We've been talking for a few sessions on
new beginnings, because God has many new beginnings
in the Scripture, but from each one I
believe we can learn much, not only by
way of learning but by way of preparation.
And I trust we all recognize that it
isn't just in the knowledge of it, of
what God is going to do, but in
the seeking-to-walk in it, that God
might prepare our hearts, it's only in that
that the knowledge God gives will be of
any value.
I use the expression, God wants to translate
the knowledge we have into living truth.
And I believe that's right.
He tells us things, not, well, there's areas
there that I don't know and I'd like
to know about, but he only tells us
the part, in fact, a very small part.
We know in part, and it's not that
we lack a little in knowledge, it's that
we only know a little.
And he shows us what we need to
know, that we might have vision and expectations
and hope and press on towards the goal.
And it amazes me that the Apostle Paul,
having traveled through some of these same countries
that we're talking about today, and I'm not
just sure Bulgaria was a part of it
or not, but traveled through those countries, lit
a fire and went on, because that's God's
way.
Not that you just have to stay there
50 years to establish a church, but when
God is in charge, the light has sparked,
and he could go on and come back,
and here was a church that needed to
be further established in the things of God.
Those things are tremendous, and we can't help
but rejoice in what God is doing in
these countries.
But after, I never did find out exactly,
maybe 20 or 25 years of that, he
says to the Philippians, I want to know
God, and I might know him in the
power of his resurrection and the fellowship of
his sufferings.
Paul, didn't you know him?
If I just knew God one-tenth the
way you know him, I'd settle for it,
wouldn't you?
He says, I want to know God, and
I want to know the fellowship of his
sufferings and the power of his resurrection.
And so every time God moves afresh, it's
so tremendous, so wonderful, so glorious, it never
drops into our heart unless God by his
Spirit makes it real to us.
It's just the beginning.
God has much more.
God has things that I hath not seen
nor e'er heard, which have not entered
into the heart of man.
He's prepared for those that love him.
And unto us, Paul says, God hath revealed
them by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the depths of God.
And so, whenever God moves in a new
way, right in the victory song of the
new thing God is doing, he plants the
seed of a new working that God wants
to do, plants the seed of a new
working in the very victory song of what
he's doing today.
There are the seeds of truth that God
has implanted for still another working.
We find it all through the scriptures.
So they come out of Egypt, all with
a mighty hand of God.
We talked a little bit about it.
God was bringing them into something, but to
bring them in, he had to bring them
out.
I bring you out to bring you in.
Let's never forget that.
And as he brought them out, the joy
of it, the victory of it, Miriam took
a tambourine and led the ladies in dances
before the Lord, the horse and his rider,
being thrown into the sea.
One of Moses' songs, then sang Moses and
the children of Israel this song, Exodus 15.
But right in that beautiful psalm of victory,
there are seeds of God's intention of what
he's really trying to do.
It wasn't all in that.
God wanted to do something else.
Exodus 15, verse 2, I will prepare him
a habitation.
Oh, yes, I know, but forget that.
God has destroyed Pharaoh and the Red Sea.
Right, we've got to rejoice in everything God
has done.
Paul said, writing to the Hebrews, I fear,
lest the promise being left us of entering
into his rest, any of you should come
short of it.
Without going into that in any great detail,
just catch what Paul is saying, let's not
fall short of God's intention.
God helps that we will not fall short
of it, because they received a message that
in God's intention was designed to lead them
not just out of Egypt, where they were
now, in singing the victory song, but would
lead them into a prepared place in God,
a prepared place.
I will prepare him a habitation.
Verse 13, Thou in thy mercy hast led
forth the people which thou hast redeemed, thou
hast guided them in thy strength unto thy
holy habitation.
God wants to lead us into his holy
habitation, where God dwells in us, not just
is in us, dwells, lives there, that's his
home.
God wants to make you people his home,
where he shall go no more out, where
we shall go no more out.
Verse 17, Thou shalt bring them in, and
plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance,
in the place which thou hast made for
thee to dwell in.
God wants to bring us to a place
where God is dwelling, and dwell in him
in that place.
In the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands
have established.
And so, if God gives us the right
spirit, his desire is that every time we
see something new in God, a new place,
a new beginning, a new start, that he
would open our eyes to see what is
he saying about what's coming next.
Oh, you say, forget that, this is good
enough.
I'll tell you why it's not good enough.
Because God says, I can't rest till I
find a habitation.
