I appreciate the hunger in God's people.
I think oftentimes we have that hunger and
we feel we're being deprived, but it's a
real blessing from God if you find it
in your heart to hunger after the Lord,
because there are multitudes of Christians that really
don't hunger after the Lord, and we're inclined
to think a man is blessed if he
can get up and prophesy great words of
wisdom or heal the sick or perform a
miracle, but Jesus never mentioned any of those
when he uttered the Beatitudes.
He did say, blessed are the poor in
spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are they
that hunger, because as surely as you're hungering
after God, God has that which you need
and that which you desire and that for
which you are hungering.
He has it.
He has it for everybody, he has it
for the world who are hungering for him.
He has it for those who hunger, he
has it for everybody.
God had everything the church had laid as
they needed.
We think of the church, it was bankrupt,
it was wretched, God had everything they needed.
God's only complaint with them, as far as
I could find, was that they didn't know
it, didn't recognize it.
They said, we are rich and increased with
good and have need of nothing.
God had it all.
But because they didn't know they needed God,
they said, we are rich, and Jesus said,
you're poor, wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked.
But he said, I've got everything I need.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire.
The church is getting filled with counselors these
days, I can't get over it.
It's become another ministry in the church, they're
hiring counselors now, along with pastors and assistant
pastors, they're hiring counselors.
And the reason is because people want an
easier way out.
And God has counsel.
I don't care what your need is, God
has good counsel for you in his Spirit.
We don't want to really come to the
place of complete and total commitment, but maybe
a counselor can dig up my past and
tell me how I got it from my
father or my grandfather or my great-grandfather,
that's where your trouble is.
I know our trouble is there, but it
goes right back to Adam.
God crucified it all at the cross.
Before God ever made a man with an
appetite like I think a lot of us
have here, I mean in the natural, before
he ever made man with an appetite, he
made the fruits and the vegetables and everything
else he needed to satisfy that appetite.
He made that on the third day, and
the sixth day he made a man and
gave him an appetite for that which he
had already provided.
And then told him, See those trees, those
vegetables, I made that for you, that'll be
your food.
So be assured, God has every provision for
you, and that's why you're hungry, because God
has it there and he wants you to
partake of it.
He has it, he's already provided it.
So blessed are they that hunger and thirst
after righteousness, they shall be filled.
It is true, of course, that we eat,
we still hunger, we eat again and we
still hunger.
So the secret is in continually coming to
Father's table, he that eateth of my flesh
and drinketh of my blood.
It must be an ongoing thing.
And then we're never in a state of
famishing.
But I believe God is putting that hunger
there in his people, and recognize God is
doing it.
Recognize he's doing it, because there are many
who are not hungry, so he's doing it.
We touched on it a little, how in
the manna there was every provision for their
needs, but it didn't quench their appetite, lest
them feeling, I'm not satisfied, I'm empty, I
loathe this light bread, it's not substantial.
It lest them that way, that they might
know that man does not live by bread
only, so that in eating of that manna
that provided everything they needed, it didn't quench
their hunger.
God says, I fed you with manna and
caused you to hunger, that you might know
that you don't live just by this, but
you live by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of the Lord.
We're going to find health in the body
of Christ when we begin to depend on
every word that comes from his mouth, and
not just on the food we eat.
I think we should seek to eat good
food and all that.
But we're coming to a time in this
country and ours where the food is contaminated
before we get it.
It's contaminated while it's growing.
It used to be, well, get back to
nature, get back there, get the stuff right
from the ground.
Now it's coming from the ground contaminated, coming
from the oceans contaminated.
We've got to know God in this day
and hour, that our life is not to
depend on that food.
It's poisoned already.
We've got to eat of that hidden manna
which is well able to keep us healthy
and strong and free from disease.
I believe that's God's purpose, that his people
are healthy, physically, spiritually.
But I think he's putting the emphasis on
the spiritual these days.
He did send a great, mighty wave of
healing back in the 40s and 50s.
I know he's still healing, I'm not denying
that, but there was a wave of it,
and people were being healed freely.
And that seems to have subsided.
I think it's simply that God wants his
people to recognize that it's the spiritual that
God is concerned about, and for spirits God
brings to pass in this church, that condition
where life is flowing through the body, we'll
find it in our physical bodies as well.
I believe the covenant of healing and of
health is for God's people.
I felt maybe for a few sessions to
speak a little bit about new beginnings, because
I think there's no question in our hearts
and multitudes of God's people that we do
stand in the threshold of a new day,
and every new day is a new beginning.
I don't know how blind some people can
get, I hear it said, if it's new,
it's not true, and if it's true, it's
not new.
Nice little poem, isn't it?
God's always doing new things.
Every day you get up, there's a new
day, a new day.
There's times and seasons and years.
God ordained it that way in the beginning
in the natural and in the spiritual.
There's times and there's seasons when there's a
new day.
This summer is not like the last one,
and that one is not like the one
before, but while saying all that, we certainly
recognize that there are certain principles which must
remain constant for the simple reason that God
is the author of the days and seasons
and God doesn't change.
So though he has many, many new things
to bring forth to his people and will
continue to bring forth new things, nevertheless, there
is always the old that we must cherish.
