Thank you for the promotion, gentlemen.
I'm PFC Katz.
Let's have a word of God, word of
prayer for this word rather.
Precious holy God, thank you for the marvel,
the miracle of speaking out of earthen vessels.
Give this precious people the demonstration of just
how true it is.
May they hear through this Brooklyn accent, the
voice of the most high God, and may
they, hearing precious God, respond.
Save us from any ceremonial gesture, Lord, from
mere speakings of men.
May we hear thy precious voice, Lord.
Thank you for this occasion now, which we
ask you to bless and perfectly fulfill for
Jesus and for his kingdom's amen.
I don't think it was just a little
quip that I'm PFC, Private First Class Katz.
I still feel such a young believer, although
it's now 14 years.
Maybe it has something to do with the
freshness with which a Jew is thrust into
the kingdom of God, but it remains.
And one of my continuing perplexities is the
matter of factness with which God's people take
the word of God.
I almost have the growing impression that they
believe that he has given us this holy
word to be a subject for Bible studies
or a platform for sermons, that we need
somehow to be apprehended by the word and
to apprehend it in the radical way that
God intends.
I marvel that not more men fall on
their faces before it.
I marvel that there are not more glazed
eyeballs rolled back into the skulls and more
spittle falling from the corners of mouths as
they are confronted by the word of God.
Surely if we live by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God, it
would bring us on our face, would bring
us into a clear and radical contradiction of
everything that is about us.
It would unfit us for the word, for
the world.
We would be radically out of place.
And though it's not part of my message,
but I'll just throw it in.
Where is your life essentially lived?
Is it lived in the reality of the
word, which is in contradiction to your senses,
or is it lived in your senses?
Is it lived on the basis of that
which you see naturally, or is it on
the basis of what God says is so?
For example, the theme of this morning, love
not the world, neither the things that are
in the world.
If any man loves the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh and the lust of
the eyes and the pride of life, is
not of the Father, but is of the
world.
And the world passeth away in the lust
thereof, but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever.
Little children, it is the last time.
Remarkable that John should say that to a
generation 2,000 years ago, for whom it
is more cogent than we.
If it was the last time 2,000
years ago, what is it now?
How much more should we tremble before such
words as these?
But do you recognize the assault that language
has suffered in modern times?
That all no longer means all?
It's the title for a detergent for washing
machines?
You think that God means what he says?
All that is in the world?
Can he be that inclusive and that radical?
Is all that is in the world really
opposed and contrary to the kingdom of God?
We understand that drug addiction is, and that
orgies are, and pornography is, and all of
the blatant and apparent evils, but how about
that which is seeming and good?
I think that it's in this area that
the issue really is important, and that we
really need to see it.
If you've never seen the book by Watchman
Nee bearing the title, Love Not the World,
I would commend it to you.
In the very first pages, he just culls
out of the scripture many of the references
to the world, and I'll just shoot them
at you like buckshot, just to revive your
sense of what a fierce, hostile, and inhospitable
place the world is for those of the
kingdom.
He refers to the spirit of the world,
the wisdom of this world, the fashion of
this world, worldly lusts, the corruption that is
in the world, the defilements of the world,
all that is in the world.
The world knew not God.
The world hated Christ.
The world cannot receive the spirit of truth.
Friendship of the world is enmity with God.
My kingdom is not of this world, which,
by the way, does not mean that he
does not want a kingdom established in this
world.
The whole world lieth in the wicked one.
Do you believe that?
I'll tell you that if you believe it,
it will bring you to crisis, and my
perplexity is that we're not more often in
crisis, not more often confronted with the radical
and the sharp edge of the word.
There's an episode in Matthew that will get
to the heart of what I believe that
God is about with us this morning, in
a text that was brought up by Peter
yesterday in Matthew, the 16th chapter, when Jesus
asked, who do men say that I am?
And after they told him what was the
conventional wisdom, then current, in the way that's
peculiar of the Lord, he said, who do
you say that I am?
That's what I love about this God.
I love a God who puts his finger
in our chest.
Who do you say that I am?
I love a God who does not allow
the question to remain academic or general.
And of course, there was bumptious hotshot Peter
waving his hand in the master's face to
volunteer the correct answer.
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
Living God.
And you see his chest swollen with that
good sense of the correct knowledge of things
and a for the day kind of spirit.