Oh, you say, God doesn't need a habitation,
he dwells in the heaven of heavens.
God could never find a home in the
universe he made, could never find it.
Thus saith the high and lofty one, and
inhabiteth eternity, I know he does.
I dwell also in the high and holy
place, but with him who is poor in
contrite, to revive the spirit of the humble
and to revive the heart of the contrite
one.
God says, I dwell there.
And to Israel he said, Where is the
place that you build unto me?
Where is the place that I might find
a rest?
Because we get the notion so often that
God is finding his rest in something that
he's already done, something that we're doing, that
God is finally delighted in it.
God says, Build me a house.
We talk much about building God's church, and
God's building his church in the earth, and
he uses his people to be co-neighbors
together with him, and all that's very wonderful.
But we must beware lest we think that
we're building a church to present to God,
because when we get that attitude, like the
Israelites had, We built this temple for you,
Lord, aren't you happy about it?
God says, Where is the place of my
rest, if not my hands made all these
things?
I made it all, you said, you didn't
do it.
But to this man will I look, even
to him that is poor and of a
contrite spirit and that trembles at my word.
And so he brings us back to that,
he dwells with the humble, he dwells with
the contrite.
And why?
Why God?
Because God will not give his glory to
another.
Contrite means, look it up in Dr. Strong's,
bruised, broken, broken so much that he's useless,
smashed.
Why does God want to dwell there?
Because unless he breaks the vessel that we've
been preparing for him, he cannot be glorified
until he smashes it and brings forth a
new creation for his own glory, for God
will not give his glory to another.
Let me thank the Lord for every mighty
working of God, every victory of man.
A new day had come, they'd crossed over,
they'd been delivered from Egypt.
But even as they do that, they're reminded,
God is guiding you to his holy habitation.
He's going to bring you in and plant
you in the mountain of his inheritance and
the place which he made for us to
dwell in and the place that he made
for himself to dwell in.
And so the story is, out of Egypt
and into Canaan, that's what God wants, not
just out of, but into.
But it had to be through a wilderness,
which he didn't tell them about too much,
because he had to take them through there
to prepare them for Canaan.
They never did understand, they never did understand
why God would have taken them through the
wilderness when he promised them to bring them
into Canaan.
He promised Canaan, he brings them to a
wilderness.
How devastated we've been at times when we
saw the promises of God and embraced them,
and the first thing you know, we're in
a wilderness.
You get a little foretaste of it, even
in the wilderness, you get the foretaste of
the land, because God is faithful to give
us a little taste of it so that
we know what it's all about.
So they bring back the grapes and we
taste it, and we know it must be
good, and we hear the report, yes, it's
a land flowing with milk and honey, but
somehow we can't learn to so walk with
God and to so partake of that heavenly
manna that we come to know God's ways.
So that to the people of God who
came out of Egypt and sang the victory
song and danced before the Lord because of
the victory he had given to them, he
said, these people have not known my ways,
and I was grieved with them for 40
years, and I swear in my wrath they
shall not enter into my habitation.
That's this frightening thing that God, the God
who blessed a nation as he's never blessed
any nation on the face of the earth
with his abiding presence hovering over them by
day and by night, feeding them with manna
faithfully every day, a food that had every
ingredient in heaven that was needed to make
them to be healthy and strong and vital,
something we don't know today in the Church.
Bless them, give them water over the rock,
the abiding presence of God over their tabernacle.
Not once, if it happens once on this
continent, it becomes a matter of something we
can write about and we remember it for
50 years.
It happened up in Canada at a convention
they used to have about 60 or 70
years ago, the glory cloud of the abiding
presence over the tabernacle.
People coming with their horses and buggies, they
say, there it is, there's God's presence abiding
over the tabernacle, and it's something that you'll
remember, something that happened once and that happened
to Israel for 40 years, day and night,
and God says, they have not known my
ways or not my heart's been grieved with
them, and I swear my wrath they can't
enter into my rest.
What does God want?
He wants a place to live in, and
he can't find it in the heavens and
he can't find it in the churches.
So he's building a church, he's building a
habitation for himself, and that's the Canaan.
We can't get there until he deals with
the old life, and that's what the wilderness
is.
When God was trying to deal with our
old life so they could come into Canaan,
they blamed God for it.
And God was leading them through the wilderness
merely to reveal to them the state of
their own heart.
