Thank you very much, Brother David.
I'll be late in a minute.
I do feel honoured to be here, not
because of whether it's a convention, but because
I do recognise that God is raising up
a people in this city, people who are
going to be here all the way.
And I prayed much in Christ's past that
God would allow me to be identified with
that people who are going to live all
the way.
And I want to be with you as
long as you go all the way.
Let us turn to Hebrews chapter 4.
Let us therefore fear, lest the promised thing
let us enter into his rest.
Many of you should seem to come short
of it.
For unto us was the gospel preached as
well as unto them.
But the word preached did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith in them that
heard it.
I think maybe I'll just stop there and
maybe read back later and then some more
after that in this chapter.
But the apostle writing to the Hebrews says,
let us therefore fear.
And I know God wants us to have
a confidence and a faith and assurance of
what he has said and what he has
promised.
He has assured us before.
But there's a godly fear that God would
put upon his people.
That though he wants us to have faith
and confidence and assurance, he does not want
us to have any presumption.
And there's a vast difference.
So writing to the Hebrews who were inclined
to be wavering because coming out of Judaism,
never coming into something that they couldn't touch,
something maybe insubstantial as far as the natural
goes.
There's always a tendency to go back to
something structured, something they could see, something that
they were brought up yet, something that gave
them a sense of security.
Paul would remind them that God had brought
them to a new day and a new
hour.
And had done new things.
And had brought forth a reality of which
their temple and their structure and their priesthood
and all their ritual was but mere titan
and shadow.
And so he would put upon them a
godly fear.
That lest the promise being left to us
of entering into his rest, any of you
should seem to come short of it.
God's problem with his people has always been
to get them to go all the way.
Oh, how blessed it is when God moves
the flowing of his spirit.
Perhaps there's utterances and feelings, a manifestation of
his presence.
And it's so good that we just want
to camp there.
This is good, what more can we ask?
But God cannot be satisfied until his own
heart is satisfied.
And that's why God is so anxious.
And I know he's going to have a
people in this last day who will go
all the way in with him.
For the delight of his own heart.
We've been all, I suppose, brought up to
look upon God as the great and mighty
one, alone and by himself, who doesn't really
need us.
We're the ones that need him.
The fact is that God has a tremendous
need for fellowship with you and I.
For the simple reason he can't find true
fellowship in the midst of angels and archangels
and cherubim and seraphim.
Because they're not like him.
You can't have real fellowship except with humankind.
You can enjoy the other creatures that God
has made, but only with man can you
have real fellowship, some when you're a king.
And of all the creatures that God ever
made, man alone is the only creature that
God can have fellowship with.
Because only he was made in his image.
Only he was made in his image.
I think it was Augustine that said that
man was made to find rest in God.
He'll never find true rest until he comes
back to his dome.
I remember reading that and the thought came
to me one day, that is true, that
God made man in his image.
That in that man God might find a
place, a resting place for himself.
And God can never be satisfied until he
draws man back into himself.
He might find his habitation in the human
heart.
And therefore it is for him and for
his glory that we are and we're created.
I know we need God, but God needs
you and me.
For his glory, for the expansion of his
glory.
And for the rest and satisfaction of his
own heart.
What our brother just said is so true.
He wants the people to sit at his
feet and hear his words.
Doing what he says is no great problem.
But we've learned to sit at his feet
and hear his words.
And recall that the Lord Jesus chose twelve
apostles, the twelve disciples that were not called
apostles immediately until he sent them forth.
Do you know why he chose them?
Anyone venture just against why he chose them?
That they might be risen.
First, that they might be risen.
Secondly, that he might send them forth to
preach.
For how shall they preach unless they can
live?
How shall they truly relate Christ unto others
unless they know him themselves?
So God does not want us to fall
short of the rest that he's provided for
his people.
Not only that he's concerned that you and
I find the delight of our heart, but
he desires to delight his own heart.
And he never truly founded in the fullness
of the sense of that word until his
only begotten came to earth, who was made
in the likeness of man.
True, he had a little fellowship in the
Old Testament.
He had one man whom he called his
friend.
Imagine that.
God had a friend in the Old Testament.
The only one that I know of, Abraham,
was called the friend of God.
And Jesus chose these twelve that they might
be with him and become his friends.
So he says, I'm not going to call
you servants.
For a servant knoweth not what his Lord
doeth.
He doesn't need to know.
You just do what you're told.
But he says, I've called you friends.
Because whatsoever I've heard of my Father, I've
made known unto you.
The Lord Jesus today has many servants, many
good servants.
Many servants who are doing what the Lord
says.
I wonder how many friends he's got.
I trust that we'll go away from this
gathering and determine that we're going to be
the Lord's friends.
If we can be his friends, then we'll
sit at his feet.
And therein will we find true rest.
The word bothers a lot of people.
Troubles them.
Talking about rest in this day of great
need.
Even the world is starving.
The world is lost, going headlong to destruction.
You hear people talking about resting in God.
But it's just that they don't understand what
God means by rest.
It doesn't mean inactivity.
It means ceasing from our own works.
As God did from his.
It means laying down our own works and
beginning to take upon ourselves his yoke and
thereby learn of him.
Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and
learn of me for I am meek and
lowly of heart.
