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“Teaching the things concerning the
TO BE THE LORD’S PRAYER
Table of Contents
Part
Chapter
Page
3
Teach
Us To Pray (Continued)
26
4
Teach
Us To Pray (Continued)
37
5
Teach
Us To Pray (Continued)
47
9
Our
Father Which Art In Heaven
88
11
Hallowed
Be Thy Name (Continued)
110
12
Hallowed
Be Thy Name (Continued)
121
14
Thy
Kingdom Come (Continued)
142
15
Thy Will
Be Done On Earth
154
16
Thy Will
Be Done On Earth (Continued)
164
18
Our
Daily Bread (Continued)
186
20
Forgive Us
Our Sins (Continued)
208
21
Lead
Us Not Into Temptation
220
23
The
Kingdom, The Power, The Glory
242
24
The
Kingdom, The Power, The Glory (Cont.)
249
TO BE THE LORD’S PRAYER
Part 1
The
subject of prayer is one of universal interest. No one is able to answer all the questions
that might be asked concerning it, but the instinct of prayer is so deep-seated in the
human psyche that all men pray at one time or another, consciously, sub-consciously, or
un-consciously. Prayers differ in scope and quality, according to the spiritual experience
of those who pray. During World War II reports circulated from the front lines indicated
that there were no atheists in the foxholes. Passengers on a hijacked plane, campers whose
camp is invaded at night by plundering and pillaging bears, office workers stranded on an
elevator by a power failure, parents pacing the hospital corridor outside the operating
room, business men eager for an important contract to be theirs—all these people
resort to prayer. When we come to the end of ourselves, when life piles up problems beyond
our ability to cope, when crisis strikes our hearts with fear and terror’ we do not
hesitate to pray. After all, what else can we do?
There’s a
story about a rancher who wanted nothing to do with God. He disliked churches and
Christians, he despised preachers, and he made sure that his sons, Tom, Dick, and Harry,
felt the same way. One day, though, the local minister was called out to the ranch. A
rattlesnake had bitten Tom, and the doctor had done all he could. “Please, will you
pray for Tom?” the rancher pleaded. So the preacher prayed: “Lord, we thank you
for sending this rattlesnake to bite Tom, for it is the first time that he has ever
admitted that he needs you. And Lord, we pray for two more rattlesnakes to bite Dick and
Harry, so that they ‘too’ may receive this blessing. And, Lord, we pray for an
especially big and ornery rattlesnake to come and bite the old man so that he, too, will
know what it means to need you.”
Someone has said
that prayer “is helplessness casting itself upon power; it is misery seeking peace;
it is unholiness embracing purity; it is hatred desiring love. Prayer is corruption
panting for immortality; it is the eagle soaring heavenward; it is the dove returning
home; it is the prisoner pleading for release; it is the mariner steering for the haven
amid the dangerous storm; it is the soul, oppressed by the world, escaping to the
empyrean, and bathing its ruffled plumes in the ethereal and the divine.”
Prayer has
sometimes been considered as either a mark of superstition or as something mysterious. It
is neither! Prayer is a dynamic reality and fundamental principle in our universe, and is
no more superstitious or mysterious than life itself, the atmosphere, the law of gravity,
or the beating of your heart. It is amazing how science is discovering the fact that the
realm of the unseen is the realm of power. When electricity was discovered no one saw it;
they only saw the effects of it. When the atom was discovered and the ability to split it,
no one saw it; they only saw the effects of it. And what an awesome effect it was! Today
the scientists are talking about splitting an electron, one of the infinitesimal parts of
the atom, which they say will release even greater power. One wonders just how much
farther the research must go until, in the realm of the unseen, science at last breaks
through the invisible barrier between the natural and the realm of the spirit, the very
presence and power of God, the source of all the cosmic powers of the universe. One thing
we already know - the realm of the unseen is the realm of power. “Prayer has divided
seas and rolled back flowing rivers, it has made flinty rocks gush into fountains, it has
quenched flames of fire, it has muzzled lions, disarmed vipers, neutralized poisons, it
has marshaled the stars against the wicked, it has stopped the course of the moon and
arrested the sun in its race, it has burst open iron gates and recalled men from the
grave, it has conquered the strongest devils and commanded legions of angels down from
heaven. Prayer has bridled and chained the raging passions of men and destroyed vast
armies of proud, daring, blustering atheists. Prayer has brought one man from the bottom
of the sea and carried another in a chariot of fire to heaven.” That is not mere
conjecture or exaggeration, that is historical fact. Prayer has done many other things as
well. It is an awesome, mighty force in the world of men.
THE CREATIVE POWER OF PRAYER
Many times
through my early Christian life I wondered about prayer. What is prayer, and why should we
pray? God is omniscient—He knows all things. He knows the end from the beginning; in
fact, He ordained both the end and the beginning and all that transpires between. He is
conscious of all our needs and problems at all times. Jesus said, “Your heavenly
Father knows that you have need of all these things.” You cannot tell God anything
new. Do you, precious friend of mine, really believe that God knows what is best for you,
or must you try to “figure out” what is best and then tell God about it? Do you
know something about yourself that God does not know and must be informed of? Is it
possible that God, having created you and ordained all your steps, does not know how to
care for the works of His hands without a request from you? As I meditated upon these
questions I also understood that God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will” and that I couldn’t change His will no matter how hard I prayed. The only
prayers that God can answer are those according to His will, He cannot act contrary to His
own will nor can He deny Himself; so if I wasn’t telling God something that He didn’t
already know, and I wasn’t going to make Him change His mind about any matter, what
was the object and purpose in praying? I knew God wasn’t going to move contrary to
His will and plan just to satisfy my desires and indulge my wishes—so why pray? This
puzzled me for some time until He gave me an understanding of what true prayer is.
As we are taken
through this process of transformation into the image of God we begin to realize that God
really does know what is best for us and HE WILL DO THAT. We begin to know God really does
know all about us and we have nothing to tell Him. We begin to learn that God does care
for us in the most abundant way and we need say nothing to Him about it. We find out that
God’s judgment concerning us lacks nothing and we can add nothing to it. The God I
worship and love and obey must be the God who does know everything, who needs no
counselors, who has all power and has complete control over my life and everything in the
whole vast universe. I do not care to worship a God who has to depend upon me to advise
Him what to do in any situation, or suggest the solution to any problem. If God does not
know what is to be done in any and all circumstances, I am certain no mere mortal can
enlighten Him.