So that in the temple that Solomon built,
God ordained that they would have storehouses where
they would keep the spoils of battle that
they had accumulated from the days of Israel's
war, from the days of Samuel and on,
there were many spoils in battle that God
ordained should be preserved and put there in
the temple.
And so we never say because it's a
new day that we don't need the past.
We don't need the writings of the people
of the past or the ministry of those
of the past and that forget everything you've
known because now it's a new day and
there's new teaching.
We're not saying that.
There are many, many spoils that were won
by the people of God in times past
for which they laid down their lives, and
they're laid up there in God's house, they're
laid up there.
Some of them perhaps we have never seen
or heard.
That doesn't matter.
According to God's plan and purpose, he has
preserved a great heritage, he's brought us into
a great heritage.
And so the psalmist would say, Tell your
children about this, and let their children tell
another generation, that that generation which shall arise
shall tell it to their children.
The purpose being that God's people in succeeding
generations would have had transmitted to them by
their parents, by their fellowship in the house
of God, would have had transmitted to them
truths that they would need, truths that they
would go by, truths that would keep them
walking with God.
So seek out the old paths, yes.
We must cherish all the wonderful truths that
have been restored.
But in saying that, God forbid we should
come to the place like generally the church
has come to in any revival, as far
as I know.
Finally God has done it.
Now, we thought that we had it all
when we were a Lutheran, but now we
talk in tongues, now we've got it all,
that thought.
Because God still has many things that he
has not yet revealed.
I think the most of what God would
reveal is still future.
The most of his treasures are still future.
I have not seen nor heard, neither hath
entered into the heart of man, the things
that God hath prepared for them that love
him.
A verse, I think, in my generation, every
young person could quote that.
You learn it in Sunday school.
When they would have what they called a
scripture shower, someone was sure to quote that.
I have not seen nor heard, neither hath
entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love
him.
We never looked up to context, never gave
it another thought, great day, some day we'll
get to heaven and then we'll have all
these things.
Don't misunderstand me.
God has tremendous things for the next life.
He has eternal riches.
Don't be afraid that, well, I think you're
speaking something that really pertains to the next
life.
It's not for me, it's for the next
life.
Don't be afraid of that, because even if
it is for the next life and God
gives you a hunger and desire for it,
you can begin to partake of it now.
In fact, what you are partaking of, many
of the things you are partaking of, really
pertains to another age.
Paul, writing to the Hebrews, reminds them that
there are those who partook of the powers
of the age to come but did not
go on and turn back.
If you have partaken of the powers of
the age to come and then fall away,
what we are really partaking of are the
powers of the world to come.
So then, don't be disturbed if I say
something and you think, Oh, no, that's for
the world to come.
Well, God forbid that I should come up
with a lot of guesswork about those areas.
I try not to do that.
But if God, by his anointing, is bringing
forth things that pertain to the world to
come, well, he must want us to partake
of it in measure, because the ultimate of
what we are really looking for is the
resurrection from the dead, as far as I
know.
I consider it an ultimate.
To rise in the likeness of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and it's going to happen some
day.
The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall
be raised and the living shall be caught
up with them to be with the Lord
in the air, and so shall we ever
be with the Lord.
We anticipate that.
The Saints, I believe, of all ages, many
of them anticipated it, though in the Old
Testament it wasn't real clear, but once in
a while there would come forth a clear
pronouncement, I know that my Redeemer liveth and
that he shall stand on the latter days
upon the earth and know after my skin
worms destroy this flesh, yet in my flesh
I shall see God, the living hope and
soul.
When Jesus came back at the request of
Mary and Martha, for their brother was sick,
Jesus waited till he died till he came
back, deliberately waited till he died.
And of course, when he came back, they
said, Sorry, Lord, you should have been here
a couple of days ago.
Four days, I guess, wasn't it?
If you would have been here, he would
have gotten better.
Jesus said, He'll rise again.
Oh, yeah, we know.
We know he'll rise in the resurrection.
He'll rise in the resurrection, we know that.
But Jesus says, I am the resurrection.
So true, that's great, that resurrection day, but
Jesus says, I am the resurrection.
So I
believe it's a new day, I really do,
I believe it's the dawning of a new
day.
And let's not consider it's going to be
the same as yesterday.
Principles are the same, it will be the
same sun of righteousness, but he rises with
healing in his wings.
The same sun, yes, the same Christ, the
same living Christ coming forth in a new
day.
I felt greatly encouraged, helped, edified with what
became known as the Lateran Revival.
I believe it was a great move of
God.
I know sometimes a younger generation sort of,
Hmm, we've missed out on the good things
of this century.
And I used to think that concerning the
Pentecostal Revival.
I wasn't around when the Pentecostal Revival had
started, in its purity, it didn't take long
to go the way of man, and I
was close to it, and so I knew
the power of it, and I knew the
glory of it just by hearsay.
And you sort of feel, you know, I
sort of missed it there.
But I've come to recognize that if we
truly believe that the path of the just
is as a shining light that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day, that you
don't miss out on anything.
Because then there's hope for another day.
There's hope for still another day.
And so that hope keeps you expectant, keeps
you in a state of anticipation and expectation.