Blessed art thou, Simon by Jonah, for flesh
and blood hath not revealed this to thee,
but my Father which is in heaven.
And then it says that from that time
forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples
how that he must go unto Jerusalem and
suffer many things of the elders and chief
priests and scribes and be killed and be
raised again the third day.
Then Peter, the same one who only moments
before had made this correct identification, took him
and began to rebuke him, saying, be it
far from thee, Lord, this shall not be
unto thee.
I'll tell you that if my Jewish people
knew this scripture, but which of course they
don't, nor do they know it very many
others, they are as a class by and
large biblical illiterates.
But if they knew this scripture, they would
applaud it.
This would speak to the cockles of their
hearts.
This would endear them to Peter.
This is the kind of wisdom that they
could instantly recognize.
This is the kind of wisdom that they
universally applaud.
This is the kind of response that universities
to this day acknowledge and for which they
give honorary doctorates.
The world loves the kind of sentiment that
was expressed by Peter.
Let this be far from you, Lord.
It sounds so beguiling.
It sounds so honorific.
It sounds so filled with concern.
It sounds so loving.
It has every appearance of rectitude and right
that if you lack discernment and you just
hear the word nakedly, you'll miss all of
the filth and the viciousness and the contention
against God, against his kingdom and against the
salvation that is implied there.
There's something about the world's reaction to suffering
that always says, let this be far from
you.
And what is unspoken, but which is equally
clear is let it be far from me
also.
See, all of the wisdom of the world,
all that has to do with morality and
ethics, and I speak as a Jewish expert,
having trafficked in it for 35 years, has
at its heart vile self-interest.
It's not the blatant evils against which we
need to be warned, dear children of God,
that this is the last time, but the
apparent things that are good.
The things that are seemly and beguiling.
The things that come to us gobbed attractively
and seem almost to serve the purposes of
God, but which in actuality contend against them.
You're looking at a man who is vehemently
opposed to sentimentality.
I just hate that squishy, oily stuff.
I hate that definition of love, which is
squishy, schmaltzy, as we Jews say, that sounds
so good to the ear and sounds so
beguiling, but indeed is not love at all,
but some kind of palaver.
I love the kind of love that is
divine, that comes from heaven, and which often
comes as cutting and often incurs pain, which
has to do with the divine severity of
God, which is so little exercised or expressed
by God's people, for they have been suckered
into the world's definition of love and have
been rendered inoperative.
A bunch of schmaltzy platitudes, which has no
effect and no possibility to shape the character
of men for eternity.
When have we last spoken the truth in
love?
When have we exhorted one another daily while
it is yet today?
When have we confronted one another with needful
things as an act of love?
I can't think of any greater expression than
what is described in the second chapter of
Galatians, when some johnny come lately by the
name of Paul, recently an enemy of the
faith and whose reputation is still suspect, confronted
the very pillar of the church, Peter, and
that to his face publicly for the purity
of the gospel sake.
Oh may this spirit be restored to the
church.
May we no longer walk mincingly on eggshells
and wear chintzy smiles and call that love.
May we experience the divine severity of God
that will make us like him.
Well it's interesting to see what the response
of Jesus was to this platitude of Peter's,
which by the way, had Jesus heeded it,
there would not be a cotton-picking one
of us in this room this morning.
I praise God for a son of God
whose face was fixed as a flint and
would not be distracted by beguiling human sentiment
coming in the appearance of good.
May you detest good.
As much as you love that which is
perfect.
May you be as maniacal as I for
that which is perfect only.
And be willing to suffer failure rather than
any lesser standard than that which comes down
from heaven.
But how many of you dear men here
who are pastors will be content with quote
and unquote good services.
And how many of you would be willing
to risk the pain of failure in the
hope of the experience of the glory of
God.
How much have we lamentably fallen short of
the glory of God because we have been
too easily satisfied with that which is good.
We need to be reminded of the answer
of the Lord to Peter.
Let this be far from thee Lord.
But he turned and said unto Peter get
thee behind me Satan.
Thou art an offense unto me for thou
savorest not the things that be of God
but those that be of men.
It will do us well all of us
to ponder that statement.
I don't think anyone has ever adequately pondered
the far reaches of what Jesus implied in
that statement.
You savor of the things which be of
men and not of God.