And you shall find rest unto your souls
for my yoke is easy and my burden
is light.
Jesus, the Son of God, who carries such
a load, says my burden is easy.
My yoke is easy and my burden is
light.
Why was it light and why was it
easy?
Because he came with no other thought in
mind but to do the will of the
Father.
You say he came to perform the great
plan of redemption.
We know that.
But in actual reality, if you want to
pinpoint it, he came for one purpose and
one purpose only.
And as it were, in his pre-incarnate
condition, we hear him saying to the prophet,
sacrificed an offering thou wouldst not, but a
body hast thou prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and in sacrifice for sin
thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God.
And so he's revealed and he walks amongst
men, walks in and out the temple gates,
ministers inside the temple, courts on occasion.
The whole religious system was greatly overtaken with
sacrifice and offering and ritual, priestly service, which
God ordained.
But way back there in the book of
Psalms, I don't know which singer it was,
but God gave them these words.
Imagine, even while they were singing this song,
no doubt with their symbols and everything, it
was in music.
The book of Psalms was the hymnal of
the second temple.
They'd be singing and rejoicing, sacrifice and offering
thou wouldst not, sacrifice and offering thou wouldst
not, little realizing that they were prophesying that
the day would come when all that which
they were doing would become but an empty
shell, an empty ritual, would have no meaning
because God was moving on to something different.
And he was manifesting in the earth this
Son in whom would be revealed the finality
of every type and shadow that was ever
offered in the Old Testament.
Imagine Jesus walking in and out of the
temple courts and seeing the ritual and seeing
the sacrifices and he knew that God had
no delight in it.
I wonder how much delight God really has
in the structured religious systems that we have
in Christianity today.
This is my beloved Son in whom I
am well pleased, he said on two or
three occasions from heaven.
I was surprised to discover that he was
saying more than is said in the Authorized
Version.
What he actually said was, this is my
beloved Son in whom is my total delight.
Because you can be well pleased with many
things.
God was saying this is my beloved Son
in whom is my total delight.
I can find delight nowhere else but in
my beloved Son.
Perhaps we can come back to that thought
a little later.
But the yearning of the heart of God
was that God's people would not fall short
of God's desire for them.
Whenever there is a beautiful moving of the
Spirit of God, having been through one or
two at least movings where there was a
precious new thing that God was doing, having
seen the joy and the rejoicing in the
new thing that God was doing and then
somehow discovering that the people wanted to go
no further.
Because God cannot be satisfied until you come
right nigh unto His very heart.
He'll continue to love you.
He'll continue to bless you.
He'll continue to give you gifts and ministries
and anoint the word that goes forth from
your lips to bring healing and deliverance to
mankind.
For that we thank Him.
He cannot be satisfied until you go out
from that realm of the holy place and
into the holiest of all.
You say, oh, the veil is rent and
plain and so I'm already in there.
And I remember a great teacher one time
had it all up in a blackboard and
he had the outer court and tabernacle which
is divided into two realms, holy place and
holiest of all.
He said, I don't know why people think
that we should go into the holiest of
all.
He says, don't they know the veil is
rent?
So he rubbed it out.
Yes, the veil of the temple was rent
and plain from the top to the bottom
when Jesus died on the cross.
And that means there is access into the
holiest of all.
But just as in that day they continued
to worship in that temple for another 40
years, how could they do it with a
rent veil?
Unless they took needle and thread and sewed
it up.
So though Jesus Christ has rent the veil
through His own flesh, that veil, as it
was in the case of Moses, remember when
he went up in the mountain and saw
the glory of God and came down with
the glory of God radiating from His countenance
with a light so brilliant that they could
not even look upon Him.
So that Moses, when he saw them shrinking
and looking away, he beckoned to them.
Some think he immediately took a veil and
covered his eyes, but I discovered one day
that he didn't do that.
But he beckoned, it says, he beckoned to
Aaron and the elders.
And so fearfully they came forward and he
spake unto them the word of the Lord
with the glory of God radiating from His
countenance.
And then he sensed that that glory was
departing.
And it says when he finished speaking to
them because he sensed the glory was departing,
he put a veil on his face so
that the children of Israel would not see
the end of that which is abolished.
Look it up in any other version.
He put the veil up on his face
so that they would not see the last
rays of that fading glory.
He put a veil upon his face so
that they would not see the finish of
the splendor which was done away.
And it actually says that until Moses had
finished speaking with them he put a veil
on his face.
But in every other version, when Moses had
finished speaking with them he put a veil
on his face because that glory was gone.
It was not just time to remain.
It was only for a season.
How could it remain?
For it was the ministration of condemnation that
he had.
And if the ministration of condemnation came with
glory, says the Apostle Paul, how shall not
rather the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory?
How shall not the ministration of righteousness exceed
in glory?
God grant that this ministration, at least beginning
in the hearts of His people in this
day and hour, might continue to increase and
increase and increase because such is the nature
of the new covenant.
The nature of the old covenant was to
decrease.
The glory would fade away.
So when Moses would talk to them he'd
come fresh from the presence of God with
the glory of God upon him.
He'd talk to the people and then he'd
sense that glory was going and he'd cover
his face again.
He lacked that boldness.
Paul says, not like Moses, the covenant that
we have and the ministration that we have
is not like the one Moses had.