And that will be the preparation that you
will need for any new day.
Remember that?
What are the preparations that we're going to
need?
We sometimes say we've got to be prepared
for what God is going to do.
That's something very individual, I believe, that as
you walk with the Lord, be diligent.
Perhaps the Lord will appear today.
Perhaps he'll appear in our midst here, or
where you are.
Be expecting him, be anticipating confrontation, a meeting,
or a confrontation.
And I believe it's bound to be both,
because though we anticipate his glory, it's a
very awesome thing for his glory to be
revealed.
For then it reveals all areas of darkness
within you, for he is light, brilliant, shining
light.
And you can't come into the presence of
that brilliant, shining light and not have that
light expose all areas of darkness.
But isn't that what we want?
And so we don't shrink from the light
like the children of Israel did when Moses
came down radiating the glory of God.
We must not shrink from it, come to
it.
You say, it'll slay me.
That's right.
Let's come to the light.
Remember that.
Don't ever run from the light.
Come to the light.
For God intends his light to sweep away
all the darkness, to reveal all those areas
of darkness that in revealing it he might
sweep it away.
That's the purpose of the light, not to
destroy us, but to sweep away the darkness.
But it will do one or the other.
That's why in the coming of the day
of the Lord, a lot of Christians can't
understand when they read of the wrath and
the judgment and the desolation, God, oh, thank
God he's going to take us out of
here.
Oh, no.
Because the day of the Lord is God's
day, it's not God's night.
And I never saw that until a few
months ago, maybe a year or two ago.
You say, you never saw it?
Well, have you?
The day, it's the day of the Lord.
We're not looking for a dark day, a
dark night that's coming.
Paul says the darkness is passing away.
The night is far spent.
The day is at hand.
Let us therefore put on the armor of
light, because the day is at hand.
Put on, and did you ever notice that,
that when the day of the Lord comes,
instead of God taking us away, he clothes
you with armor?
Put on the armor of light, because you're
not children of the night, you're children of
the day.
And that's how it was with the children
of Israel.
I said we're going to talk a little
about new beginnings.
If you want to open up there, I
might not deal at length with it, but
Exodus 12.
God said this month shall be unto you
the beginning of months that shall be the
first month of the year to you.
God said this is to be a new
day for you, to be a new day.
God has many new days, and Lord willing,
we want to go into some of God's
new beginnings in the scripture to give us
confidence and hope.
Truth is not really complicated.
I think it seems that way because by
nature we are very complicated in so many
areas of darkness and ignorance within us, that
it seems complicated to us.
But wisdom speaking in the book of Proverbs
says, All my ways are plain to him
that hath understanding.
So truth becomes very simple, I believe, as
we let the Lord work it in our
lives, but as long as it's out there
for you and I to struggle with and
try to comprehend with our natural minds, of
course it's complicated.
But God intends it to be simple.
He intends us to digest it, to partake
of it that it might be food for
us, eat it, drink it, let it become
food for us.
Then you don't worry about the theology of
it.
You sit down at a table, and if
we sat at our tables like they sit
around arguing about theology, you'd hesitate to drink
that water because the scientists would say, Do
you know what that is?
That's hydrogen and oxygen.
They're both a gaseous thing.
Oxygen, we breathe it, and hydrogen is very
inflammable, and it'll burn.
Should I drink that or not?
I don't know.
Then you grab the salt, and you're going,
Oh, wait a minute, that's composed of sodium
and chlorine.
Chlorine is a very poisonous gas.
Some soldiers in World War I were afflicted
with it until the day of their death.
Sodium, well, I remember once in a laboratory
at school, I think it was sodium he
took out of some solution and it began
to burn right there in the air.
Is that right?
I think it does.
That's all salt is, but somehow God had
a way of putting it together so it
was something that Jesus said was good.
So you know you can be like a
scientist.
He dare not eat anything because he knows
there's poison in that and that, and this
would consume you, and this would, I don't
know what all.
But those who aren't scientifically minded take the
water and drink it, take the milk and
drink it, take that vegetable and drink it.
So the truth, if you dissect it too
much, can become poisonous.
You just take one doctrine there that you
like and feed on that and it could
poison you.
But you say that's contradictory to this other
doctrine.
Well, I know it seems that way, but
not if the Spirit puts it together.
As an example, I like the doctrine of
election and protestation.
I do, I really like it.
But if you just hang on to that
and don't accept your responsibility in the things
of God, it can make you sick, it
can make you high-minded, it can feed
it, it can cause you really to just
die spiritually.
But somehow God mingles it up with a
doctrine that says, Whosoever will, let him come
unto me and drink.
Whosoever will, let him come.
And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And whosoever hear us say, Come.
Come, drink of the waters of life.
A young man stood up in one of
these Calvinist churches years ago and started to
preach something like this.
An elder came up and tapped him in
the shoulder, My son, you're not preaching election.
He said, If you'll go and put a
cross on the backs of all the elect,
I'll just preach to them.
But he didn't know who was elect, so
he said, Whosoever will, may come.
And the elect would come.
For Jesus said, You have not chosen me,
but I have chosen you.
And it's something you can rest on in
times of trouble and difficulty.