Let me give you
an illustration. In John 6:5-13 we find the story of Jesus feeding the multitude. Before
the miracle Jesus asked Philip, “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”
It appears that Jesus needed help to find a solution. But in verse six we see the
principle I am talking about, for it says, “And this He asked TO
Once when the
Lord was walking this earthly sod there came unto Him a Roman centurion whose servant was
sick. “And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion,
beseeching Him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously
tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and
said, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof: but SPEAK THE WORD
ONLY, and my servant will be healed” (Mat. 8:5-8). Jesus spoke the word and the
servant was healed that same moment. The Lord wasn’t near the place, but He spoke and
a healing took place. How did this happen? When He spoke His Spirit went forth and did the
work. God speaks, His Spirit goes forth and things are created. The Christ speaks, His
Spirit goes forth and people are healed, the dead are raised, the blind see, the lame
walk, lives are transformed, and great and mighty things are accomplished for the
DOMINION THROUGH PRAYER
When God placed
the world and all things under the dominion of man, made in His own image, it was God’s
plan that man should do nothing but with God and by God, and God Himself would do all His
work in the world in and through man. In that long ago beginning Adam was in very deed the
owner, master, and ruler of the earth and all creation.
In this
connection Andrew Murray has penned some powerful and instructive words. “‘Then
saith He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His
harvest’ (Mat.
“Prayer is
no form or show. The Lord Jesus was Himself the truth; everything He spake was the deepest
truth. It was when ‘He saw the multitude, and was moved with compassion on them,
because they were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd,’ that He called on
the disciples to pray for laborers to be sent among them. He did so because He really
believed that their prayer was needed, and would help. The veil which so hides the
invisible world from us was wonderfully transparent to the holy human soul of Jesus. He
had looked long and deep and far into the hidden connection of cause and effect in the
spirit world.
“Man’s
destiny appears clearly from God’s language at creation. It was to fill, to subdue,
to have dominion over the earth and all in it. All the three expressions show us that man
was meant, as God’s representative, to hold rule here on earth. As God’s viceroy
he was to fill God’s place: himself subject to God, he was to keep all else in
subjection to Him. It was the will of God that all that was to be done on earth should be
done through him: the history of the earth was to be entirely in his hands. In accordance
with such a destiny was the position he was to occupy, and the power at his disposal. When
an earthly sovereign sends a viceroy to a distant province, it is understood that he
advises as to the policy to be adopted, and that that advice is acted on: that he is at
liberty to apply for troops and the other means needed for carrying out the policy of
maintaining the dignity of the empire. If his policy is not approved of, he is recalled to
make way for some one who better understands his sovereign’s desires; as long as he
is trusted, his advice is carried out. As God’s representative man was to have ruled;
all was to have been done under his will and rule; on his advice and at his request heaven
was to have bestowed its blessing on the earth. His prayer was to have been the wonderful,
though simple and most natural channel, in which the intercourse between the King in
heaven and His faithful servant, man, as Lord of this world, was to have been maintained.
The destinies of the world were given into the power of the wishes, the will, the prayer
of man.
“This had
been man’s destiny from the first. Scripture not only tells us this, but also teaches
us how it was that God could entrust man with such a high calling. That was because He had
created him in His own image and likeness. The external rule was not committed to him
without the inner fitness: the bearing of God’s image in having dominion, in being
lord of all, had its root in the inner likeness, in his nature. There was an inner
agreement and harmony between God and man, an incipient Godlikeness, which gave man a real
fitness for being the mediator between God and His world, for he was to be a prophet,
priest, and king, to interpret God’s will, to represent nature’s needs, to
receive and dispense God’s bounty. It was his bearing God’s image that he could
bear God’s rule; he was indeed so like God, so capable of entering into God’s
purposes, and carrying out His plans, that God could trust him with the wonderful
privilege of asking and obtaining what the world might need. Prayer still remains what it
would have been if man had never fallen: the proof of man’s Godlikeness, the vehicle
of his intercourse with the Infinite Unseen One, the power that is allowed to hold the
hand that holds the destinies of the universe. Prayer is not merely the cry of the
suppliant for mercy; it is the highest forth-putting of his will by man, knowing himself
to be of divine origin, created for and capable of being, in king-like liberty, the
executor of the counsels of the Eternal.
“What sin
destroyed, grace has restored. What the first Adam lost, the second has won back. What
Adam failed in, Jesus Christ has demonstrated for us. In Christ man regains his original
position, and the saint, abiding in Christ, inherits the promise: ‘Ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you.’ Those who walk in this power understand how the New
Creation has brought them back to their original destiny, has restored God’s image
and likeness, and with it the power to have dominion. Such have indeed the power, each in
their own realm, to obtain and dispense the power of heaven here on earth. With holy
boldness they make known what they will: they live as priests in God’s presence; as
kings the powers of the world to come begin to be at their disposal. Church of the living
God! Thy calling is higher and holier than thou knowest. Through thy members, as kings and
priests unto God, would God rule the world. God would prove how wonderful man’s
original destiny was. As the image-bearer of God on earth, the earth was indeed given into
his hand. When he fell, all fell with him: the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
pain together. But now he is redeemed; the restoration of the original dignity has begun.
It is in very deed God’s purpose that the fulfillment of His eternal purpose, and the
coming of His Kingdom, should depend on those of His people who, abiding in Christ, are
ready to take up their position in Him their Head, the great Priest-King after the order
of Melchizedek, and in their prayers are bold enough to say through His mind what they
will that their God should do. An Image-bearer and representative of God on earth,
redeemed man has by his prayers to determine the history of this earth. Man was created,
and has now again been redeemed, to pray, and by his prayer to have dominion”—end
quote.
Prayer in no way
involves a denial of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, or changelessness. God’s
mind does not change and is not affected by any outside influence, either of saint or
devil. We do not pray with the idea that we are going to alter what God has decided to
perform, or coerce God into doing what He is reluctant to do. We pray in union with the
precious mind that was in Christ Jesus and we pray that we may obtain what the Father has
decided shall come to pass precisely through our prayers! Prayer is a divine and spiritual
activity, a function of the
GOD WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED—THROUGH
PRAYER!
There is a
beautiful and most meaningful passage of scripture in I Timothy 2:1-6. “I exhort
therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may
lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”
It is not our
purpose to address at this time the differences between supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks—but would point out that there is a double
purpose for all these. First, for our own welfare in this present world, so that “we
may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” Second, that the
will of God shall be wrought out in the salvation of ALL MEN. God will have all men to be
saved— delivered, set free, restored, redeemed from the tyranny of sin and death—and
to come to the knowledge of the truth—to the full experiential knowing of all that is
reality in Christ, transformed into His image, filled with His fullness, that God may be
All-in-all. THIS IS HIS WILL, and for us to pray on any level beneath this is to pray out
of harmony with His purpose. How narrow sometimes our prayers can be! “Bless me,
bless my wife, my son John, my daughter Susan, we four, no more.” We should pray
broadly for everyone to be saved—we have God’s Word for it! We are not to pray
just for the narrow confines of our own interests, but for ALL MEN. I think this is
tremendous. When we come before the throne of grace there must be a universality about our
prayers—on behalf of all creation. We stand before God as representatives of a needy
creation. It takes the enablement of the indwelling Spirit of God for us to identify
ourselves with such heartbreak and sorrow, and then to bear that need before the throne of
grace. Not to tell God how to order His purpose, but in faith in His mercies and grace, to
present ourselves, and all creation, in surrender to Him for His will to be wrought in us
all, unto salvation. This is the ministry of the sons of God, the priesthood after the
order of Melchizedek. We care, we have compassion, not with carnal sympathy, but with that
divine love that ultimately will see a total restoration of all to God.
