I want to look into the book of
Judges today.
God had brought the children of Israel across
the Jordan and into Canaan, the land that
he had promised.
And we're told that God said, I'll give
you the whole land, but it'll be little
by little.
I will not let you take immediate possession
of the land, lest the beasts of the
field increase upon you, so that they could
take all the land from the inhabitants.
But if they did not cultivate it, subdue
it, if it remained in its wild condition,
then the beasts of the field might encroach
upon them and do them a lot of
damage, even though they'd driven out the enemies.
And so God's purpose in your life and
mine is to bring us into that rest
that remaineth for the people of God, which
is coming to that place where our own
works have ceased.
For he that is entered into his rest
has ceased from his own works, as God
did from his.
And that's something God has to show us
from time to time, because how do we
discern that which is our works and that
which is his?
And I'm sure that always remains a problem
with all of us.
Is this really the work of God that
I'm engaged in, or is there intermingled with
it a lot of my own works?
So God has to prove us in that,
and he's told us that he will not
give us just a complete reddened of all
the enemies immediately, because even though those spiritual
hosts, those enemies are real enemies, which are
spiritual hosts of wickedness, even though we conquer
over them, there are still areas in our
own nature that could rise up to take
the place of God if we have not
come to the place where the old tendencies
of the old life are completely subdued.
These are areas that are, I think, very
critical as we go on with the Lord
into further places with him.
We're inclined to think that if we come
into the inheritance that God has for us,
coming into those provisions of his grace, that
we're free of any danger, that the more
we come to function in realms of the
Spirit, the less we are in danger of
falling.
But just the opposite is the case, that
the higher we come into spiritual realms in
God, the more subtle, the greater the danger
that lies in our pathway, because pride is
there and the enemy can come and cause
us to fall in pride where he could
not defeat us in anything else.
So they would come in and take the
land and drive out the enemy, as it
were, if somehow the land, don't forget the
land is, we are that land, we are
that inheritance of God.
Having defeated all those enemies that we can
see there so clearly that God reveals, there
can develop, if somehow God hasn't come in
and established his own nature and character within
us, there can rise up these beasts of
the field, pride, a sense of self-achievement.
Those things can rise up and bring devastation,
even though there have been great victories fought
and won.
So we should never be amazed or surprised
if some great man of God who has
gone into great depths in God, has great
power with God, has a great ministry in
the realm of healing, miracles, casting out of
evil spirits.
We should never be surprised if such a
one can fall, though we are.
Oh, this man, I remember one lady, she
heard some rumors about this man, I don't
care, I don't believe it, I just was
there and I saw people healed, I saw
miracles.
She went on like that.
It's things like that that can bring a
man of God to his downfall.
That's not the sign that he is spiritual.
Those things can bring him to his downfall,
to have that power and that authority, and
But somehow, only God can test and try
the hearts.
Somehow there can come in, see what great
things I've been able to do for God,
see how marvelously God is using.
And perhaps he won't say it, perhaps he
wouldn't like to think that he's even thinking
it, but there's that tendency there.
So pride isn't something that you plan on
getting into, it's not something that you devise,
it's something that creeps in unaware.
And the more you get, the more tendency
there is to pride.
And that's true in the natural realm and
it's true in the spiritual realm.
The more we can attain in the realm
of spiritual gift and blessing, the greater the
tendency is to pride.
And so we can thank the Lord if
along the way he is faithful to humble
us, to cause us to owe, to expose,
cause the pride within us to be exposed,
to bring us to confusion or whatever, that
God might truly develop within us a contrite
and a humble spirit, because that's where God
will dwell, that's where he wants to dwell.
So coming into Canaan is a wonderful thing,
but if God does not establish that Canaan
life within us, not only give us the
ability, the power to overcome the enemy without,
but to have the grace of the Lord
established within, we're in a greater danger of
falling than before, and greater will be the
fall.
So these are very serious things, and I
guess it doesn't bother most of us, because
I know that's all right for those great
men out there, but pride doesn't just come
to the great, it comes to the small
and the insignificant.
I remember one time the minister said there
was a young fellow who stood up in
the church, and he said he was a
fellow that didn't have any reputation for anything.
He had no excellence, no charisma, and he
was concerned about the pride of his heart.
And he was thinking, oh, you get proud?
How could you get proud?
You see, pride doesn't come just to those
who have something to get proud of.
It comes to those who realize there's nothing
within them, but they slip away from that
understanding if God starts to do something.
It doesn't matter if you're small or great.
That poor man, that slave released from his
slavery, he's nothing, he never had anything.
He's subject to pride.
He starts to get a few things, begins
to think, see what I've got now.
And you can be proud of the gift
you have, proud of the gift you have.
And yet, why?
Unless the feeling comes, I've attained to something.
But did God give it?
When you didn't have it, did he give
it?
Yes?
Well, then, how can there be any feeling
that I've succeeded or I've attained if God
gave it?
Paul says, if God has given you something,
why are you glorious if you had not
received it?
And I used to wonder what he was
saying.
He says, if you're boasting, you're boasting about
something that God gave, and if God gave
it to you, you have nothing to boast
of.
If God gave it, you have nothing to
boast of.
And so you come to a place where
you sort of feel, well, this is something
that I grew into, this is something that
I developed, something that I attained to.
So it doesn't matter whether you're great or
small, that thing can arise.
We don't plan on it.
And Paul speaks about the young man, and
Paul says not to set him in as
an elder.