Who put a veil on his face so
that children of Israel would not see the
passing away of that glory.
But their hearts were blinded.
For until this same day remaineth the same
veil untaken away, which veil is done away
in Christ.
I know that veil was rent in twain,
but that veil is now in the hearts
of the people of God.
But the secret is, whensoever it shall turn
to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Jesus did it at the cross.
The Spirit does it in your heart and
mine.
It was a wonderful revelation to me when
I discovered that everything that Jesus accomplished on
the cross God would now accomplish in your
life and mine through the ministration of the
Spirit And when your heart and mind turns
to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
And so Paul concludes that message in the
New Covenant.
There, I think, is 2 Corinthians 3 by
saying that we all with open face, and
the word openness is unveiled with the veil
removed.
We all with the veil removed are changed
into the same image.
From glory unto glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord.
Reflecting as a mirror, another translation.
Holding it in a glass, reflecting it as
a mirror.
God wants us to be mirrors.
Reflectors.
As we partake of His glory, we reflect
it to someone else.
They partake of it and they reflect it
to someone else.
That's why your hope and mine, for the
ministration of the Spirit in this day and
hour, as in any day and hour, but
in this day of the consummation, God is
going to consummate His plans and His purposes.
He's going to bring into being and into
fulfillment all that for which we have had
bits and pieces through the church age.
He's going to bring to one glorious climax.
So it's so essential that you and I
begin to relate to the body of Christ.
That we be fitly framed and knit together
in the body of Christ in this hour.
That we all with that open face might
edify our fellow members until the church of
Jesus Christ goes on from glory unto glory,
from one degree of glory unto another, till
we stand face to face with Him in
His unveiled splendor.
For unto us was the gospel preached as
well as unto them.
The word preached did not profit them, not
being mixed with faith and them that heard
it.
And the Apostle Paul is referring to that
occasion in the Old Testament when good news
was brought back to them concerning their heritage
in Canaan.
You remember how at the hand of Moses,
God had led them out of Egyptian bondage.
And as He brought them forth by the
hand of Moses, His purpose was to bring
them in to the land of Canaan.
That they must go through a halfway house.
God's purpose in bringing the children of Israel
out of Egypt was to bring them into
Canaan.
And God said, I brought you out that
I might bring you in.
He didn't tell them too much about the
halfway house because it was only intended to
be a halfway house.
Just that.
And if He had told them in detail,
it might have frightened them.
God does not want the trial and the
test and the tribulations of life to dampen
our spirit and our zeal to go on
with Him.
For He has provided grace sufficient for every
trial, for every test that He will bring
our way.
God doesn't have to worry about not informing
His people.
I'll look after them.
I've got grace for them.
So He says, I brought you out of
this house of bonnets and I'm going to
bring you in.
Thou shalt bring them in and plant them
in the mountain of thy inheritance, in the
place, O Lord, which thou hast made for
thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O
Lord, which thy hands have established.
That was the song of Moses.
One of the songs of Moses.
When they came out of Egypt and crossed
over the Red Sea, what a time of
victory.
And they sang this song of Moses.
And this is part of it.
For even in the song of deliverance there
is hope for something better.
For I fear, brethren, lest the promise be
made of entering into His rest in it
you should seem to come short of it.
For even in that great thing that God
was doing in delivering them out of the
hand of Pharaoh, God reminds them this is
not all.
I'm going to bring you in.
I brought you out to bring you in.
That's the purpose for which He brought us
out, to bring us in.
Did you know that by and large the
birth of Jesus Christ has remained in the
wilderness?
By and large.
But what a victory to see the hosts
of Israel crossing the Red Sea with the
armies of Pharaoh following them and Moses lifts
his rod and the waters go back and
overthrow the horse and his rider in the
sea.
No wonder they sang the victory song.
And I think it's even in put to
music.
I will sing unto the Lord, for He
hath triumphed gloriously.
The horse and his rider they've thrown into
the sea.
And I hear some victory songs here.
But I trust from this day forward when
you sing your victory song that you'll remember
the purpose for which God gave you that
victory.
To bring you into the mountain of eternity.
And so when they come out of Egypt
into Canaan, God set His very own presence
in their midst as a cloud of glory
and as a cloud of fire.
A cloud of glory by day and a
pillar of fire by night to lead them
in the way that they should go.
And God said, You just follow the cloud.
Just follow the cloud for I'm leading you
into this realm of my inheritance.
So the cloud of God went ahead of
them and brought them to a certain place
called Merom.
They went out into the wilderness of Shur
and they went three days in the wilderness
and found no water.
And so as they searched around for water
they suddenly came to Merom.
First no water and the cloud must have
been leading them because they had to follow
the cloud and lose direction if they didn't.
And they came to Merom and found water.
But they could not drink of the waters
of Merom for they were bitter.
Therefore the name of it was called Merom.
Similar word to the word myrrh which is
a bitter herb.
Also the word from which we get the
word myrrh.
I noticed once looking through my concordance that
there's, I don't know, five, six, seven myrrhs
underneath that.
It is seen that Israel has gone through
such desolation and bondage here.
When this little child was born this was
called Merom.
You'll remember when Nehemiah and Luke came back
from the fields of Moab where they had
gone to take refuge during the time of
famine.
