Omega Message – May 2001
Bill Mercer
(This message was given at the July 2000 Sonlight Gospel Convention, in Mahomet, Illinois.)
Father, I just thank you for this opportunity of coming before You; of coming before Your people. It is a privilege that we must never treat lightly. Oh Lord, grant that every word that comes forth will com e straight from the throne room. Forbid, Lord, that anything of man might be seen. May Your Son Jesus be exalted in this place this morning. May there not be a heart that will not bow the knee to the Name of Jesus in this place this day.
Father, only You can bring forth the Word. Only You can perform Your Word. We are but vessels to that end. Lord, cleanse this vessel. Purify it. May the fire fall. May everything that is of flesh and carnality die, that Christ’s life might come forth. This we ask and trust that You will fulfill, because we ask it in Thy beloved Son’s Name, our beloved Jesus. Amen.
If I may, I would like to share just one or two things before we come to the word. I think this is one of the most difficult words that I have ever tried to prepare for. I do not normally have much problem.
About eight weeks ago God started moving in our midst in Scotland. I want to encourage you with some of the things that we have seen happening. Eight weeks ago a young man came in from Glasgow to where we are, which is out in the country in the west highlands of Scotland about fifty miles from Glasgow. You have to go into the mountains to get to us. It is a very beautiful place. We are very blessed, but in terms of the normal natural way of looking at things, we are out in the wilderness. However, did you know that that is where you meet with God – out in the wilderness?
God is sending out people, and Brother Peter (from Schuyler) told me about being out in India and how he saw the ministry of God to the halt, the lame, the blind, and the helpless. Coming over in the plane, God started speaking to me through the wedding feast in Matthew 22 and the banquet in Luke 14. He showed me very clearly that the invitation went out first of all to those who were close at hand, to those who were known by the King. However, they rejected it, and make excuses and went their own way. So, he said, very angrily, “Let them be. They have made a choice.” Then he looked out a little bit, and he said, “Why don’t you go out to the streets and to the lanes.” So, they went out into the streets and the lanes, and they gathered them in; and the King rejoiced. However, he said, “There are yet places where my house is not full. Why don’t you go further out still, to the highways and to the byways.”
This was his third call, and Brethren, I believe that we today are at this third stage. God always does things in threes, doesn’t He? He always works in threes. I believe at this point in time that we have reached the third phase of the calling of God, and I am telling you that His call is not to the Babylonian church system anymore. He is letting them go their own way. It they choose to run after gold teeth and gold dust, so be it. God is, however, not in it and God is having no part in it; and I believe God has removed His hand from it, and He said, “Enough is enough!” God did say that judgment would begin at the house of God, and if our hearts run to these things, He will give them to us and allow us to go that way. That is also the mercy and the judgment of God; and I believe that at this moment in time what we are seeing is the last call! I do not have any doubts about that.
When we started moving in God in this word (not a long time ago), I felt myself to be a very lonely person in the west of Scotland, for the Lord started telling me about the “remnant of God.” That holy remnant that you find spoken about throughout Scripture. I started studying about the remnant, and I spent a long time going through church history, starting from the year 1, and going on through 2000 years of Church history. Do you know that in 2000 years there has always been a remnant of God – a Holy remnant that would not bow the knee to Baal? I found that to be very much so, everywhere I looked; and I found that invariably those who made up the remnant were called “heretics.” Did you know that? When someone from Canada told me about George Warnock, I said, “Oh, he’s one of the chosen ones, isn’t he? Because in England, they have a list of heretics and he is right there in the middle of it!” So, if you are “…called, and chosen, and faithful” (Ref. Revelation 17:14), you are going to make it into the list of the heretics.
For nine months, I preached direct to a little handful of people about the remnant of God, and every time I sought to go into something else, God pulled me back in line and said, “Preach the remnant!” So then, I said to the Father, “Father, these people will think that I know nothing but the word ‘remnant’!” He said, “You get on, do what you are told!” So, for nine solid months I preached the remnant. I have never heard it from anyone else. I did not hear of anyone else who preached about the remnant of God, and towards the end, the latter end, I said, “Father, confirm Your word. It is lonely out here.”
God went to the trouble of bringing a man all the way from South Africa to the Isles up in Scotland; and from one of the islands, one morning, I received a phone call from a man who said, “I used to be an international banker. God has sent me. He wants me to come and speak to you and your people.” I said, “People! If we get a handful, you will be seeing the remnant of God!” He said, “I want to come. I am not coming for numbers. I am not into that kind of thing.” That man came and for three hours, he taught us about the remnant of God. So, I praise God that He is faithful! He will confirm His word, and if we are faithful, He will perform His word. Hallelujah!
It has taken us five years down the line to where we have recently started seeing a subtle move of God amongst our people. Eight weeks ago, a man came in on Saturday evening. We said, “Don’t go home, come and stay with us.” He came on Sunday morning, and the brethren gathered round about him. Unknown to us, he was an addict, and he asked for prayer. We prayed, believing that in the name of Jesus we would break the bondage that was over this man; and in that moment, that man was not only set free from his drug addiction, but as an added bonus he was set free from his nicotine addiction as well. Brethren, our God does not do half jobs; but if our heart is turned to Him, He will fulfill His pleasing and His pleasure! In Psalm 37 it says, “If we will delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart.”
We saw that man set free! He had tried for three years to come off his addiction, and every time he tried to come off, the symptoms (the sweats, the muscle seizures, the nausea) were too much. However, that day that man came off, and that day God gave him the miracle!
Let me tell you something else that happened. I gave him a word, a rather abstruse word from Jeremiah. He went to the local fellowship in Glasgow when he went home, and guess what the preacher preached on that night? God spoke this word to him again. This is our God! That man needed no more convincing that God has spoken to him!
As week later (after just a week in the Lord!), the Lord spoke to him and said, “I want you to go see John.” He went to his friend John’s house in Glasgow. John’s mother did not even want to see him. She said, “You are nothing but bad news! You get out of here!” He said, “Oh, but I have found Jesus.” She said, “I don’t believe a word! Go, and don’t come back near my door!”
Walking down the road, he is wondering, “Lord, have I really heard You?” “Have I really heard God speaking?” The next thing, he walks into one of John’s brothers, and Hon’s brother asks, “What are you doing?” He said, “I am looking for John.” He said, “Well, you won’t find him here, he’s in the Naval Hospital, in the psychiatric unit. He is overdosed; he is unconscious at the moment.” (God is always on time, Brethren! He is always on time!)
He went in with his new bible that he had just gotten. He walked in and looked at John, who just happened to become conscious at that moment as he walked into the room (God is always on time!); and he started telling him about Jesus and what Jesus had just done for him. He said, “You can have this book. It is all about Jesus. Read it.”
He went there every day for six days, and on the sixth day (a Saturday) he said to the psychiatrist, “Will you allow me to take John to go and see some people who will pray for him? I promise to bring him straight back to you.” He brought him fifty miles to the service on Sunday morning, and we did what we had done the time before. The brethren stood around and prayed for him, and God touched John! So much so, that when he went in the next morning the psychiatrist released him as being absolutely whole!