The text quoted
above is one of rare beauty. It is indeed like a precious diamond, the effulgence of whose
radiance dazzles the mind. It is a drop of pure distilled essence, whose fragrance fills
the rooms of the heart. It is a joy forevermore and a challenge to everyone who reads it
with an understanding heart. It should be engraved upon the heart of every saint of God.
There is so much depth to that text that I am afraid that we often do not even perceive
it. It is like beautiful sky of deep rich blue and one cannot even begin to grasp the vast
depth above us. So it is with this passage!
When we think of
and seek the will of God we should not limit ourselves to concern about our individual
lives and needs, but rather learn His will for all men and use this as a guideline for our
behavior and feelings toward them. Reread I Timothy 2:1-6 and note what we are taught—God
wills “all men to be saved.” He wills “that all men should come to the
knowledge of the truth.” What effect should this will of God have on us? And how must
we become participators with Him in the fulfilling of His will? First, accept what His
Word teaches; believe in His love; and leave it to God to someday fulfill all that He
means. Your task is to prayerfully accept God’s will and to receive it into your
heart. Believe what is written: GOD WILLS that all men be saved. Let faith in those
beautiful words take possession of your heart; allow God’s will to BECOME YOUR WILL
and inspire your life. If we accept this will of God, taking it into our hearts and making
it truly ours, how will our lives be affected? The first result will be just what Paul
commands—prayers and intercessions FOR ALL MEN. We will learn to see each man be the
proper light, not the light of who he is, what he does, or what he deserves, but in the
light of God’s love and God’s will for him. If God so loved miserable and
unworthy creatures and so desired to help them that He sent His Son to die for them, and
if our will is one with His, we will be inspired to love them and pray earnestly for them.
You will note
that the command to pray for all men is rooted in the fact that God WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO
BE SAVED. We must ever distinguish between the fact of the salvation of all and the manner
in which God brings it to pass. He condescends to work through human instrumentality.
Since God purposes to save all men, He has a PLAN, a PROCESS, and an INSTRUMENTALITY by
which to accomplish this! Part of the process is the intercessory prayers of the saints.
The men who are to be saved are held under the power of the devil. The saints are called
as God’s INSTRUMENT of salvation. On behalf of lost men they engage in spiritual
warfare, claiming these men for God and His Kingdom, binding the enemy that enslaves them,
bringing deliverance to the captives. That all men be saved is God’s purpose.
Intercessory prayer is part of the process. “I exhort therefore, that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men…..” To say that
since God will save all men we need not pray for them, is to say that God has a purpose to
save them, but NO MEANS BY WHICH TO ACCOMPLISH IT. That would be like saying that a
contractor is going to build a skyscraper and, since he is going to build it, there is no
need for nails, hammers, saws, heavy equipment, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, brick
masons, etc. How ridiculous! All those things are the necessary instruments and means of
accomplishing his will and plans. I meet some who call themselves sons of God who have no
compassion or concern for lost and sorrowing humanity. They leave it all to fate or to God’s
sovereignty in some future time. Every thing and every one are “all right.”
There is nothing further to do, God will take care of it all. Yes He will! And He will
take care of it through us, the body of the Christ who so loved and died, the Royal
Priesthood after God’s own heart.
The prayers of
the saints! Prayer is not a useless exercise, it is part of God’s cosmic purpose. I
don’t pretend to understand it all, but when Jesus was going away He said, Hitherto
have ye asked nothing in my name, from now on you will ask the Father in my name, and
whatever you ask the Father I will do it.” Ah, we have missed the importance of
prayer in the redemptive and reconstructive and restorational purposes of God! Our prayers
ARE important! Don’t ask me to explain the mystery of the apparatus, but they are
important. You’ll find yourself praying, you’ll find yourself desiring to pray,
and that’s the Holy Spirit urging you to do what is necessary to enable things to
happen the way they are supposed to happen. There is a relationship between the decrees of
God and the response of God’s people! God created all things by a Word. God SAID,
“Let there be...and it was so.” That’s a CREATIVE WORD! Prayer is a
participation in the creative Word of God, speaking the new creation into existence. It’s
a mystery I don’t fully understand, but there are times when I have to pray, there
are times when the altar of my soul is full of clouds of holy incense as I send up to God
petitions, as I decree a Word, not for myself, not for mundane things, but for others, and
when I can’t articulate them in English I send them up in an unknown tongue. And
there is that deep inner consciousness that somehow I am participating in a great tableau
and drama of history.
Through many
years the spirit of intercessory prayer has stirred within my spirit and I have been
compelled to pray not only for my loved ones, but also for some of the most wicked,
unbelieving, and treacherous men and women upon the face of God’s earth. I speak not
of an occasional weak, insipid little table-prayer, but of deep travail and intense
spiritual warfare on behalf of the souls of these individuals. Among those for whom I have
been moved to intercede have been world leaders such as Golda Meir, Nikita Khruchev,
Leonid Brezhnev, Mickhail Gorbachev, and Fidel Castro. Must I now believe that my prayers
shall never be answered because some of these persons have passed away with no evidence of
conversion in their lives, and that the omniscient and omnipotent Holy Spirit who wrought
so mightily in these supplications, failed? Not by any means! For I have seen dramatic
results in the lives of some I have unceasingly prayed for, and there is no limitation of
either time or space in prayer.
My heart is
emboldened by the testimony of that great man of God, George Muller. George Muller was
literally the “man God made,” and whom God used to house, feed, clothe, educate
and save thousands of orphans in
When George
Muller arrived at the twilight of his life, God, he estimated, had answered over fifty
thousand of his prayers, many thousands of which were answered on the day he made them and
often before he arose from his knees. Some of his petitions, however, lingered across the
decades. Here is a sample of such asking: “In November, 1844, I began to pray for the
conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether
sick or in health, on the land or on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements
might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked
God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I
thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day I continued to
pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the
three, and went on praying for the other two. These two remain unconverted. The man to
whom God in the riches of His grace has given tens of thousands of answers to prayer in
the self-same hour of the day in which they were offered has been praying day by day for
nearly thirty-six years for the conversion of these individuals, and yet they remain
unconverted. But I hope in God, I pray on, and look yet for the answer. They are not
converted yet, but they will be”—end quote. This was the faith that carried him
through every straitened place. He met emergencies by asking and in due time God supplied
whatever the need might be. Those prayers? you ask. In 1897, those two men, sons of a
friend of Mr. Muller’s youth, were not converted after he had entreated God on their
behalf for fifty-two years daily. But after his death God brought them into the fold! Such
was this man’s triumphant faith, whatever the difficulty.