Lest being lifted up with pride, he fall
into the condemnation of the devil.
And one note in a Bible I had
indicated that he was saying, lest he fall
into the same kind of condemnation that Lucifer
fell into.
Because God had made him high and lifted
up the anointed cherub that covereth, and everything
he had was from God.
And his life and his ministry would depend
totally upon him drawing from God.
And he enjoyed that position, we don't know
how long, as the anointed cherub that covereth.
The anointed cherub that covereth, reminding us, of
course, of the covering cherub on the Ark
of the Covenant that covered, as it were,
the glory of God, as in a place
of defense to guard the glory of God.
Immediately we think God doesn't need any defense,
but his glory does.
Yes, that shining forth of his glory does,
because in the shining forth of his glory,
it comes upon all his creation.
And so it seems that Lucifer's position was
to make sure that all created beings, somehow,
he would guard that glory of God, and
be diligent to so fulfill his ministry that
if there was any creature that would begin
to steal God's glory, he would be there
to protect it.
So that it is a great ministry, a
wonderful ministry, but he fell himself perfect in
wisdom.
His heart was lifted up, and instead of
all glory and honor to him that created
him, it was, I will be like the
Most High.
I will ascend.
I will take my place in the congregation.
And so he fell.
And so pride isn't just something
that pertains to mankind or the carnal nature.
It was in the power of these heavenly
creatures to fall, because they had a will
that God that made gave them a certain
will, enabling them to do right or to
do wrong, to continue to honor him or
to go their own way.
And they were dependent for their own safety
upon honoring God in all things, to serve
him in him only.
They were dependent upon him so that even
the celestial beings draw from God the means
of their spiritual livelihood and health comes upon
dependence from God.
And so God, when he had his people
out there in the wilderness, prepared for them
the corn of heaven, called in one place
the bread of the mighty, the bread of
the mighty ones, so that his people on
the earth could partake of that same sustenance
from God that the mighty ones in heavenly
places partook of, which is basically drawing from
God, for without him and apart from him
there is just no life.
He gave them the bread of the mighty,
that in drawing from God we might always
honor him and recognize him and obey him
and serve him.
So he gave them the bread of the
mighty, which was manna, intended of the Lord
to keep them totally dependent upon their Creator,
intended of the Lord to keep them totally
dependent.
They didn't understand that, they didn't like it.
But in that manna there was the ingredient
upon which the heavenly hosts feed, that which
would enable all creation to draw from him,
so that everything that God has made, things
that we can see and cannot see, is
totally dependent upon the Creator.
They have beauty, they have glory, they have
wisdom, and you see it in all things
that God has made.
And yet no matter what he has made,
they all are totally dependent upon their Creator
for their very existence in life.
God made them that way.
He wanted to make this holy nation that
way, and so he brought them out into
a barren and waste and howling wilderness, something
that completely baffled them and troubled them and
revealed the iniquity of their hearts, for it
was in that place that God would make
them to be a people totally dependent upon
him, for the very bread they ate, the
very water they drank, the very life they
lived.
And God brought them there to cause them
to know that, but he doesn't always tell
us why he brings us to certain places,
until afterwards.
And afterwards Moses tells them that the Lord
was leading you these 40 years in the
wilderness to prove you, to try you, to
cause you to hunger, and he fed you
with manna, that you know that man doth
not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord doth man live.
He led you, he caused you to hunger,
his purpose was to prove you, to try
you, and to make you know that man
doesn't live just by the things of this
world, this food that we grow and eat,
but we live from abiding in relationship with
him where we can hear what he has
to say, by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of the Lord.
And I puzzled over that, he caused you
to hunger and he fed you with manna,
in the same breath, until I think the
Lord began to show me that there was
in that manna nothing that would satisfy their
appetite, but everything they needed for their journey
in the wilderness, everything, not a thing lacking,
physically, spiritually.
Some things that they partook of in that
food that we're not partaking of today, because
we get sick along with the world.
They didn't, and yet they despised the food
because it didn't satisfy their appetites.
I remember a young man from Germany I
met years ago, he was probably 14 or
15 when the war ended, and when the
money system collapsed, they were hungry.
I don't know if they went through any
actual starvation, but the money system had collapsed
and they were hungry until things got reorganized,
and they'd go out in the field, they
heard that there was a certain herd there
in the field that they could gather and
cook and get a little strength from it,
and he says, they'd fill up on it,
they'd make sort of a soup out of
it, and fill up until they couldn't take
a bit more.
But he says, in just an hour or
so they were hungry, but they were full,
they couldn't take any more, but they were
full.
I was thinking of that, not then, but
recently, that the manna was something like that.
They'd eat three quarts a day.
Now, that's a lot.
I don't care what it is.
They ate about three quarts a day, and
they were full, but they were still hungry.
And they said, we hate this light stuff,
it doesn't satisfy us.
And God made it that way, that they
might know that their real life was not
by bread only but hearing from God.
Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord does man live.
So they said, we hate this food, but
we despise this loathed food.
Give us something to eat more substantial.
We had it good in Egypt.
We had the fish and the garlic, the
leeks, the onions, and here there's nothing before
our eyes but this light bread.
Nothing before our eyes.
What we see with our natural eyes is
this fluffy stuff, that we're going to eat
it until we're full and we're still hungry.
And God wanted them to be hungry, that
they might know that their life didn't consist
just in what he gave them to eat,
but that they must feed also upon every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.
God answered their prayer.