Do you wonder why the inside of me is welling up? It is something very special! THIS IS OUR GOD! Brethren, He is out in the highways and the byways, and we ought to be out there in the highways and the byways bringing them in! He has a wedding banquet and He wants it filled up, before the wrath of God is unleashed.
Five days later, the two of them went out one morning and they got blessed taking this man to his work. It was at five o’clock in the morning in the middle of Glasgow, when there was not a soul on the streets. Except one man. They were going down the street the wrong way and they saw one man; and they stopped and talked to him. He just happened to be a pal of theirs who had just walked out of his house in despair, for he had just left his wife and his kids after a quarrel. He also had a drug problem. Now, I am not going to go into any more details, but that man is now at the fellowship. He is going along with one of the others to the convention in Prague.
Last Saturday, there was another man who came along, and there has not been a week in the last two months when we have not led someone to Jesus. Every week! Brethren, is it happening here? I will ask you a question: When was the last time you led someone to the Lord Jesus and introduced him to your Savior? This is what the joy in heaven is all about! We can jump, we can dance, and we can shout, but it is when we lead someone and introduce them to Jesus, that is the time when the angels rejoice (Ref. Luke 15:1-7). The highways and the byways are out there, and people are hungry.
Do you know what I love doing? I go every Tuesday morning to Teen Challenge, and I tell them about Jesus. They give me three hours to share with the men. I go on Thursday to a detoxification unit.
There is a little lady – she was a little Anglican lady minding her own business eleven years ago in 1989. Her name is Maxie Richards. Eleven years ago, a woman sitting in the Anglican Cathedral where Maxie was worshipping, came up to her and said, “Would you take someone into your home? There is a woman that needs somewhere to stay.” (She did not tell Maxie that the woman was a single parent and that she had a child.) Maxie said, “Yes, I will.” The big thing that she did not tell Maxie was that this woman was a drug addict. Well, as it turned out, instead of being there for one night, this woman stayed with Maxie for three months. When she finished at the end of three months, she knew Jesus! These several years later, she is still walking with Jesus!
Maxie Richards, from that moment, gave her household over to the Lord. However, she did something then that she now regrets. She allowed the Social Services to come in. What Janet said in the earlier meeting was very true. We have the same problem in Britain. The Social Services in Britain are activated by an antichrist spirit. There is no doubt about that! They will seek, at the end of the day, to break down and cut off any Christian input into the lives of the people. I do not say that lightly. I say it because I have experienced it and I have seen it. Maxie, after eighteen months, saw the whole work collapse, and she had to start again from nothing. Now she will not even take one penny of government money to allow them a foothold in her work, at any stage or at any phase. She believes God has sent her to do a work, and God is perfectly capable of providing for His people and for His work.
We are not beggars! He owns “the cattle upon a thousand hills,” doesn’t He? (Ref. Psalm 50:10.) He can sell a few steers anytime He wants. Have you forgotten? God is our provision! “JEHOVAH-JIREH” – THE GOD WHO PROVIDES! Now, if we ever get our eyes off that, and get on to man as our providers, then we are in a hard place, and certainly not a godly place.
That woman, to this day, has people coming to her door. She only has a little three-bedroom house. At the moment she has seven people (some of them sleeping on the floor), and she is detoxifying them. I love going there. I get an opportunity to go on a regular basis and preach about Jesus and tell them about the power of God, and to lift them out of the ditch; and I put their feet on a firm rock!
We are seeing young men being touched by God in a most remarkable way. Week by week by week we are seeing people coming to Jesus. Do you know, the wonderful thing about preaching to them, or teaching them, or sharing with them is that you do not have to tell them that they are sinners. When you talk about “…all have sinned” (Ref. Romans 8:23), they know exactly what you are telling them.
Do you know, I sat one day speaking to the young men at Teen Challenge, and I said, “Write down what your big aspirations are. What do you want more than anything else?” There were seven of them there, and I think two or three of them said that what they wanted was “life.” They had not known anything else by death, and a couple of them just wrote out the letters of the word “l-i-f-e.” I saw this, and I thought, “Hallelujah! I know the “Prince of life” (Ref. Acts 3:15), and He is “the way, the truth, and the life!” (Ref. John 14:6). So, you introduce them to Jesus; and you see them being touched and changed by the glory of God.
Last Sunday, we had a man who came up in our service. He is, I would think, in his seventies. He came up to me and he said, “You know, I have a problem. I stammer, and it makes me a very ….” I said, “That is not your problem! Your problem is that you do not know Jesus. The stammer will go when you know Jesus, because God can deal with that. The big problem is, do you know Jesus?” He said, “No, I do not.” He said, “I have always been a member of a church.” He said that he has always been a member of this and that organization, and that he has always done this and he has always done that. I said, “Do you know Jesus?” That morning he gave his heart to Jesus!
Brethren, this is what it is all about. We can get caught up with our doctrines and our doctrines can become traditions, and we can get very religious; but if it is the end of the day and we are not introducing people to Jesus, then we are missing the whole point of what we were called unto! There is a high calling!
I went into an organization. I will not name it, but they are into this kind and type of revelation that we are talking about, and their situation is one of the saddest things I have ever found. They have cut themselves off from the world because they think that they are more elite than anybody else and that they do not have to evangelize or proclaim the Gospel. “Others can do that! We have gone beyond that state!” I think that that is one of the saddest delusions that I have ever seen or read of, and I have ever heard about; and I could not prove to these people that this is our calling: “Go ye into all the world and disciple!
We have a young man called Mario, and most of you have heard me talk about him. Not long ago he was nearly written off in a car crash, but God wonderfully lifted him and gave him a miracle. This man, who was in intensive care, walked out of the hospital two days later, in God. That was Mario.
Three weeks ago, we had Mario stand at the front and we laid hands on him and put the calling of the evangelist on this man, for this man has a heart. He is the manager of a little store with inexpensive goods in our little town. He once came to me because some other Christians had gotten on to him and said, “You are only a part-timer. You have to go to Bible College,” and they told him that he had to do this and he had to do that; and he began to feel that he was a part timer. I, however, do not know a greater “full-timer” than Mario! I had to sit him down, and I said to him, “Listen, Mario, in your place and your little shop you have one of the greatest outreaches in the whole area. If I walk down into the little town where you live and ask anybody about Mario, everybody will direct me to your shop; and if I ask anybody about you they will say, ‘Oh, he is a Christian. He talks about Jesus all the time.’ “
Do you know, the many people who go in his shop, they are people who will not go to a church. It is because they are drug addicts, and because they are single parents, the dispossessed, the lame, the halt, and the blind. Do you know where they go for their church? They go to the store where Mario is. If they have a problem they go to Mario and ask him, and he probably touches more people in one week than all the churches in his town do in the whole year! Yet, people have the profanity to come around and say he is a “part timer”! God forgive them.
One of the greatest failings of the early church was when they bisected the body of Christ, and put it into two levels: they called out a “priesthood” and they called out a “laity,” and they called it the church of Christ. When they did that, they put it right back into the heathen Babylonian system, and they took everything with it. There are no part timers in the kingdom of God! If you are not a hundred percent in the kingdom of God at this moment and serving with every breath, then you are not in the place where God wants you to be.