Get thee behind me Satan.
I'm willing just to offer as a hypothesis
this morning that what Jesus is implying is
the equation of things that be of men
with that which is of Satan.
Can you believe that a formally sophisticated Jew
can be so changed, so converted that he
sees things now ever and always in stark
simplicity as a choice of one thing or
another.
Always a choice of polarities and nothing in
between.
It's light or darkness.
It's flesh or it's spirit.
It's of God or it's of Satan.
It's of heaven or it's of hell.
It's the kingdom of this present world or
it's the kingdom of God.
Stark polarities every time.
He equated that which is of men with
that which is of Satan.
Now let me just go on a bit
from Watchman Knee in which he says the
time has passed when we need to go
out into the world in order to make
contact with it.
Today the world comes in and searches us
out.
There is a force abroad now which is
captivating men.
Have you felt the power of the world
as much as today?
Have you ever heard so much talk about
money?
Have you ever thought so much about food
and clothing?
Never in the sphere of things have we
needed to know the power of the cross
of Christ to deliver us as we do
at the present time.
Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world.
Maybe these English pastors have it right that
one suit is sufficient.
If it does nothing more than to save
us from the preoccupation with color and fashion
and style and fit, that would be sufficient
to commend it.
I'm making a case this morning for ruthless
separation from the world.
Not only from the things that are vile,
but the things that are apparently good.
He writes there is a spiritual force behind
this world scene which by means of the
things that are in the world is seeking
to enmesh men in its system.
Have you ever thought of the world as
a system?
Although I'm not especially enthusiastic for the Schofield
Bible, I will commend in the Revelations 13
a footnote on the world that is remarkable
in which it describes the world as a
system utterly opposed to God in every point
in particular based on the satanic principles of
power, lust, ambition, deceit.
Although outwardly garnished and made attractive by the
things that pertain to education and culture and
even religion, inwardly and totally opposed to God.
Something like that.
Are you aware of the world as that
kind of a system ruled over by the
prince of darkness and that the whole world
lieth in the evil one?
How watchful we need to be lest at
any time we be found helping Satan in
the construction of that ill-fated kingdom.
How many of us are employing the spirit
of the world in our own religious and
church practices?
How many evangelical organizations are flooding the mailboxes
of the saints with multi-color lithograph junk
inspired by the world?
By the principle of mass mailings by which
you know that if you send out so
many hundreds of thousands there is going to
be a return sufficient to cover the expense
and then how many of us have condescended
to the devices of the world to advance
the purposes of the kingdom?
Not recognizing that God's ends must be accomplished
by God's means.
How many of you have got the fever
for building that seems now to be so
endemic in the Christian world?
Million dollar and more.
Great plants we call them.
A fever for buildings.
Great impressive facilities which has more than we
know taken its inspiration from the spirit of
the world.
There's only this one conflict in the universe
he writes that whenever two conflicting courses lie
open to us the choice that issue is
never a lesser one than God or Satan.
Do we acknowledge that Satan is today the
prince of education and science and culture and
the arts?
I can't tell you how painful an acknowledgement
this is for me who had for so
long luxuriated in culture education and the arts
and wondered why it was that God had
to send me back to the university to
complete a master's degree after my conversion when
I myself had no personal interest in attaining
it.
I think it was primarily for this reason
that I might see by the eye of
the spirit what I could not have seen
previously as an atheist on the same campus.
That there's no more savage cesspool, nothing more
at the heart of this world system in
all of its satanic power than what is
to be found in academic realms.
As I have since become an encounter confrontationist
by the grace of God at many university
campuses I can tell you that just walking
through the book stores of some of these
places is enough to sense the eerie chill
of satanic power.
The exaltation of mind and of intellect and
the other values which are expressed there have
been the grave of many precious young evangelical
souls who have been sent there unwarily to
their doom.
Not long ago I remember making a statement
that I would no sooner send my kid
to a university than I would to darkest
Africa, to the most foreboding mission places except
by the same explicit call of the Holy
Spirit.
I don't think that going to the university
is the automatic logic to which Christian families
ought to subscribe, although they've done so without
so much as an iota of thought as
whether God approves.
They have been sucked in lock, stock, and
barrel to the conventional wisdom of the world
that of course assures us that if a
child is to make any kind of gain
in the world he needs the advantages of
education.