And I would add—would
God that he might have prayed for the salvation of ALL MEN! He prayed for five—and
they were all saved. Praise God for that! But we are commanded to pray, supplicate,
intercede, and give thanks for all men... “For God will have all men to be saved, and
to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” “Whatsoever ye ask in my name, I will
do it.” What awesome power! Ah, we know it works for needs, money, jobs, healing,
problems,—carnal things. But does it work for the SOULS OF MEN? Dare we ask for the
salvation of men with the same confidence that God will grant our request as when we ask
for a new pair of shoes? The Holy Spirit answers, “Yes!” “For God will have
all men to be saved.” And I answer, “Yes!” For I have personally seen:
God-moves sovereignly and powerfully in men’s lives in response to my prayers. As
with George Muller, it sometimes took years but I never fainted and God never failed.
Those foolish
people who in their willful and petulant ignorance dare to say, “If God is going to
save every one, why need I bother?” really do not deserve either recognition or an
answer. Since my eyes have caught a vision of the supernal glory of the will of God to
save all men, and my ears have heard the Word of the Spirit commanding, “I exhort
therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks
be made for ALL MEN,” my heart responds with the greatest eagerness, for the
greatness of His infinite love and purpose for every man who has ever lived, sets aflame
the love of God in my heart until every breath I breathe is a fervent prayer, “THY
WILL BE DONE! THY WILL BE DONE!” This is the hope that consumes my life and all my
waking hours, and beside it all else is the grossest and lowest vanity. Stir yourself in
repentance and in prayer and in consecration, ye carnal minded, blessing-seeking souls who
think you shall enjoy the glories of heaven while billions for whom the Christ died writhe
in the tormenting flames of hell, possessed by the devil forever.
Prayer is
irreplaceable. Nothing can take its place. Substitutes are readily available for almost
everything else. A prosthesis is a good replacement for a lost leg. A hearing aid is an
excellent device for the hearing impaired. Organs of the body can be replaced by man-made
gadgets and machines. If telephone communications break down, the fax machine, overnight
express mail, the automobile, or the airplane can serve in its place. One could even carry
the message on foot. A poor substitute is better than none. Not so with prayer, however.
It has no replacement. There are no substitutes. Ask God to form afresh the Lord Jesus in
all His beauty and power in your innermost being, that you might think His thoughts,
desire what He desires, love as He loves’ and pray His prayers. This is the secret of
sonship prayer. Oh, that God would raise up a mighty army of priests after the order of
Melchizedek so able to cooperate with Him, so willing to be yielded, that He might perform
His perfect will and work through them. He does and He shall, praise His name!
Prayer is not a
little habit pinned on to us while we were tied to our mother’s apron strings;
neither is it a decent little fifteen-second grace said over an hour’s dinner, but it
is a most serious work in the Unction of the Kingdom of God. The little estimate we put on
prayer is evident from the small amount of time we devote to it. How poor and pitiful our
petty, childish praying beside the example of the firstborn Son of God—He who prayed
in the mountains, symbolic of the high places of the Spirit, and continued in prayer all
night—until the New Day dawned! To holy men of God who think praying their main
business and devote their energies to it according to this high estimate of its importance
does God commit the keys to His Kingdom, and by them does He work His spiritual wonders in
the world. Prayer is co-operation with God. When we are moved to speak with God it is only
because God is already speaking with us. God’s promptings are the earnest of His
answer. The spirit of prayer is God-awakened, God-evoked, and God-propelled. Prayer is
supernatural. “The Lord worked with them” (Mk.
If you
programmed a talking robot to pray, would God listen? Suppose the robot prayed without
ceasing, suppose he prayed earnestly, suppose he prayed articulately and with a sob in his
voice. Let’s say he used all the available aspects of prayer—praise,
supplication, intercession, giving of thanks—would God pay any attention to the robot’s
prayers? Of course not! But wait a minute. If we say that God will not hear or answer a
robot’s prayers, we have accepted a startling proposition—prayer is more than
words! You see—it is not mere words that cause things to happen, but the authority
behind the words, the power within the words. In the beginning God said, “Let there
be light,” and there was light. The Word issued out of divine BEING and NATURE—therefore
there was power in the words. Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit and they are life” (Jn. 6:63). Paul wrote, “For the
The God of all
grace, the God of love, the God of kindness and tender mercies, seeks the welfare of His
creation and His creatures everywhere. His love is boundless, His power omnipotent, and
His purpose immutable. Nothing that we ever dreamed of good for any man or any race or any
nation has touched the garment’s hem of the good He purposes or the blessing toward
which He works. He is not like the pagan deities, who, like Baal, must be awakened from
his sleep and besought to do good deeds for men. His great and eternal purpose sweeps
unceasingly through creation, comprehending every child of His and working toward the goal
of a world wherein sin, sorrow, pain, limitation, and death have forever been banished
from the minds and experience of men. When men go up to such a God in prayer, their
intercession must mean casting themselves in with the eternal purpose of the Father,
“laying hold upon God,” not to call Him to action, as though He needed that, but
to be carried along with Him in His program for the redemption and restoration of all into
harmony with Him. God wants men to be made one in Him in prayer, aligning their desires
with His, until their intercession becomes the effective expression and vehicle of His
will. As in an irrigation system, with its vast network of channels, the sluice-gate would
not plead with the reservoir to remember its forgotten power of blessing, but rather,
feeling the urge of the flowing water, would desire to be opened, that through it the
waiting stream might find an entrance into all fields and the will of the reservoir be
done—so should the sons of God respond to the love of God in prayer. In prayer
something creative is being done. Again, as in the beginning, the voice of God sounds
forth, piercing the darkness that hangs like a shroud over the human soul, commanding,
“Let there be light!” Prayer is the heart of God expressed, His creative fiat
through His body by which the New Creation is called into existence.
Speaking of this
wonderful and divine principle in prayer, Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote: “When a mother
prays for her wayward son, no words can make clear the vivid reality of her supplications.
Her love pours itself out in insistent demand that her boy must not be lost. She is sure
of his value, with which no outward thing is worthy to be compared, and of his
possibilities which no sin of his can ever make her doubt. She will not give him up. She
follows him through his abandonment down to the gates of death; and if she loses him
through death into the mystery beyond, she still prays on in secret, with intercessions
she may not dare to utter, that wherever in the conscious universe he may be, God will
reclaim him. As one considers such an experience of vicarious praying, he sees that it is
not merely resignation to the will of God; it an urgent assertion of a great desire. She
does not really think that she is persuading God to be good to her son, for the courage in
her prayer is due to her certain faith that God also must wish that boy to be recovered
from his way. She rather is taking on her heart the same burden that God has on His; is
joining her demand with the divine desire. In this system of personal life that makes up
the moral universe, she is taking her place alongside God in an urgent, Creative
outpouring of sacrificial love. Her intercession is the utterance of her life; it is love
on its knees”—end quote.
DIVINE TRANSMISSION
When we enter
into the ministry of prayer in earnest, two questions confront us. First, How can I, with
all my weakness, imperfection and limitation, influence God through my words? How does
prayer work? Why is it needed? And second, How can I bless others by prayer? We do not
need to understand just how prayer works in order to use it, any more than we have to
understand electricity before we can use it, but it may at times help us at our task if we
understand. Someone has given the following comparison: “You have a piece of meat
which you want to preserve until the next week. You take it to the refrigerator where
there is a freezing unit. When the meat is placed within its sphere of influence, or
within the radius of its power, it takes on some of the quality of the low temperature:
extreme coldness. As long as it remains there it retains these ice qualities and is
preserved from decay.”