These are some of the things we are seeing. We are seeing God moving. We are seeing it, not because we deserve it, but because He is gracious. We have told the people for the last five years that, “As you humble yourself, He will exalt you.” The people have gotten hold of this, and do you know it is one of the first congregations and little groups of fellowship that I have ever been in where I did not see anybody striving for up front; where I did not see anybody striving to have a ministry better than someone else. I see a people with servant’s hearts. I see the “doulos” (bondservants) of God. The constrained of God; those who only want to serve.
There is a dear sister, as we were coming in the door this morning, and she said, “You know, I can remember Corrie Ten Boom.” I said, “Sister, can I tell you a little story about Corrie?” She said, “Please do,” and I told her that there was a friend of mine who was a young man in the 1970s, went with a ‘Youth With A Mission’ to the Olympic Games in Germany; and they were housed in a castle in Germany. He said, “There were about 180 of us in the castle, but because of its size we should have had only about eighty. So, it was close fellowship.” He said, “When I came down the stairs in the morning, I would see two old women with towels around their waists, on their knees polishing, and going into the toilets to clean the toilets. I said to myself, ‘I think I will bless these people,’ and so I would go up and say, ‘Good morning! The Lord bless you!’ “ He said, “I thought I did my job.”
He said that on the Wednesday of that week, “I went into a meeting and there was one of those two old ladies up there speaking on the platform, and her name was Corrie Ten Boom.” He said, “It taught me a lesson. If you are going to be up front, you had better get on your knees and learn to clean toilets and wash feet.”
My dear sister said something to me as we were coming into the door that stuck and imprinted on me. She said, “Words can be cheap.” Jesus said, “If you hear these things and don’t do them, then you are a foolish man, because you are building your house on sand” (Ref. Matthew 7:26). When the tribulation comes and the trouble is unleashed, and when the wrath of God is poured over and the vials are poured forth, if you are not established on that Rock and hidden with Christ in God, you will not stand! We preach that to our people and they are prepared. They are prepared for the holocaust, because Brethren, it is coming; and there are no “fly-aways” in this one.
I think of …. That was my introduction, by the way. I really wanted to encourage you. I have a people….. I haven’t got a people, but rather—God has a people, and I am a member of that people (May God forgive me for the thought). We, however, do have a group of people who have learned to be servants one to the other. We have opened our homes, one to the other. They are opening their homes now to the disposed.
Last year, I said to Father, “I do not understand, I have prayed for schizophrenics and nothing seems to happen; and I know the lack is not on Your end. Can You explain it to me?” At the moment, we have two schizophrenics in our home. (God is explaining it to me.) Do you understand that?
One of them is a girl who is twenty-seven years old. Her mother and father came to us crying ten days ago. Her father works as the caretaker in the castle that is just across the lot from us. The owner of the castle is the landowner for the area of Argyle. I got a phone call from the father saying that they had a desperate problem with their youngest girl, who is twenty-seven years old. I said, “What is it?” He said, “Well, among other things, it is alcohol.” She was taking in one and a half bottles of vodka every day, and it turned out that she had been also taking psychotic drugs, which she takes to make her like a zombie, because that is what the doctors prescribe. She is on anti-depressants, and she is on Valium to sleep. Have you ever heard of such a deadly cocktail? Twenty-seven years old! She is a beautiful looking girl, but on that regime she will not last more than six months. It is a do or die situation.
The owner discovered that she was living in the castle with her mother and father, and he said, “Not in my back yard! Move her out. She should be in a hospital.”
The last place they wanted to send her was to the psychiatric hospital. Do you know what the psychoanalysts in the psychiatric hospital try to teach them? They try to teach alcoholics how to be “social drinker.” You can understand why the parents did not want her going there. She was already full of drugs.
So, we asked them to send her over to the hold, and she has been with us a week. When I left, she was already off her Valium, and she is sleeping regularly. All the withdrawals of alcohol are gone. She has realized that she can release herself from the psychotic drugs, and the only thing left to deal with is the anti-depressants; and “In the name of Jesus” they are going! The devil may have power, but the saints of God have authority over all the power of the enemy! THERE IS NO DRUG OR HABIT THAT CANNOT BE BROKEN IN THE NAME OF OUR JESUS! I declare it this morning, and I declare it because of what I am seeing happening in God—that if there is a habit or an addiction in your life, you need to deal with it and take back the ground you have given to the enemy.
Let me say this—and this is how I have seen it, because we are in the middle of it and we are dealing with it—that I believe that these bondages start off by you giving ground to the enemy. If you are a Christian, the enemy has no rights within you whatsoever, except for the ones that you give him—either by your ignorance or by your rebellion, or disobedience. If you keep yourself clean and walk obediently before your God, the devil cannot touch you. He has no right! He is a legalist, and he can only take the ground that you legally give him! Please understand this, for there are people perishing in the body of Christ for lack of knowledge, and there are people in this place this morning who have to hear this! There are secret sinners, who are read of God and who think they are fooling everybody else, but the only ones they are conning are themselves!
I want to say to you this morning that there is a point that comes with a habit where it crosses a line, and it becomes an addiction; and at that point you lose willpower and control over that area in your life, and at that point it becomes demonic.
I know for a fact that demonic spirits are passed on in homosexual behavior and in fornication. I have seen it and I have experienced it. So, I know from experience. These things have to be spoken, because there are spirits holding onto territory and people in this place this morning, or onto people that you know; and you had better know how to deal with them in God!
Moreover, unless you are walking in the character and in the nature of Christ, do not use His name—you have no right to. The moment, however, that you walk in the name and in the character of Christ, then you have the authority to use the name of Jesus.
I do not know why I am going down this road, but I believe that somebody here this morning needs to hear this. Some people have the misapprehension that addiction is limited to drugs and alcohol, but there are tongues in this place this morning that need to be cleansed from demonic possession. Tongues that cut people, that criticize people, that pull people down and cause division and strife in the body of Christ; and it is a demonic force that is activating them, because it has gotten out of control.
Brethren, God showed us something very important some years ago. I spent more time going over to the television and switching it off that I did switching it on, because it was allowing such forces of darkness to be released into our home. The greatest freedom we ever came to was when my wife and I came in agreement to get rid of it. David Wilkerson said the greatest freedom he ever had was when he took the television that he had, and he put it out in the yard and he put an ax down through the middle of it. He said, “I was free!” He said, “Because, I had an addiction to sports, and on a Saturday when I should be preparing the word for the saints, I sat for hours watching nothing else but sports.”
Do you know it can be addictive? Do you know that there are saints who are now addicted to pornography, on the Internet? It is supposed to be hidden, but do you think that God is blind? Do you think that He has switched off? Do you think He will not judge this?
So then, are you wondering why you are not moving in the power of God as you used to? Do you wonder why there is no more power, there is not more love and there is no more compassion in you for the hurting brethren out there? Are you wondering why? Then, why don’t you examine yourselves, because god said that before ;you take (before you eat) “examine” yourselves (Refs. 1 Corinthians 11:28; 13:5). Do you know that you are the body of Christ, broken for these people out there?
