This morning we open our spirits, our hearts,
our lives to you.
We thank you for that washing, moving, stirring
of your spirit, of your presence, preparing, opening
our being, enlarging our capacity, and granting us
truly, Lord, spiritual eyes that we might see
and understand.
For you've said, Lord, within your word that
there's a people to whom it's given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom.
Lord, we would know the secret of the
Lord, that which you have, that you greatly
desire to share with your people.
And I ask this morning for that abiding
anointing that will release, Lord, that depth of
word, not just information, but a flow of
spirit and life moving out and touching us,
changing us, opening us up, Lord, and enlightening
our understanding.
I ask, Lord, that abiding prophetic anointing as
our brother comes, quicken, bless, and anoint.
And in all, Lord, we give you the
glory in Jesus' name.
Amen.
And God has a way of hiding truth
from the wise and the intellectual as far
as attainment in this world is concerned, and
to reveal it unto babes.
Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit one day as
he thought of that.
I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for it seemed good in
thy sight.
And so it's very true what Brother said,
that if we're intellectually minded, if we put
a lot of emphasis on the scholastic and
the academic and our ability to comprehend, we
miss out, because God reveals his secrets to
babes.
Even so, Father, for it seemed good in
thy sight.
And so we thank the Lord for his
ways and for the truth that he is
pleased to make known to the humble, to
the meek, to those who come to him
as babes.
And even though we talk about coming to
maturity, there is no maturity that takes us
beyond the realm of babes when it comes
to the love of God.
So in understanding, be manifest, Paul, but in
malice be as babes.
And that should be a characteristic that remains
with us all through life, as far as
attitudes of forgiveness and mercy and love and
things like that, always to be tender as
babes.
And that's what real maturity is.
However, in understanding, God wants to change our
minds until we comprehend, even with our minds,
the things that God has been pleased to
reveal to us by his Spirit, even the
hidden wisdom.
We talked about the manna that was given
to the Israelites, and then we talked about
the special food for the priests in the
holy place.
But there is still a further realm, and
no doubt you've all had a certain amount
of instruction in the tabernacle.
There was the holiest of all realms, where
I believe God is seeking to lead a
people in this hour, a holiest of all
realms, outer courts, the cross, the atonement, also
cleansing by the water, the labor, then coming
into the holy place, where the light of
that realm was the candlestick, a new realm.
I believe it's more or less this Pentecostal
era that we've known the last 50 years,
100 years, the realm of the Spirit, which
we rejoice in, which we are thankful to
God for, but there's another realm.
I remember one teacher wrote, drew a little
diagram of the tabernacle and had the three
realms, and he said, some say there's still
another realm.
He said, don't they know the veil was
rent there, all one realm?
Yes, in God's provision.
But even though the veil was rent, it
doesn't mean that you and I go in
there.
The veil was rent when Jesus died on
the cross, and there stood the priest before
a rent veil and saw no glory there.
He wasn't smitten.
We don't read where he was smitten, because
the glory of God had long departed.
And so you see, it's true, God rents
a veil at the cross, but Paul speaks
about another veil.
Remember how Paul put a veil over his
face, so that the chonavisual could not step
back but behold the glory that was on
his face, which glory was being done away.
And he put the veil there, and I
just say this in passing, so that the
chonavisual would not see the fading away of
the glory.
He didn't put it there to hide the
glory.
When everybody was squinting because they couldn't stand
the glory coming from his countenance, he didn't
grab a cloth and hide it.
He beckoned to them, come near.
And fearfully they drew near, and he gave
them the instruction that God had given him
in the mount.
And I know it says in our version,
till he had done speaking, he put a
veil on his face.
But every other version of it says when
he had done speaking, he put a veil
on his face, which is confirmed by the
Apostle Paul in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, when
he said that Moses put a veil over
his face to the end, that the chonavisual
would not see the end of that which
was abolished.
One translator said in an older translation, I
mean, as far as generations go, the Weymouth
translation, so that the chonavisual would not see
the last rays of that fading glory.
It was a fading glory.
And as it faded away, Moses recognized that
glory is departed.
He covered his face so that the chonavisual
wouldn't see the last rays depart.
But Paul says, not as Moses, who put
a veil over his face so that the
chonavisual wouldn't see the departure of the glory.
But he was unveiled faced, holding within a
glass the glory of the Lord, or changed
into the same image from glory unto glory,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord,
clearly telling us that we've got something surpassing
what Moses had.
Wouldn't you and I settle for what Moses
had so easily?
But not as Moses.
You see things like that.
We're considered to be far out.
I figure we're still just in the shallows.
We're still just getting our feet wet a
little bit.
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.
But God hath revealed unto us by his
Spirit, that the Spirit searcheth all things, ye
the deep things of God.
So in the holiest of all there was
another food, hidden manna, which is in a
golden vessel.
As God told Moses, take a vessel of
this manna and put it in the Ark
of the Covenant to be kept for your
generations.
Be kept there.
They never ate it.
No priest ever ate it.
Be kept for their generations.
It's, I think, kept for this day and
hour.
That hidden manna.
Incorruptible.
If it had lain out in the ground,
it would have disappeared by noon when the
sun got hot.
But because it was in a golden vessel
and in the presence of God, it was
kept, intended of God to be kept throughout
their generations.
I think as a reminder to them what
God would do in the fullness of time,
we don't read what happened to the Ark
of the Covenant.
They're still hoping they'll find it over there
somewhere.
It's too bad that so often ministry that
goes to Israel goes along with all these
carnal, natural things that they're so excited about
over there.
Because when Messiah is revealed to Israel, it's
going to be the Lord Jesus Christ revealed
in a people who know him and who
walk with him.