There is some
person who you are moved to help. The compassion of Christ in you reaches out to him to
bring the blessings and benefits of the
If a person is,
in their consciousness, wholly of the earth, earthy, and bound up by the outward world of
appearances, he is unconscious of God’s reality and power. As prayer flows out on
behalf of this person, and the will of God is decreed toward him, the energy of God is
channeled like a laser beam, the Spirit breaks through the carnal, material wall and God
penetrates man. If you, by faith and love, catch a man up with your spirit and bear him to
God, he is brought within the influence of the Spirit, and is transformed. God’s love
is pouring out all the time: it is man who is estranged, alienated, and dead
(unresponsive) to God. It is our ministry as sons of God to respond for man, to make that
upward and outward reach which man cannot make for himself, to complete the circuit,
releasing the transfiguring life-flow of God.
It is wholly a
secret service. There are people today who are doing the most in the
Some dear soul
objects, “If you were there bodily you could influence men more by your personal
contact, your living words.” So you could. If you were in
Many examples of
this power of prayer are to be found in the great revivals and moves of God throughout
history. Dick Eastman records: “Finney’s revival rocked America’s Eastern
states in the first half of the nineteenth century. One man, known as Father Nash, would
precede Finney to cities scheduled for crusades. Three or four weeks in advance of
meetings Father Nash humbly journeyed to town. No great crowds waited to welcome him and
no bands played fanfares of greeting. Father Nash would quietly find a place of prayer.
During the revivals countless souls were won and lives changed. Finney’s name soon
gained acclaim, and his sermons pierced the hearts of multitudes. Somewhere alone,
however, knelt humble Father Nash. After revival came, he quietly left town for another
crusade, there to labor on bended knees. He knew the meaning of intercession. Father Nash
concerned himself with others, often sacrificing the finer things of life. He had no home,
no church support, and often missed the taste of home-cooked meals. Nights were spent
without a bed, and clothes became frayed. What did Nash receive for this? Little in this
life, perhaps, but much in the
E. F. Hallock
has written: “David Brainerd prayed in the wilderness of
There is a
saying of
Prayer is work.
There is struggle involved in praying. Paul speaks of this in Colossians 4:17-13. “Epaphras,
who is one of yourselves, a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. He is always
striving for you earnestly in his prayers, pleading that you may—as persons of ripe
character and clear conviction—stand firm and mature, convinced and fully assured in
everything willed by God. For I bear him testimony that he has labored hard in your
behalf.” This kind of laboring in prayer has often been misunderstood. People have
thought of it as a wrestling in prayer with God, the thought that it takes mighty fervor
and persistence to persuade God to move in a situation. His gifts and graces must be wrung
from him by great effort. Prayer is conceived of as a means by which God can be made to
relent, and be moved to give us an answer to our prayers. And if we are successful in this
endeavor, it is because we have fought with God, stormed heaven with our demands,
convinced God by our crying needs, and, on the whole, persevered until He has yielded. I
do not hesitate to tell you that such a crude and unscriptural notion is a wicked
blasphemy against the God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and
the Christ who so loved the church that He gave Himself for it. Our labor is not to
convince or persuade God, but to bring ourselves into union with His mind and penetrate
the walls of resistance that oppose the rule of God. Prayer is work, and if we are to work
with God we must know what God is doing and how He does it. History is full of pathetic
instances of men and movements who supposed they could work for God by using carnal
methods. But no one can work for God—we must work with God, yea, God must work in and
through us. What is important is not what we are doing, but what God is doing.
I will tell you
what God is doing. He is BRINGING MANY
The day of
revivals is over. The hour has arrived when God’s Kingdom shall triumph in all
realms. The end game is here. The conclusion of the age, the grand consummation of God’s
purpose among the nations is at hand. The story is told of a little boy who couldn’t
play outside because it was raining. His father, who was trying to take an afternoon nap
on the sofa, became annoyed. “Go to the other room, son; Daddy wants to sleep. Find
something in there to play with.” “Like what?” “Anything,”
snapped the father. “There isn’t anything,’’ replied the lad. Grabbing
the newspaper, the man tore out a page with a large map of the world printed on it. With
the scissors he cut it into dozens of odd-shaped pieces like a puzzle. “There, see if
you can put that together, and don’t bother me till you’re done.” The
father settled down on the sofa thinking his problem was solved, but ten minutes later
there was a tug on his shirt. “You can’t be done yet! But there on the floor was
the neatly constructed world. “How did you do it?” he asked. “Easy,”
said his son. “A man’s picture was on the back, and when I got the man together
right, the world was right.” Ah, yes—when God gets HIS MAN put together in the
fullness of Christ all the problems of the world will simply fall into place! Let us not
expend our energies at this late hour trying to get the world straightened out and ordered
aright. Let us give ourselves to apprehending that for which Jesus Christ has apprehended
us—to grow up unto a
It’s
harvest time. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He may send forth
laborers into His harvest.” That is what I am praying for in these days. I am praying
for the sons of God. I am praying for you, my beloved. I am praying for the nations. I am
praying for the New World Order brought by the
Who shall banish
cruel oppression? Who shall drive savage war with all its horrors, from the face of the
earth? Who shall stay the ravages of famine, pestilence, and disease? Who shall free the
sad world from murder, suicide, hatred, and crime? Who shall release the prisoners of sin
and death, and wipe all tears from off all faces, that there be no more crying, neither
sorrow, nor pain anywhere in God’s beautiful earth? The moan of the world’s
agony comes to me as the surge of the sea upon a rocky shore. Alas, Lord! for the sorrow,
bondage, sin, suffering and death which all our efforts cannot undo, and all our sympathy
cannot banish. What cans’t Thou do for these, O Lord? And I hear the Lord’s
whisper loom within my deepest spirit. “The sons of God are arising to set creation
free. As the sons arise in the power of my peace—fear, hatred, and violence shall
cease. As the sons arise in the authority of my victory—oppression and tyranny shall
end. As the sons arise in the power of my righteousness—the bondage of sin shall be
broken and mankind released into my holiness. As the sons arise in the intelligence of my
mind—ignorance and superstition shall surrender to my wisdom. As the sons arise in
the quickening of my life— death’s hold shall be broken and the way of life
opened to all mankind. As the sons arise in the splendor of my light—the darkness
shall flee away, the sorrowing shall be comforted, the meek exalted to reign, the
broken-hearted healed, and the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover
the sea. “
Let us
pray!
Part 2
TEACH US TO PRAY
“And it
came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His
disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught His disciples. And He
said unto them, when ye pray, say...”(Lk. 11:1).
This was not
Jesus’ First lesson on prayer. He taught His disciples their first lesson in prayer
by His own practice of prayer. That which first awakened their hearts and stirred within
them the holy desire to pray was not what He said about prayer, but what He did about it.