And God chose me, so if I'm a
brand put out of the fire, God, all
I can say is, I thank you for
it.
But if I study up in the doctrine
of election and know it so thoroughly that
I say I'm elect because it says here,
ye are elect, I'll have to say to
you, it says it there in the book,
But are you doing what the Apostle Peter
said to make sure that you're one of
the elect?
He says, As your faith virtue, and to
virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, to temperance
patience, to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness,
to brotherly kindness love.
For if these things are in you and
abound, they make you that you shall neither
be idle nor unfruitful in any good work.
But he that lacketh these things is blind
and short-sighted, has forgotten he was purged
from his old sins.
Therefore, be diligent to make your calling and
election sure.
So you see, God speaks to the elect,
make your election sure.
If you have faith, become steadfast in it.
Know about God and his word.
Add your faith virtue to virtue knowledge.
Knowledge, self-control, come to the place where
you keep your body under by the power
of the Spirit, that you do not let
the lusts of the flesh destroy that life
you have.
Patience, adding all these virtues.
That's the only way we can know if
we are the elect.
God knows, of course.
God says, The foundation of the Lord standeth
sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them
that are his.
And let everyone that nameth the name of
Christ depart from iniquity.
But you say, can you then reconcile the
two doctrines?
No.
No, I can't reconcile the two doctrines.
I've tried for years to do that.
And many others have tried for years.
One man decided, I'll get this book, this
man's got a book on Romans and Romans
8, predestination.
I'm going to get that book, and he
found one, an old writing, I guess it
was, and he bought it and took it
home so he could somehow, by the writing
of this great theologian, he would be able
to reconcile in his thinking this doctrine of
predestination with the rest of the Bible.
So he hurriedly gets home and opens up
to Romans 8, and someone had torn the
page out.
Someone else had the same thought.
But God has purposes that we'll not miscarry.
He's got purposes that we'll not miscarry.
We rest in that.
We've got to rest in the sovereign God.
You can't figure it all out before you
can rest in God and his truth.
We'll never figure his truth out.
It's intended to be food for our daily
bread, water for our thirsty souls.
That's what it's intended to be.
Not to so understand it all that we
can argue with people about it, because you
won't be able.
I've discovered, and you can spare yourself a
lot of that frustration in trying to reconcile
aspects of truth.
If you can receive this, you won't be
able to reconcile many aspects of truth.
And God never intended it that way.
But in giving bread, he mingles them together
in such a way that even though by
itself that salt could kill you and that
sodium could kill you and many of those
ingredients could kill you by themselves, nevertheless coming
forth from the heart of God and intermingled
by the process of creation and life that
is in God, he makes it to be
health for our souls and spirits.
It's a living bread.
Except you eat my flesh and drink my
blood, you have no life in you.
They couldn't make any sense in their thinking.
It sounded awful.
It sounded gruesome.
And Jesus deliberately said that to people whom
he knew would not receive it.
Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his blood, you have
no life in you.
He knew it would cause them to stumble.
His own disciples were bothered with it.
But he knew also that those whom the
Father had given to him, those they couldn't
understand it, would rejoice in the Spirit that
came from the lips of Jesus, and they
knew it was right.
Like someone said this morning at the breakfast
table, he just knew it was right, but
he couldn't understand it.
That's good.
In the process of time, God will give
us a little more understanding in all these
areas, as we need it.
As we need it.
Not just as we ask him for it,
but as we need it.
So God does have new things.
As I started to say, I was greatly
blessed, illuminated.
I know God did something in my life
that was different.
Though it wasn't, I wouldn't say, a sudden
thing, but I just recognized within a few
months after I had partaken of the benefits
of what became known as latter rain, which
we never called it that.
Up our way it got that name, down
here in the States some months or a
year or two later, because they did not
believe the brethren whom God used to bring
forth that move.
They did not believe that was the ultimate
latter rain.
They believed it was just the foretaste of
it.
Nevertheless, it was a great blessing.
It was showers of God's rain about his
inheritance.
I found great benefit from it, with help
by it.
But within about three years, I realized I
had to step out of it.
Not out of the rain, I hope, but
out of that particular structure that grew up
around it.
It bothered me.
Because I thought we were there in 1950
where I think we are now.
I don't know, but it does seem to
me that we've come to end time.
I thought we were there then, and so
it seemed so devastating that God would have
started this thing.
Suddenly, two or three years, it just seemed
to peter out.
I suppose I mourned over it a little.
One time, I think the Lord quickened to
me that passage in Isaiah 43, or in
there, Remember ye not the former things?
Or consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing.
Now it shall spring forth.
Shall ye not know it?
I will even make a way in the
wilderness and streams in the desert.
God does new things.
He's always been doing new things.
I believe he always will be doing new
things.
I can't help but believe that in eternity
he'll be doing new things because he's eternal.
And in him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
I can hardly imagine that after a few
millennia that finally all God's riches of wisdom
and knowledge have been exhausted.
Paul talks about declaring the unsearchable riches of
Christ.
They're unsearchable.
Nevertheless, the Spirit searches them out, and you
and I search them out.
And if the Spirit is searching, and we
have the Spirit and we're listening to the
Spirit, the searching in our heart is good.