So they'd no sooner come out of Egypt,
and the beautiful song of victory that must
have thrilled them, to see a million people
there or more, maybe three or four million
rejoicing of the victory God gave them for
their enemies, and talk about dancing before the
Lord.
And a few days later, God led them
to Marah, and they were thirsty, they had
nothing to drink, because they'd gone three days
without anything to drink, and they saw the
pool and they ran to it and looked
down and took of it and drank, and
just bitter they couldn't drink of it, and
called it Marah, bitter, bitter waters, and to
the victory song.
Three days later.
Why wouldn't they blame God?
How could you help but blame God when
they're famishing and he leads them to bitter
waters because they didn't know his ways, they
didn't understand, it never penetrated their hearts that
the God who opened up the Red Sea
was able to make every bitter experience to
be in his will.
They didn't know that that pool of Marah
was God saying, this is what you're like,
you're born in bitterness, you walk in bitterness,
you're filled with it, this is what you're
like, taste it and see what you're like.
The first thing they'd see, because it wasn't
a running stream, it was a pool, the
first thing they would see is their own
face.
God was showing them themselves, and they drank
of it and it made them embittered, trying
to drink fountains out of the bitterness of
their own hearts.
Moses was baffled, I guess, but he looked
around for God's direction, God showed him a
tree up there in the banks, cut it
down, threw it into the waters, and he
did, and the waters were sweet, and they
drank thereof and were refreshed.
I mean, all through the wilderness, and there
were 41 different stopping places before they got
to this one.
We can't go into all that today.
All through, God was revealing to them the
inherent bitterness, sin, corruption of their own life.
What for?
That in this wilderness which we are, God
might plant his garden, that the wilderness in
this solitary place would blossom as the rose,
that we are that wilderness, and they didn't
understand that.
We are the wilderness, because it's here that
God wants to live, it's here that God
wants to build his sanctuary.
This is the place that you have ordained,
O Lord, as a place for thee to
dwell in.
This is the only place.
He couldn't find anything else, because he didn't
make anything else that was compatible with him.
He made a man in his image.
He made a man to be his image
in the earth.
What about other planets?
I don't know, but the totality of God's
eternal purposes are to be found in the
man that he made in his image.
There is no other place, and I know
it's in this human family.
I know that because Jesus came into this
human family, not taking on him the likeness
of angels or other celestial hosts.
If there are, you know, who knows?
But our Lord Jesus came into this humanity,
he became an atom, that in this last
atom God might restore that image that he
might finally have found for himself this habitation
that he never did find in any degree
of fullness before, even though in the first
atom he had a foretaste of it.
God never gives up on his vision, his
dream, his plan, his purpose.
You and I can.
You can call it far-out things, if
you like.
I know it's far-out, things that I
haven't dreamt of, I haven't thought of, I
haven't heard of.
Paul says, God's prepared for those that love
him, and so he led them on, and
he showed them the tree at Manah that
made the bitter waters sweet.
And so, what's your complaint?
What's your bitterness?
What's the thing that's bothered you?
I sense that, with most of you at
least, I'm sure that God has made every
bitter thing sweet.
If he hasn't, find the tree.
It's always there in the banks of Manah,
it's always there.
It's the cost, I know, but you have
to find that application of the cost in
your life for any bitterness that you discover
in your own life.
Now, we just touched on this morning, but
God is leading them on, on and on,
to another beginning.
I wish you could realize that this is
a journey, there's nothing new, I'm saved, baptized
with the Holy Ghost, I speak in tongues
and prophesy, there's nothing new.
And settle down, it's a journey.
And the New Testament Church, before they coined
phrases to describe something that God does, and
when the New Testament Church got walking with
God, it was called the way, this way.
They didn't know anything about the way.
I used to wonder about that until I
realized it is a way, we're on a
journey, we're not to be stagnant, we're not
to settle down.
Thank him for every good thing he does,
every blessing he gives, every victory he gives
us, but it's a way.
And all along the way, there are new
experiences that pose trials, perplexities, problems.
So they arise from Manah, having had their
thirst quenched with fresh water, and God says,
is this to say, don't you know what
I'm teaching you?
If you will walk in my ways and
obey my statutes, serve me, I will lay
upon you none of the diseases that I
have laid upon the Egyptians, for I am
the Lord that healeth thee.
God is saying that having rooted out all
the bitterness of the old life, as we
begin to walk in covenant union in relationship
with him, he is going to fulfill the
promise that his church will walk in physical
as well as in spiritual health.
