And the reason we don't have the cleansing
of the blood as we ought is because
we've crowded the Holy Spirit out of the
church.
Holy Spirit, Holy Dove, come back in the
midst of your people as we pray together.
We pray that the cleansing of the blood
and the water will come back into our
midst, come into our hearts that we might
know the efficacy of the cleansing of the
water and the blood of Jesus.
The cleansing stream I see, I see, I
plunge and oh it cleanses me, it cleanses
me, yes cleanses me.
Oh praise the Lord it cleanses me, cleanses
us oh Lord by the washing of the
water by the word that we might be
as clean as Jesus is clean because it
is his blood and only his blood that
makes us clean.
That only the spirit of God can apply
the work of the cross to our lives.
Cleanse us we pray oh Lord by that
cleansing stream that flowed from the cross and
Lord I pray for your people bowed before
you.
Lord Jesus we go, we walk in a
world that's full of strife, full of contention,
full of mouth, full of all kinds of
wickedness, all kinds of lusts Lord that fly
at us from all directions and our minds
become contaminated, our hearts become contaminated.
Give us grace this day Lord to so
appropriate your word and your spirit Lord that
we can walk through the lowest pits of
darkness if need be and know that we
walk in the purity and in the holiness
and in the righteousness of Jesus Christ because
you've made that available for a people that
can walk in darkness and yet know the
light so that the darkness and the light
are both alike to thee and the darkness
and the light will be the same to
us because we're clothed in light.
Clothe us in light Lord and help us
to walk in light that our whole body
might be full of light having no part
dark but walking in the pure light of
Jesus for that's why you died and that's
why you went away that's why you went
away that on the throne of glory you
might minister light to your people that your
church will no longer be a dead lamp
but a lamp that shines brightly enlightening those
with whom we come in contact.
Send forth thy light and thy truth oh
Lord even this morning and help your people
Lord even now I pray enable every heart
in this room that's solemnized in your presence
enable each heart Lord to reach out even
now Lord and receive Lord in a new
dimension and the dimension of grace and love
and truth that we've not known before a
dimension of the spirit of God in our
lives that will enable us to walk in
holiness and in purity in humility and meekness
and gentleness and injustice and righteousness even now
Lord do a work in the hearts of
your people cause your people to cry out
into you Lord in this hour for the
mantle of Jesus to envelop us and keep
us in that mantle keep us under that
robe of righteousness even as we walk in
a world of sin and darkness do it
Lord do it Lord and each heart brought
before you do a mighty work of grace
a mighty work of healing Lord do a
mighty work of healing Lord thank you Lord
Jesus heal our inner man heal our spirit
healing virtues that flowed from Calvary Lord thank
you Lord Jesus a word that keeps coming
to me is the very very very last
verse of the Old Testament and that verse
says that before the final day the hearts
of the fathers shall be turned to the
children and the hearts of the children to
the fathers I'm really especially thrilled and blessed
to see so many young people here my
heart has been pounding all morning and this
weekend for the young people because whether we
believe it or know it or not for
the Lord to consummate this age he must
include the young people in fact he may
primarily move through the young people maybe he's
allowed us some of us to have some
suffering in anticipation but perhaps he also wants
to do a cleansing work within the families
and within the households somehow the Lord was
very gracious and he met me at about
age 10 and because no doubt of a
praying mother he never never allowed me to
leave him and I sat through many many
meetings where testimonies were given to young people
and over and over the testimony was I'm
somebody who had been in the depths of
the gutter and in sin and in this
and that and all the other things and
then the Lord met them and rescued from
them and he's glorious you name it I
did it you know what the devil used
to whisper to me young people he used
to whisper to me and say you're never
going to have a testimony you're never going
to be able to tell anybody anything of
what God did for you because you haven't
been anywhere you haven't done anything you haven't
even stuck a cigarette in your mouth you
better get out there and see what the
world's like so you can talk about the
great salvation of the Lord I think this
is a lie he propagates on the young
people and sometimes unwittingly we help him by
putting forward this kind of testimony I was
in my 40s when I heard such a
testimony given to the young people and I
cried out oh God what are the young
people supposed to do with this visualize it
empathize with it feel it wish they could
do it it's supposed to demonstrate God's great
mercy but we need to demonstrate his keeping
power especially in this time young people there
isn't time to go out and experiment and
see what's going on in the world the
Lord is going to move very quickly but
there's two verses the one I just mentioned