But if we're searching out those hidden treasures
in God without the Spirit, it'll end us
up in a lot of confusion.
And that's why God gave us his Spirit,
that he might search out the deeps in
God while at the same time searching out
our hearts.
That as he finds a place in our
hearts for this truth that he's searched out
in God's heart, he can join them together.
And so the deep in our hearts, that
hunger, that desire, that longing, the Spirit knows
it, he's found.
Here is a searching heart.
So he searches out of God's heart, joins
it to our spirit, that we might partake
of it.
Which things also we speak, not in words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth, combining spiritual truths with spiritual words,
imparting spiritual realities to spiritual people.
However we might take it, and some translators
bring out both those thoughts, that the Spirit
of God takes from God and finds that
spiritual quality, entity in us, and he's able
to join it so that there's a conception,
there's a birth, there's an importation of that
which is in Christ into our hearts by
his Spirit.
And so God says, new things do I
declare.
The former things have happened.
And new things do I declare.
And in the other verse, remember not the
former things.
We thank him for the past and all
that, but we cannot recall the past and
he doesn't want us to linger around the
past, whether it be in areas of beauty
and success or areas of tragedy and desolation,
forgetting those things which are behind and pressing
forward to those things which are before.
That's why Ephraim must take precedence over Manasseh.
Though they were sons of Joseph and though
Manasseh was first born, it was upon Ephraim
that the blessing was pronounced, because if God
is going to bring forth fruitfulness in your
life and mine, he has to make the
sign of the cross upon us, so that
when Joseph brought Ephraim and Manasseh to his
father Jacob for the blessing, he brought Manasseh
in his left hand, so that Jacob, all
he had to do was reach out his
hand and lay his hand on little Manasseh.
So Joseph made it convenient for Jacob to
pronounce the blessing on the right son, because
Manasseh was first born, and that was very
important in Israel, that the firstborn would receive
the preeminent blessing.
So he was making it easy for Jacob,
and Ephraim in his right hand.
But Jacob ignored it all, and in his
blindness crossed his hands.
Joseph said, Not so, Father.
I brought him here in my left hand,
so your right hand would touch him.
I know it, I know all about it,
but upon Ephraim shall be the blessing.
God crossed his hands over you?
Those things that you present to God that
you want him to bless, has he put
the sign of the cross there yet?
Forgetting those things which are behind and pressing
forward to those things which are before.
Oh, you say, that's easy.
My past has been a desolation.
Oh, yeah, but you remember that still?
Is it still a thorn?
Is it still bitter in your mouth?
Another says, Well, I've had a very...
Ephraim means fruitfulness, but more than fruitfulness, double
fruitfulness.
We talk about the double portion.
We want the double blessing.
That's for Ephraim.
But God must cross his hands upon us
to cause us to forget the past.
Though the past was essential, it was first.
It had to be there to make way
for the future, to make way for that
which God would do in the future.
You had to go through those areas in
the past to make way and to prepare
for the work that God would do in
the future.
You say, I don't know that there's much
preparation in my life.
Well, if there's been disappointment, if there's been
perplexity, if there's been trial, if there's been
trouble, that's the preparation.
If there's been unfruitfulness, if there's been barrenness,
that's the preparation.
Because I'm sure that what God will do
in these days, in the days to come,
he's going to do it through a weak
people, a barren people, a people of known
devastation, a people of known trouble, sorrow, disappointment,
trial, whatever.
That's why he says, Rejoice, thou barren, that
beareth not.
Break forth into singing, thou that revelest not.
For more are the children of the desolate
than of her that hath a husband.
And particularly in times when God would bring
forth something special, does God use the barren
and the helpless and the weak?
That no flesh should go in his presence.
When God would bring forth a promised seed,
Sarah was barren.
And the older she got, the more hopeless
it became for God to fulfill the promise.
When God would bring forth a Joseph, preceding
that, Joseph, who was to be a great
deliverer, not only for his own family, but
for Egypt, his mother was barren.
Rebecca was barren.
Elizabeth was barren.
And so when God promised him a son,
he said, Can't, Lord, now.
It's too late now.
I say this to encourage young and old
alike, because the older inclined to think, Well,
you know, I've done my best.
I'm getting up there now, and it's time
for the younger ones to take over.
That's often the attitude.
God is going to use some old men
in this day and hour.
He's going to use some young ones.
And the young ones will have to learn
these things that we're talking about.
You say, Well, I haven't got time.
You mean to say I've got to wait
40 years like you did?
I don't think we've got time for that.
But infants went into the land of Canaan
and grew up not having known the wars
of Canaan and the turmoil that their fathers
went through to come into that land.
And so God left some enemies there to
prove them in the land of Canaan.
So if you get into the land of
Canaan without too much warfare, don't think you've
missed it all.
Because God will have some enemies there, too,
that you might learn war, too.
Those who had not known the wars of
Canaan.
Behold, a new thing I will do.
Now it shall spring forth, shall ye not
know it.
Israel had come to a place where God
has got to do a new thing.
And God revealed himself to Moses at the
burning bush and told him, Go back and
deliver my people, which was his vision 40
years before, but not now.