After I wrote the Feast of Tabernacles, I
went through a wilderness of my own, because
God was revealing those things, even while the
rest, by and large, the majority of Latter
-day Churches were caught up with the gifts
of the Spirit and healings and prophecies and
mighty movings of God, and there were missionary
outreaches and going to nations, and it became
a worldwide movement.
But even at the beginning, God said, the
reason I'm restoring my gifts of the Spirit
to the church is that I may prepare
that church, that I will make of them
one body to prepare me for my appearing.
God never lost that vision, though the majority
of the people in what became known as
Latter-day Church did.
God is moving, it's raining, it's raining, it's
raining, and healing evangelists didn't come out of
that movement.
But God raised up great healing evangelists.
At that same time, God was pouring out
his Spirit all over this continent in one
way or another.
We had 8, 10, 12 great healing evangelists
with their big tents, filling them with people,
not only to be healed, but to see
the mighty works of God that he was
doing in others.
It went on maybe ten years, and then
they all folded up.
We wonder why.
It's because God cannot let his people rest,
nor will he rest until he finds the
desire of his heart.
And that's a people walking in total harmony
and union with him, where we dwell in
God and God dwells in us.
That's his desire, he won't forsake it.
And if we forsake the vision, God just
leaves us, that's all.
Having done great things and giving us victory
over Pharaoh and sweetening the waters at Marah
and all that, God must have a prepared
people to go into this prepared place.
So after the death of Moses, the servant
of the Lord, it came to pass that
the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of
Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is
dead, now therefore arise.
Oh, they lamented over the death of Moses.
We always lament over the end of a
past era.
But we shouldn't if we know God's ways,
because when God does a mighty thing through
his people in the very thing that he
is doing, he sows the seeds of what
he would do next.
God intends that that will be our vision
then.
Oh, how people lamented when Ladder Rain petered
down.
I don't think it lasted too long.
In my own experience, I felt that maybe
two or three years, the impact of it
bothered me, troubled me.
Not only that, but God was closing down
the healing ministries.
It flourished there for 8 or 10 years,
and it seemed to be petering out as
well.
I'd even take a book off my shelf
sometimes and read it to get a little
encouragement.
It was a book called The Feast of
Tabernacles.
But I thought, why did I write that
anyway?
I remember two or three times taking it
down and reading it, why did I write
that?
Nobody wants to read that.
It lay around for 2,000 copies that
were printed originally, I think it took about
10 years.
But it's been encouraging these days to run
across people who read it then when I
was in a wilderness and got help from
it, and got out of their wilderness.
So I'm assured that the vision is right.
God hasn't forsaken his vision.
He won't settle for something less just because
you and I are quick to do it.
He will not rest until he establishes, until
he makes Jerusalem a place on the earth,
until the salvation goes forth as the shining,
brilliant light.
That's what God said.
And because he said that, he shares the
burden of his heart with his people.
And in Isaiah 62 he calls them watchmen
that he set on the walls.
And watchmen have various duties.
One was to warn the enemy, warn the
people of God of the approaching enemy.
I know that.
But another purpose of the watchman is to
cry unto God day and night and to
give God no rest until he establishes and
until he makes Jerusalem a place on the
earth.
Because that's God's vision, and therefore he puts
that vision on the hearts of his people,
his watchmen, not everybody.
But those whom he calls watchmen on the
walls, I have set watchmen upon thy walls,
O Jerusalem, who shall not hold their peace
day or night, ye that make mention of
the Lord, keep not silence and give him
no rest until he establishes, until he makes
Jerusalem a place on the earth.
God declared that was his vision in verse
1 and 2.
He says, This is my vision.
I can't rest until it happens.
So he needs helpers.
We call them intercessors, or people who come
into union with God.
Because we come into the yoke of Christ,
we carry the same burden that he carries.
He carries the main load, I know, but
if we're in his yoke, we'll feel the
burden of his heart.
And remember that.
You can only carry a burden that's of
the Lord as you get in his yoke.
Others will try to lay yokes upon you,
because they feel that's their yoke.
If it is, that's good.
But God has a burden for you as
you come into his harness, and it'll be
the burden of God's heart for you very
individually.
And so you don't shrug that off because
you like what somebody else is doing.
It looks more appealing, it looks more wonderful,
there seems to be more success in it.
You have to bear the yoke that God
has laid upon you, whether it be a
sower of the seed, a plowman and a
sower, or one who waters it, or one
who goes and reaps the harvest.