Perhaps I can catch up on the word. Would you please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1. I was explaining to Brother Tom this morning, as he was running me over from the hotel to come here this morning. I said, “You know, I have a very simple way of studying the Scriptures. I start at Genesis, and I start at Matthew; and I work my way through.” I do this on a daily basis. I read the Old Testament, I read the New Testament; and as a family we come together and we read a Psalm every day. That is our time together in the Word, and whatever else the Father has us to read.
I have found that every time that I am in a situation or a place of need, that the reading that morning in that particular point in the Word is absolutely pointed to the need of where we are at. My reading for this morning was 1 Corinthians 1:10, and when Pete stood up here, just before he introduced me I heard him speaking against “divisions,” I thought, “Thank you Lord. I was reading in the right place, wasn’t I?” Because this is what it says, beginning with Verse 10,
1 Corinthians 1:
10 “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be (Hear the next words please) perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment (discernment).
11 “For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12 “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13 “Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
14 “I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
15 “Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
17 “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
I had just a quick look at these words, “perfectly joined together,” and it is the translation of the Greek word “katartizo” (Greek 2675). It is a combination of the word “kata”, which means “with”, and the word “artios,” which means: “to adjust; to fit; to finish, or to complete.” If God is going to do a business with us this morning, He is going to bring it to completion: a perfect, complete, adjusted finish. Hebrews 10:5 says, “Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast prepared for me,” and the body that was prepared 2000 years ago is still being prepared! Today! He is doing it, and will do it—in the Spirit!
Hebrews 10:10, “By the which will we are sanctified…..
Hebrews 10:14, “For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
Did you know that your sanctification was perfected 2000 years ago at Calvary? Everything was done that had to be done, and if we do not walk in that place and in that way, it is not because god has not made provision!
We will never walk together (“perfectly joined together”) until we walk personally in that place. I am not talking about an ecumenical thing. That is a man-made device that is going no where fast, except into deception. However, there is a body being formed, and it is a body that God wants to be “perfectly joined together.”
In Hebrews 13, it says, “Now, the God of peace….through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will.”
Peter (in 1 Peter 5:10) catches the same phrase, and he says,
“The God of all grace, who has called us unto His eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, and establish, strengthen, and settle you.”
What do you think it is all about? God is going to have a perfect, complete body—-“perfectly joined together”!
In Galatians 6:1, it says, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness (gentleness; the spirit of Jesus); considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
Brethren, if we cannot get down on our knees beside our brother, and wrap our arms around him and weep with him, we will never see him restored. What Brother tom said last night—-there has to be no communication gap.
Now, it says in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
When is says, “…in the same mind,” is this in the natural perception? No. In Luke 24:45, it says that He (the risen Christ), “opened their understanding, that they might understand (hear and perceive) the scriptures.”
Where it says, “…in the same judgment,” in the Greek it means “in the same discernment.” Someone mentioned it here, what it says in I Corinthians 11:27-31, that some of us are sickly in the body because we are, “not discerning the body.” We are not discerning the body of Christ. Oh Lord!
Now, I do not want to yet speak just a little bit this morning on “the children’s bread.” I have, however, first gone very carefully into this reading (“perfectly joined together”), and the reason is because I believe God is saying very clearly to the body of Christ, (that is in this place and which represents the bigger body of Christ) that there is a great danger of divisions and schisms coming in to the body—–And, Brethren, we are not going to see a sovereign work of God if we are not going to come together in that “perfectly joined together” body.
God is not the author of confusion, nor is He the author of division and schism. I am going to say to you this morning that I believe this little part of what we are seeing of God (moving in Scotland) is because we have a people who are not in division. There are not many of us. It is difficult when there is a bigger crowd, isn’t it? However, do you think God is not capable of looking after that as well?
If we want to see a sovereign move of God in our midst, we cannot allow division to come in. I believe there is an end-time harvest, but I do not believe it is what they are preaching out there in Babylon. I do not believe that we are going to take the world for Jesus, and then He will come back and we will and it over to Him, but that is what they tell us! I believe that God is raising His last remnant, and we have a part to play in it, but we can miss the best if we get turned in on ourselves, and if we allow schism and division to come in and cause disruption in the body.
What was the impact that the early Church had? It was, “See how these Christians love one another!” (Ref. John 13:35, Acts 2-4). They could not believe what they were seeing! They saw life and they saw love portrayed in behavior that went against the norm, and until the people see Jesus Christ in us, as a body of people, they are not going to be attracted. They are not going to be attracted if all that they hear and see is division and backbiting, jealousy, envy, maliciousness, and you name it! (“Oh Lord, my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge” [Ref. Hosea 4:6] ).
We allow these things to go on, and we wonder why God is not moving and blessing. Brethren, it is very obvious! This is our situation until we are prepared to address these issues and have it up on the table. I used to think that the Americans had a very special saying, and I think it was, “Let’s get the skunk up on the table.” Is that an American saying? No? Well, it is now!
You will never ever address an issue that is kept hidden. Furthermore, the one thing that we will try to do more than anything else to attain a false unity is to paper over the cracks as if they did not exist. Brethren, in James 5 it says, “Go and confess your sins one to the other.” If I have something against Peter, I am going to go and say, “Peter! Come here and let us get this thing thrashed out—-on the table—-where it is supposed to be! So, if you have something against me, please come and tell me; and I will get down on my knees and I will ask God for forgiveness; and I will ask you for forgiveness.”
Last night, when we received that word, I got convicted and I sat there with my head between my knees, wanting so much for the true grace of repentance to come into this heart, this hard heart of mine. I do not want to have ONE thing against my brother, because it will stifle the life of God that is in me, and will put up a block! If you have something against your brother in this place this morning, in the name of the Lord, do not let it go beyond the end of this meeting! It is time that this thing is up on the table in full view.
I do not want to put anything on you. I want to come and tell you good news: the good news that God is still on the throne! Moreover, He is still leading people to Jesus—-through His people, who are available and who have a heart; through His people, who have empathy. Through His people, who can hurt with the hurting; who can cry with the crying. Oh God, forgive us! Forgive us!
I do not think you should be hearing me this morning. I think we should be down on our knees repenting before a holy God for our lack. Not for high revelation, but for our lack of even just common sense; for surely it just stands as just common sense. How would God possibly ever bless a people who are not loving one another? Because that was the whole purpose! Jesus spent a long time (read John’s Gospel) about loving one another. Why? Because it is the only way that the blessing of God is going to flow! It is the only way that you are going to prove that there is a Jesus alive and well!
Brethren, if I have anything against anyone, I want to put it right this morning; and if you have anything against anyone, then you put it right this morning. Do not leave this place with a single grudge! Do not leave this place with one little story told about somebody else, that you cannot speak openly in public. In addition, I have to repent for the fact that I have listened to the criticism of brothers and I have not stood up, and said, “That’s enough!” I do not want to hear that! He is a brother of mine. If you have a problem, you go and tell him and get on your knees together.” May God forgive me! It is a lack of guts inside me, to stand up and be counted for Jesus. (Excuse the expression, but I am getting a little worked up on this one.)