He answered their prayer.
I know sometimes it's taught, just ask God
for whatever you want and he'll give it,
and when he gives it, you thank him
for it.
God wants us to begin inquiring, not just
asking him for things.
If we keep on asking God for things,
not being sure whether it's God's will or
not, but we want it anyway, God may
give it to you.
If you insist on, God, I insist on
this, I want to do your will, God,
but I want this here for sure, but
I want to do your will.
This has got to be part of it.
If we insist that God must answer our
prayers when God seems to be saying, wait
a while or are you sure it's my
will, we're sure it's his will, so we
keep asking.
God might well answer our prayers if we
insist on it.
So I think the safe way is, I
know we have to have faith and confidence
to know this is God's will, we know
it's his will, we cannot let any unbelieving
thoughts come in, we must insist on it.
But I trust that even when we do,
that there is in our heart that prayer
may be not always spoken.
Lord, I'm confident this is your will, but
nevertheless, Lord, thy will not mind be done.
God answered their prayer, but in answering their
prayer, we're told he sent leanness into their
soul.
Another translation says he sent evil diseases, but
the fact remains that God was not pleased
in answering their prayer when they said, give
us flesh, and they insisted on it.
So Moses cried unto God, and God said,
I'll give them flesh to eat, they'll have
enough for a month.
Oh, Moses said, if we slew all the
herds we got, that couldn't.
God said, is my hand shortened that I
can't do this thing that I have said?
And so in the evening the quail descended
like rain, and it came and covered the
face of the ground.
All they had to do, they didn't have
to get down on their hands and knees
like they did to gather the manna, because
there was a lot of work in that,
because it was a small light thing and
it rested on the dew, and they had
to get down there and gather it, and
they had to be diligent about it, because
if they didn't gather it before noon, there
wouldn't be any left, so they had to
gather it.
Even though God gives us the bread from
heaven, it requires diligence on our part to
partake of it.
And in a way, God made it easy
for them, because they flew around just about
arm's length.
All they had to do was grab those
crazy birds and put them in their sack.
And it says that the men in Israel
that gathered the leaves gathered about 65 bushels.
They were so starving for something substantial, but
it was in God's anger that he sent
it, and it didn't do them any good.
They just gorged themselves on it.
What did he want to do with 65
bushels of quail?
And when I was trying to answer that
question, I thought, what in the world are
people hoping to do with the millions that
they're accumulating?
What are they hoping to do with it?
And Jesus said, when you pray, say, Give
us this day our daily bread.
Give us what we need.
God was angry with them because of that.
They never came to know his ways.
But he answered their prayers.
I believe we've got to begin to search
our hearts to know God's mind when we
insist that God answers our prayers.
Make sure it's because it's God's will.
Otherwise, let's always have that provision in our
prayer.
Lord, if it's not your will, please don't
answer my prayer.
Please don't answer my prayer if it's not
your will.
So they come into Canaan, and God left
certain enemies there, even though Joshua conquered the
land and distributed it amongst the children of
Israel.
God decided he would leave little pockets of
resistance there, that there are children coming in,
that God may be able to train them
in the art of war.
So even though God brings us into this
great land that God has promised and somehow
brought us into real fruitfulness in him, he
still leaves areas of resistance because there's always
a new generation coming up.
And though they didn't have to contend with
the struggles of the wilderness, they had to
contend with the enemies in the land.
And I believe that this generation we're in
today has to contend with things that my
generation earlier didn't have to contend with.
And I had to contend with things that
my parents didn't have to contend with.
And that's the way it is.
But the principle is the same and God's
provision is the same, that each generation should
so walk with the Lord and so come
to know the Lord that they will be
able to impart to the next generation that
which they need for their generation as they
grow up.
And then they grow up and then it's
been a new way, it's been a new
kind of life for them, different problems and
all that, but they come to know the
same God and so they will be able
to impart to their children.
And that's what I mentioned this in class
a little.
That was the substance of the prophecy of
Asaph, the psalm of Asaph, Psalm 78, when
he said, We will not hide them from
their children, speaking about the dark sayings, the
parables that their fathers knew for what the
children of Israel did and the life they
lived and the pathway God led them in
the Old Testament.
It seems that Asaph was calling that whole
way of life a parable, because it is
a true story but nevertheless it had a
higher meaning.
So he said, I will open my mouth
in a parable, I will utter dark sayings
of old which we have heard and known
and our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
showing to the generation to come the praises
of the Lord and his strength and his
wonderful works that he has done.
For he established a testimony in Jacob and
appointed a law in Israel which he commanded
our fathers, that they should make them known
to their children, that the generation to come
might know them, even the children which should
be born, who should arise and declare them
to their children, that they might set their
hope in God and not forget the works
of God but keep his commandments, so that
God's way and God's provision is that each
generation of the church should be able to
impart to their children, the upcoming generation, principles
in God, parables of truth, that though it's
a true story, it happened once and as
it happens again it will be in a
different setting.
So you can't say specifically, well, yes, I
know what you're going through, because the kids
can say, you don't know.
But there is a certain principle that functions
through any area in which God leads us
or any generation, and that is no matter
what you're going through, if you have the
foundation of truth in your heart, no matter
what you're going through, that foundation of truth
will mean as much to you now in
this evil age as it did to previous
generations, because the heart of man is the
same.
I know man is always finding out new
inventions, and we like some of them, but
with every good invention that comes forth, there
are evil inventions.
But the principle is the same.