You want to be one who reaps the
harvest.
I always did.
I never wanted to sow seed, I wanted
to be an evangelist.
But it's not of my choosing.
Why did I want to be an evangelist?
Because I was brought up in Pentecost, and
the only man that was really doing anything
effectual for God was the evangelist.
Teachers, you'd hear them say, I remember once,
they didn't know I was listening, but, yeah,
I think George would be a teacher, I
don't think he'd be an evangelist.
Boy, you know, you urk under that, teacher,
because in those days I never sat under
a vital teacher of the gospel, go through
studies and dry, and I don't want to
be that, Lord.
I want to see signs and wonders and
miracles, and I want to see souls come
in.
I still want to see that, but I'm
a member of a body, and it's happening.
It's happening in the body of Christ, in
measure, but let's not settle for it yet.
When can we settle?
We can't settle for it until God settles.
And God says, this is what I've been
looking for, this has been the dream of
my heart, a holy bride without spot or
blemish or any such thing will be presented
unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and she's going
to come to that place.
I always want to remind people, because they've
always got this crazy notion that we just
live in sin and imperfection down here, and
then we're translated suddenly, we're the beautiful bride
of Christ.
It's by the washing of the water, by
the Word, that he's going to prepare this
holy bride.
Moses, my servant, is dead.
Don't look back now.
Moses was faithful.
That's good, and we're glad he was faithful.
Because he was faithful, Joshua learned the ways
of the Lord as he walked with Moses.
But he says, now Moses is dead.
Go into the land now and take it.
God had prepared it.
He called it his land.
His eyes are upon it day and night.
How be it?
There are in that land abominable nations that
God says you've got to subdue, seven abominable
nations.
God says, it's your land and it's a
prepared place, so you don't have to go
in and build the houses.
You don't have to go in and plant
the vineyards.
You don't have to go in there and
irrigate the land with your foot, like they
used to do in Egypt.
They had sort of a crude irrigation system
and a pump that they had made that
they had to pump away there with their
foot to get a little trickle of water
out of the Nile, because God was going
to have streams flowing in that place.
But we like the old pump better, don't
we?
Pump away, try and get a little trickle
of water.
Thank God for the little trickle of water,
but pumping away until you're weary.
God says the rivers are flowing, the houses
are built, the fruit trees are yielding fruit.
It's all prepared.
You just have to go in and confront
these enemies, and God will put the fear
of God upon them so that they'll yield
readily.
They'll be terrified at your presence.
The thing that ran through my mind this
morning, as I heard these tremendous testimonies of
God's mighty working in Bulgaria, is that God
used the communist system of 40 years to
prepare this land.
It's a prepared place.
And then the fearful thought came to me,
God, how long must we know hardship and
devastation and trouble in this land before we'll
be a prepared people?
Forty years?
I don't think so, because I know God
can do a quick work in the land.
But your country or mine are not ready
to receive the fearful brethren that went to
Bulgaria and to see the same things happening
amongst them as happened there.
They were prepared through persecution.
And while the Church sends delegations to Washington
or to Ottawa, do something about human rights
in these countries, because the Church is persecuted.
Do something about it over there.
And I was told, as for a fact,
they're praying, God, do something about America by
way of persecution and hardship that they might
come to know you.
I've only been off the continent once and
went to Kenya.
One man told me that God was going
to send him to America.
I think he was itching to come.
I tried to discourage him on it, to
know for sure God's timing.
But he said God showed him that he
was going to send lights from Africa to
dark America.
We used to talk about sending a light
from America to dark Africa.
And that's his vision.
He's anxious to get over here, but I
don't think he was really ready, and I
don't think America's ready yet.
But you're going to see it, I believe.
Missionaries come to this land.
You say, we don't need it, we've got
all kinds of Bibles.
I know you have all that, but you're
not a prepared people yet.
And these people don't have the Bibles and
the understanding and the knowledge, but it's a
prepared land, prepared by persecution, prepared by an
evil system.
You say, how can that be?
The land that was flowing with milk and
honey, cultivated, gardens planted, houses built, was done
by people who hated God.
The seven abominable nations of Canaan.
They don't get any credit for that.
Because of their wicked and abominable deeds, God
wiped them out.
Nevertheless, he used them in the meantime.
God always uses the devil, you know, to
fulfill his purposes at times.
And God never gives the devil credit for
it.
Because the devil is out to subdue and
to destroy and to defeat and to conquer,
we know that.