She'd lost her husband.
She'd lost her two sons.
She came back with her daughters-in-law
and turned to them and said, Go on
back home, dear God.
The hand of the Lord had dealt very
bitterly with me.
God's gone against me.
Orphan, you'll remember, went back to his God
and said, Luke said, Whither thou goest, I
will go.
Your people shall be my people.
Where thou dwellest, I will dwell.
And treat me not so meekly.
And she'd claim unto her.
When they got back into the land of
Canaan the people were excited because this long
lost relative was back home.
They said, Nehemiah's home.
And she says, No.
Not Nehemiah anymore.
Merah.
The Lord had dealt bitterly with me.
There's a lot of bitterness in God's people.
I don't mean just that kind of bitterness
where you have resentment one against another.
But an inward bitterness simply it's just bitter.
The way it's been bitter.
It's been hard.
It's been difficult.
Can you tell me why God would lead
the children of Israel out of Egypt and
across the Red Sea and then they're famishing
for water and He leads them to a
place where there's water which is bitter which
they can't drink.
As the brethren have been emphasizing.
Whatever things were written before time were written
for our learning.
That we should be patient in the comfort
of the Scriptures in our time.
And it's all for our sakes where these
things are written.
And God wants us to know that before
He can take us into this land of
true rest where we are unable to cease
from our own works and be so enveloped
with the canopy of the Lord's presence that
it is no longer you and I that
work but it is the living Christ that
works through us.
He wants us to know it's a prepared
place and we can't just barge in there.
But that for this prepared place there must
be a prepared people.
And that's what the wilderness is all about.
That's what the wilderness is all about.
That God might prepare you and I for
the coming into this good land.
But you see, you mean that God has
to lead us to bitter waters to prepare?
No doubt you've often heard as many teachers
are explaining that the fullness of the work
of God and His people is always in
triumph.
And oh, we could probably name a dozen
or so triumphs too to show the fullness
of God's work and His people.
I'll just mention a couple.
I've already mentioned the tabernacle, how that there
was outer court, holy place, holiest of all.
Remember the three feasts in Israel?
Feast of Passover, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of
Tabernacle.
And John speaks of three realms of growth
in such people.
Little children, fathers, young men.
I quoted it right.
Never heard a minister yet who quotes it
right.
All these little children, young men, fathers.
There's no other order.
Little children, fathers, young men.
I thought John might have slipped up until
he repeated it.
I'm writing to you little children, I'm writing
to you fathers, I'm writing to you young
men.
Because though the whole family could get strength
from that if they opened that letter and
read it, all John would have is known
that he was also writing of the spiritual
growth in the family of God.
Little children whose sins are forgiven.
Fathers who have come to maturity and know
Him.
And then, young men.
Overcomers.
I'm not referring to age.
The people who like Moses at the age
of 120, his natural force was still there.
His eyesight was still good.
The only reason he couldn't win and conquer
Canaan with Joshua and the rest of them
was because he disobeyed God.
And God said you're going to have to
die.
And when his time came, He says go
out on the mountain there and die.
He walked up a mountainside at the age
of 120 and laid down his life.
Caleb, when he comes into Canaan, he had
waited a long time for this generation to
arise to take the land.
When he came into Canaan, he didn't rush
over to Hebron to take possession of his
heritage.
Oh God, I've sworn an oath to him
38 years before because your spirit has been
right and your heart has been right.
I swear I'll bring you into this land.
But when he got there, Caleb didn't rush
over and get his little inheritance.
But he spent seven years bringing others into
their inheritance.
And when the others got there, as he
came to Joshua, and he says now Joshua,
remember what the Lord promised you and I
38 years ago when you and I went
over there?
He says I'm just as strong now as
I was then.
Give me this mountain, young man.
I've got some gray-haired men, some in
this room today.
You think you're in the place of retirement?
Forget it.
You hear what God's saying?
Forget it.
Little children, fathers, young men, overcomers.
Hope I'm with some of you, young fellas.
You take the land.
And I don't mean by that, you know,
that the man might be feeble and all
that.
There's no retirement for those who go all
the way with him.
I'm not saying they're out active in ministry,
but that's nothing to do with doing the
will of God anyway.
It shouldn't have been that.
It's not first.
Jacob there laying in his bed just about
ready to die.
And he brought the sons in to kiss
them goodbye.
He props himself up in his bed and
prophesies the word of the Lord.
There's a prophecy that's written down in holy
Scriptures concerning what God would do with His
people in the last days.
He laid back and died.
Anyway, another three, one that I always like.
The kingdom of God is like a seed
that's planted in the ground and springs up
first the blade, then the ear, and after
that the full corn.
I didn't quote it all.
The full corn in the ear.
Not in translation, not in rapture, not in
resurrection.
The full corn in the ear.
First the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear.
So that the ear becomes the connection, the
transition between the blade and the full corn.
What I want to impress upon you is
that almost invariably in the history of God's
people, they will settle for that area of
transition.
And even the holy place in the tabernacle
was a place of preparation for the priest
to come into the holiest of all.
We need to go through that.
There's no other way.
There's no back door into the holiest of
all.
We must have gifts.
We must have ministries.
We must have the illumination of the candlestick.
We must have the table of showbread.