God wants a people whose heart will be
set upon him.
And for every evil invention, God has something
in his storehouse that will be a storehouse
of grace to match any evil invention that
man brings forth.
And Paul tells us that.
Or he says, the offense went on its
way in ever-increasing dimensions.
It reigned, sin reigned unto death.
The sin of Adam began a kingdom of
sin and death that reigned with increasing proportions
until evil got worse and worse and worse
and worse.
But Paul tells us in Romans 5 that
where sin did abound, grace did much more
abound.
So there is a principle in God.
And if the church goes on on earth
another hundred years, and we don't know what
God's plans are, we know we've come to
the end, I believe, of this particular order,
but we can't say specifically what the state
of the church or where they will be
in a hundred years from now.
We don't know.
And there's no use of trying to think
we do know, or trying to come up
with dates and so forth, because God ignores
all of that.
But the principle is there.
Sin was going to increase because the kingdom
of sin and death began when Adam sinned.
And it would reign and reign and reign
unto death.
Its power would increase, the power of sin
and death would increase, and we've seen it,
especially in the last hundred years.
For up until then, it seems that as
far as the world was concerned, life was
very simple.
Everybody got their living from the farm, basically.
And in the last hundred years there's been
literally an explosion of knowledge, that in the
last hundred years there's been more actual increase
in technology and knowledge than in all previous
centuries as far as we know.
A friend of mine was at a conference,
he was a businessman, and he drew the
graph of the increase of scientific knowledge.
He drew a graph, and it went along
and the line went along, hardly any change
until the beginning of the century.
And then he started to go up with
it, and up and up and up.
This was 20 years ago.
He says, It's now at a place like
you can't even put it on a graph.
We just call it an explosion.
But I'm saying that with all of that,
there's been the same explosion of evil.
But Paul says, Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound.
God has grace for the explosion of evil
in the world.
God has grace to counteract it.
It's a principle in God.
So we think, Oh God, you must come
forth soon and do something.
I know he's going to.
But if he doesn't, if it goes on
the way it is another 10 years or
20 years, God's got grace sufficient for our
families.
So there are these principles that we have
to get into the hearts and minds of
every generation where there is failure.
And Asaph said, The reason for this, telling
it to your children, their children, their children,
their children's children, is that the truth of
God will be kept alive in the generation
of God's people and that they will not
be that stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation
that set not their heart aright and whose
spirit was not steadfast with God.
Margin rendering says, They set not their heart
aright, they prepared not their heart, and whose
spirit was not steadfast with God.
Revealing to you and I the fact that
if our hearts are not prepared by God,
we will be that stubborn and rebellious generation.
Anything God wants to do in our lives,
the heart has to be prepared.
He goes on to say that that generation
that God brought out, the children of Israel,
he goes over their history.
Though God had been, and he recounts the
wonderful things that he did in dividing the
sea and causing them to pass through and
making the waters to stand as a heap,
leading them as a cloud and all the
night with fire, cleaving the rocks in the
wilderness, giving them drink out of the great
depths, brought streams out of the rock, caused
waters to run down like rivers.
Having blessed that nation, as a nation there
has never been anything like it in the
history of mankind, how God blessed the nation
of the children of Israel.
Bringing them out in a mighty deliverance, miraculously
looking after them.
But because their hearts were not prepared, they
became rebellious and sinned yet more, tempted God,
spoke against God, said, Can God?
Can he give us bread?
Can he provide flesh?
They believed not in God, they trusted not
in his salvation, they sinned still, they believed
not, they did flatter him, they lied unto
him with their lips, they tempted God, they
limited the Holy One of Israel.
Unbelievable!
But Asa said it's because they didn't prepare
their hearts.
I believe this is the day of the
preparation of the hearts of his people.
I know many of you are keyed up
with the thought of going forth and doing
things for God.
If God gives you that call, and then
along with the call, sometime down the line
gives you the word to go forth, God
bless and God prepare, because God is going
to raise up a new generation, is raising
up a new generation, is preparing his army.
He is preparing his army.
We know that.
But I'm saying, don't let that become a
vision.
And if you truly know that that's God's
way for you, that's good, but God wants
to prepare your heart.
And he wants you to know that if
your heart is not prepared, you can go
forth and you can heal the sick and
raise the dead and evangelize nations.
You can see miracles, you can see water
out of the rock, you can see the
manna coming down from heaven.
But if your heart is not prepared, you
might be blessing millions of people and you
yourself will not come to really know God.
And that's tragic and it's awesome.
It's true.
Solomon came to the throne a humble man,
a humble man.
When Adonijah, his brother, in the pride of
his heart, said, I will be king, and
God had already declared that Solomon was going
to be king, Solomon just, we don't read
that he did anything about it.
And Adonijah said, I will be king, and
he got 50 men to run before his
chariots, and they had a big feast and
they called the king's sons together, except Solomon,
of course.
They had a big feast, and Adonijah is
the new king.
Solomon wasn't worrying about it one bit.
And Adonijah had a priest on his side
by the name of Abiathar who faithfully stood
at David's side all through the reign of
David.
And Adonijah had Joab by his side, Joab
who was David's general who fought great victories
for David, and they became great men.
Joab and Abiathar, the priest, Joab the general
of the army, knowing the wars of David
and seeing victory and triumph, stood with him
in his rejection.
And then they sided with Adonijah, the rebel.
David heard about it and decreed that Solomon
would sit on the throne.