And Jesus said, you shall not see me
until you shall say, blessed are these that
come in the name of the Lord.
And that's when they'll see him.
When Gentiles or Israelites from all nations, a
man from Kenya or Nigeria or India or
Africa comes to them in the name of
the Lord, they'll see Jesus and they won't
see him until he's revealed in that people.
And then they will see him.
And to them it will be life from
the dead, as Paul said.
But the casting away of them meant reconciliation
for the world.
What shall the receiving of them be but
life from the dead?
And so we know we're in a very
wonderful hour, a very tremendous hour.
We anticipate as we come into this holy
realm, this holiest of all realms, to begin
partaking of the hidden manna, that incorruptible food,
Christ, the resurrection and the life which God
ordained before the world unto our glory, which
none of the princes of this world knew,
for had they known it, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory.
The hidden wisdom, this is what he's talking
about when he says, as it is written,
that these things of the hidden wisdom are
things that I have not seen nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God has prepared for
them that love him.
This is the hidden wisdom that God has
been pleased to make known to his people,
which I believe God will continue to unfold
in this hour as the people come into
the holiest of all realms.
Isaiah cried unto God for God to come
forth and do something, for it is a
time of great need.
He cried unto God, and he says, God,
when we weren't looking for you to do
anything, you came forth mightily, we weren't hardly
expecting it, and you did it.
Now, he says, if ever we need it
to, it's now.
And why don't you do something about it
now?
And that's the cry of many of God's
people throughout the land.
God, we need you far worse now than
they needed you 50 years ago when you
moved by your Spirit, or 100 years ago
when you moved by your Spirit.
You came forth very sovereignly, but suddenly the
prophet was caught away in revelation and declared,
Since the beginning of the world, man hath
not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither
hath the eye seen, O God, besides thee,
what he hath prepared for him that waiteth
for him.
And Paul quotes that verse here, except that
instead of saying that he's prepared for those
that wait for him as Isaiah did, he
says the things that God has prepared for
them that love him.
So what's really the difference?
That waiting for God and loving God is
one and the same thing.
I know it's a day when we don't
like the word wait.
I mean, you just can't wait.
I mean, they've got escalators, you know, and
get off the plane, get on the escalator,
so you get on and you have a
ride.
But this one is for those who are
standing there, this one is for those who
are walking.
I mean, it's carrying you, but you've still
got to walk, you've still got to go
faster.
It's a day when we just can't wait.
And we can't wait because time is so
short.
And yet, I think 50 or 100 years
ago, they had much more time for God
than they've got today, with all our fast
things.
I think they had more time for God
back then than they do today.
So waiting for God isn't just sitting around
filling in time.
Waiting for God is just what it says.
God, we just have to wait for you.
We can't do it without you.
And it seems a noble thing to be
always ready to do anything that needs to
be done.
Always ready to minister, always ready to preach,
always ready to travel, always ready.
But Jesus said to his brethren, who didn't
really believe on him, your time is always
ready.
My time has not yet come.
And so let's not think that always ready
is a good attribute.
Sons of God who seek to move in
the realms of the Spirit have a time.
They wait for God's time.
They move in God's time.
And I believe that's going to become increasingly
more important.
As we come to this hour when God
is going to so coordinate his mighty workings
and his people, that timing will be so
important.
I thought of this when they landed this
man on the moon.
And on their way back, they said, now,
any moment now, they'll press the button that
will put them in the proper orbit or
whatever to get back to earth.
It had to be right specifically at a
certain split second when they press the button.
Otherwise, they said, if they miss it, they
go off in orbit, perhaps around the sun.
How important in this day when everything is
geared to a vast, intricate machine, the whole
society is just geared to a...the whole society
almost, the whole realm is like a computer,
as it were.
Everything is coordinated.
So timing is very important, and it's no
less important in things of the Spirit, especially
when God's mighty movements begin to take place
in the earth in a greater way than
we've known.
And that's why when God was to give
Ezekiel a very profound word for the children
of Israel, he first of all gave them
a vision of heavenly things.
He did the same with John on Patmos.
I believe he's doing the same with us.
He's giving us a little understanding, a little
glimpse of heavenly workings, because unless we have
that, unless we know that God has it
all planned and everything is intricately planned and
woven together in his purposes, we'd be apt
to just strike off to do anything that
seems it should be done, seems it's the
right thing to do, so we'd do it.
But when you come to recognize that we
can do nothing, and I mean thoroughly understand
that we can do nothing of ourselves, which
I pray God will bring us all to
that, for even his only begotten Son came
to that.
Think of it, that he came to the
place because of his covenant relationship and walked
with the Heavenly Father.
He realized, I cannot do anything of myself,
but only what I see the Father doing.
And so he lived in that heavenly realm.
He lived in that realm.
For no man has ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven, even
the Son of man which is in heaven.
Jesus said that while he was here on
earth.
And we must come into that, only God
can do it.
Remember, in all that we're saying, in all
that we're teaching, in all that we're exhorting
unto, we realize only God can do it.
But the thing that encouraged me when I
realized I was going to be a teacher,
I didn't ask for it, didn't want it
really, because I grew up in Pentecost, and
the only minister that was really effective in
the work of God was the evangelist, or
a miracle worker.
So you wanted something pertaining to something in
that realm, and not just to be a
dry teacher.
And I made it dry.
If God doesn't send it forth as rain,
it's dry as dust.
So it's essential that in this hour when
we believe God is doing a new thing,
and I'm persuaded of it, if it isn't
now, when's it going to be?
We know we've come to the end.