The course of my calling in God requires
me to be almost continually staying at the
homes of ministers throughout the world, and I'm
just coming to the shocking realization as I
have an opportunity to glimpse their lives privately,
the enormous disparity between what they profess from
the pulpits on Sunday and what is the
actual substance and conduct of their life otherwise.
That when it comes to the basic decisions
that touch their security, their well-being, their
future, and especially that of their children, these
decisions are made exactly as anyone else in
the world makes them, predicated upon human wisdom
and not the counsel of God, either by
his word or by his spirit.
So I made this remark at a meeting,
and there was a man there, precious, charismatic
brother, who was an executive of a corporation
in that particular town, and he was stunned
by the audacity of that remark.
And he followed me along with others to
the house where I was staying, and I
remember him sitting on the floor, looking up
at me, still wearing that stunned countenance, and
said, what did you mean by that?
And in the answering of his question, God
gave him such a total requirement to submit
his entire life to the light of the
kingdom, that that one question pertaining to the
education of his daughter was only like the
stone that had been thrown into a placid
pool, and now the ripples were concentrically going
out to the farthermost reaches of his entire
life.
And before that man got up from the
floor that night, God had shown him that
the whole of his life needed to be
examined in the light of God, that there
was more than the issue of education involved,
and that though he was a happy, charismatic,
there needed to be made some searing and
radical separations from the world.
This realm, the world, has many strange facets.
Sin, of course, has its prior place there,
and worldly lusts, but no less part of
it are our more estimable human standards and
ways of doing things.
The human mind, its culture, and its philosophies
all are included, together with the very best
of humanity's social and political ideologies.
Alongside these two, we should doubtless place the
world's religions.
Wherever the power of natural man dominates, there
you have an element in that system which
is under the direct inspiration of Satan.
I myself had a precious, charismatic secretary, and
after the course of a few years with
us, and what a blessing she was, what
a model, what an exemplary believer.
I could have offered her as the model
of what a believer ought to be.
In freedom, in spontaneity, in originality, in sincerity,
in the knowledge of the word, she was
precious.
Well, God called her to a more challenging
environment than what we presented at that time,
and she's now at a community of believers
in Germany.
Very stringent spiritual atmosphere and environment.
A fixed liturgy which violated all of her
charismatic sensibilities.
Fixed times of prayer, three times a day.
Risings, 5.30 in the morning, and despite
all of her wonderful talent as a secretary
and as a personality, they put her in
the laundry room for over a year.
No personal privacy, and I remember after a
year or so when I had an occasion
to visit her, she said, Archie said, I
feel like a drug addict.
I feel like I'm coming off of drugs.
This is like cold turkey.
This is, what's the phrase?
This is like withdrawal pains.
She said, I can't even get to a
Chinese restaurant, not even a chocolate bar.
And God has shown me the subtle psychic
powers and reliefs that were to be had
in such innocent things as Chinese restaurants and
chocolate bars.
She said, it's like withdrawal.
It's coming out of the world.
The essential character of the world is satanic.
It is at enmity with God.
To see this is to find deliverance.
Well, Katz, you might say, you've made some
strong statements, and if the world is as
vicious and as vile as this, all the
more in its subtlety and its power, all
the more because it is thoroughly insinuated in
the things that are seeming and attractive and
good that have to deal and touch the
values which we have all along esteemed as
education and culture and refinement.
Where is our safety?
How would you find our way through such
an inhospitable world as this and retain our
integrity before God and not ourselves be snared
as Satan was, that we might be killed
to hear the voice of the Lord saying
to us, get thee behind me, Satan.
That brings me to my text for this
morning, which is in the book of Genesis
again, in the 22nd chapter, the familiar story
of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac.
In which we read, it came to pass
after these things that God did tempt Abraham
and said unto him, Abraham, and he said,
behold, here I am.
Take now thine son, thine only son, Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the
land of Moriah and offer him there for
a burnt offering upon one of the mountains,
which I will tell thee of.
So Abraham rose up early in the morning
and saddled his ass and took two of
his young men with him and Isaac, his
son, and claimed the wood for the burnt
offering and rose up and went unto the
place of which God had told him, told
him.
Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up
his eyes and saw the place afar off.
Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye
here with the ass, and I and the
lad will go yonder and worship and come
again to you.