Nathan the prophet came in and confirmed, along
with Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, that David had declared
Solomon was going to be king.
So Nathan's blessing was on the new king,
and David's blessing was on the new king.
And Solomon, in the humility of his heart,
went and offered up a sacrifice at Gibeon.
And he said, Oh, Lord, God appeared to
him.
He said, What do you want, Solomon?
Solomon said, God, you've given me the charge
of your people.
I'm but a young man.
I can't rule over this nation.
God, give me an understanding heart.
And God was so pleased with him that
he asked for simply an understanding heart that
he might judge righteously.
And God said, I'm pleased with that, and
I'm going to give you that.
And in giving you that, I'm also going
to give you riches that you didn't even
ask for.
I mean, I'm just trying to emphasize the
humility of this man and the wisdom that
he had.
And you read about it.
In the very first test that came along,
God gave him wisdom to decide whose baby
this was.
There were two babies, two women.
One died, and the one made an exchange
during the night.
Who's going to decide that?
The case came before Solomon.
Oh, you can't do that, Solomon.
Give it to her.
Solomon, with the wisdom of God, said, She's
the mother.
Fear came upon all Israel when they heard
that story.
The fear of God came on them.
Here's a man.
Yes, the wisdom of God, and they were
afraid.
I mean, they feared Solomon.
I just told that to mention that when
Solomon got old, his wives turned away his
heart.
He built temples for the gods of his
wives, and his heart became alienated from the
true God, and he began to offer up
to the idols of the heathen nations a
man who had such tremendous visitation from God.
It's almost inconceivable that such a thing could
happen.
I was told, and I haven't tried to
verify it, I was told that in witchcraft
they used some of Solomon's writings that he
wrote after he went into idolatry.
The wisdom he had became so perverted that
even false religions of this day derive their
strength from it.
I don't know it, but I was told.
For Jesus says, If the light that is
in you become darkness, how great is that
darkness?
These are awesome things.
I believe God wants to emphasize it's the
time of the revelation of our hearts, and
in our hearts being revealed, exposed to him,
exposed to him, he can deal with those
hearts.
We be not a rebellious generation, a generation
that set not their hearts aright, whose hearts
were not prepared, but we'll be part of
the continuing generation of the faithful who will
continue to impart to this generation the ways
of the Lord, the strength of the Lord,
the wisdom of the Lord, the word of
the Lord, to build it into this generation
that when we're gone, there's still a generation
that know the ways of God, and that
they must know that they must prepare their
hearts that as they minister to another generation,
that the seed of God's truth will continue
to be imparted to all succeeding generations.
But invariably there's a falling away, and it
has already come about in the church.
Two, three, four generations have not been able
to impart.
Oh, we thank God for the measure that's
there, for God always does keep his word
alive in the earth.
And I was quite encouraged in reading the
history of the church called the Pilgrim Church,
and the author pointed out that there's evidence
that all through the dark ages, what we
call the dark ages, a thousand years where
there was no light left in the earth,
there's evidence there was a strong light there.
But the persecution was so intense that they
burned everything they wrote.
So he says we don't have any records
actually of what went on, except that we
know that God had a light in the
dark ages.
God is faithful to do that.
We know he does that, but we call
it the dark ages because we have no
record of any light there hardly.
God is faithful.
So I don't care how dark this day
or how dark yesterday or the day before,
and I know that there's been a lot
of darkness creeping in in this last two
or three generations, yet in the midst of
it, God has a remnant who've always had
a vision of the upward call, always knew
there was something better, and who have been
seeking God that their hearts might be prepared,
that no matter what comes, we want the
heart to be prepared for whatever God would
do.
So it's not a case we're just looking
for revival and I want to have a
part in that revival.
If the heart isn't prepared, you're bound to
flow along in the revival, but if your
heart isn't prepared, you won't see perhaps what
God really wants to say.
The things that I'm teaching, a lot of
them, they were bringing forth in the early
days of Pentecost.
Very few heard.
They come out again in the middle of
the century.
Very few heard.
But people feel that they're in the Pentecostal
revival now because they're talking in tongues.
And so we don't have to come in
like they did at Azusa Street, you know,
falling on the floor and devastated, coming in
proud of heart and falling on the floor,
agonizing before God, and it was an unseemly
sight that was presented in many of those
early Pentecostal meetings.
Very unseemly.
As God baptized his people with the Holy
Ghost and with fire.
A friend of mine who was in a
big charismatic meeting, the leaders would say, don't
talk about being baptized with the Holy Ghost
and fire.
He says, say we received the Spirit.
So that's not quite as devastating, is it?
And don't look on the charismatic movement as
a new move of God in the 60s.
It was what God did in Pentecost and
in the middle of the century when he
began to send the rain.
Just the broadened stream of that.
And you know very well that a broadened
stream always gets more and more polluted the
further it travels through the land.
And so it has been with that movement.
We've just come to the place.
We don't want any roots with Azusa.
What's that?
God's done something in the denominations.
You received the Spirit.
Be a better Baptist and a better Episcopalian
and a better Catholic.
Keep your religion intact.
I mentioned this before, but God's out to
bring a people back to the glory of
his fire and presence.
And yet often I say God's not taking
us back.
He's taken us back to first principles.
He's taken us back to the altar.
Taken us back to the altar to take
us on.
It's always back to the altar.
And so we get away from that.
And the children of Israel always got away
from it.
And they go into darkness.