But God, and it's all in the cross,
it's all in the teaching of the cross,
God revealed to us the glory of your
cross, that here was a man defeated in
the natural, in the appearance, devastated, persecuted, harassed,
slain by the enemy, by Satan.
Satan not knowing that what he was doing
out of the blindness and darkness of his
soul, God was working it into his purpose
that he might be our Redeemer.
And that in his crucifixion, he was literally,
though being crucified by the wise of this
world who didn't know God, in God's purposes,
he was destroying these principalities and powers, making
a show of them openly, triumphing over them
in his cross.
Not long ago, that Jesus was defeated on
the cross, that that was defeat, it was
his resurrection that was victory.
I hope that he was just using terminology
that wasn't quite correct.
It appeared to be defeat.
But the cross, and not the resurrection, it
was the cross where he destroyed Satan.
Because just as we, well, I think I
digress a little again, but it wasn't a
case of Jesus saying, I must go to
a cross and, oh, Father, you'll have to
arrange somehow that people will crucify me because
I must die for my people.
He was the light shining into the world.
He was God revealed in the flesh.
He was truth.
He was the very expression of the heart
of God.
Nothing that was in God was lacking in
Jesus, and yet he came as a man
that it wouldn't be something, that deity wouldn't
be something in the realm of which he
would walk.
He would be secluded in his humanity and
he would live as a man in total
dependence on the Father, doing nothing because I'm
God in the flesh, but because I'm a
man in whom the Father can live and
move and direct and to whom I must
be totally obedient.
So that he did what he did on
earth as a man, and that's tremendous, because
I know in my early days it always
seemed to me he was half God, half
man, and so when he needed to be
God, he stepped into his deity and walked
in the water or turned water into wine
or said, peace be still, because he was
half God and half man, until I realized
he was totally man as well as totally
God, but his deity poured into humanity, making
him weak.
God taking on flesh, making him weak, humbled,
emptied himself in the original, emptied himself, becoming
weak, becoming poor.
In that state of humanity, weak humanity, but
perfect, without sin, in that humble state, God
could show forth his glory and his power,
that he would be a servant, he would
be a doer.
When I saw that, then I realized he
is my example.
He is my example.
But you say, yeah, but he has sin,
he has no sin, we have sin.
And that's why he comes to bring us
redemption.
He who had no sin became our perfect
sin offering, he had to be without sin,
just as that lamb had to be without
blemish, that he could be our sin offering,
that we could come away from that embracing
of the cross that our sins dealt with,
so that now he is bringing us up
to his level as an Adam free from
sin.
So now we're on his level, if you
understand what I mean.
As far as nature is concerned, he's always
our Lord and Master.
But because he took not on him the
nature of angels, but took on him the
seed of Abraham, and was in all points
made like unto man, and tempted in all
points, sin accepted.
He's not ashamed to call us his brethren,
saying, Behold, I am the children whom thou
hast given me.
I just emphasize that, because now he's our
example, because he dealt with our sin, and
he's our example.
And so Paul was able to say, Let
this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus, who being in the form
of God, did not consider equality with God
something he should strive after, but emptied himself
and was made in the form of man.
And being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself still further.
To become incarnate was a great step of
humiliation for Almighty God, just to take upon
himself human flesh, because that made him weak.
It made him finite.
It brought him into the realm of need.
He hungered, he thirsted, he grew weary, he
got tired.
That was humility, just to become a man.
But he didn't become a king or a
prince.
He became a doulos, a bond slave.
He took the lowest place in the world
by reason of the fact he became a
man and laid aside that glory and became
a doulos, and faithfully in the realm of
humanity as a slave, as a bond slave,
he did the will of God.
It became his total delight and God was
well pleased and exalted him to the highest
throne in the universe.
Paul says, have that same mind that was
in Christ that caused him to go that
route.
Humble ourselves.
Take the place of a servant, one who
serves another.
Take that place.
And that will determine the measure of glory
that he has for us.
That will determine it.
Not necessarily the apostles or the prophets or
the teachers or the evangelists.
Not necessarily them.
But that humble man, woman, child of God
who has become a true doulos to the
Lord Jesus.
And we're going to be amazed in the
day of Christ when we stand before him
and to see the weak and the poor
and the impoverished not only in the natural
but in spirit.
People whose names we know nothing about even
in church history.
Stand there rewarded with the highest reward that
God could give in becoming a habitation of
God.