Aaron must stand before the incense and offer
up the holy incense before the Lord.
I appreciate what Brother David has been writing
about the altar of incense.
And incidentally I'd also written something about it
just before I got his letter on it.
And I discovered that they didn't like the
fire of the incense there in the golden
altar.
The golden altar wasn't made for the burning
of fire.
But he would take the incense off the
golden altar and put it in his censer.
But the fire for that incense came from
the altar of the Lord.
Out in the outer corner.
So he'd have to go out there.
That's where the fire was kindled.
Take coals from the brazen altar and bring
it in and put the incense upon it
in order that there might be a cloud
that covered the most of it.
In order that the incense might ascend unto
God as a sweet-smelling savior.
As David said, my prayer shall be set
forth before the incense and the lifting up
of my hand as the evening sacrifice.
So that God is saying, it is true.
I don't want your prayer.
I don't want your praise.
I don't want your worship.
Except it is ignited by an act of
obedience and submission to the will of God
at the altar of Bernoff.
The blade, the ear, the fulcrum.
The fulcrum in the ear.
So let's just consider for a while the
purpose of God in leading His people through
the wilderness.
We look upon it geographically.
They came out of Egypt.
Traveled through the wilderness.
And they entered and became.
But ours is a spiritual journey.
Ours is an inner journey.
And so we have to see the wilderness
in you and I.
And because God must have a prepared people
for this prepared place, He has to deal
with you and I in the wilderness.
And in leading us through the wilderness, He's
redeeming that old light, that carnal nature that
we have there in the wilderness that we
might deal with.
So that the wilderness becomes a preparation.
A place of preparation.
Something that Israel did not learn.
And yet, tenderly was God leading them every
step of the way.
Showing them His glory in such a way
that He might entice them unto Himself and
cause their hearts to be turned unto Him.
That they might realize that God meant what
He said.
I'm bringing you into a good land.
If God's Word is true and if they
believe God, all they could say is, God,
I see the waste in the howling wilderness.
I see bitter waters.
But Lord, it has to be for Your
glory.
You must have a purpose in it.
What are You trying to reveal to me?
What are You trying to show me?
He brought them to Marah because Marah is
the condition of our hearts.
He brings you to bitter waters that you
might know that this is what my heart
is like.
Deuteronomy chapter 8.
By this time, He's talking to another generation.
This first generation didn't make it.
So, He's talking to another generation.
But He does tell us the purpose of
the wilderness life.
Verse 2, Thou shalt remember all the way
which the Lord thy God led thee these
forty years in the wilderness.
Now that's something different.
The Lord led you forty years in the
wilderness.
God was leading them, but because they did
not know God's ways, they wandered.
To them, it is a wandering place.
No purpose.
No real intention.
God was mad at them, so He's just
leading them around haphazardly.
That's the way they looked upon their God.
I don't think it's without significance that the
first stopping place was...
No, I don't think it was the first.
I think it's the first to mention here.
Came to record them.
I believe first.
But one of the first places where they
stopped in town was Mara.
As God knows the bitterness that's in the
human heart.
When God leads you to waters of Mara,
He has a purpose.
See, what purpose can there be in God
giving me bitter waters to drink?
Until we discover that God didn't give you
bitter waters to drink.
God gave you bitter waters that you might
see the grace and the glory of God
of changing those waters and making them to
be sweet.
Instead of that, we sit down and we
drink of the bitter waters.
We grumble and complain against God and man.
Drink some more.
Drink some more and more and more bitterness.
We complain and murmur.
Instead of saying, God, the cloud of Your
glory led me here.
The cloud of Your presence brought me here.
What are you trying to show me?
We'll show you.
Moses cried unto the Lord.
The Lord showed him a tree.
He cut down the tree and threw it
into the water and it became sweet.
So God led them to Mara to perform
the miracle of changing the bitter into sweet.
And by that to show you and I
that if we truly embrace the cross of
Christ in our life, no matter what experience
may come our way, as we cast the
tree into the waters, it becomes sweet.
And it changes our nature from one of
bitterness to one of sweetness.
Moses cried unto the Lord and the Lord
showed him a tree which when He had
cast into the waters, the waters were made
sweet.
There He made for them a statue and
an ordinance.
And there He proved it, or tested it.
The wilderness is for testing.
It's not for destruction.
It's not intended to bring murmuring or complaining.
It's intended for testing, for proving that you
might be prepared for that land of union
with Christ, the land of union.
For Jesus cannot join unto Himself your fleshly
nature, my fleshly nature, your sin and mine.
But He's going to join a people unto
Himself.
Therefore, He would rid us of every bitterness,
every stain, every sin, every bit of carnality.
He might join us unto Himself.
We might find rest in Him and we
might find rest in the world.
It's your life and mine that becomes the
wilderness.
We're the wilderness.
We're going to the wilderness.
It's that spiritual work that God is doing
in us.
That out from the wilderness of our life
He might bring forth the beautiful garden of
the Lord.
For the Lord shall comfort Zion.
He will comfort all her waste places.
And He will make her wilderness like Eden
and her desert like the garden of the
Lord.
Joy and gladness shall be found therein, and
thanksgiving in the voice of melody.
God wants to make of this wilderness what
you and I are, the garden of the
Lord.