I am seeing with our people in Scotland just a touch of what God can do when a people come together in a love that only God can give; and how it then allows His blessings to flow to the poor, and the halt, and the maimed, and the blind. I am going to believe to see God going right down that line of schizophrenia and to see people set free at that level too! I am not going to limit our God by my unbelief! I am going to believe that God is a miracle worker. I am going to believe that there is nothing that will not bow the knee to the name of Jesus! Jesus said, “Greater things than these shall you do!” (If you will walk in His name and His nature and His character!) He did not hold spite against anybody.
Do you know who were the ones that Jesus was angry with? It was the religious traditionalists. It was those who were caught up in doctrines and traditions, and could not see that the words that He spoke, that “…they are spirit and they are life” (Ref. John 6:63). Sometimes, I see nothing but carnality and carnalizing of the Word of God, in so many aspects! People [discount the Word of God] and excuse their sin. There are people sitting in this place this morning who are saying, “It is just a weakness! It is just a little fault!” That fault is enough to give ground to bring you into addiction somewhere down the line. Hear what we are saying! DEAL WITH IT!
I think it was Mavis who said the other night, “It takes the eunuchs.” (They were the ones who threw down Jezebel” (Ref. 2 Kings 9:30-33).] Do you know what a “eunuch” is? Of course you do. It speaks about it in the 19th Chapter of Matthew. It says that some were born that way and some were man-made, but some made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God. Do you know what it means to be made a eunuch? I means that you do not have any choices left, and that there isn’t any of your own life left in you—It is all His!
I am not going to be cloning people after me. I am a eunuch, and I cannot do that! We cannot be going around making people to be like ourselves, and yet, in the body of Christ this is going on all the time. “Be like me. See where I am walking.” If you are a eunuch, you cannot do that, because your life is not yours. It is gone! It is cut off! The heart is circumcised!
God wants “eunuchs.” He wants those who have made themselves eunuchs. Those who choose not to walk in their own life, and to allow only His life to flow. So then, when you get hold of someone and lead them to see Jesus, you disciple him unto Him! Not unto yourself! So that the day will come when they will become eunuchs also, and go and do the same thing.
Jesus said (in John14:6 and John 8:31-32),
“I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life…” and “…if ye continue in my word, then are ye disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
So, there is a condition: “…if ye continue in my word.” Now, that does not mean just sitting and agreeing with it, but to do it. It is like our sister was talking about, how “Words are cheap,” but when God says something, we need to do it! If you are going to be established and work in this word, you are not only going to talk it, but you are going to walk it; and if you do not, (the truth of this hour that we are in) is that you are going to be a foolish person, and you are going to be swept away when destruction comes (Ref. Matthew 7:26-27).
John says, “He that is of God hears God’s Words” (Ref. John 10:27). Do not turn around and say, “God does not speak to me.” If it seems that He does not, it is not because of Him, but it is because of blockage. So, guess where the blockage is? It is on account of what you are doing that you should not be doing! What you are allowing! There are people who will spend more time in front of their little television screen or the little Internet thing, searching after folly, than they will on their knees before a holy God, to hear what He wants them to hear!
(Now, if that sounds heavy, it is meant to be.)
Brethren, let us get our priorities right. Let us get our priorities right. After Bible College, I spent twenty years running away from God, doing foolish things; and now I do not want to spend twenty seconds except that I am promoting Him. Do you know, I do not want to have gold crowns. I do not even want to have diamonds in them, or anything else; but the greatest commendation I want to hear is my Father saying, “This is My beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”
Do you understand the full implication of that? In the Jewish tradition, when a boy was born, he was circumcised on the eighth day, and then he went into his mothers care. At twelve years of age (they did not have bar mitzvahs in those days), he was taken to the temple and presented unto God. Then he came under his father’s jurisdiction. If his father was a carpenter, he went and worked in the carpenter’s shop; and for the next twenty years he worked with his father. When he was thirty years old (or there about), the day came when his father called all the villagers and all the tradesmen. He called them all together, and said, “Sit down here, I want to say something tonight.” He said, “Son, come here.” He put his arms around his son, and said, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” and in that moment, he was no longer employed by his father, but he was a partner with his father. (“…joint-heirs with Christ,” it is called! [Ref. Romans 8:16-17] ).
Do we know this truth that sets us free? Do you know that Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”?
In Exodus 33, this is the commendation I hear about Moses, the man whom God loved:
“And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.”
That is a commendation! “…by name” means; “by nature; by character.” So the Lord is saying to Moses, “I know thee by nature (character). We have a relationship, and My nature and My character has been formed in you. I know you and I know your name.” Oh, Hallelujah!
In Deuteronomy 34:10, it goes on, and this is what it says,
“And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”
Oh, are we there, Brethren? If you are, then you will have no problems hearing God, will you?
In Hosea 4:1, it says,
“Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.”
Isaiah 5:13 says,
“Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.”
There are young people in this place, and I saw a line coming down for prayer last night that brought me to a place of repentance. God spoke in this place. I hope you took it onboard. One of the saddest things was, as I was on my knees repenting, the meeting was not over but I heard people in the other parts of the room laughing and talking with one another while there were these people being ministered to in the front. I said, “God, forgive us,” because we are all responsible for the other, aren’t we?
I am not picking them out, but how can you visit and laugh and converse with one another when people are repenting and are on their knees before a holy God, and they are being ministered to? How can you laugh? I am not against laughing and enjoying the joy of the Lord, but Brethren, there are times and places for things! I went down on my knees, repenting and holding my hands up; interceding for those who had come up for prayer, and saying “Lord, bless them! Lord, touch them! Lord, change them! Lord, move them! Lord, make them into something new! Bring them into a higher place, Lord God!”
How can we be distracted on these things where there is a need for us to pray? I am not talking about children. I am talking about adults. Brethren, these things should not be! You should not need to be told things like that. This is back to basics, is it not? They, however, have to be said,
Could you please turn with me please to Mark 7, and Verses 24-30? It is a very well known passage, and I am going to read it because I believe that Word carries its own power and does its own job, and God performs His Word.
“And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet (fit; right) to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.”
Now, let us read the account of this same matter as it is given in Matthew 15. It is important this morning that we hear this. Verse 22,
“And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is greviously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
It says that this woman was a Gentile, and one of the most emotive phrases that a Jewish Rabbi could use to the Gentiles is to call them a “dog”. It is like calling the police in our country “pigs”. I do not know if they do it in America, but that is what they do in Britain if they are displeased with them. Jesus takes this woman, and He says, “It is chosen bread—it is not for dogs.” In Hebrew understanding, “dogs” were perverts. Homosexuals in the Old Testament were called dogs. It is an emotive word, and Jesus used it. Why? It is not like our Jesus, is it? Calling somebody a dog! A pervert! So, what was the whole point of it? I believe that Jesus was delving into this woman’s heart, deeply seeking to see where she was coming from; and from her answer, Jesus said, “O woman, great is thy faith…” Do you know, it is only twice in the Scriptures that Jesus gives this commendation concerning those who had faith, and both times that He said it, it was to Gentiles! Besides this woman here, we also read in Luke 7:9 where Jesus said to the centurion, “Great is thy faith. I have never found faith like this in the whole of Israel.” So, when Jesus spoke this to the woman, was He against the Gentiles? No, but He was teaching them something, wasn’t He? Oh Brethren, do we really understand our Lord?