And the prophet said, and Paul confirmed it,
that the hidden wisdom that God is making
known to his people concern things which eye
has not seen, and which ear has not
heard, and which have not entered into the
hearts of men.
And entered into your heart.
So what's God going to do?
Well, you ask me, I say, well, I
don't know, great thing, a new thing.
But if it hasn't entered into our hearts,
or into our minds, then don't expect us
to try and tell you precisely what it
is.
Nor should we, I don't think we should
be so ravenously hungry that we just want
to eat for the fun of eating.
If you've found honey, don't gorge yourself on
it till it makes you sick.
He says, eat so much is sufficient for
thee, lest if you eat too much you'll
vomit it.
And so we like honey, and honey in
the scripture speaks of wisdom and knowledge.
But you don't gorge yourself on it because
it's so sweet.
You take a little.
And so we pray, as Jesus bid us
to pray, give us this day our daily
bread.
Which means, give us today what we need
today.
Give us that portion we need for today.
We don't need any more.
We try and get any more and store
it up like the manna, it stinks and
brings worms.
Wormy.
We need that fresh manna every day.
We need that fresh oil every day.
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary
to send forth a stinking savor.
David said, Lord, you have anointed me with
fresh oil.
We need that fresh oil, that fresh anointing,
that fresh manna, that fresh bread.
Like we mentioned, that bread that was in
the holy place, there are six days still
in our way of thinking because it is
in the presence of God.
I'm sure it was fresh and meant something
to those priests.
They alone in Israel could eat of it.
Nothing wrong with the manna, but here is
something special for them.
God has something beyond that for us.
The time will come when we will not
speak like we're speaking these days, for God
will have taken his people on and there
will be new realms to talk about, new
areas of truth.
We don't delve into it too much.
We don't pry into it too much, I
say too much, but God wants us to
have a spirit that reaches out.
We just know, we ought to know, we
must know, that coming into this new realm,
it's a realm that no man can go
in and appropriate on his own.
From the time that the children of Israel
gathered together and ate the Passover lamb with
bitter herbs, as we mentioned yesterday, because their
journey was to be a journey that would
involve much bitterness, nevertheless God's intention was, in
every place he led them, was to lead
them to a place of refreshing and rest.
But the Ark of the Covenant went before
them to search out a resting place for
his people.
Isn't that tremendous?
The Ark of the Covenant went ahead, searching
out a resting place for his people.
And they said, there the cloud is moving,
we must move on.
God's gone ahead to search out a resting
place for us.
And when they would get there, they murmured,
they complained, this is not what we thought,
this is not Canaan, this is not a
place of rest, no figs here, no pomegranates,
no fruit, no water.
Because of the murmuring of their hearts, what
God intended to be a resting place became
a place of murmuring and complaining, disappointment, because
they hadn't come to know God.
Their hearts were not prepared, the psalmist said.
They said not their hearts are right, or
the margin says in some Bibles, they prepared
not their hearts.
Nevertheless, God was preparing their hearts, unknown to
them, and he desired that they would understand
that the way in which he was leading
them was preparation for that land.
God never told them that that next stopping
place would be Canaan, or the one after
that, or the one after that, or the
one after that.
Forty-one times he led them in the
wilderness.
Never once did he indicate, now this is
final.
But we always want it to be final.
Whenever something great happens, the old slogan comes
out, like he muttered in the early days
of Pentecost, this is that, and if this
isn't that, I'm going to hang on until
this, until that comes.
Forty years later, God moved again and they
said, this is that, if this isn't that,
I'll hang on until this, until that comes.
But the trouble is that when the time
comes for God's people to move on, he
takes away the first that he might establish
the second.
He takes away the first that he might
establish the second.
And we try to hang on to it
and lament the fact that somehow it's not
there the way it used to be 40
years ago, 100 years ago.
And the reason is God's taking it away,
because he's got something better.
He's got something better than eight or ten
great healing evangelists going around the country, setting
up their tents and praying for the sick.
God took it away.
He's got something better.
And what God has in mind, and that's
just in one area, of course, the physical
healing, a renewing of the covenant with his
people who walk with him, that healing will
flow through the body.
It will just flow through the body.
Without a great healer, someone in need, you
just go over as God leads them, lay
your hands on them and they're healed.
And God is going to do that more,
not only in healing, but in other areas
of ministration, that all members of the body
of Christ might have a very vital function.
And that will do away with the schism
in the body of Christ.
For God give us more abundant honor to
those parts which lack, that there be no
schism in the body, but that the members
have the same care one for another.
I never saw that until a year or
two ago.
Striving to set up some kind of a
structure, some kind of a system, so that
there be no division in the body, get
into this system, this structure, under this covering,
under this apostolic order, eradicate the schism.
Paul says it's because this honor that God
has for all members is lacking.
And God give us more abundant honor to
those parts which lack, that there be no
schism in the body, but the members will
have the same care one for another.
So that if there are 100 people here,
you've got 99 people concerned about your welfare.
But if that honor is not there on
the body of Christ, you've got yourself to
worry about.
As members of this glorious body, you've got
every other member of the body concerned about
your welfare.
In a very real vital way, as truly
as when you cut your finger, everything gets
working there to heal that cut, whatever comes,
the body sends out the necessary life to
heal that injured member.
How much more in the body of Christ,
the body of our Lord Jesus, a body
hast thou prepared for me.
Jesus, we hear him saying, coming into the
world, you're not interested in sacrifice and offering
anymore, God, and he quoted from the Psalms,
sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a
body hast thou prepared for me.
In burnt offering and sacrifice for sin thou
hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, so God, you don't want
all these goats and bullocks and pigeons, you
don't really want that?