God might bring things to pass in your
life that you feel, Well, yeah, I did
have this vision, but it's a thing of
the past.
In order to clarify it, to purify it,
to purge it, to make it to be
his vision, because God was not able to
use that strong and mighty prince in Egypt,
Moses, son of Pharaoh, to all appearances, son
of Pharaoh.
In his own way of life, son of
Pharaoh.
Designated by Pharaoh to do many great projects,
we're told, in history.
Pharaoh appointed him to go and build cities
and look after various things of the empire.
And he was in a key position to
bring deliverance to the people.
Right there, right at the top, politically speaking.
And so, some are encouraged today to get
in there.
Become a senator, become a mayor maybe first,
and then a senator maybe, and get into
Congress, and first thing you know you might
be president, you'll have a Christian president, right
there in the key position.
But it's not in the realm of politics
that God is preparing deliverers.
It's in broken, humble people of God out
there in the desert looking after a few
sheep perhaps, that God is preparing world leaders.
So now he was out of politics.
Pharaoh was mad at him.
He was out in the wilderness feeding sheep.
Give up the vision because I can't do
it now, I'm getting older and older, and
I'm, Pharaoh's against me now, I dare not
go back there.
When God came on the scene, having found
the vessel he wanted to deliver a whole
nation, finally got Moses right where he was.
And God went looking for him.
God went looking for him.
Do you know that God's out looking for
people?
He's looking.
Not with two eyes, but eyes within and
without.
His eyes are searching.
All over the earth.
Not for preachers or apostles or prophets or
teachers or servants or slaves.
They might become any of those things when
God gets them.
But the eyes of the Lord run to
and fro throughout all the earth to show
himself strong on the behalf of those whose
hearts are right.
Whose hearts are perfect toward him.
That's encouraging when you consider that God's out
looking for you.
If your heart's right.
You don't have to step out there when
you think God's coming.
Here I am Lord, I've been waiting all
these years now, can you please use me?
He's out looking for you, but he's looking
for a heart that's right.
Not looking for eloquence, because Moses had lost
his by that time.
Not just looking for young people either, because
Moses was an old man there at that
time.
Not just looking for a guy that might
be politically minded and be able to pull
wires with officials.
Moses had that once and lost it, now
they're looking for his head.
But all this is part of the preparation.
And I think that little bush that was
burning and not consumed was God clothing himself
with Moses.
When Moses complained, I don't have anything, I
can't do it, I'm not eloquent anymore, I
can't speak.
God wouldn't take any excuse.
I'm a little concerned when any person is
so fired up with getting into ministry, so
excited about it, lest he be greatly disappointed
or lest he hasn't known the dealings of
God.
But Moses said, I can't, Lord, I can't,
I can't, I can't.
And God brought him to the place where
Moses would know he couldn't do it.
He brought him to that place where he
would know he couldn't do it.
Because that became the reason why God chose
him.
Because God must demonstrate.
In this new thing that God is going
to do, he's going to demonstrate that it's
not in any individual, in their education or
their power or their eloquence or their abilities.
It's not in that, but it's in the
presence of God.
And therefore, to be assured that God will
have a people who will give him all
the glory, he doesn't choose too many of
the other kind.
Not too many mighty, not too many noble,
not too many wise.
He does choose a few.
But the few he chooses, their trials are
greater because they've got to be, that's all
got to be wiped out.
Or should I say consumed ashes.
That out of the ashes of it all,
he might bring forth what he wants.
Not many mighty, not many noble, not many
wise are called.
You see your calling, brethren.
But God has chosen the weak things of
the world, the things that are foolish, the
things that are not considered of any importance
in the sight of man.
For Paul goes on to say, He's chosen
the things that are not, to bring to
naught the things that are.
How do you like it?
God says you're nothing.
How do you like that?
That's what he's choosing.
So if you don't know it, and you
feel the call of God, just recognize that
someday you will know it.
I forget which writing it was, but I
sent it to this man, and he said
he just felt impressed, just to read a
chapter or so, and then just as the
Lord would indicate, stop reading there.
Put a bookmark in.
So he put his bookmark in, and went
to work the next day, and complained all
day to God how useless he was getting.
He said, really Lord, I think you've brought
me to zero.
And so he went home that night, and
thought he'd read another paragraph.
The next paragraph ended up by saying, God
is not in the process of taking us
down a notch or two.
He's in the process of bringing us down
to zero.
And that encouraged him.
It encouraged him.
Because he was telling God, God, that's where
I am, and then he got confirmation.
God says, that's what I want to bring
you to.
That's what I want to bring you to.
This month shall be unto you the beginning
of months.
It shall be the first month of the
year that you speak unto the congregation of
Israel, and we won't read it all, but
Passover time.
There's going to be other new things.
There's going to be the Feast of Pentecost.
There's going to be the Feast of Tabernacles.
This is the beginning.
God doesn't always tell us, you know, this
will be this, and then there'll be this,
and this, and this.
One day enough at a time.
A fresh man every day is sufficient.
To follow the cloud to the first stopping
place in the wilderness is all we need
to know right now.
We don't need to know how many stopping
places there are going to be, and he
doesn't tell us.