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering
and laid it upon Isaac, his son, and
he took the fire in his hand and
a knife, and they went both of them
together.
It came to pass after these things.
One of your precious men told me yesterday
that he felt that this entire movement was
at a threshold of God, that there was
an hour coming for this movement, and I
have an instinctive sense, though I know little
about you practically speaking, that he might be
right.
After these things, it came to pass.
The same Abraham who contended fiercely for Sodom
and Gomorrah and argued with God for the
preservation of that city, and the same Abraham
that shriek, can't Ishmael live, is the same
Abraham who has now come to a place
of utter silence when God requires of him
his son.
Will you understand me when I say that
the only place of safety, of thorough disengagement
from the world and its power, is not
when we just lift our skirts and our
pant cuffs from the muck that is visible
in the world, but when we bring to
the place of total sacrifice that which is
dear, given of God and spiritual, is
the opportunity for the subtle interweaving of our
own fleshly self-interest, the things that savor
of men and not of God.
And I believe with all my heart, you
can make a note in the bottom of
your Bible, that every true ministry and every
true minister that God will use in the
end times, little children, these are the last
days, must pass through the fire, must be
brought into the dust of death, must be
brought to the final place of sacrifice, and
only that which God will resurrect and return
will be safe for our use and for
our participation.
Have you come to that place, dear Holiness
Pentecostal Church, that you're ready to bring it
to the mount of sacrifice?
Take now thy son, thine only son, whom
thou lovest?
How we clutch such sons!
But God gave them to me!
It was born in revival, it came from
heaven!
True!
But you've had a whole half century or
more now to subtly interweave your own ambitions
and your own self-interest in with that
son.
Oh, I'll tell you, it's easier for us
to be stretched out over the altar than
that son.
But if God does not put his finger
upon that which is dearest, he doesn't have
us.
Are you willing to go up to the
mount, to the place of sacrifice, and not
some kind of mock religious gesture, but to
go up as Abraham did, with the knife
and with the fire?
How many of our sacrifices have not eventuated
in the glory of God because we've gone
up, but we've not gone up really meaning
it.
We've not gone up with the intent to
kill.
We've not taken the knife.
We may have lain something on the altar,
and if we've slain it, we've not brought
the fire.
And so we have in the last analysis
something that is putrid and stinking, but not
the sweet-smelling savor in his nostrils.
What's the Isaac of the Pentecostal Holiness Church
that God would ask of it now, in
this hour that came to pass after these
things, that he would have brought up to
the mount both with the knife and the
fire?
Abraham said to his young men, you abide
here with the ass.
I and the lad will go yonder and
worship.
I'll tell you I know for a fact
that there are things, you ministers, in your
minds and in your hearts that have to
do with your ambitions and your intentions for
the future, your building programs and your plans,
that should rightly be left below with the
ass where they belong.
He doesn't want that.
It's interesting that this is the first reference
to the word worship to be found in
the scripture.
It has not to do with the quivering
voice, Jesus, or any of the other things
that we think constitute worship that impress us,
but it has to do with bringing something
totally to the place of death.
Maybe even the quivering voice itself.
Maybe our Pentecostal style, the kind of things
that play upon our heartstrings that are fleshly
and sentimental and keep us stagnated and fixed
at that one plateau from which we've not
risen in decades.
Maybe that needs the knife and the fire.
Are you willing?
Stripped of your style and left dead naked
and let God resurrect that which is worth
resurrecting?
Oh, I wait for that kind of Pentecostal
movement.
And I'm not speaking as an outsider taking
pot shots.
I'm speaking as one who came to God
in the Pentecostal movement and has continued ever
since.
So Isaac said, where's the sacrifice?
Behold the fire in the wood, but where
is the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abram said, my son, God will provide
himself a lamb for burnt offering.
So they went both of them together.
Wasn't that true?
That when he lifted the knife above that
sun, he found the ram caught in the
thickets by its horns.
And may I tell you, dear precious children,
that if you'll have the courage to go
up, both with the knife and with the
fire, bringing the very dearest of what you
have, hallowed by tradition, the old time religion,
you'll find that God has something better waiting
for you, caught in the thickets.
If you'll bring your highest, he'll give you
his utmost.
If you'll bring your utmost, he'll give you
his highest.