The place, the one that God wanted, the
one that he desired many apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, healers, workers of miracles
will be looking around to see where they
are and what kind of honor they're receiving.
I believe that's true.
Sometimes it bothers me when sometimes women whom
God has placed in subjection to man become
irksome over it.
Don't you, man or woman, long to be
in subjection to the Lord Jesus?
And so a godly woman who is married
she loves that relationship.
She loves to be under the headship of
her husband just as we love to be
under the headship of Christ.
And some of them feel, you can't deprive
me of ministry.
I can be a minister just as much
as a man and quote scripture for it.
Well, I'm not denying that.
I'm just saying, just becoming a great minister
doesn't mean that you're in a superior position.
To become a bond slave is the highest
position for man or woman.
That's the highest thing you can do.
I mean voluntarily because we're born to be
sons and children of God.
We're not born to be slaves.
But being a son and having privileges and
rights it's a high order to say, yeah,
I know, I'm the king's son.
And so they're teaching, you're God's kids, live
it up.
God's kings in the spiritual realm desire to
be God's slaves.
Because God's kings though they know they are
that because the Word says so made us
to be a kingdom of priests.
They love their Master so much that they
say, just let me be a servant in
your house forever.
And with his ear pierced with the awe,
that's the sign.
I just want to hear his voice and
then I just want to do what he
says.
I don't want to be free anymore.
In the sense, you know that I can
do as I will.
I don't want that kind of freedom anymore.
Because if you have that attitude the time
comes when you realize I'm free to do
as I want, to go as I want.
Go and come, go preach or go get
a job.
I can do what I want, I'm free.
When you become his bond servant you find
you're not.
You must learn to do what he wants.
Which might be preaching but don't think that's
the highest order in God.
The highest order in God is to walk
with God.
You know for one time 40 years ago
I guess I was getting concerned about my
ministry because I was getting up around 30
or so.
So you can if you're good in arithmetic
you know you can.
I've got to tell you this.
I hope Steve doesn't mind.
One day he says how long have you
known the Lord?
I said oh let me see, 56 years.
A year or two later we're sitting at
the table and he says when did you
come to know the Lord?
How old were you?
I said what was it?
Whatever it was, 19 years.
Anyway it comes to 74 in case you're
wondering.
But I said Lord you know I know
you want you've called me to ministry.
I knew that from maybe I was 5
or 6 years old.
I hear I'm 30, 32 and what do
you want me to do Lord?
So I opened up the scripture and you
know I don't do that very often but
I was just sort of fumbling through and
I hit upon that scripture in Micah.
What O man doth the Lord require of
you but to do justly and love mercy
and walk humbly with thy God?
Well fine I just accidentally come across that
and yeah that's good scripture.
But that wasn't really what I was wanting
to know.
I wanted to know about my ministry Lord.
And so that might have been the end
of it but I'd be opening up there
every day for 3 or 4 days.
Sort of felt God must be talking to
me but I never heard what he said.
Never really heard what he said until one
day maybe 30 years later suddenly realized there's
no higher calling for you or I in
this life or in eternity but to walk
with God.
Took me all those years to learn that.
That's all he wants.
And you might be an apostle and not
walk with God.
You might be a prophet and not really
walk with God.
You might be a teacher and still not
walk with God.
But you can be a farmer and walk
with God.
You can be a carpenter and walk with
God.
You can be a tinsmith and walk with
God and God wants people to walk with
him.
And his lament with the children of Israel
whom he had redeemed with such a mighty
hand was that they don't know my ways.
They haven't followed me.
They never discovered my ways and I swear
my wrath they shall not enter into my
rest.
What's he saying?
I won't be able to find my home
in them.
God needs rest?
Yes, God needs rest.
He needs a home.
God needs a home?
Yes.
Because by nature he's loving, gentle, kind, compassionate.
By nature?
By nature he's a father.
Christ had to come because God is Father.
That's why every fatherhood in heaven and on
earth is named after the Father.
Because he is inherently what he is he
must have a family compatible with his own
heart.
Like him.
Of people in his image.
Just not an arbitrary thing.
He must have that because he's Father.
So Paul said I find it in my
heart to pray unto the Father that you
might be strengthened with all might by his
spirit in the inner man.
Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith.
See what he's saying.
God's desire as we read it, as we
quote it, it increases with its intensity.
It's not one thing maybe, but it's step
by step by step until we come to
the fullness of what he's saying.