He didn't tell them there were going to
be 42 of them.
He doesn't tell us how many.
He just says, follow the cloud.
That's all.
Because the cloud of God, God says, goes
before you to search out a resting place
for you.
And he brings you to a place that
is dry and barren and bare and no
growth, no water, no food maybe.
And you say, how could God have said
that?
That he's searching out a resting place for
me.
I think we sometimes criticize the children of
Israel because of their murmuring and their complaining.
As if to say, God, if we were
there, we wouldn't do that.
But we're very much like them.
And God led them that way.
This is a great mystery.
Tremendous thing that God led them that way
for your benefit and mine.
For these things were examples, Paul says, for
us.
So that he led them that way as
examples for us.
Not that we should do the things they
did, but that we should learn the experiences
that they failed to learn from.
Learn from their mistakes.
Paul starts out writing to the Corinthians by
declaring what they were in Christ.
And God always tells us that before he
deals with us.
You're my son.
I've redeemed you.
You're mine.
I see you as holy in my sight.
The saints at Corinth, the holy ones.
I'm writing, he says, to the holy ones
at Corinth.
And so after he introduces his remarks, then
he starts telling them how carnal they are.
And he says, You come behind in no
gift as you wait for the revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, but you
are enriched in him in all utterance and
in all knowledge.
And come behind in no gift.
They're feeling pretty good about it all.
Until chapter 2, like we read the last
day or two.
How the Spirit has been given to search
out those depths in God.
Join them unto us.
Then the next chapter.
I'm sorry, brethren.
I can't talk to you as to spiritual
people.
I can't bring forth those deep hidden things
of God and impart them to you because
you're not spiritual.
You're carnal.
Paul was so led of the Spirit, you
see, that he spoke, as he said, words
which the Holy Ghost teaches, not which man's
wisdom teaches.
And so God led him to speak to
the Corinthians the way he did.
That's what they needed.
Reaching forth from the heart of God, this
is what they need.
They need reproof.
They need correction.
They need to have a word that would
cause them to realize their carnality and their
foolishness and come to know you better.
Writing to the Ephesian church, it is much
different.
He was able to reach out and bring
out some of the hidden treasures of God's
wisdom and knowledge that he could not impart
to other congregations.
So you see how hopeless we are as
ministers, to minister living truth to God's people,
if we're not under the anointing.
If we're not ministering from his heart.
Because only he knows the hearts of people.
Only he knows what they need.
And then he says to them, I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers
were all under the clouds and all passed
through the sea, were all baptized unto Moses
in the clouds, in the sea.
Baptized in the cloud and baptized in the
sea.
Because as the waters opened up, they marched
on a dry path through the mighty waters
on each side, which the apostle likens unto
baptism in the sea, baptized in water, going
through the place of death, yet coming forth
in life on the other side.
But baptized in the cloud.
I wondered about that until one time I
read in the Old Testament where the cloud
which had led them out of Egypt and
up to the Red Sea, the cloud immersed
the hosts, moved from the front to the
back, immersed them in the cloud, stood behind
them as a defense, led them in the
right way and then stood behind them as
a defense, which is God's plan for His
people as He leads us.
The Lord shall go before you, it says,
and the glory of the Lord shall be
your rearward.
You shall not go in haste, neither shall
you go in flight, but the Lord will
go before you and the glory of the
Lord will be your rearward.
The Lord leading, the glory of the Lord
following.
Not in haste, nor in flight.
It was to the betrayer, it was to
the betrayer that Jesus said, What thou doest,
do quickly.
To His disciples He said, You wait in
Jerusalem until you are endued with power from
on high.
The Lord doesn't push, He leads.
He leads gently.
He causes you to rest.
In whatever work He gives us, God help
us to find that rest.
And we only find it, Jesus said, as
we take His yoke upon us and learn
from Him.
Then He said, You shall find rest unto
your souls.
For He said, My yoke is easy and
my burden is light.
I would never want to tell anyone that
Jesus had an easy life, nor would you.
But because the Lord Jesus had come to
the place of such commitment that all He
did was what the Father would do through
Him, all He would speak is what the
Father would speak through Him, that His very
life was such that He depended totally upon
the Heavenly Father, He could say, My yoke
is easy and my burden is light.
He was just moving along in the realms
of God.
And therefore, in His concept, and I have
to say that because I couldn't say that
Jesus had an easy life, but that's how
He looked upon it.
Because no matter how great the task, no
matter how great the trouble, no matter how
great the persecution, how great the cross, He
knew He was offering Himself up as a
sacrifice that was well-pleasing unto God, a
burnt offering from which God smelled a sweet
savor.
I know He cried in desperation, My God,
my God, why has thou forsaken me?
Because He was also a sin offering and
He didn't probably understand in His natural mind
how God could have forsaken Him as a
sin offering.
God had to turn His back.
But as the burnt offering, as one who
committed a voluntary offering unto God, of His
voluntary will, I will to do the Father's
will, God smelled a sweet savor of incense.
Your Father's had all these glorious experiences of
baptism, baptism in the water, in the sea,
in the cloud.
They all ate of that spiritual food that
God gave them, that miraculous bread from heaven.