The setting of our text was late in His ministry. His prayer life throughout the whole
time of their walk with Him had so profoundly impressed them that they sensed deeply that
He knew prayer in a dimension they had not touched, and as they had never witnessed prayer
in the life of any man. There was nothing formal, ordinary or “religious” in the
prayer of Jesus. To hear Jesus pray would carry one into the Holy of Holies. How the
disciples marveled and grew hungry-hearted as they heard Jesus pray! The disciples were
good men and well-versed in Jewish praying, yet when they came into contact with the Son
of God, instead of realizing they could pray well, they came to the conclusion that they
could not pray at all. And when these disciples came to Him with this request, “Lord,
teach us to pray,” Jesus did not turn them away. He did not rebuke them. He taught
them to pray. And WE are taught the high art of sonship praying by none less than the
firstborn Son of God!
The disciples
remembered that John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. Now, a new ministry and a
further demonstration of the presence, glory and purpose of God had been brought to them
by Jesus. They sensed something new, something more powerful and sublime in the prayer
life of the Son of God. A new day had dawned, the new order of the
We, like the
disciples, have such a distorted conception of prayer. We have said prayers, we have
listened to prayers being offered in church, we have cried out to God in pressing
situations, we have even sought the Lord Himself and a deeper walk in the Spirit, and have
sometimes offered thanksgiving to God. But when we live with Jesus we soon begin to
realize that we know very little about prayer and we join the disciples in imploring,
“Lord, teach us to pray!”
Occasionally I
meet dear folk in this walk of sonship and the Kingdom of God who profess that there is no
longer any need to pray, they have now attained to a higher realm of union with the Father
where in Him all things are theirs, and prayer is no longer necessary. The Lord Himself is
dwelling within them, they have found the God within, and they don’t need to pray. In
the minds of these, prayer is a left-over relic from a by-gone age. It belongs to a lower
plane of spiritual life than this high realm of sonship or Godhood to which we have come.
But I do not believe it. I don’t know where they get this idea. It certainly isn’t
scriptural, nor do they get it from the example of the Lord Himself. No man has been as
close to God the Father as Jesus, and no one has yet in this world been filled with the
fullness of God as He was. The Father was in
Him in a measure far greater than any of us is consciously aware of at this time. “Believest
thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” “Believe me that I am
in the Father and the Father in me.” “The words that I speak unto you I speak
not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works” (Jn.
The man from
Galilee, the firstborn among many brethren, the Pattern Son, the Captain of our salvation,
the proto-type of what the realm of sonship is all about, left us an example of the ways
of God’s Kingdom when His feet trod the pathways of earth. Not only did He dwell in
and manifest out of that high realm of the Kingdom - He brought the Kingdom! He signed,
sealed and delivered it with all authority. Not only did He come and establish the
Kingdom, He demonstrated it. He showed us exactly how the Kingdom functions. And He
prayed! HOW HE PRAYED! I doubt if any man ever lived who spent as much time in prayer as
Jesus did. Every argument against sons praying breaks to pieces upon this rock - that
Jesus, the Firstborn Son, the Pattern Son was a man of prayer. He knew more about God and
more about life and reality than anyone else in history, and He prayed. His example and
His experience set aside every objection, learned or ignorant, to the prayer life of the
sons of God.
In Luke 3:21-22,
we find the first occasion in the Gospels where Jesus prayed. “Now when all the
people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the
heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him,
and a voice from heaven, which said. Thou art my beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.”
It was while Jesus prayed that heaven was opened and He was anointed with the Holy Spirit.
While He prayed, He was endued with all the power needed to be transformed from being a
small town carpenter into the manifestation of sonship, proclaiming that the
The second time
we see Jesus in prayer is in Luke 5:15-16. “But so much the more went there a fame
abroad of Him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of
their infirmities. And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness, and prayed!” At this
time, in terms of Jesus’ ministry, things were going extremely well. His fame had
spread over the country. People were flocking to Him - the sick, the oppressed, the
hopeless, the sinners. They saw the power of God in Him. He was the man of the hour. It
was the hour of acclamation. He healed and delivered them all. Then, at once, He withdrew
into a desert place - to pray!
The third
recorded prayer of Jesus came during an hour of decision, when He must select His closest
disciples. These are the men into whose hands He will place the destiny of the whole
world. In that important and momentous hour, Jesus went into a mountain in the evening to
pray. The hours passed by, and Finally the dawn arrived - Jesus had prayed all night. Time
and time again, the emphasis is upon the fact that Jesus prayed alone, in the desert or on
the mountain. At times He arose early in the morning, before the awakening sun had kissed
the clouds in the eastern sky, and went apart to pray alone. He went often to the garden
spots, to the wilderness of
One Son has God
had upon earth, who lived without sin - but God never had a Son who lived without prayer.
The only sinless and fully manifested Son that ever graced the earth was its most
prayerful life. Yea and even now He ever liveth to make intercession for us! Yes, the
risen, ascended, glorified Jesus is now the great High Priest of the Melkizedekian order,
and there after the power of an endless life He faithfully PRAYS FOR HIS BRETHREN! It
makes me wonder why some have left prayer. Could it be that they believe that they are
greater than their Master. Perhaps they are no longer Following the Master, who even now
prays in the highest heaven at the right hand of God!
THE
I would speak to
you now, in connection with prayer, of the mysteries of the
In other words,
that heaven that is so vast, so expansive, so extensive, so all-inclusive that it embodies
within itself all the other heavens - even that heaven cannot contain our God! And yet I
hear some say that God is not omnipresent! God is the God, not of heaven, but of THE
HEAVENS. And in our journey into God we pass through all these heavens. Jesus passed
through all the heavens on His way into the glory of the Father. “He that descended
is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might Fill all things”
(Eph.
In the lower
heavens you know God in a more elementary way. It is wonderful to know God in His heavens.
Each heaven bespeaks of a plane of relationship with God by the Spirit. When the Lord
unveils Himself to you on a higher plane, in deeper measures, in richer and fuller
dimensions of His life, wisdom and glory, and you experience Him in it, you ascend in Him
to a higher heaven. In the lower heavens you see and touch and experience God spiritually
in limitation. As you pass through the heavens you come to know God in greater and grander
measures. You experience Him in a deeper way. You come to know God more fully. In our
progression through the heavens we encounter the laws, or order, or ways of God in each
heaven. In the natural world there are laws - universal laws. One law that we all are
acquainted with is the law of gravity. A “law” is something in nature that
always, under the same circumstances, and with the same conditions, happens the same way.
If there is no deviation, no exception to the occurrence or phenomenon -it is a law. When
scientists observe that under the same conditions something always happens the same way,
it is recognized as a law. The reason gravity is called the law of gravity is because we
know that if you throw a rock off a cliff it is absolutely certain what will happen. There
is no question about it. No one reading these lines would be willing to bet that the rock
will shoot up into the atmosphere like a rocket!