But we've been emphasizing that in every day
of darkness, in every era of darkness, God
is working, preparing for the day when once
again he will say, light, shine forth out
of the darkness.
So remember that.
I know we see the darkness.
We wonder, Lord, how long?
How long?
But God says when darkness covers the earth
and grows darkness to the people, a light
shall arise upon thee and his glory shall
be seen upon thee.
He promised that in days of darkness.
He promises that.
And so that's the story of the book
of Judges.
That they didn't completely drive out the enemy,
even though they had possession of the land,
because God says I must leave areas of
resistance so that your younger ones will learn
war.
They didn't have to learn the war of
the wilderness, but now they're in Canaan, a
different kind of war.
And every generation has a different kind of
war.
But the principle is the same.
And so therefore as God's principles of truth
are established within us, no matter what he
does, God's people are ready for it.
And so God would raise up judges.
They'd go into darkness, cry unto God, God
would bring a deliverer.
We're not going through all the judges at
this time.
We're just mentioning these things, believing, I'm assured,
that it's what God wants for this morning.
I'm not always positive, but I seek to
know his direction.
Because you all know these stories.
You all know these stories.
And I trust I'm not just telling a
story.
Because when God said let there be light,
light flooded the earth.
But God said the same thing in the
New Testament.
So it wasn't just a story that Paul
was repeating, how God spoke and said there
was light.
But he says God spoke then and said
let there be light, and God's speaking today
and saying let there be light.
We know.
We read in the Bible where God spoke
and light came into being.
I know, but if it is God's word
then, it must be God's word today or
it doesn't happen.
And so be prepared.
Just to speak God's word, you say, well,
George spoke on that yesterday.
It doesn't matter.
If God gives you the same word, speak
it again.
Speak it again and again and again.
If it's by the Spirit of God, each
time it's spoken, light will come.
Light will come.
We're not just telling you stories that you
know about, I trust.
But that God who said let there be
light, God is saying again on this day,
it's a dark day.
Once again, God is saying let there be
light.
God who commanded light to shine out of
darkness, to shine in our hearts, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So it's a different day.
It's not now to bring light to this
old world.
It's that we speaking let there be light.
There'll be a shining forth of the light
that glows from the face of Jesus.
It's a higher dimension.
For in every new moving of God, there's
a higher dimension of what he did before.
A higher plane.
It's not just the same old thing all
over again.
It might look like that.
The darkness settles in and God speaks again.
But it's not to bring us back to
something that they had there in the wilderness.
They're in Cana now.
It's a different day.
Remember that.
Because when the new day comes, people are
inclined to not...
I can't accept that.
Because it's not like I knew.
I was brought up in Methodism.
So I'm not speaking personally.
I'm just saying what men say.
I saw the power of God in Methodism
and I can't go for this thing that's
going on now.
Because it's in a new dimension.
But you say if they saw what God
was doing in the days of Methodism, when
Pentecost came along, why didn't they see that?
Weren't they hungry for God?
Wasn't God moving in a mighty way in
those old days of Methodism?
He certainly was.
Well then, why don't they see what God
is doing now when God is pouring out
his Spirit and there's tongues and prophecy and
the fire of God moving?
Because their hearts were not prepared.
They were clinging to some old experience that
they had which was good, wonderful.
But they wanted God to repeat that.
If God would repeat that, I'll go along
with it.
And there are many, many Christians in the
different churches today who would go along with
a certain move of God if it was
like the one that we got a hundred
years ago or two hundred years ago.
At least they say they would.
But if they would truly, if it is
true what they say, that they would go
along with it if it is Luther doing
it.
I'm a Lutheran.
If Luther was here, I'd receive it.
I can't receive this nonsense you people are
in.
But if Wesley was here, then I'd go
along with Wesley.
They wouldn't.
Because Jesus said to the people, he said,
we know about Moses.
We're absolutely convinced that Moses was the man
of God.
And we can't deny that.
We know that God used Moses.
So let's be content with that.
As for this man, it doesn't line up
with what Moses taught.
But Jesus said, if you believe Moses, you'd
have to believe me.
Because he wrote of me.
And in whatever God does, in any move
of God, God plants seeds of truth that
he will yet unfold in another move of
God.
It's there.
I know I've said these things before, even
here, but the rain comes down from heaven
today and tomorrow.
And God's intention is that every time it
comes, though it's the same old rain every,
God's intention is that it will do a
new work in our hearts.
And so while they were singing those beautiful
psalms, and we're singing some very beautiful songs,
they didn't know what they were singing.
Because they were singing about something that God
wanted to do.
But at the time, when the psalm was
presented by the prophets, sacrifice and offering thou
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
for me.
David sang a song, Lord, thou delightest not
in burnt offerings.
You don't delight in it, Lord.
While they were singing those, they were slaying
sheep and oxen and goats by the hundred,
and blood was flowing on those altars while
they were singing it.
God's not delighting in that.
God has no delight in that.
God isn't delighting in that.
And they were carrying on with it.
And I believe rightly so.
Because maybe the prophet himself didn't understand why
he was saying it.
And maybe the people heard it, but the
music was so good.
They never stopped to let the words of
the music penetrate their hearts.
That can happen, you know.
You don't delight in sacrifice anymore.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
A broken and a contrite heart, O God,
thou wilt not despise.
That's what God was after.
He was always after that.
He was after that then.
But in God's purposes, the people were right
in the place where they should be.
That thing that God would do in the
course of time.
Nevertheless, I don't want to go into this
at great length right now.