There's so many different illustrations and pictures and
types of the work that God is doing
in His people.
And the reason God chooses so many different
types and shadows or illustrations is for the
simple reason that there's no one picture that
can show the whole story.
We see the one picture and we get
caught away with that perhaps.
We fail to realize it takes all the
other pictures together to get the real picture.
And so those who are strong, ready for
battle, they like the thought of being part
of God's army.
There's an army marching through the land.
That's one picture.
But to be God's army, you've got to
know also that we're God's temple.
Of course, a temple can't march through the
land.
It's not a literal temple.
There's another aspect.
A temple is where God dwells.
So if God doesn't dwell in you, don't
talk about going forth because He's the enemy.
And then, of course, we're the body of
Christ.
And without getting into that in any particular
detail this morning, I'd just like to remind
God's people it is the body of Christ.
In the same way that you have a
body in which you dwell.
I remember a very noted teacher of the
Word a few years ago.
He set up and said, I've been preaching
the Word for I don't know how many
years.
And he was tremendous in the Word.
He said, I never understood until a few
years ago that the body of Christ meant
the body in which the Lord Jesus dwelt
in the fullness of His presence, but a
body of people.
If you look at Mark, here's the body
of Christ, here's the body of people.
Much deeper than that.
When you read 1 Corinthians 12, 14, you'll
discover that the apostle draws a comparison between
the body of Christ and the body of
which you are.
A finger, a hand, a foot, an eye,
an ear.
And he says, you're that body of Christ.
When God grabbed us, the revelation of the
body of Christ might come to us with
such an impact.
We begin to pursue in our thinking, in
our faith, in our praying to the Lord.
In our intercessions, pursue that purpose that God
has for making of His people the body
in which He, the Lord Jesus, shall dwell
in the fullness of His being, where He
Himself is the head, where every member is
vitally joined, each to its part, that there
might arise in the earth the very expression
of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as truly
and as effectually but far more reaching than
the body in which Jesus, that one man,
dwelt when He was here on earth.
I don't think any one of us would
have any argument with the fact that when
Jesus dwelt here on earth, in Him dwelt
the fullness of the Godhead body.
Not that all of God was there because
we know God built everything.
We know that, the fullness of it.
The word signifies completeness, nothing lacking.
I saw that power takes power.
Well, we know that the universe is filled
with it, but the completeness of it, the
fullness of it, is in the Lord Jesus.
Love, you see it in the creation, in
the natural realm.
You see it in the animals and the
birds.
Very little of it in the human family.
You see it in the lower realms of
creation, remnants of it.
But the fullness, the highest description of love,
I'm not good at words, is in Jesus,
my mercy.
God suffered.
I mean, anything you can think of that
pertains to God, the fullness of it, the
completeness of it, the perfection of it, was
in the Lord Jesus when He was here.
I suppose, like I have, we've all thought,
my, what we missed.
Having been born a couple of thousand years
ago in or near the little land of
Palestine, somehow we might have caught a glimpse
of our Lord, heard words from His mouth
that we knew were infallible and pure and
clean and holy, straight from the heart of
God.
I don't think it struck me with force
until two or three years ago as I
was reading John 16 that God had a
better plan than that.
He had a better plan that Jesus should
have remained here on the earth these 2
,000 years.
He could have.
He stayed 40 days.
He could have stayed 40 years, 400.
God had a better plan.
To me this is staggering.
But He told His disciples He was going
away.
Sorrow filled their hearts.
You can't get by without your Lord.
He's been following you, anticipating, just knowing for
sure that one of these days you're going
to set up a kingdom and you say
you're going away.
It doesn't make sense.
Because I've said these things unto you, Jesus,
sorrow has filled your heart.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
This is what Jesus said.
I tell you the truth.
It is expedient to me that I go
away.
Do you have a amplified version?
Read it or not.
It is to your advantage that I go
away.
It is better for you that I go
away.
For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you.
But if I depart, I will send Him
unto you.
I can't see anything else in this and
other Scriptures that Jesus' intention was that when
the Holy Spirit came to take up His
habitation in this temple which He's forming in
the earth, that He would manifest His presence
out from that temple in the same degree
of purity and truth and glory and excellence
as He did in the body of the
Lord Jesus that was prepared for Him when
He was here.
That just as truly as the Holy Ghost
came upon Mary, the child of sorrow, her
name means bitterness, He caused her to conceive
in her womb and bring forth a body
prepared of God for the expression of His
own image in the earth.
So, just as truly the Holy Ghost is
coming upon a pure woman in the earth
made pure by the cleansing of the blood
of Christ, and as that woman nurtures in
her heart, in her womb, the Word of
the Lord that comes to her, she's going
to bring forth in the earth a son,
not another one, but the complement, C-O
-M-P-L-E-M-E-N-T,
of the one who didn't see fit to
stay here, but said it would be better
if I went away.
I said you'd have no problem in receiving
what I said, that in Jesus dwelt all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
My brother has already quoted this Scripture, at
least part of it I think, in Ephesians
1, which states that when Jesus, who was
the fullness of God on earth, ascended into
the heavens, He was exalted above all principality
and power and might and dominion in every
name that is named, not only in this
world, but also in that which is to
come, and hath put all things under His
feet and gave Him to be the head
over all things to the church, which is
His body, the fullness of Him that filleth
all in all.