In the natural
realm man becomes familiar with its laws from earliest childhood. He orders his waking and
sleeping by the rising and setting of the sun. He does not jump out of tall trees or off
tall buildings because the law of gravity dictates that bones will be broken. Flesh will
splatter, and serious injury or death will ensue. He doesn’t put his hand on glowing
metal because it will burn. He sees that two objects cannot occupy the same space. He
observes the movements of the heavens and learns that the heavenly bodies travel in fixed
and predictable paths. He watches the soaring of the eagle high above the earth and knows
that he cannot fly like a bird. He learns that seed will germinate in the earth and with
proper care will grow and produce a harvest. He learns that good food and exercise promote
health, strength, and well-being. Above all he quickly perceives that he must accommodate
his being to these laws if he is to survive on this planet and make his living here
enjoyable and profitable. He conforms to these laws; they do not conform to him and he
cannot break them with impunity or bend them to his will; but if he will cooperate with
the laws great good and blessing can be his.
What is true in
the physical realm is likewise true in the spiritual realm. The world of the spirit is
governed by spiritual laws just as powerful and precise as the laws of the physical world.
They cannot be discovered by the natural mind, nor by man’s search or investigation
through natural or scientific channels. They can neither be discerned or touched by the
natural senses. They belong to the order of divine revelation and are revealed to man only
by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. One cannot supplant these spiritual laws, nor
nullify, nor break them with impunity any more than with the natural laws. The
The law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the law of the Kingdom - and it supersedes the law of
sin and death. Many of us in our spiritual walk have been trying to “die” in
order to live. We’ve had the idea that if we could overcome and conquer the death in
us we would be able to live the life of Christ. But that is a contradiction of the law of
life. You don’t die in order to live -you live in order to die. In fact, if you don’t
live before you die, you had better not die! If you don’t have life before you die,
there will be nothing left - not even a hope of resurrection. Do you know why Jesus was
willing to die? He was willing to die because He could say, “No man taketh my life
from me - I lay it down; I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up
again.” The one who lays down his life must have power to take it up again. If you
have not the power to lay your life down, and take it back up, then may God help you not
to die! You must live in order to die, so that when you die you can still live. Christ’s
life was secure in death because He had life before He died, and by that life He arose.
Someone says, “But, I’m not going to die!” Well, do you know what the proof
of me having life would be? The proof would be for me to say, “Go ahead, kill
me...pull the trigger, man, because I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to
take it up again.” A lesser degree of life is required to live and not die, than to
die and still live, and bring yourself back again. When I have a quality of life that IS,
then I can lay it down and take it up. So the law of the spirit of life makes me free from
the law of sin and death. It is Christ in me that enables Adam to be brought to death, yet
I live. I live and then die, and still I live. I’m not going to conquer something so
I can have the victory - I must get the victory so I can conquer something. It is not
victory that gives you power, it is power that gives you victory. Get life, precious
friend of mine, and all the death in you will take care of itself. Increase in life and
you will increase in death. These are divine laws, the laws of the
God has dealt
with me deeply over many years in the area of His laws. We are not an accident going
somewhere to happen. And we will not just “saunter” into the
THE FIRST HEAVEN - ASKING AND RECEIVING
There are divine
laws in prayer. Imagine a man taking hold of a shovel, who has never seen one before, and
beginning to use it as best he knows how, but upside down. After working awhile I can
imagine hearing him say, “It is hard work to use a shovel, and I cannot accomplish a
great deal with it either!” We would be most happy to be able to take the shovel into
our own hands and show him how to use it. After trying again for a while, he will exclaim,
“How easy it is to use a shovel, and how much one can do with it!” All life and
all of God’s creation are governed by laws. Where these laws are understood and
obeyed, everything works well and is productive. The spiritual life, too, has its laws. If
we do not apply these laws, our spiritual lives will be burdensome and fruitless. But if
we can discover and follow the laws which govern our development in the
THREE LAW’S OF THE KINGDOM
When I speak of
God’s laws I speak not of the law of Moses. I’m not talking about any Old
Testament law. And I’m not talking about church laws, traditions, or regulations. I’m
talking about Kingdom law - the spiritual principles of the
Jesus says,
“Ask, and it shall be given you: for every one that asketh receiveth” - there’s
the law! Not a promise - a law. How awesome, expansive, and all-inclusive! How glorious,
positive, and absolute! EVERYONE THAT ASKETH, RECEIVETH. Someone has written: “Would
it surprise you to learn that one of the basic laws of economics is also a basic law of
prayer? It’s the law of need (which creates what economists call ‘demand’)
and supply. This law is operative in all business transactions. When a person applies to
the bank for a loan to buy a new car, he is putting this law into operation. The buyer has
a need; the bank has the resources to meet that need. Such transactions require two
parties. Before a loan is contracted, there must be a borrower and a lender; before a gift
is possible, there must be a receiver and a giver; before a legal will can exist, there
must be an heir and a testator; before an organ is transplanted, there must be a recipient
and a donor. Just as all these human transactions require a giver and a receiver, so does
prayer. It’s a sense of need that causes us to pray, but coupled with it must be a
recognition of the abundant resources of God that are available to meet those needs.”
When we think of
asking, we may recall some dramatic experience we have had, similar to the experience of
Captain Eddie Rickenbacher, who was lost at sea with seven other men. In answer to their
prayers for food, God sent a sea gull who landed on the top of Rickenbacher’s head;
in answer to their requests for water, God sent rain. And after twenty-one days, God
answered their prayers for rescue. All the basic and most needful things in life are
given. They are not purchased or merited or earned or won or discovered - they are given.
It is failure to realize this great truth that deprives many precious people of the
blessings and benefits of the
There are two
primary words in the Greek New Testament translated ask. One is the word EPEROTAO, which
means “to ask, to inquire, as asking questions.” But the word used about prayer
is AITEO, which means “to ask, to crave, to desire, to call for,” always meaning
asking for something. I have just counted about thirty times that this word is used about
prayer in the New Testament. And it is properly translated “ask.” We are invited
to ask. Nay, we are even commanded to ask! What condescension! We are to ask of whom? We
are to ask of our Father who is God and King and Lord of the universe. We are to ask of
that One who is the omnipotent Ruler, not only of the nations of this world, and the
planets of this system, but of all the starry heavens; that One who controls the galaxies
in their orbits and also the atoms in the tiniest drop of water. We are to ask Him. Did
you ever think about that? I might invite you to ask the President of the
Said the robin
to the sparrow, I should really like to know Why these anxious human beings Rush about and
worry so! Said the sparrow to the robin, Friend, I think that it must be That they have no
Heavenly Father Such as cares for you and me!
Now listen. I
want to share with you an elementary truth of supreme significance. “If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
Father which is in heaven give GOOD THINGS to them that ask Him” (Mat. 7:11). Good
things! T-H-I-N-G-S! Those who ask are given things. I draw your reverent attention to the
two significant words: ask and things. If you ask, what do you get? THINGS! What kind of
things? Good things! But they are, nonetheless, things. This realm of asking for and
receiving things is the First heaven. If you are going to touch God, experience God, and
know God in the realm of the Spirit, the very first dimension in which you will come to
know Him is in the realm of “things”. This is the external realm. It is the
realm where we learn to know God as the great heavenly Santa Claus, as the great
Godfather, the Blesser and Benefactor of His children.