Nevertheless, if God sends forth the word, it's
not just something, well, I guess I've got
to wait for a hundred years.
God gives space, you can begin to enter
into it right then when God gives it.
David did.
We make much of him dancing before the
Lord, clothed with a linen ephod.
But he was doing something that only priests
would do.
He was a king.
His wife despised him in his heart.
Not because he was dancing, but because he
put off the garb of royalty and put
on priestly garments.
A great king in Israel, clothed in the
homo garments of a priest.
As David was beginning to enter into priestly
ministry, back there in the Old Testament, when
no king dared enter into priestly ministry.
Uzziah tried it and was smitten with leprosy
the rest of his life.
Why did God make a difference?
He didn't really.
He wants all people to be priests unto
him.
He wanted all Israel to be priests unto
him.
Because of the hardness of their heart, they
couldn't enter in.
So God made a priestly tribe.
But David had a priestly heart.
He couldn't help it.
He just entered in to priestly ministry.
When the Ark of the Covenant came back,
it wasn't to revive that old Catholic church
or that old Episcopalian church or that old
Presbyterian church or that old Pentecostal church, the
Tabernacle of Moses, David pitched a tent right
there at home and put the Ark in
there.
So that he could go in like a
priest and sit before the Lord in the
old Tabernacle of Mount Gibeon.
He never saw that Ark again.
God continued to bless it.
God sent a priest up there to bless
them, to offer the sacrifices.
A man by the name of Zadok sent
him up to Gibeon to minister to the
people there.
I know God is faithful in blessing all
denominations, the people in it, I should say.
It doesn't mean that God is pleased with
the denominational structure.
He wants a habitation for himself in the
hearts of his people.
He's looking for that habitation for himself, not
in the glory of the old temples, the
old tabernacles.
David prepared just a tent and that became
the house of God to him.
And there he could go in and talk
to God.
He became a priest.
He became a New Testament believer, way back
there in the Old Testament.
So here, once again, Israel was in great
bondage and we're just going to deal a
little with Judges 7.
He had raised up judge after judge.
And it says, as long as God raised
up a judge, a man from God, in
other words, who knew how to judge righteously
and had the power of God to do
it, somehow the people of God rallied and
God kept the people from their idolatry in
the days of the judge.
But when the judge died, they soon slipped
back into the old ways.
And that went on and on, all through
the period of the judges.
But God was preferring something better, that there
was no king in Israel.
Every man did that which seemed good in
his own eyesight.
And things got pretty dark when a judge
had died and God waited for a certain
length of time.
God would wait sometimes too long, it would
seem.
Things got pretty dark, but God was always
faithful to do a new thing because light
shines out of darkness.
We wonder why God would take so long.
But it says, God waits that he desires
a people to be seeking him.
When the answer isn't coming, it's then that
God wants a people who will learn patience
and continue to believe in God.
The Midianites were threatening Israel, coming up and
taking their cross.
Harvest time comes.
Looking forward all spring and summer for harvest
time.
It's here, the Midianites come up and take
it.
Isn't that the way it is?
Expecting, looking, anticipating, the fruit coming forth in
the midst of God's people, sudden devastation.
Those times of devastation can do one of
two things.
Turn our hearts against God and into bitterness,
or cause us to seek him more earnestly.
For that's how God proves the heart.
He doesn't just prove the heart by answering
your prayers.
He proves the heart sometimes by not answering
your prayers.
To test you if in that time you're
going to say, alright God, you don't want
to hear me?
Fine, goodbye.
Or to say, Lord you haven't heard me,
I'm going to cry louder.
I'm not going to give up.
I will not rest.
I'm going to draw closer to you.
You think you're driving me away from you?
The more you chastise, the closer I will
come to you.
I had one little daughter that some of
them it was a challenge to beat them
because legs were flying and hands were flying.
You say you beat your kids?
Yes, in a fatherly way.
I want them to feel it.
The reason we got all the rebellion in
the land these days is because you can't
correct your kids.
They don't know it.
Because there's all these perverse men going around
and abusing their wives and abusing their kids,
and so you can't spank a kid.
And they grew up, the chances are, I'll
guarantee 99 of those kids out of 100
grew up having their own way.
Until they become violent and ugly and mean.
And so no, we can't have any spanking,
of course, because they might become abusive, you
see.
And so you see, what's the hope for
a society?
None but judgment.
God called Gideon to deliver the nation in
the time of their great trouble.
And the Lord appeared to him and he
was threshing grain in the winepress.
Because if he was in the winepress, they'd
never find him.
Because there's no grapes coming in for another
two or three months, you know, whatever.
And so they wouldn't look here.
So he's hiding.
He was hiding from the enemy.
And the angel of the Lord appeared and
said, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty
man of valor.
Mighty man of valor.
And here he is, hiding from the enemy
in the winepress.
And he says, If the Lord be with
us, why then is all this befalling us?
And where are all the miracles which our
fathers told us of, saying, Did not the
Lord bring us out of Egypt?
And so forth.
But the Lord's forsaken us and delivered us
into the hands of the Midianites.
And the Lord looked upon him and said,
Go in this thy might, and thou shalt
save Israel from the hands of the Midianites.
And not I sent thee?
Go in this thy might, thou mighty man
of valor.
It baffled him.
I'm the poorest in Manasseh, I'm the least
in my father's house, and you call me
a mighty man of valor?
He says, You go and you'll smite the
Midianites as one man.
We've got, God's preparing a mighty army.