the hearts of the fathers must be turned
to the hearts of the children and also
at the end of the great faith chapter
in Hebrews it says that God could not
complete and perfect what he had showed to
those before us without us and I think
the young people could even claim that verse
just look at that verse oh dear Lord
Jesus the last one in Hebrews chapter
11 these were all commanded for their faith
yet none of them received what had been
promised we are parents haven't received yet what
we sense within our spirit is getting promised
to us God plans something better for us
that only together with us would they be
made perfect but listen first of all dear
young people the Lord needs a pure heart
and in this age in this time you
are saturated all around you with rebellion and
insubordination and questioning of authority and immorality and
whatever's right is what you think is right
and to any extent that this has permeated
our hearts we must repudiate it even though
I knew the Lord I did have a
problem with one of my parents I seemed
to have a need to analyze and correct
my parent whether I did openly or not
I did it in my heart and this
created a wall and I know the word
said honor your father and your mother but
one of my parents had some pretty far
out ideas even concerning the word and some
things that were not according to the word
but one day the Lord brought me to
my knees and told me it is not
the place of a child to correct their
parent and I repented to the Lord and
I repented to that parent and a wall
got removed and the Lord could take a
further step inwardly but parents have you come
to your knees yet concerning the handling of
your children I was a young man I
was a pastor we had two beautiful little
children and our family was considered the model
in the church and our oldest little girl
had a problem of sucking her thumb I
was very embarrassed with that I thought that
indicated I don't know what but something that
reflected on my image I guess I'll never
forget one day I was carrying her down
the aisle and as I was carrying there
she poked her thumb in her mouth and
began to suck it and as I was
carrying this little one and a half year
old in my arm I put my thumb
up into here and I jerked it down
she winced with a little bit of pain
and we sat down sometime later one night
the Spirit of God began to roll over
me in waves said you arrogant selfish egotistic
young man you think you have children just
for your own glory just to manifest how
good and how great you are when you
did that to your daughter you didn't do
it for her sake you didn't do it
for her betterment you didn't do it out
of love you did it for your rotten
ego why are you so hard on your
wife because it might reflect on you as
your great special image in this congregation I
don't know brothers and mothers can you allow
the Lord to shine into your heart how
you relate to your children how much is
it seeing them as gifts of God to
put into your custody that they could come
to know him and see him and to
what extent have we used them to build
our own personal kingdom and ego and to
whatever extent we have have we repented and
purified our hearts and asked the Lord to
cleanse us that night I began to weep
and weep and my wife thought I was
having a nervous breakdown she wanted me to
explain what was happening I couldn't and I
kept telling her I'm sorry I'm sorry she
said you don't need to be sorry what
is it sorry for when the light comes
in brothers and sisters you know we all
want to see the Lord we all want
to get closer to him but you know
that he's light and light shines two ways
and the extent that we resist his shining
into the very depths of our being to
expose every thought every motive every ambition to
whatever extent we limit him from that to
that extent we keep ourself at a distance
from him no man can see God and
live only to the extent we're willing to
have put to death all within us that
is of self only to that extent can
we see him we'd like to preserve ourself
pull the veil back take a good look
and stay the way we are we can't
seeing him costs the exposure I don't know
this may be too much this experience I
mentioned in mine unfortunately sorry to say it
wasn't the only time I had to come
to this end and even again this morning
our children are grown even after our children
have been adults the times have come the
Lord has had to rebuke us and we've
had to confess to them that we've reached
over into God's territory to try to influence
them again we always say it's for God
we want him to be for God listen
ask the Lord to shine in and ask
show you how much we want them to
be for God and how much we want
them to be for ourselves as these things
are exposed with the exposure comes the cleansing
and the washing and the removing if there's
any barrier between us and any of our
family in any seat only the exposure along
with the cleansing suddenly another layer of a
wall is gone friends counseling doesn't do it
I've seen and been in situations of years
of counseling between parents and children between spouses
it goes on and on and on and
on bring some insight maybe but it's not
the real thing I have seen recently in
our travels parents and families teenagers who have
been an utter most rebellion and alienation with