They all drank of that spiritual rock that
followed them, and that rock was Christ.
Never was there a more blessed people than
the children of Israel.
I don't think there was any church more
blessed than the Corinthian church, albeit, Paul says
in the next line, with many of them,
and the Greek is more emphatic, with the
many, with the most of them, God was
not well pleased for they were overthrown in
the wilderness.
It isn't the case that God didn't love
them and didn't bless them.
He wasn't pleased with them.
He just wasn't pleased with them.
We have to know those things because we've
come to a day in our life, God's
blessing, see, God's right on our side.
Not knowing, Paul says, you despise the riches
of God's goodness and forbearance and longsuffering.
Not knowing that the goodness of God leads
us to repentance.
God's goodness leads to repentance.
That's why God is good.
But how few there are who repent when
God is good.
God is confirming.
I've heard it said, and I feel it
might be right, that because God was very,
very merciful during the Iraqi war, very merciful,
gave them a quick victory with hardly any
bloodshed, it seems that the nation has suddenly
become very proud.
We know how to do it now.
We were disappointed in Vietnam and all that,
but we've got it now.
Not knowing that the goodness of God was
intended to lead to repentance.
I think God's judgments are brewing, becoming more
and more imminent.
We who know our God must recognize in
that day, we haven't got very far into
the Passover, but that when God poured out
His judgments upon Egypt, He left His people
there.
He didn't take them out.
He left them there to be glorified in
the redemption that He was working in their
midst in the hour of Egypt's judgment.
God says, I'm going to make a difference
between Goshen and the rest of Egypt.
I'm going to make a difference.
The word there is redemption.
I'm going to put redemption between you and
Egypt.
I'll make a difference because you're my people.
God doesn't fear to put us in the
fire.
He walks with us through the fire.
He doesn't fear to pour out His judgments
on the earth lest His people suffer.
He's glorified in being the captain of our
salvation in the midst of the struggle.
And darkness penetrated all through the land of
Egypt.
It must have been more than a natural
darkness.
It was a spiritual darkness that God caused
to settle down upon the land of Egypt.
Was it three days?
Anyway, a darkness so dense it said they
could feel it in the land of Egypt
but not in Goshen.
Why?
Because it was God's day for them.
It was a new day for them.
It was a new day.
This was to be the beginning of months.
A new day in the darkness of Egypt.
It was very, very dense but the light
in the homes of Israel was very, very
bright.
That's the way it's going to be in
the day of the Lord which is fast
coming upon us.
A day of darkness and of gloominess, I
know.
But Isaiah saw and he perhaps didn't understand
what he saw.
Darkness covers the earth and goes darkness to
people.
A light shall arise upon thee and his
glory shall be seen upon thee.
When?
When darkness covers the earth.
When gross darkness covers the people.
I was going to read this just in
closing.
One preacher said this is the first closing.
This will be the last.
God's commentary on how he looked upon the
children of Israel leading them through the wilderness.
Psalm 95.
That's how it goes.
Come, let us sing unto the Lord.
Let us make a joyful noise to the
rock of our salvation.
It goes on down.
The Lord is a great God, a great
King above all gods and praise unto God.
That's what the Psalms were, songs of praise
unto God.
His sea is his and he made it.
His hands formed the dry land.
O come, let us worship.
Praise turns into worship.
Worship is of a higher dimension.
Worship is something that we are to become.
So is praise.
It's not just something you do.
Worship isn't just something you do.
Jesus said the Father is looking for true
worshipers.
So it's something you become.
Not something you do when you come to
church only.
Something you become.
So that if there's a great trial, you
worship God.
When God stripped Job, took everything away he
had, went out and lay on the ash
pile, bowed his face toward God, said, God,
you gave and you took away, blessed be
the name of the Lord, and says he
worshiped God.
The first mention of worship in the Bible,
of the Word, I know that Abel worshiped,
Adam worshiped, but the first mention of the
Word is when Abraham said to his son
Isaac, we're going up to the mountainside.
He said to his servants, you stay here.
We're going up to the mountain to worship
God and we will return again.
And you know what he went up there
for.
But that was an act of worship.
Because whether just test or trial or victory
and triumph, Abraham was a worshiper.
God wants worshipers that were always worshiping God.
So praise must progress into worship.
And bow down, let us kneel before the
Lord, our Maker, for He is our God
and we are the people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand.
Today if you will hear His voice, we
mentioned I think, how suddenly they're going along
in a certain realm and suddenly it seems
entirely opposite.
Worship, praise, suddenly.
Today if you will hear His voice, harden
not your heart.
As in the provocation and as in the
day of temptation in the wilderness when your
fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my
work, forty years long was I grieved.
Can you imagine that?
Blessing them as no nation on the earth
had ever been blessed before or since with
the presence of God, with the pillar of
fire, with the pillar of cloud, with manna
from heaven, with water out of the rock,
with healing for the congregation.
And God says for forty years I was
grieved and said it is the people that
do err in their heart and have not
known my ways unto whom I swear my
wrath that they should not enter into my
rest.
What a way to end a psalm of
praise and worship.
They have not known my ways.
His blessing, His gifts, His provision, yes.
God make us to know your ways.