There's something waiting in the thickets for that
one who will bring the Isaac who is
dear, the son whom thou lovest.
Strange that we should come to such an
ironic fix as this, that the very traditions
that we love, that titillate our souls and
our emotions, which we identify with the word
revival, are the very things that require the
knife and the fire.
If we are to enter into the transcendent
place at the top of the mount for
which God is calling us, I'll tell you
there's a cry for transcendence in the earth,
if you know what this word means.
Something above, something beyond, something that goes beyond
religious categories, in which the glory of God
is and for which all mankind is organically
crying, though they know it not, for which
they're going berserk and leaping off of bridges
and pumping junk and heroin into their veins
and cheating on their wives and doing all
of the desperate things that men do, who
are organically crying out for a transcendent life
which needs to be brought down from the
mount to a son of obedience who will
go up with his dearest Isaac.
Your precious Pentecostal services are not going to
impress my Jewish mother.
As a matter of fact, if I know
Jews at all, they will recoil from the
very things that delight you as Pentecostals.
They'll call it hokey and affected.
They'll see it as a religious culture, and
you know what, folks?
They're right.
There's something more than the quivering voice and
the religious cliches and the pulpit thumping, but
it's only to be found up at the
mount.
For those will bring their dearest Isaac there.
On the mount of the Lord, it shall
be provided.
I believe that.
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham
from heaven and said, do not lay your
hand on the lad nor do anything to
him, for now I know that you fear
and revere God, since you have not held
back from me or begrudged giving me your
only son.
Since you have done this and have not
withheld from me or begrudged giving me your
son, your only son, that in blessing I
will bless you, and in multiplying I will
multiply you.
One of your precious pastors told me over
some ice cream yesterday that unlike the assemblies
of God and other Pentecostal movements, you have
not multiplied, and you know what my spirit
did?
It rejoiced.
Hallelujah!
Because I don't think that we ought automatically
to be impressed by multiplication of the kind
that we've seen up till this hour, by
men who are so slavishly impressed and moved
by numerics.
I'm looking for this multiplication.
God adding to the church daily such as
shall be saved.
But what a church it was.
Look how they love one another.
Why, no man thinks that the thing which
he has is his own.
Those that believe were together.
With great power gave they testimony to the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, and great grace was
upon them.
To that church, God added daily such as
should be saved.
Oh, forget your hokey programs and taking people
on airplane rides as they bring ten more
to the Sunday school class, and all of
the other incentives and stupefying things we do
that are a shame and an embarrassment.
But come up to the place of transcendence,
and in multiplying he'll multiply you, because you
have done this.
Just let me end with this.
And in your seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed.
Hallelujah!
To see children from this kind of transcendent
church going forth into the nations of the
world.
Not to reproduce hokey Pentecostal chapters with the
same inflections in the voice and the same
quiver and the same gesticulations and manner and
style, but authentic expressions of a transcendent kingdom
in which is sanity and hope and truth
and reality and the glory of God.
In your seed shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed, and by him bless
themselves because you have heard and obeyed my
voice.
See, I have a little question before you
this morning.
Is this some Jewish eccentric speaking?
Or can it be very God calling you
to a kind of an obedience of ultimate
trembling?
So Abraham returned to his young men, and
they rose up and went with him to
Beersheba.
There Abraham dwelt.
What a glorious conclusion.
And I mentioned Beersheba yesterday when Jacob fled
from Beersheba to Haran, going the wrong way.
He went from the city of seven wells,
the picture of the Spirit of God given
without measure.
No more these little gifts of the Spirit
for which we're so gleeful and excited, because
it sparks the conversation, the congregation, and gives
a little luster to otherwise inept and gray
houses of God.
I'm sick of this talk of the renewing
of the denominations, when there's a God who
has more profound purposes in restoring apostolic glory.
Men speaking of the Holy Spirit as if
it were an adornment.
The Spirit of God given without measure to
those who dwell at Beersheba.
You'll not dwell there until you have gone
up to the mount with your Isaac and
met God in the place of transcendence with
the knife and with the fire.
And here's this last beautiful point that the
Spirit of God impressed me.
So Abraham returned unto his young men, and
they rose up and went together to Beersheba.
You know what I have a feeling, guys?