The fullness.
It's the same word.
The pleroma, the completeness, nothing lacking.
No wonder when Paul would write to the
Ephesians he'd have to stop every minute to
pray, to pray for the ones to whom
he was writing because he knew that the
thing that he was saying was from the
heart of God.
And if the people of God did not
have the spirit of revelation upon them, they
would not know what he was saying.
And so we come down into chapter 3.
Having declared these glorious truths of the mystery
of Christ being revealed in the earth and
in His people, he pauses once again.
Ephesians 3.14 For this cause I bow
my knees unto the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in
heaven and earth is His name, that He
would grant you according to the riches of
His glory, to be strengthened with might by
His Spirit in the inner man.
We can accept that.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith.
We know that's true.
That ye be rooted and grounded in love.
We know that that's true.
But listen to this.
That ye might be able to comprehend.
Look it up in other versions.
It's more than comprehend.
It's to apprehend.
It's to receive fully.
What is the breadth and the length and
the depth and the height and to know
the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that
you might be filled with all the fullness
of God.
Which in others He said that we, the
corporeal beings, you can't be filled with all
the fullness of God.
You, you, you.
But together God saw fit to take His
Son that He might magnify His glory in
the earth.
Everyone who is fitted together in this body
might have one function and one function only.
And that is according to the particular place
that they have in the body of Christ
to glorify God and to bring glory to
His name in the manner which Jesus said
was good.
And it is good that He left so
that God could do this in the spirit.
You've got the notion that Jesus is coming
back because the church made a mess of
herself.
So, Jesus figures He'll come back and set
up a kingdom.
The church failed.
Unto Him be glory in the church throughout
all ages world without end.
Back to Hebrews chapter 4.
For we which have believed do enter into
rest, as He said, as I have sworn
in my wrath that they shall enter into
my wrath.
Sounds a little strange wording, but it's quoting
Scripture.
If they shall enter into my wrath.
So that God, He says, God said there
was a wrath.
So He says, if you believe, enter into
that rest that God spoke about.
Although the works were finished from the foundation
of the world.
For He spake in a certain place at
the seventh day.
And this wise and God did rest the
seventh day from all His works.
And in this place again, if they shall
enter into my rest.
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter
therein that they to whom it was first
preached entered not in because of unbelief.
Again, He limited the certain day.
You've got to follow the spiritual logic here
of the Apostle.
It's a little difficult just to read it
over passage.
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter
therein that they to whom it was first
preached entered not in because of unbelief.
He didn't touch on that, but I think
you all know the story.
God said He'd bring them out to bring
them in.
So they camped there at Sinai, I think,
for a couple of years to be instructed
in the ways of the Lord, to receive
the instructions of the tabernacle, priesthood, cleansing.
That's a couple of years.
Is that right?
And then they began to move north into
the land that God had promised.
And they came right up to Kedosh Barnea,
which was the doorstep of Canaan.
And they sent spies out to spy out
the land, search it out, just to know
the ingoings, outgoings of the enemy, ready for
conquest.
And they came back with a report of
the land.
And they all agreed it was good.
There was no question about that.
But it says the word preached did not,
the word that they brought back, the word
of the report, I think other versions say,
did not profit them, not being mixed with
faith Did not profit them.
They were not joined by faith to those
who had the word.
There was a dissension arose.
Here was Caleb and Josh with a sure
word from the Lord.
And Caleb said, let's go up boldly and
take it, for we are well able to
overcome it.
But they said, we can't because the enemy's
in the land and they're mightier than we
are.
They're giants.
We're like grasshoppers in their sight.
They got iron chariots.
Caleb looked at none of that.
He says, they'll be bread for us.
They'll be our bread and butter.
And his only reason was that if God
delight in us, he will bring us in.
The only reason he gave and that was
sufficient.
But you know, there was a controversy.
So that the people of God did not
join their hearts with that word.
And so they failed to enter in.
Now, there's much to be said about the
new generation that God would raise up as
he did then.
Because they didn't enter in, God said he
would wait for another generation.
Not only that, but the excuse they gave
for not entering in, God took advantage of
it.
They said, our children couldn't stand that kind
of a land because they couldn't stand the
enemies that were there and the difficulty we'd
have in settling down and making a home
for ourselves.
Our children couldn't take it.
God says, I swear by myself, you'll die
in the wilderness and I'll bring your children
in.
So the excuse that they had as a
reason for which they couldn't go in, God
says, alright, you're afraid for your children.
You die here and I'll bring them in.
What I'm saying is, and I'd like to
emphasize this in closing, seeing therefore it remaineth
that some must enter there.
It doesn't say, well, because they didn't enter
in, God just forgot.
I'm encouraged to know when God has a
plan, a purpose, no work of man or
Satan is going to hinder it.
I'm not saying by that that you and
I are therefore going to make it in
that sense of overcoming and taking the land.
I'm saying that God's going to do it
in spite of us.
And if we fail, we'll have another people
raised.
Also, I've discovered that God's timetable, oh, he
might delay it sometimes, like he did here,
40 years.
But even that delay was in his purpose.
At least he fitted it into his purpose
later on.