Strengthened with all might by his spirit in
the inner man that Christ might dwell in
your hearts by faith that ye being rooted
and grounded in love may be able to
apprehend with all saints.
I caught that once when I wanted to
apprehend this that I'm talking about with all
saints.
So I came to realize I would not
enter into it apart from the church.
I couldn't go into it on my own
much as I would have liked to because
I'm an isolationist.
I'm a loner.
I like to get away from people.
But God says it's with all saints.
And if you enjoy some of what I'm
saying these days and someone told you that
you did, you have to know it's only
because God has confined me and made me
to know I won't go any farther in
God except as I bring the people of
God further.
And I don't say by that that I'm
ministering for a selfish motive.
It's just the way God has ordained it
because that you might be able to apprehend
with all saints what is the length and
the breadth and the height and the depth
I'd shout it but I ruin my voice
if I get too excited.
And to know the love of Christ which
asks us knowledge that you might be filled
unto all the fullness of God.
You might
be filled unto all the fullness of God.
That's what Jesus was when he was here.
But he went away that he might distribute
his gifts, his blessings, his nature upon his
church that with all saints we might be
filled unto the same fullness that was in
Jesus.
Praise the Lord.
And so he told them how they were
to go into Canaan.
The priest will take it in.
The priest will open up the way.
The priest will carry the ark of God.
And when you see the priest of the
Lord going before you, carrying the ark of
God, you'll go after it.
Go after it.
The ark.
They're to carry the ark but you're to
go after not the priest but the ark.
There's too many people going after the priest.
They have a high and holy calling and
that is to bring the presence of God
on ahead of the people.
That the people might go after God.
They might follow after the Lord.
And while when they touched the waters, God
said the waters would divide.
It's a new way.
Another new beginning.
They'd already crossed the Red Sea.
It's a new beginning.
They sang the victory song.
God said I'm bringing you into Canaan.
But to go into Canaan they had to
come through the wilderness.
To be stripped.
To be weakened.
To know the frailty of their own flesh.
To know what was in them.
God had to root that out.
That God might have a prepared place for
a prepared people.
The priests go ahead.
God's kings are really priests.
The king of all kings and lord of
all lords.
To him it was said thou art a
priest forever.
After the order of Melchizedek.
Thou art a priest forever.
We get caught up in the word kings.
Failing to realize it's God's priests that God
wants to anoint with kingly authority.
God's priests.
And that were to reign as kings alright
but only in virtue of the anointing oil.
In virtue of the priesthood.
And besides the priests when they went down
into the bottom of the Jordan with a
wall of water on each side no doubt
remembering what happened to their what was it
cousin or second cousin or something Nadab and
Abihu when they did something that seemed to
be insignificant but it wasn't a light thing
in the sight of God when then they
went into the holiest of all and offered
up fire which the lord hadn't ordained God
slew them on the spot.
Now here they are at the bottom of
a river and the water on each side
don't you think there was a fear of
God in them?
And a discipline on the people of God
that they could march right on by without
standing to admire their beautiful priestly garments what
a wonderful man of God he was that
they marched right on by and went into
Canaan stopping for a while at Gilgal which
I hope to deal with a little this
morning stopping at Gilgal and only when they
had got over and across the river could
the priests come up behind take their place
with them Paul says I think God has
set us the apostles back at the end
of the line last of all as men
doomed to death because Paul says always bearing
about in the body the dying of the
Lord Jesus that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in your mortal flesh
he knew the dying of the Lord Jesus
just because you're sick or afflicted or dying
or die he's not talking about that he's
talking about the dying of the Lord Jesus
which is a death that Jesus suffered because
he walked in obedience to the Heavenly Father
and then at Gilgal just before the conquest
of Jericho God says go and circumcise the
whole army not on the other side of
the Jordan where they have a little bit
of security during the time of their infirmity
right there under the noses of the enemy
God crippled the whole army one day crippled
them totally exposed to their enemies and what
did God do to look after that the
fear of God came upon the inhabitants of
Jericho and they locked the gates and barred
them because here was a crippled army brought
out of Egypt with a mighty hand wonderful
what God's doing especially in other countries we've
seen nothing yet God have mercy on us
here and when I say here I refer
to our country I know there's a line
across there but we're one people who've known
so much of God had so many opportunities
so much teaching so much knowledge but not
yet a prepared place that God will prepare
us that we will have the commitment God
we don't care what it takes we want
to be a prepared people that we might
come a place where you can find your
habitation God bless this word dear hearts