Then what do you want?
Then said I, lo, I come to do
thy will, O God.
That's what he wanted.
That was the commitment of Jesus when he
came.
That's why he didn't go forth throughout the
land in virtue of his Messianic office, in
virtue of the fact that he was a
healer or because he was an apostle or
a prophet or a teacher.
But that great one that Moses spoke about
who would come, he never went around.
I'm the one that, you know, I'm the
prophet, I'm the evangelist, I'm the teacher.
And everything that he did, every work he
performed, everything he spoke, he only required that
people would receive it because he was saying
words from the Father.
And he himself, taking that position as that
one dwelling in this body that God had
prepared, had one commitment.
I come to do thy will, O God.
In the role of the book it is
written of me.
But he went away.
That's all he had to do was live
here on earth 33 years, to do everything
that was required of him as far as
his work on the earth is concerned.
Then he went away into a higher ministry
in the heavens, a higher priestly ministry than
could ever have come about on earth.
He couldn't have even been a priest on
earth because he wasn't from the right tribe.
For our Lord sprang out of Judah concerning
which nothing is said about priests.
But having gone to a heavenly realm, God
gave him the priesthood that God conferred upon
him a priesthood of a higher order than
the Aaronic priesthood, confirmed by the scriptures.
It's right there in the Old Testament, but
there wasn't enough scriptures to make any impression
on the interpreters of the Word in that
day.
Because you know how you're supposed to interpret
scripture?
You get a doctrine, get all the pros
and cons on it.
Fifteen scriptures against, fifteen for.
Maybe you can find a few more pros
and cons, and that becomes good doctrine, because
you've got piles of scripture for it.
But there are only two scriptures in the
Old Testament that confirm the Melchizedek order of
Jesus, two scriptures, literally hundreds that speak of
the priesthood after the order of Aaron.
And yet the Holy Spirit is able to
take those two passages and show from the
scriptures that the time would come when God
would completely do away with the old Aaronic
order and bring in a new order after
the order of Melchizedek.
You see, only the Holy Spirit can do
that.
That's why it's so essential that you and
I come to a place where we not
only have this Spirit dwelling within us, where
we have him, but where he has us.
We've got to come to not only where
we have him, and we thank him that
he has condescended to come and abide in
these temples which we are, but God bring
us to the place where we belong to
him, that these temples which we are are
temples that belong to him, the Holy Spirit.
Come, possess this temple to thine, from it
let thy glory shine.
And God wants to possess this temple.
He wants to possess this temple.
I don't know what kind of dealings God
must yet do in each one of us
to bring us to that place where we
recognize, not just with our minds, but with
our hearts and our whole attitude, our whole
way of life, we just know we are
not our own.
We are bought with a price and that
we are his.
God help us to continue to recognize that
we have no rights.
We have no rights anymore.
We belong to him.
He wants to possess us through and through.
I believe that's also part of the holiness
of all realms, where we come out from
the realm of gift and ministry into a
realm of his abiding fulness, going out of
one realm into a greater, not forsaking what
we have, but seeing it swallowed up in
something greater.
It's not always easy to explain, because people
get a little concerned.
You mean something beyond gifts, that we don't
need the gifts then anymore?
In him, in Christ Jesus, are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
It's all in him.
And what we have in his gifts is
a little portion that he gives, a word
of wisdom.
You could stand and say, God said this,
God showed me this.
That's very precious.
It's a word from God.
But there's something higher, and that is to
walk in wisdom.
Because you can stand up and give tremendous
words of wisdom and go out and do
some very foolish things.
And so God gives a portion.
Really, the gifts are that.
It's a portion of God's own nature that
he distributes upon his people.
And we thank him for that.
But he wants to bring us into a
realm where we live in that realm, we
abide in that realm.
That's John 15, which you can't help but
read it and not just appreciate the tremendous
truth that's there.
And I'm sure we recognize that we're far
from experientially really knowing any depth of it.
Abide in me and I in you, as
the branch can do nothing of itself except
it abide in the vine, so no work
in you except you abide in me.
It's all very simple, very beautiful.
Herein is my Father glorifying that you bear
much fruit.
If you abide in me, my words abide
in you, you shall ask what you will,
and it shall be done.
You know, we try to make that work
so often.
Lord, you said, we quote the scripture of
God, if God forgot, that you said now,
and now.
We try to make it work.
But there is coming a day, I'm confident,
where God's people are abiding in him, and
he's abiding in us in such fulness that
anything we ask him, he does it.
But you see, God could hardly just answer
all our prayers now.
We would ruin God's work in our lives.
Because on that day, abiding in him, your
thought has been taken over by the mind
of Christ.
You ask, what is the will of the
Father?
You ask according to his will.
And God says, anything you ask, he'll do
it.
I'm not saying we don't have a foretaste
of all these things we're talking about.
I'm sure that somewhere in the Church, God
has given a foretaste of all these wonderful
things that we're talking about.
But let's remember, it is a foretaste.
So that when Caleb and Joshua came back
from Canaan with a few pomegranates in their
hands and grapes, carried the grapes on a
big branch on their shoulders, what a tremendous
thing it was when they landed back home
in the camp there, and they said, look
at it.
That's the land that God has for us.
Isn't that tremendous?
So all we're doing really is trying to
show God's people a little bit of the
fruitfulness of Canaan, to cause us to see
and understand, yes, it is, it must be
a wonderful realm.
And they recognized that.
But they saw other things that terrified them.
And because of the fear, they did not
appropriate that land.
It's well and good that you and I
sing about Canaan now, but when we come
to the doorstep of Canaan and God says,
now is the time to go in, our
hearts better be prepared right now.