What did He mean by, “the Children’s bread”? In this same passage in Matthew 15, after Jesus says these words to this woman, it goes on to say in Verse 28, “And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”
Now, the word translated “made whole” here, in the Greek is “iaomai.” (From its use in the gospels, we see that it is a word that is often used to describe the results when Jesus touched the sick and those who needed deliverance from evil spirits.) It means: “to be healed, to be cured, to be restored to bodily health; to be delivered from demons.” That is “the children’s bread”!
I said to you earlier on, and I did not say it lightly, and I am going to say it again—there are people in this place who need “the children’s bread” this morning. Do you know, you do not need someone else to deliver you if you have the children’s bread? These things will go! I am sure that brethren are all too willing to stand with you in agreement and see you delivered, but I do not think that you have a perception of just what “the children’s bread” really is.
I think we have cut it short. By birthright (as you came and were born of the Spirit of God) you have a right to the children’s bread; and if you are not eating it, it is because of your neglect or lack of knowledge; and it is time we understood who we are in Jesus Christ!
That we do not really understand who we are in Jesus Christ is an absolute anachronism! I deplore it with every fiber of my being, and I come up against it constantly, because we are out at least three or four times a week preaching and praying with people. We are ministering to people with desperate needs, and there are times when another Christian will come along and get right into the middle of it all. I am dealing with these people out in the middle of the streets, and a brother comes in, and he is more defeated than they are! He says that he is born again and that he is baptized in the Holy Spirit, but he is more in need of deliverance than they are! These things ought not to be!
If you are defeated this morning, what is the reason for it? Why is it that there is a habit in your life that you cannot control? Why is it that there are things in your life that have totally gone into addiction? It is because you do not take and do not have a full awareness of the propensity that is in “the children’s bread”? Now, the quicker you get it right, the quicker you will move into the overcoming class and out of the underachieving class.
There are far too many people (and there are underachievers in this place this morning) who have to hear this word. You are underachieving because either you are ignorant and lack knowledge, or you are disobedient. I cannot think of another answer, can you? I do not think that there is one. The rest are excuses! So then, we need to hear this that I am sharing this morning!
In Luke 5:17, it says that many came to the place where Jesus was and that, “the power of the Lord was present to heal them.”
In Luke 6:17-19, it also says that crowds came to Jesus. People were healed, unclean spirits were gotten rid of; virtue went out from Him:
“And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.”
Let us read 1 Peter 2:24, where it says this of Jesus:
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
If we look at the word translated “HEALED” in these verses here, we will see that it is the same Greek word “iaomai” that we saw translated in Matthew 15:28 as “made whole.”
Nowadays there is a movement in England, and I do not know if it has reached America. (Usually America comes to England, but perhaps this is going the other way.) However, there is this new movement that is decrying and openly denying the necessity of the blood of Jesus in the healing of people. They say that the blood is only for sinners. Moreover, they will prove it to you if you want them to.
Only last Tuesday at our prayer meeting, after I had prayed for the people and this young girl, who was sitting there with her problem with alcohol and everything else, I saw this woman who had come in from outside. I recognized within her a spirit that was not godly. So the, when she went over to lay hands on this woman, I moved over to block it off. Do you know that there is such a thing as “transference of spirits” in these days? You do not let just anybody willy-nilly put their hands on you. You are in trouble if you do! I blocked that off, and I prayed over this woman who was in need the protection of the blood of Jesus, that nothing alien would touch her. She was having enough problems with what was there without anybody else coming in and adding to it.
At the end of the meeting this guy comes up to me, and he said, “You have no right to pray the way you did, for the blood does not protect. It is not in the Word!”
You know, I am always wary of anybody who tries to take away from the blood of Jesus! The enemy fears when you name the blood of Jesus Christ. We should know the songs about the blood; and we sing them for a reason. Not for a tradition, but for a reason. Amen!
As I already mentioned, we use to do the television at one time, until we got rid of it. As David Wilkerson said, the best thing to do is to get an ax, and you can get it out of the way. You get freedom! Do you know, we do not miss the television one little bit. I do not know when we would have time to watch it anymore, because it has released us into such a place of ministry that we would never have time to sit watching the television. Oh, Hallelujah!
In Luke 10:19, He says,
“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”
Did you hear it? That is the children’s bread! Hear me! That is the children’s bread. It says, “Behold, I give unto you power….”
The word translated “power” here is “exousia” in the Greek; it means “authority.”
“…over all the power of the enemy…..”
This second word here translated as “power” is the Greek word “dunamis,” and it means “power.” So, do we know the difference here between “exousia” and “dunamis”? The enemy has “dunamis” (he has a bit of dynamite power), but the children of God, the sons of God, have “exousia” (God given authority) over “all the power of the enemy”! By birthright, we have God-given authority to say, “In the name of (in the nature of and in the character of) Jesus that is within me, you are dead! GET OUT! IN JESUS’ NAME!”
Brethren, if you are not in that place this morning, it is not because the provision is not there, but it is because you are not eating of the children’s bread.
The Word of God says in Matthew 6:9,
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. THY kingdom come, THY will be done….”
Then it goes on, and it says a strange thing.
“Give us for the day our daily bread….” (That is the literal translation).
I do not know if you are aware of it, and it might help some to understand this, but I believe that when the New Testament was written by the Spirit of the living God, there wasn’t a word for the “love of God” that could express what the love of God was. Oh, they had a word “eros” for sexual love. They had a word “phileo” for brotherly love, but they had no word that could reach anywhere like unto God’s love. So they coined a word and they called it “agape.”
So, likewise, when Jesus prayed this prayer and when the Holy Spirit penned it, I believe that there was not a word to describe this kind of bread. Jesus said, “….our daily bread.” This word translated “daily” is only used twice in the whole of the New Testament and it is both times in the Lord’s prayer (here in Matthew 6:11, and in Luke 11:3). It was a coined word used to describe something much more than “daily” bread! It was describing “the children’s bread”! “Give us this day (for this day) our daily bread.”
Now, the Greek word for “daily” (for those who are checking me out like a Berean) is “epiousios.” Two words come together to form this word: “epi” meaning “for” or “unto,” and “ousia” meaning “being,” or “substance.” “Unto our very substance!” “Unto our very being give us the children’s bread!” Do you hear it?
We serve it short if we think it is just God’s provision (our loaf) for today. Why did the Holy Spirit coin a special word? Does He not know what He is doing? Oh, come on, Brethren—there is a lesson here, and you have to hear it this morning. This is “the children’s bread,” and if you are not receiving daily the children’s bread, you are going to be in defeat and you are going to get into trouble! This is what this is all about. This may sound basic to you, but you need to hear it, because your very life depends on it!
I do not know if you know this, but we are not saved by the death of Jesus. The last time I said this, in Ireland, a man got very angry and jumped up and shouted at me. However, we are not saved by the death of Jesus, and you will se this when you read Romans 5:10. It describes there what the “death” of Jesus accomplished (that it reconciles us and brings us back into relationship with God), but that it is His “life” that saves us.