When the time comes when God says, it's
going to happen, and that the people to
whom the word of the Lord came and
to whom he gave precious promises, whom he
encouraged to prepare their hearts for this land
have not done so, or despise it, or
reject it, or lay it aside as some
far out teaching.
God can go out there in a matter
of a few weeks and prepare a people
and bring them in.
And he'll do it.
I get letters from Kenya.
I don't know why.
The only country that I get large numbers
of letters from is the head of man
from Kenya who was visiting recently.
God's noodle money.
And what I find is the Kenyan people
that write me, they seem to have a
real understanding of these things.
And I read what David said about God
turning these third world countries, poor countries, to
bring forth what he has in mind to
this day and hour.
My heart rejoiced and I think I was
a little more diligent in attending to my
correspondence out of these four countries.
That if we in this land, if there's
no group of people that goes into the
inheritance, it's not going to frustrate God.
He's going to do it.
So it's not depending upon you and I.
But he does desire that we should lay
hold upon it and embrace it.
Otherwise, our hearts would not be open and
receptive to this word.
The principle in Scripture is that the secret
things belong to the Lord our God, that
those things which are revealed belong to us
and to our children as we might do
them.
If God hides it, well, I think God
hides lots of truth.
I'm not saying that there's anything really new
under the sun.
I'm saying that you and I, in the
time to come, there's going to be new
manifestation in the earth hidden away in the
heart of God for centuries.
Isn't the day of harvest?
All Christendom recognizes that.
Isn't the day of harvest?
There's going to be a good harvest because
God's a good gardener.
And you know, I know, that he should
have come 40 years ago.
I thought it was senseless to finish high
school because the Lord should have come.
The teaching is when you get a temple
over there in Jerusalem and get the antichrist
in there, then he can come.
I'm telling you that God's building a temple
not made with hands.
And then in the midst of the temple,
the man of sin has been and is
being revealed because that's the temple that God's
concerned about.
Antichrist is not concerned about some old wooden
temple someone's going to try and build over
in Jerusalem.
He's determined to rob God of his glory.
He's put his glory in you and I.
And he'll try his best to set up
his habitation in you and I if we'll
let him.
That's why we say, come, Lord Jesus, in
the shining forth of Your splendor.
Destroy that man of sin that rises up
in every one of us from time to
time as we seek to exalt ourselves above
the throne of God and refuse the Lord
Jesus Christ His total lordship in our lives.
Come and smite that antichrist in me.
I know he's going to be revealed out
there to a far greater degree than he
is now.
That man of sin will rise up in
your heart and mine if I give him
a chance.
But not if we stand face to face
in the presence of our Christ because his
light will destroy every trace of the carnal
nature, every trace of sin of those who
stand face to face with him.
Certain Greeks came to see Jesus.
They heard about this great one.
They were Greeks, but they were Hellenistic Greeks.
In other words, they were converts to Judaism.
They came to the feast and they came,
was it to Philip and Andrew?
One or the other or both.
They said we would see Jesus and they
called Jesus.
There are some Greeks here.
They've come down a long ways.
They'd like to see you.
And the simple yet strange reply was except
the corn of wheat fall to the ground
and die that abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
The fact that Jesus died in obedience to
the will of the Father.
The fact that God raised him from the
dead the third day and seated him in
his right hand in heavenly places far above
all rule and principality and power and might
and dominion and every name that is named
and gave him to be the head over
all things to the church which is his
body.
The fact that God did that is God's
guarantee to you and I, to the world,
to all creation that there shall arise in
the midst of the earth much fruit because
of the corn of wheat.
Dear Lord Jesus.
We thank you Lord Jesus for these people.
Let us stand.
Thank you for these people Lord whom you've
apprehended for this hour.
Lord, I thank you for the liberty you
gave which I do not always have to
try to show forth some small measure or
the glory that you have in store for
them.
Rather they might take this word, embrace it,
behold upon it, bear it in their heart,
lest the fowl of the air pluck it
out and devour it, lest the cares of
this life and the deceitfulness of riches crowd
it out, lest thorns and thistles and priors
spring up and choke the word and it
bear no fruit.
May the word upon reception live long in
his heart and bring forth fruit from the
eternal life.
Jesus, hear our prayer.
Raising up a holy, pure people with a
heart for you.
Lord, with no part dark, with nothing hidden
in their lives, you're bringing it forth again
this afternoon, dear brother.
We say this man has been with Jesus
and he's brought us a pure word, Lord,
that you're going to find a people.
You will find a people, Lord.
God, find some of us here.
Find some of us here.
Put it in our hearts to go all
the way with You, Lord, that we will
lay down everything in this world, everything in
this life and go with You, Lord.
Lord, our dear brother has come through the
ladder.
He saw people and his hopes were raised
in them.
Our hopes were raised again and then they're
dashed and they're raised and they're dashed.
But, oh, Lord, You're going to have...
You've always had a people.
You're going to have a people in this
day.
Hallelujah!
You will have a people, Lord.
I see young people now rising up in
such holiness.
Young people, Lord, that cry night and day,
that dream over the sins of the Lamb
in their hearts.
Lord, some of those young people are here
now.
Those young men that He speaks of.
There are others, Lord, that are in their
50s and 60s and even 70s and they
have this youth of the Spirit now, this
hunger for Your righteousness and holiness.
Amen.