Because on that day, and when we begin
to see the might and the power that's
arrayed against us in heavenly places, our hearts
would melt, too, if they're not established now
steadfast in him, in the manner in which
he was in Caleb and Joshua, who saw
the fruit of the land, but who went
with a different spirit.
The Bible says they had a different spirit.
Paul says, writing to the because
it was not mixed with faith in those
that heard it.
It was not mixed with faith.
The word was not mixed with faith.
There's different ways that some translators bring it
out.
Their hearts were not united in faith with
those who brought the word.
Those who had the word, those who had
faith, Caleb and Joshua, they declared what they
saw.
And God's intention was that their hearts would
be joined unto those who brought that good
word.
Because like we mentioned, faith is in the
word that goes forth to do whatever God
wants to accomplish.
Faith is there in that word.
Not in heaven that you search out the
heavens to try and get the faith for
it, or not in the deep that you
would say, who can go down there and
bring us up that power to do it.
But the word is neither even in thy
mouth and in thy heart, even the word
of faith which we preach.
And so there is faith in an anointed
word to do whatever God's intention is in
sending forth that word.
I say the anointed word.
I mean the word that comes forth by
the Spirit, from the Spirit.
And so these hidden things, Paul says, God
has prepared for them that love him.
He hasn't entered into a heart and mind,
but God has prepared for those that love
him.
But God hath revealed them unto us by
his Spirit.
For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God.
We can't see it.
We can't hear it.
With our natural eyes, our natural ears, our
natural understanding.
But God has revealed it by his Spirit.
And so if God doesn't reveal it by
his Spirit, I think we better leave it
alone.
No doubt there are many, many wonderful things
there yet that God would reveal.
But if he is not revealing it by
his Spirit, we better leave it alone.
For the Spirit is searching.
The Spirit searcheth all things.
Yea, the deep things of God, literally the
depths of God, the deeps of God.
Deep things, then you're thinking of maybe gifts
and things that God has to dish out
to his people.
But it's the depths of God, the deepness
of God, the deeps of God.
It's God himself that the Spirit is searching
out.
These deep places in God, the Spirit is
searching that out.
The Spirit is searching.
Paul says right into the Romans that he
that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the
mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of
God.
God is a searching God.
He's searching out.
The Spirit is given to search out those
depths in God.
I wonder, we're inclined, you know, I think,
to take a lot of things for granted.
We receive God's Spirit.
We get the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Maybe get a gift or two.
And we're inclined to feel, well, now, you
know, we're all prepared now for whatever he
wants us to do.
We're ready for it.
Instead of realizing that there's vast depths in
God that we know nothing about yet, and
that God's purpose is really to search out
those depths in God and to bring them
unto us.
Before we continue a little with that matter
of searching, let's read verse 11 and 12.
For what man knoweth the things of man
save the spirit of man which is in
him?
Simply saying that only mankind can understand the
things that relate to mankind.
An animal, a bird, they have very little
concept of human nature because they're of a
different kind.
Only those of the human family can really
understand things that pertain to the human family
in any degree of fullness.
And so, he says, it's the same with
God.
If we have the spirit of man, then
we can relate to mankind and understand what
man's all about, how he thinks and feels
and understands.
But he says it's the same with God.
So, only the spirit of God really knows
God, really understands God, and really relate to
God.
Only the spirit of God can do that.
And so, he goes on to say, now,
we have received not the spirit of the
world but the spirit which is of God
that we might know the things that are
freely given to us of God.
So, that's why God gave his spirit.
Because the spirit alone knows God.
And with God's spirit, then the spirit of
God is faithful to reveal unto his people
in our total helplessness.
Having a natural mind, we're totally helpless to
come to know God.
Totally helpless.
Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world?
For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God.
You understand?
Take it slowly.
In the wisdom of God, God says he
let the world go on in its own
way, trying to discover God by their own
wisdom.
After that, in God's wisdom, the world by
wisdom never did discover God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of the
preaching to save those that believe.
For the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness.
But unless which are saved, it is the
power of God.
And no man can come to know God,
except he comes to the cross, which is
so stupid in the eyes of the intellectual.
But there, a man who hung there 2
,000 years ago, God was revealing in that
one hanging on the cross, the depths of
his wisdom.
The depths of his wisdom.
That in that man hanging on the cross,
God was condemning the sin that has afflicted
the human family.
That having dealt with sin, we might partake
of a new law, the law of life,
the law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, to bring us back to God
and to cause us to draw nigh unto
God.
Wisdom of God is revealed in the cross.
It's wisdom.
And the world by wisdom never did find
God.
And now it has pleased God by the
foolishness of the preaching of the word of
the cross to save those that believe.
But the Greeks seek after wisdom.
The Jews require a sign.
They seek after power.
We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews, the
stumbling blocks, unto the Greeks, foolishness, but unto
them which are called both Jews and Greeks,
Christ, the power of God and the wisdom
of God.
So then he gives us his spirit then
to know these depths in God.
And we settle for talking in tongues or
having a gift of healing.
Precious gifts from God.
You see, eye hasn't seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man
the things that God has prepared for those
that love him.
And the spirit is in our hearts to
bring those things that he's brought to us
true.
But that's not the end of it.
To search out all things, yea, the deeps
in God, to search it out, search out
the heart of God.
Deep calleth unto deep.
I'd rather quote it this morning.
Let's just turn to that a moment.
Psalm 42.
I was reading that not too long ago
and I thought, now listen, now, we've been
quoting that verse, deep calleth unto deep, and
referring to when our hearts cry calling unto
God and God calling unto us and that
fellowship and that relationship, but read it in
the context.