“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
We are reconciled unto God by the death of His Son, but we are saved by His life. It is the “life” of Jesus that is your salvation. We have been saved; we are being saved; and we will be saved! It is an ongoing process. It is not a four-minute prayer on your knees somewhere. That is not salvation! That is the most limited expression of salvation that I have ever heard of, and yet people teach it today to young people. Salvation is an ongoing walk with the Lord, daily receiving the children’s bread, so that you can be saved, and you will be saved, and move into all the life of God and all the authority of God.
We have to hear these things, Brethren! I am tired of playing footsie games with Christians, who are going around with their tail between their legs, and mourning at me all the time! “Pray for me, Brother Bill.” “Pray for me, Brother Bill.” You pray, but the next week they are back, saying, “Pray for me, Brother Bill! Pray for me, Brother Bill…”
I believe that there is something wrong with the baptism in the Holy Spirit as it is being presented today. I came to young Peter from Schuyler last night, and I prayed over him that he be baptized afresh in the living Spirit of God; but I also prayed the fulness of that prayer. I believe we have sold the Holy Spirit baptism short. Brethren, where there are two or three witnesses in Scripture about a matter, to properly read and study and understand the Word we need tp put them all together and see the fulness of the expression God is saying in His Word! It says (in 1 Corinthians 13:1 and Matthew 18:16),
“In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
Jesus spoke concerning the Baptism of the Holy Ghost in Matthew, Mark, and John; and if you put the accounts all together, you will find that what it says is that you will be baptized “…in the Holy Ghost and with fire.” We have sold the Holy Spirit baptism short by not teaching and seeing people baptized with the “fire” of God! For the fire is what removes all the chaff, and all the dirt, and the rubbish, and everything else that is in that temple that has to come out! If there is no fire, I would suggest that it is a spurious baptism; and it may well be, that it is a spurious[1] language that you have as well!
Now, hear me, because this is serious. If there is no fire in the baptism, then you have sold the baptism of God short! I see Christians running around and speaking in a tongue, but they are in a defeated place and it is because the fire has never touched them! Brethren, do you agree? Are these things so?
So, I want to say to you two things: If your baptism isn’t in its fulness, then you have missed out; and if you are not receiving your daily portion of the children’s bread, you are going to fall and fail. You need the children’s bread, because without it the kingdom will not come within and without, and the will of God will not be done.
Jesus said, “…give us for the day our daily bread.” What do you think it was all put together for? Just a nice little prayer to pray, and then to go to sleep and forget about it? This bread is the life of God that will save you! Today! In addition, it saves you tomorrow! This is “the children’s bread.” Amen.
In exodus 16:4, it says,
“Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day…”
You know the story here. They were told to go out and each day gather a portion of bread for today; and god would take care of the “sabbath,” the rest of God. However, there were among the people some that said, “Oh, I know what I will do. I will put my feet up and I will have a long day. I will not stand in line, but I will wait until twelve o’clock, and I will go then and collect mine.” By twelve o’clock, what had happened? The sun had come up and there was no manna; and so he went hungry, and rightly so, since he did not obey the Word of God. [The Scriptures record that the “bread” was given and also gathered by the people in the morning time (Ref. Exodus 16:12-14, 21.)]
I hear Christians who constantly come up to me, and I usually say to them before I pray for them, “Are you walking with the Lord? Are you in obedience to God?” They say, “Oh yes!” I say, “Do you meet with God first thing in the morning? Do you get your daily rations?” “Oh, I do it at night, at ten o’clock!” I say, “It is too lat at night! By then you have kicked the cat; you have shouted at the wife; you have done everything wrong. You should do repentance at night, not feeding at night!” What do you think it was put in the Word for? For your admonition, and for your building up! Understand what God is saying in His Word.
There is another fly-by-night, he said, “I know what I will do. I will get up early, and I will be the first out there, and I will gather up for two days so that tomorrow I can have a long lay.” However, guess what? He got stinking worms! Moreover, he deserved it, because he did not do it according to God’s way and God’s purpose. Why do you think you can take over from God and know better than He does? You order your life according to YOUR plan and YOUR purpose, and you wonder why things do not work out! Can I say this much? If you did not get before God this morning, if you were not filled afresh with all the fulness of God, if the fire and the bread did not come down this morning and feed you, then do you know what you are? You are a blackslider!
Oh, I said this in Germany and I got one or two frowns. Do you know, by backslider, it means I am farther back than I was yesterday. That is all it means. Do you know, you lose out on God so subtly, because you just take a day off and say, “I deserve a holiday.” Then, before you know where it is, you are taking two days off, and then three days off; and it goes very subtly—and you begin to wonder why the joy is straining away from you. You wonder why the communication lines are getting fowled up! you wonder why you do not hear God’s voice clearly anymore. You wonder why, when you pray for people, nothing happens anymore! Sometimes, we are very foolish people: We will not do it according to God’s plan, pattern, and purpose.
In Exodus 19:6, God said to the Israelites, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation,” and in Verse 8 they said, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do.”
A few verses later, in Exodus 20:19, it says, “Speak thou with us Moses, but don’t let God speak with us. We do not like the noise that comes out from heaven. We do not like the sound of that voice! You hear for us!” So they sold their hearing and gave it to a man!
Brethren, do you understand? God spoke this to them before the Levitical priesthood or anything else was instituted? This was the purpose of God from the beginning; and this is where we should be today—-“Kings and priests before our God”!
Do you hear it speak of “the children’s bread” here in these verses in Exodus? Now, this is Old Covenant! (Imagine what it is in the New Covenant!)
Deuteronomy 29:5-6,
“And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.”
Then, in John 6, Jesus picks up, and takes an Old Testament type and brings it into the New Testament understanding. Let us read some of what He says to us in this Chapter, beginning here in Verse 32. He is lifting you unto a new level of spiritual understanding.
“…Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.”
Verse 48,
“I am the bread of life.”
Verse 51,
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.”
The Catholic Church took hold of this and carnalized it, and said, “I will by a mantra speak over this bread, and it shall become the flesh of Jesus Christ; and by a mantra I will speak over this wine and it shall become His blood.” Do we understand that that is occultic? That is right out of the occult, and in places it is creeping back into the body of Christ again! Moreover, Brethren, it can creep back in here if we are not careful. These words in the Bible, “they are spirit, and they are life” (Ref. John 6:63), and if you will not understand them in the spiritual, you will never move on in God.
I want to finish. I know that I have gone on a long time, but I want to finish with what I have to say about the children’s bread. I told you about the Spirit of God coining a new word for love; let us look yet into the story of dear, dear Peter in John, Chapter 21. Peter three times denied his Lord, and (at resurrection time, before Jesus ascended to the Father) Jesus in this Chapter 21 of John called Peter three times; and in doing this He was doing something very special for Peter. He was bringing and reconciling him unto Himself. Here was Peter, a man who had boasted beyond belief, “All these will fail You, but I won’t.” Jesus, however, said, “Oh Peter, before the cock crows….”