Just as Gideon was a mighty man.
Because God saw that he could use a
man who was poorest in Manasseh, poorest in
his father's house.
We can help us.
Hiding from the enemy, God says, Go in
this thy might.
We all have to learn, and we're all
still learning.
And God is going to make every one
of you who have vision, zeal, to serve
the Lord.
Come to the place where he weakens your
strength.
Where he dries up your strength.
I don't say, it's got to take 50
years.
You can do it, I suppose, in a
month or a week.
I don't know.
But he must weaken our strength.
And God chooses those whose strength has been
weakened.
Whether it is Moses, who said, I can't,
Lord.
I can hardly talk.
I can hardly express what I have to
say.
And Lord, choose anybody else but me.
So that those whom God chooses as leaders
are not those out following an Adonijah, who
think if I follow Adonijah, he's declared himself
king.
And it looks like he's going to make
it.
I better get in there.
God's men and women are not opportunists.
Looking for a place of advancement, success.
There are people whom God has devastated.
To the place where they know in their
heart, I can't do it.
And God says, I found a mighty man
of valor.
He wrestled with Jacob till the break of
day.
I used to wonder, why couldn't God have
defeated poor Jacob before then?
Because it wasn't Jacob that attacked the angels.
It was the angel that attacked Jacob, that
wrestled a man with Jacob.
He came on the scene.
He started to attack and wrestle.
Because in our wrestlings with God, sure, he
could put us out of commission very quickly.
But he wants to change.
He wanted to change Jacob.
He didn't want to destroy him.
And so, till the break of the day,
Jacob struggled and struggled.
And finally, the angel touched him in the
place of his strength and crippled him.
He says, God is changing your name.
No longer will it be Jacob the supplanter,
the crook, the conniver, the schemer.
Israel shall your name be, Prince of God.
When God is able to defeat you, then
he can say, rise up now.
Go on your way, but you'll never walk
the same again.
He walked as a cripple, but his name
became Israel.
Now, has he seen the face of God?
No longer the bargainer like he was 20
years before.
God now, I thank you for this vision
of the house of God.
He'll bless me.
He'll look after me.
He'll give me food to eat.
He'll provide everything I need.
I'll give you the tent.
God did bless him.
I'm sure he kept his word, but no
longer was he bargaining with God.
He's seen the face of God.
He was crippled.
As far as his own strength was concerned.
But now, God says, you'll have power with.
Because you have power with God, you'll have
power with men.
Power with God?
In being weakened, he received power with God.
And because God put a new name upon
him, he would have power with men.
Anyway, Gideon built an altar there unto the
Lord.
As he was confirming the commission God had
given him, he built an altar unto the
Lord.
He called it Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah of Peace.
And the Lord said to him, I want
you to throw down the altar of Baal.
That's been brought forth here.
It's brought forth a few days ago.
God wants an altar from his people.
And since that day, I'm thinking a little
upon the altar of God.
Just what it is that God requires of
each one of us to rebuild that altar.
And I think we should all think along
that line of building the altar of God.
But I noticed in this story that before
he could build the altar of the Lord,
he had to throw down the altar of
Baal.
Though that is not the case of two
altars.
Yeah, we got those altars of our own,
but God wants an altar, so I'll prepare
him an altar.
It's going to take the casting down of
the altars of Baal before we can truly
make a sacrifice acceptable unto him.
And in fact, they're so intertwined that the
one becomes the other.
Two days ago, I was reading Leviticus chapter
1 concerning the burnt offering.
How that the sacrifice that was brought, it
had to be cut in pieces and all
the pieces exposed to the Lord.
Then the priest would take wood and lay
it on the altar and take the pieces
and lay it on the wood.
So that the wood became the fuel that
would cause the sacrifice to burn.
The wood would become the fuel.
Then as I read this this morning, I
saw that as they built the altar unto
the Lord, they had to take the wood
of the idols of Baal to burn the
sacrifice of the Lord.
The grove, it says, the Asherah, which is
part of Baal worship.
And build an altar unto the Lord, thy
God upon the top of this rock in
the ordered place and take the second bullet
and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood
of the grove, which thou shall cut down.
Cut down that altar, make that to be
fuel for your altar.
So may God continue to give us a
little understanding in this.
It's not just a case, Lord, I erect
my altar this morning and I lay myself
on it.
And I know God sees the desire of
our hearts and he will show us where
to get the fuel.
And I don't know.
I don't know what it is in your
life.
I'm not sure if I know what it
is in mine.
But there's that in our life that we
have to use in order to offer a
sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing unto him.
He tells us clearly in one way, and
in another way perhaps we don't know the
specifics of what's involved.
But he tells us to be not conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of our mind that we might prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.
So he tells us that we are to
present ourselves, present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable unto him, which is your
reasonable service.
And so though, you know, we might, there
might be some things that we have or
something that we're desiring or some ambition we
have that could be the fuel.
But in the ultimate, it's laying ourselves on
the altar.
But then God might say, you really mean
it?
You're laying yourself on the altar?
Yes, well then, okay, give me this and
this and this.
God doesn't want it for himself.
He wants it as fuel for the fire.
And he's testing your heart.
Are you willing to lay this on the
altar?
You know, he's just testing your heart.
He just wants you.
That's all he wants.
Your business, your job, your desire for ministry,
your zeal for ministry.
Oh, but you say that, that couldn't be
it, because after all, I would be doing
that for God, totally for God.
Maybe so.