And he says, verse 7, deep calleth unto
deep, but the noise of thy waterspouts, thy
cataracts, all thy waves and thy billows are
gone over me.
Then you go back and you read, as
the heart panteth after the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Here's a man longing for God, longing for
a drink of the river of life.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living
God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my meat, day and
night, while they continually say unto me, where
is thy God?
David, I assume it's David here, is in
a place of exile.
He's rejected.
He's chased from the house of God.
He says, when I remember these things, I
pour out my soul in me.
How I had gone with a multitude.
I went with them to the house of
God with the voice of joy and praise
with a multitude that kept holy day.
Now his soul is cast down.
He remembers the good times in the house
of God.
Now he's rejected.
He's dejected.
He's cast down.
And I suddenly realized that was God's dealings
with him to make him hunger and thirst
after God.
It's not within you and I to seek
after God.
There's none that seeks after God.
It's just not within us.
You say, I've been seeking after God.
Well, then God did something to cause you
to do that.
God did something to cause you to seek
him.
God did something to cause you to thirst.
And recognizing that, we no longer condemn those
who don't thirst after God or hunger after
God.
We thank him that somehow, Lord, you were
faithful to lead us in dry places, to
make us hungry, faithful, doing it with us
as he was to the children of Israel.
He led them in a wilderness, caused them
to hunger, fed them with manna, that you
might know that man doth not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of the Lord.
That's why he led them that way.
He didn't tell them that until they'd gone
through.
But after they'd gone through the wilderness, and
that first generation had failed God by not
having set their hearts aright, because their spirit
was not steadfast with God, nor did they
set their hearts aright, they were overthrown in
the wilderness.
And the reason they turned away and did
not go into Canaan was an excuse that
they came up with that was not valid.
We can't grin because our children they couldn't
stand it.
We could stand it.
We're grown up, but they couldn't stand it.
And God swore with a nose, as I
live, I will bring your children in that
you feared for, and you'll die in the
wilderness.
And so they said, we can't grin because
we love our children so much.
God says, I swear, I'll bring your kids
in and you'll stay out.
So let's remember that, and the kids can't
take this.
You better go God's way.
God knows how to look after your kids.
And there's terrible times coming in the earth.
Some awesome times.
Could be very close.
Who knows?
But the new generation was prepared of God
to go in.
And it's to them that he said, I
have fed you with manna and I caused
you to hunger, that you might know that
man does not live by bread only, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of the Lord, that man lives.
The old generation was dying off and just
about the whole generation was to die off
before the new generation went in.
So that which was judgment for the old
generation was preparation for the new one.
For there they were eating of the manna,
drinking of the water, going along their weary
way with the rest of them with their
adults, except that they had a hope.
God swore he's going to bring us in.
But the older generation had no hope.
They were going to die in the wilderness.
I don't know if it bothered them too
much.
Because when you look at the old generation
in the church today, you don't see them
lamenting that somehow we missed it.
Because if you don't know what you missed,
how can you lament about not having received
it?
But if God gives an expectation and a
hope and a desire, then there's a certain
fear, a certain godly fear.
God, we see what you're doing in measure.
We don't want to miss it.
And so we're going to need vision.
And I think I could very easily have
made total shipwreck if it wasn't for that
little glimmer of expectation, vision.
God, you're going to do great things.
It wasn't a case of I hope when
I die I'll go to heaven.
That never bothered me from the time I
was saved.
But in this life, God, you've got great
things for your people.
Tremendous things.
So when you're tempted to grow weary of
it all and to give up, may God
have established in your heart at least a
vision, a hope, an expectation.
I want to go into the conquering generation
because hope purifies.
Not any kind of hope.
The hope of seeing him.
And it all comes down to that.
Whatever our expectation is, whatever the inheritance is,
and there are many aspects of it, it
all comes down.
Finally, Christ Jesus is our hope and our
expectation.
Although along the way he gives you gifts
and blessings and promises you a certain ministration
and gives you a certain vision of what
he wants you to do, let there be
no vision that God gives us that will
crowd out or be cloud the one and
only vision of coming to see him.
For any other vision he gives is just
something that he gives along the way to
help us along the way, to encourage us
along the pathway, to encourage God's people along
the pathway, until we come to see him.
And we want to see him.
I'm not particularly speaking about the second coming
because I don't believe that there's no seeing
of the Lord until he comes in clouds
with power and great glory.
I believe that we should be anticipating seeing
him constantly, daily.
In the Old Testament, they believed that Messiah
would come.
But before he came, David longed for him.
David sought his face.
The children of Israel, the elders at least
of Israel, saw God.
Moses talked with him face to face.
One occasion Moses said to the people, sanctify
yourselves.
The Lord's going to appear tonight.
This afternoon he's going to appear.
Prepare your hearts.
But now we've got the notion, don't talk
about the appearing of the Lord because it's
going to happen in a split second.
That's way down the line.
Jesus can appear any time.
And I anticipate seeing him appearing in the
midst of his people.
And I hope it happens many, many times.
And Paul saw him after Jesus went away.
You say, well, it's sort of a vision.
It's a sort of nothing.
He says James saw him and Peter saw
him and John saw him and the twelve
disciples saw him.
Well, yeah, they walked with him.
They saw him.
He says 500 brothers saw him and he
says, I saw him.
And the revelation of Jesus to Paul was
just as real to him as the revelation
that the others had who walked with him
three and a half years.
And Paul used that incidence of seeing the
Lord as a qualification for his apostleship.
Because the apostles were those who had been
with the Lord and seen him and walked
with him.
Paul says, I saw him too.
My apostleship is just as valid as theirs.