If you'll take your Isaac up to the
mount, when you come down, you're going to
come down to a new relationship with the
young men.
I don't know exactly what that means.
May the Spirit of God fill it in
for us.
Whether it means those in our own congregations
to whom we have only been superficially related,
because God is going to free us from
the subtle idolatry that in here in our
own families, which is one of the most
subtle hiding places of self.
Or does it mean the young men of
other denominations with whom we've not been able
effectually to relate?
I can only say this.
It may mean all of these things, but
I know it.
That when we come down from that mount,
we're going to go on in a new
way with the young men together to dwell
at Beersheba.
With all of the talk about the body
of Christ, it's almost become a glib formula,
an unctuous reference that everyone is expected to
make.
We all speak of it.
It's become another patsy formula, and we're touching
the things that pertain to the very glory
of God.
Unto God be glory in the church, world
without end.
The body of Christ, the thing over which
Paul palpitated passionately, the mystery that was concealed
from the beginning of the age, now being
revealed.
The walls of partitions being broken down.
A quality of life between men of different
origins and races that will astound the earth.
Not just this kind of cordiality of sitting
alongside each other in pews.
That can the Rotarians do, and the Elks,
and the Moose, and all the rest.
But such a quality of life demonstrated in
relationship that bespeaks another kingdom.
Abraham returned unto his young men, and they
rose up and went together to Beersheba, and
Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.
Love not the world, nor the things that
are in the world, for all that is
in the world.
There's a God in this hour who is
after such a radical separation that we just
have to wistfully smile at what we had
called in the past, sanctification or separation.
Our concern with outward things, and styles, and
lipstick, or the having of it, or the
not, is kid stuff.
God's reaching for something much deeper that's inward.
It's the subtle vanities and the idolatries of
which we are all guilty, and for which
no one will confront us, and which are
even hard to be identified by name, but
are there.
They hide in the family relationships, they hide
in the denomination, they hide even under the
generous phrase of what we call the work
of God.
There's only one safe answer to it all,
the detachment that comes when we bring our
most precious Isaac to the place of utter
sacrifice.
If you go up in these days silently
with the knife and with the fire, you'll
find that he has something better for you
caught in the thicket.
It came to pass after these things.
I wonder if the historian of the Pentecostal
Holiness Church might say that everything till now
has been preparation for the ascending up to
this mount.
Let's bow our heads before God.
Precious God, thank you for the enormous love
for this people that you have, which is
threatening to birth through my own chest.
Such a love, such a brooding concern, such
an oversight, such a waiting for them to
come to maturity, to leave the things that
belong below with the ash, and to ascend
up on high to meet you at the
mount.
Precious God, I just feel the words of
your speaking in their hearts.
May they have the courage to raise the
knife above their most venerated and honored traditions.
May they be willing for new things.
May they have a love and a desire
to dwell at Beersheba.
May they put the knife to everything that
is mocked and feigned, postured, that seems to
be and is not.
May they destroy also that which is called
Christian respectability.
May they be willing to have brought to
death the esteem of men.
Precious God, we know that out of this
death and out of this burning will come
something resurrected that will stand the test of
time and eternity.
A pure work of God that can only
be found at the mount, for on the
mount it shall be provided.
I ask again, as I asked this morning
privately in seeking your face, that you would
take these words and by the grace of
your spirit give a direct and practical application
to every man who has ears to hear
what the spirit is saying to this church.
Building programs, grandiose intentions for the future, schools,
all kinds of programs, I don't know what,
Lord, with so much all of us on
a certain bandwagon.
May we really be willing to submit everything
to the death and trust you to resurrect
that alone in which your heart is.
Bless these young people in this room, Lord,
the students.
Bless these precious leaders, pastors and their wives.
Bless this work, this denomination, my God, which
came down at the first from heaven and
needs again to be brought up that you
might give it back in the form that
it shall please you.
For little children, these are the last days.
Thank you, precious God, for holy speaking, for
receptive hearts, for doers of the word.
Thy kingdom come on earth as it is
in heaven.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
I just ask you just to remain just
quiet for a minute or two.
Let's not just quickly resume the program and
go on to the next thing.
Just take a moment before the Lord and
then whenever you can feel that that's fulfilled,
what do you say?
May I repeat the benediction of John?
Little children love one another.
And while you're sending those who have to
depart, please do so quietly.