their parents for years have it flushed and
cleansed permanently in a matter of a few
moments and sometimes fathers have had to begin
to stand up publicly and confess maybe even
some secret sins I don't know I just
have a feeling this morning the Lord might
want to do something in this way I
don't think he can reach over and cleanse
the church if he has these kinds of
impurities these kinds of hidden things in the
families he began in our heart in the
heart of our family in his house don't
worry so much about the corruption in society
he's interested in the corruption in my heart
in my family between me and my dad
between me and my mom and we all
know it's not easy it's not easy to
be a teenage girl with a mom or
a teenage boy with a dad maybe there's
some hidden anger frustration and the children went
in here one year old two year old
went in that didn't mean they escaped trouble
they had greater trouble than cannon but they
had greater grace than God says we're sin
abounded there'll be grace for it more grace
the more evil there is in the world
and the more evil there is in the
church and the more sins there are in
the church God says he's got more grace
more grace than there is evil God we
look for that grace that abundant grace you
promised for the more evil we want that
more abundant grace you promised lord this came
to my mind on this verse in malachi
4 it says remember the law of moses
statutes and precepts for all israel and before
the end comes i'll send the spirit of
elijah unto you and he'll cause the hearts
of the fathers to return to the children
in the hearts of the children to return
to the fathers lest i come and destroy
your land completely or strike your land with
a curse and i studied this out in
the original where it says remember the law
of moses that's the covenant it's the covenant
with God statutes and ordinances that word statue
literally means that we belong to God it
means rights that God has over us because
we're in covenant with him it means all
the rights and privileges go back to him
and ordinances means he has a new way
of doing things his way that we need
to understand and his promise is is that
he wants us to get this covenant straight
that it means that we belong totally to
him we have no rights and privileges of
our own and that he has a new
way of doing things and he promises the
sin the spirit of elijah the spirit of
God himself in a people that will then
turn the hearts in the old spanish it
says the spirit of elijah will convert the
hearts of the fathers to the children and
the hearts of the children to their fathers
and i believe the lord we spoke on
elijah last night but i believe this is
is what is happening i believe the lord
has used our brother this morning here as
part of that corporate elijah as part of
that ministry that begins to convert those hearts
back of the fathers to the children and
children to the fathers and i believe the
lord wants us to have good solid families
let's pray that this will continue i i
really feel just one word further you know
especially we who love the lord so much
we parents i think we have a tendency
that we may not be so much aware
of and that is to bring a lot
of legalistic pressure on our children very very
high expectation much talk about submission so many
things and this i think sometimes the lord
would call us to repent of it isn't
only the children that need repentance i think
they need to hear the response from some
of the parents that we ourselves acknowledge that
we have stepped across the border and added
to their frustration my heart senses there needs
to be a two-way response i don't
know if this is in any of your
hearts any father or mother i think sometimes
it helps even if you are as it
were a type of scapegoat but as they
confessed and melted one with the other this
morning it i started to cry because it
took me back a few years when our
stephen was growing up and uh being a
foster boy to me it doesn't make an
extra problem but uh i felt i'm going
the bible way the bible way is spear
the rod and spoil a child and though
it was just verbal it seemed to help
my ego that uh when i cracked the
whip the boy jumped so therefore i was
following a bible rule but not with the
bible love of god and i think that
applies to all the bible rules doesn't it
yes that if as a rule there we're
following and we don't have the full love
of god to follow it well maybe we
better stop and clear things up because uh
it came to the place that after this
had i'd taken this attitude for maybe about
a year i was in prayer one day
and the lord dealt with me quite definitely
whereas i was thinking i was following a
bible way and getting into the spirit of
love of god he showed me i was
getting into a spirit of genocide and that
was quite a shock to me and looking
back on it i don't think he meant
literal genocide but there's other forms that a
child can be so put down by verbal
abuse that they're killed and you meet young
people like that maybe every day if you're
moving across the land they can't look you
in the eye they can't ever get up
and speak to a group bigger than one
or two and it's usually that somebody has
killed them along the way and so we
need to pray for the life of our
young people god is life and he wants
us to bring of our children that they're
bubbling with life the life of god