It wasn't the first coming.
It wasn't the second coming.
What was it?
It was Jesus.
We make the second coming to be an
event.
It's an event, but it's more awesome than
that.
It's the Lord of glory appearing.
God desires you and I.
He wants us.
He needs us.
There's an old slogan they used to have
in the church.
You're saved to serve.
God needs servants.
And you're saved to be a servant, which
is not right.
It's like someone you just got married and
you say, well, why did you marry her?
I needed a slave.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
It's not really that way.
But I think a good wife will be
a good servant.
But that's not why you married her or
shouldn't be.
And Jesus didn't just save us so he'd
have some servants.
Because he's got 10,000 times 10,000
and thousands and thousands who wait upon him
day and night.
They need no rest.
I mean, just a moment's beck and call
and they can go to the ends of
the earth.
He doesn't need servants.
He needs friends.
And he has very few friends.
And so Jesus called 12 apostles to preach,
I know, but something additional to that.
Something first, something that preceded that.
He called 12 apostles that they should, what?
Be with him.
And that he should send them forth to
preach.
Because if you're not with him, I don't
think your preaching will amount to very much.
You're not spending time with him.
Learning his word, yes.
But also learning his ways.
For Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life.
We want life, that's our pursuit.
Jesus is the truth, but he's also the
way.
And only as we come to walk in
the way, the way, his way, do we
really come to truth.
You can have the doctrines of truth without
walking in the way.
But you and I won't come into living
truth until we walk in his way.
Because it's walking in his way that equates
us with him.
And so we love the word of God.
We love the Bible.
Here's one I typed out just to have
a study Bible.
I love it.
But you know, it's not enough there.
It's got to come within.
I worked with an architectural firm one time,
not as an architect.
I'm not an architect, but doing book work.
I remember this one big project they had
to the college.
And you'd be amazed at the blueprints.
I think we probably had about six inches
with the structure of it and the electrical
and the plumbing and mechanical.
And that wasn't the college, but there'd be
no college without it.
Everything was arranged there, and I know there's
mistakes in it because they're fallible.
Everything, every detail was there and given to
the builders to go by the blueprint.
And one day there was the college and
they opened the door and they had me
make a walnut key to present to the
representatives of the college board, the key to
the college.
And there was the building.
Very beautiful.
The blueprints were necessary.
They had to go by the blueprints.
But the intention was not the blueprint.
Their intention was the building.
This is God's blueprint.
Very important.
So we might look up a Strong's Concordance
or another version.
Maybe this isn't quite clear, so we look
up another version.
Because we want to know what God said.
I think that's good.
But it's the blueprint.
It's what God is building because of this.
That's the reality.
And that which God is doing because of
what he said here is building into his
people.
That living word.
So ministration must be by the Spirit, not
of the letter, but of the Spirit.
For the letter killeth.
The Spirit giveth life.
But that doesn't mean like some interpretive, oh
yeah, you've got all those scriptures and that,
but the letter killeth.
They despise the letter.
No.
I know it killeth.
So is God.
The Lord killeth.
The Lord maketh alive.
Don't worry if it kills.
Look for the Lord to give life.
The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Jesus, the words that I speak into are
Spirit.
And God must bring ministry to that.
The words that are spoken are not just
the letter that we read.
But as the Spirit searcheth all things, yea,
the steps of God, he searches it and
brings it out in Spirit.
So that Paul said, which things also we
speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual.
So back to Psalm 42.
David was longing after God as the heart
panteth after the water books.
How did he get that way?
God had led him in a wilderness, causing
him to thirst.
That's what the wilderness was for, to prepare
the hearts of their people that they might
long after God, that they might come to
realize that their very life depended upon hearing
from God.
And so he fed them with manna, which
didn't satisfy their appetite, didn't satisfy them.
It met every need, but it didn't satisfy
them.
It left them hungry.
Why?
I fed you with manna, and caused you
to hunger, that you might know that man
doesn't live just by bread, but by every
word that proceedeth.
Out of the mouth of the Lord doth
man live.
And so the wilderness way is intended to
cause you to seek after God.
And if your heart's right, it'll do that.
If you prepare your heart, it'll do that.
If you set your heart aright, any trouble
that comes will drive you to God.
And so David's troubles drove him to God,
and he found himself longing after the water
books.
And so, O my God, my soul is
cast down within me.
Therefore will I remember thee from the land
of Jordan and of the Hermonites from the
hill Mizar.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of
thy water spouts.
All thy waves and thy billows are gone
over me.
God, I'm swept away with your judgments, with
the troubles that have come upon me.
They just sweep over me like billows.
These troubles, they sweep over me, but it
causes a deep to call unto deep.
There was a depth that God was forming
in David, which he can only do, I
believe, as he leads us into difficult places,
wildernesses, trials, tests.
God, I'm in trouble.
I must fly unto you.
You're the only one that can help.
And God is faithful to come forth, and
the Spirit searches the deep things of God.
He searches the deep things of God, and
he's been searching your heart, searching out your
heart, searching out God's heart.
And he finds something there.
I can bring these two together.
There's something in God that you need at
this moment of your trouble.
You've got a deep cry there for God,
and God has this for you.
And so he says, comparing spirituals with spirituals.
It literally reads that way.
Comparing the spirituals with the spirituals.
And comparing, understand, can mean not only setting
the one here and the other there to
judge between the two, but literally bringing them
together, combining the spirituals with the spiritual, joining
together the spirituals with the spiritual.
And so it's the ministration of the Holy
Spirit.
If you have those depths in God, crying
out unto God, the Spirit says, this is
what you need, and there's something compatible there.