Do you know what the “cock crow” is? It is the third watch in the night—-three o’clock in the morning. So Jesus was saying, “Peter, before three o’clock tomorrow morning, you will deny Me thrice.” In Scripture, we read that this happened, and that later (here in John 21) a very hurting Peter, out fishing in the Sea of Galilee in his boat, met a man on the shore with a fire. On the fire, there were fishes. Jesus called to Peter and the disciples with him in the boat, “Children, what have you caught?” “Oh, nothing.” Notice that He gives the same calling here as He did back in the beginning (Ref. Luke 5:1-8). God always does the same in the back as at the front; from the first to the end, and from the end to the first. If you understand that principle, you understand a lot more about the Word of God.
So, at the end, He brings them in and they recognize the Lord, and He says, “Peter, do you love (agape) me? (Do you love me with the love of God?)” Then Peter says, “Oh, Lord, You know all things. I love (phileo) You.”
this was the boasting Peter. He said, “I cannot get up to God’s love, but I will give You what I have. I will love You with what love I have.” “Oh,” says Jesus, “Feed My lambs.”
Then Jesus says again, “Peter, do you love (phileo) Me?” Using instead, the word phileo here, Jesus came down to Peter’s level. I can imagine Peter crying at that point, and he says, “Oh Lord, You know all things—Yes, I love (phileo) You with… Everything I have is Yours.” He was not boasting anymore. He was not boasting in himself; he was giving what he had. Amen.
Could we just look quickly at John 15, and Verses 12-14?
“This is my commandment, That ye love (agape) one another, as I have loved (agape) you. Greater love (agape) hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”
This is laying down your life. Verses 20-21,
“Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. but all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.”
John 16, starting at Verse 1,
“These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”
You know, we were told to never move out of the synagogue until you are kicked out. God had to kick us out twice before He got us into the right place. Where is this persecution coming from, Brethren? It is not coming from the heathen. It is not coming from those outside, but it is from those in the synagogue, those who would be called the church. They will think that they are doing God service! Do you hear where the opposition is going to come from?
Verse 3, “And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father, nor me.”
In Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, the resurrected Jesus took bread and He broke it, and He gave it to them and their eyes were opened. They knew Him, and when they went back, they said that He was known in the “Breaking of bread” (Ref. Luke 24:35). Jesus will always be known in the breaking of bread.
(Brethren, these scriptures, these words that I am saying to you are spirit and they are life. Do not go down the old church basis. Understand what I am saying—these are spirit and they are life. Do not go back and carnalize what I am saying.)
I am quickly going through these verses. Looking again at 1 Corinthians 11:29-31, it speaks of the consequences if we do not discern the Lord’s body, and that if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged:
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.”
Verse 24 is a quote of when Jesus took the bread and broke it, and He said,
“This is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me.”
The words are spirit and the words are life.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, it says,
“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…”
Ephesians 4:15,
“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ…”
Verse 16,
“From whom the whole body fitly joined together…”
(Here we are again, “fitly joined together.”)
Paul understood perfectly well what he was saying. In 2 Corinthians 4:7, he says this,
“We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.”
In Verse 10, he goes on and says,
“Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in our body.”
The people are not going to see Jesus until they see it in the broken body of Christ (when I am broken before Him and before the people). When I will take my home and open it and minister that love of Christ and live unto whomever He sends in. Years ago we gave up all pretensions to be owners of a home and anything else, and God has blessed us.
We have a man—if he was not with us he would be in prison and he would probably be dead. He has had schizophrenia. He is accused of a very, very serious charge of molesting. I do not believe he is guilty, but the police and social services do. We were asked if we would take him into our house and I said yes, that we would. This man has been one of the greatest blessings to us over the last three months. Can you understand that? You sometimes miss angels in disguise because we do not discern. This man loves Jesus. He has a servant’s heart for Jesus, and he is blessing us beyond all belief.
We do not understand the broken body of Christ. Oh Brethren, hear me, do not miss the chance to be blessed, by being broken for Him. In Romans 12, it speaks of us offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, that we might prove what the “good and acceptable (well pleasing) and perfect will of God” is. God wants sacrificial giving where every part of you is given and broken before Him.
In Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 7, mention is made of a lady (a prostitute) who came to Jesus and brought to Him her most precious possession. She had lost her virginity a long time before, and any pretensions to marriage. However, you know, when a young Jewish lass looked to the day she would be married, there was a way she long prepared for that day. I do not know if you ever had it in America, but in Europe and in Scotland we had an old tradition that when a young girl started out, even as a child, she was given a bottom drawer. In that bottom drawer, she would put precious things, and she would stitch things. She would stitch a nightdress, and she would knit it as beautifully as she could with adornments on it. One day, the young man would come along, and everything in that drawer was prepared for that night of consummation, when she would become the bride.
Here was a prostitute, who has lost all her hopes of marriage. What man would marry her? What hope did she have of her having her natural life ever again? Nevertheless, she had kept in her bottom drawer, especially for that night of consummation, an “alabaster box” of very beautiful perfume. This was the very most precious treasure she had had since childhood. Oh, she had been abused, she had been knocked about by life. People did not have much thought about her, but she held onto a treasure. Even in the midst of her dereliction, she could still see one day being a virgin bride. Nevertheless, she brought this most beautiful, precious thing, and she broke it over Jesus’ feet and over His head, and wiped His feet with her hair. She gave the most precious thing she would ever have in her life, and Jesus said, “This will be a memorial to her.” However, the thieving Judas said, “Why did that not come up here.” (He had his hand on the pocketbook.) There are always people who will query, “Why does God ask the sacrifice from you?” and they will say, “What a waste!”
There was a man named Albert Schweitzer. You and I maybe do not agree with his theology, but Schweitzer had five degrees. He was a professor of music, he was a doctor of theology, he was a doctor of philosophy, he was a medical doctor, and I have forgotten what the other one was, but he had five degrees.
Well, he took a calling from God, and he ditched the whole lot, and went to Africa and started up a leper colony. Now, when it came to meal times in this leper colony, the staff and those without leprosy sat on one side, and the lepers sat on the other side. One day, Doctor Schweitzer went to the other side and sat with the lepers.
I do not know what the costing will be in your life, Brethren, but it will cost you everything you own, and everything you have. Many people will criticize you; people will mock you. People will laugh at you. However, if you want the commendation, “This is My beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” there is no other way to receive it. It is the broken body of Christ—-where all your ambitions, all your hopes, are all gone to Him.
Ephesians 5:2, “And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god for a sweetsmelling savour.”
2 Corinthians 2:14-16, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. for we are unto God a sweetsmelling savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.”
To those who do not know Jesus, you will smell and savour of death. Do you ever wonder, when you walk into a place, why it is that you get an adverse reaction for no apparent reason? It is “death unto death”! However, to those who walk in the Spirit, you are “life unto life,” a “sweetsmelling savour’ unto Him.
I think I have said more than enough and have gone on long enough to point out what I am saying. GOD IS CALLING YOU INTO A NEW PLACE IN CHRIST. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE MOVING OF GOD IN YOUR LIFE AND IN THE LIFE OF THE FELLOWSHIP, WILL YOU PLEASE COME INTO THAT PLACE OF TOTALITY IN CHRIST? THERE ARE NO PART-TIMERS IN THE KINGDOM OF God! IT IS ALL OR NOTHING. MAY THE LORD BLESS YOU.
[1] spurious = false; unauthentic; counterfeit;
Sonlight Devotional 