And so he's able to join you, join
that spiritual that's in God with that spiritual
that's in you, so that there's a participation
in the life of God in a more
meaningful way than there was before.
And we were totally helpless in ourselves to
come to that.
The troubles come, wildernesses come, disappointments come.
We say, why God did you do that?
Why?
And the Psalmists are full of questions to
God, and we're full of questions.
Why, Lord?
What's all this about?
And it's part of the wilderness way, it's
part of the effect of the manna, which
means why, when, what, what's it all about?
It means that.
Why?
What?
Just be thankful when those questions arise.
That perchance God is feeding me with that
heavenly food.
We rejoice in the eating of it, but
we don't always rejoice in the effect that
it has upon us.
We don't attribute it to what we have
eaten.
We don't attribute it to our desire for
God.
We attribute it to the devil.
In many cases, when we should be attributing
it to God's desire for his people.
You desire God so much, the only reason
you desire God at all is because he
desires you.
That's why he created man.
Because God was alone and he desired fellowship.
Not just the fact that he was alone,
but the fact that God, as one who
was alone, had dwelling within him the fullness
of love and mercy and truth and compassion
and long-suffering and patience and kindness and
grace unspeakable.
It was all there in God, but nobody
to share it with.
He had to have a man in his
image.
He had all kinds of angels and celestial
beings, great and wonderful and beautiful, but no
fellowship really.
No real fellowship, because they weren't like him.
God had to make someone like himself, but
how can God make himself?
But he made a man in his image,
in his likeness, not totally like I think
I said yesterday, because Adam was of the
earthly.
He had a temple in the Old Testament,
but not the fullness of the temple, but
he did have a temple.
He had sacrifices, but not the fullness of
it.
They were types of the real sacrifice.
And the first Adam was just a type
of the last Adam who was a figure
of him that was to come, even Christ,
a figure.
So that it's not a case of God
in bringing us into his image, bringing us
back to that state that Adam was in,
for he was just a type.
It's bringing us back into an image far
beyond what Adam had.
But as we have borne the image of
the earthy, so must we bear the image
of the heavenly.
For he that is of the earth is
earthy, he that is of heaven is of
heaven.
See in the resurrection, I know, but before
then.
Adam did not die and go into the
grave in order to reach the fullness of
sin.
He reached it in his lifetime.
When he sinned, the rain of sin began
to rule within him.
He didn't have to die to see the
fullness of it.
That was the natural end of it all.
You don't die and go to heaven to
be like Jesus.
It starts now.
And the culmination of it will be that
resurrection day.
But the life begins now.
And you got Adam's sin because you were
born in Adam, as simple as that.
And you grow in sin because of that
seed that you inherited from Adam.
And so in the last Adam, it's because
you were born in Christ that you inherited
his righteousness.
And you continue to grow in righteousness because
the seed of his life is within you,
born again of the incorruptible seed of the
word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
Never forget that.
There's two Adams.
And our Lord is the last Adam.
And as we are born in the image
of the earthy, so much we bear the
image of the heavenly.
So God wanted a man in his image
because if he didn't have a man in
his image, he would not have real relationship
with anything.
Real fellowship.
So he made a man, giving him the
potential to communicate with him, fellowship with him,
walk with him, be one with him, be
his expression in the earth.
God never forsakes his plan.
When man spoils it, God doesn't give it
up.
When God gives a promise, he doesn't draw
it back.
We don't appropriate it, it stays there in
the earth.
He doesn't take it back.
Well, I tried to do it anyway.
He waits for a certain time when that
which God planted in the earth, he says,
now this time, now it'll come forth.
For as the rain cometh down and the
snow from heaven and watereth the earth, that
it might cause the things that are sown
in it to spring forth and ripen, that
it might give seed to the sower and
bread to the eater, so shall my word
be that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void.
It shall accomplish the thing that I please.
So if he sent it forth into the
earth, it stays there till it is fulfilled.
I take a thousand years, two thousand years,
it's in the earth.
God says, I won't take it back till
it accomplishes the purpose for which I sent
it forth.
And in this day and hour, God is
beginning, I believe, to cause life to spring
forth from seeds that he sent into the
earth.
Years ago, centuries ago, millennia ago, God
said to Israel, you shall be unto me
a holy nation and a peculiar people and
a kingly priesthood, a kingdom of priests.
Never happened.
Never happened until Jesus rose from the dead
and ascended.
Oh, he had a priesthood.
It's not a whole nation.
It's one tribe.
God is going to keep alive his intention
in keeping a priesthood in the earth.
But it stays there in the earth until
it springs out of the earth.
It will not return to me void.
It shall prosper in the thing wherein I
sent it.
So that once you really see that and
know that, as you read the scriptures, you
read it, and you're quite convinced that no,
we don't see that in any sense of
fullness.
It remains a promise.
Used to be, well, I know that's what
God said and that's what God wanted, but
somehow it hasn't happened.
It doesn't look like it's going to happen.
But now I see it and read it
and, oh, that's still future then.
Father, the glory thou has given me, I
have given them, that they may be one
as thou, Father, art in me and I
in thee, that they may be one in
us.
You see what God wants now?
God wants us to be one.
So come on now.
We've got to be one.
Forget your doctrines.
Forget everything that you're taught to believe in
the church and that.
Just flow together in love.
Be one great big ecumenical church embracing all
who call upon the name of the Lord.
Nonsense.
Jesus didn't pray for that.
He prayed for a people who would be
one with him as he is one with
the Father.
And as one with the Father, he spoke
clearly the words that the Father gave him
to speak and come to such commitment to
the Heavenly Father that he would speak nothing
except what the Father gave him to speak.