This truth
cannot be made plainer than in the words of the Lord Jesus wherein He says, “Therefore
I say unto you, What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them” (Mk. 11:24). Is that a law? Absolutely! What do you get when
you pray? Things! I want you to get this. You ask and you receive things. You pray and you
get things. God says this is a divine law; it works and there is no qualifying. Getting
things is contingent only upon our asking. There are no other conditions, no stipulations,
no disclaimers, no hidden clauses or fine print. He doesn’t say that if you last for
ten days you will receive things. He doesn’t say that if you never get angry, curse,
lust, or act like the devil. He will give you things. He doesn’t say if you never
fail or miss the mark you can get things. Nor does He say if you pay tithes, attend
Church, and read the Bible you will get things. There are no other prerequisites. The law
is the law of asking in faith - plus nothing!
You will
understand a great truth when you understand that a gift is not given because of the
goodness of the recipient, but because of the goodness of the Giver. That’s why
salvation is a gift. Salvation is the gift of God to poor, undone, unworthy sinners.
Faith, saving faith, is a gift, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that
not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 3:8). The Holy Spirit is a gift.
Healing is a gift. Divine provision is a gift. The gift realm involves areas where there
is no qualifying. That is why we have seen men with great sign-gift ministries, who could
preach like Paul, prophesy until the hair stood up on your neck, and perform mighty signs,
wonders and miracles, yet their lives were sadly lacking in character. The blind would
see, the deaf would hear, the lame walked, prophecy flowed like a river, they could tell
you your street address, your phone number, reveal the secrets of your heart - and the
next afternoon be caught at a motel in bed with another man’s wife. Why is that?
Because they are moving in a gift realm. Gifts of the Spirit. And when God gives gifts He
requires no qualifying. No one in the New Testament had more gifts than the saints at
But it is a
realm in which you can know God. In fact, I do not doubt for one moment that the vast
majority of those who read this message first became acquainted with God in that realm -
the realm of God’s goodness, the realm of His loving kindness and tender mercies, the
realm of answers to prayer, blessings, miracles, and supernatural supply. It is the
spiritual world all the starry-eyed, effervescent Charismatics live in! It is the realm of
need consciousness, and our heavenly Father’s faithfulness to provide. Multitudes of
believers never follow on to know God beyond that realm. They are heaven dwellers - the
FIRST HEAVEN. It is a great fact, if you could eliminate people’s prayers for “things”
and “needs” you would immediately reduce their prayer life by at least 90%.
“Oh, God, do this. Oh, God, do that. Oh, God, help me here, bless me there, give me a
better job, increase my Finances, supply a new car, heal my body, help my children, do
something for Grandma...” Oh, how “need” conscious are God’s children!
Some years ago I was in a meeting and a brother expressed the mentality of the vast
majority of Christians today. He asked the congregation, “How many have a need
tonight?” Every hand in the building shot up. The brother continued, “If you don’t
have a need, then you ought to!” How many of us have our center in our “needs”?
The truth is, if you removed the saints “needs” from the average Church meeting
or prayer group, they wouldn’t know how to conduct the meeting! Most meetings are
conducted with a basic consciousness that we need God. Very few meetings are conducted
with the consciousness that WE ARE FILLED WITH GOD!
In the first
heaven of spiritual experience we are conscious of “needs” and the “things”
that meet the need and we touch God on that level. And God is faithful there! “When
thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly...for
your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him” (Mat. 6:6-8).
Here we have it again - things and asking. And this is the heaven that the great majority
of Christians have ascended to. That is the realm in which they know and experience God.
All the faith and prosperity message today - two BMW’s in every garage, the best
jobs, the finest homes, the largest bank accounts, the most luxurious cars, the finest
clothes, and all the amenities of life - God wants to bless and prosper you! God will make
you successful and wealthy! And I’m not opposed to that. I can surely use all He
sends! But what I’m saying is that this is the lowest heaven - the lowest spiritual
level one can know and experience God on. It is the knowledge of God on the external,
physical, material world of things. And this realm is real! It is one of God’s
heavens! Thank God for that realm!
I’ve known
preachers that have never met God in the first heaven reality. There were a couple of lady
ministers that came to the Church where I was minister in
The Lord
quickened a scripture in my spirit: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast
thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Acts
Oh, that God’s
precious people would learn that this is just the FIRST HEAVEN! We get so involved with,
and centered in, our needs, until we miss the fact that God has a need. Can we comprehend
the idea that God has a need? You see, the scripture reveals that God created all things
“for His pleasure” (Rev. 4:11). Sometimes we have sinned, we have missed the
mark, and come short of God’s glory and failed to bring pleasure to the heart of God.
God has a need for the fellowship of sons, of like ones unto Himself. That was His plan,
His purpose from the beginning. “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.”
God’s heart was the same as the hearts of parents today, to reproduce Himself, to
have a great family, to populate the universe with an Elohim company, the extension and
projection of Himself- gods in the likeness of God. “The Jews answered Him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man,
makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are
gods? If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be
broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou
blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of’ God?” (Jn. 10:33-36). Yes, God has
a need - involvement with His sons in His great creative purposes. In the path of sonship
there comes a time when our need becomes dwarfed in the higher light of God’s need,
and we discover that when our overwhelming objective becomes not to get, but to live unto
the Father, satisfy His heart and fulfill His purposes - then our need IS MET
THE SECOND HEAVEN - SEEKING AND FINDING
In this glorious
transition from realm to realm we hear a voice saying, “Come up hither,” and are
translated from the first heaven to the second. This brings us into relation to the second
spiritual law, and law number two is the reality of heaven number two. How well we know
the law of the First heaven: “Ask, and you get things.” That’s the BMW
realm! Now, let me present to you the law of the second heaven: “Seek, and ye shall
find” (Mat. 7:7). I would draw your attention to the difference between receiving and
finding. These two terms are not the same at all. There is also a world of difference
between asking and seeking. These words are not synonyms, nor is seeking simply an
intensification of asking. These two principles do not work the same way. I could ask a
friend for $100.00 and he might give it to me. But that is not the same as seeking it. Let
us suppose I hear about a treasure hidden in the
The difference
between asking and seeking, and between receiving and finding, is that in the first heaven
you ask for things and receive things, but in the second heaven you seek for God and His
Kingdom and you find the Lord Himself. The line is drawn between these two realms in the
teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-33. “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for the body, what ye shall
put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all these things.
But seek ye the
May the blessed
spirit of Truth give understanding to all who read these lines! The Gentiles seek. You
mean they don’t ask? No, the Gentiles don’t ask for things. The heathen don’t
ask for things. The unbeliever doesn’t ask for things. Why? Because it is in their
nature to seek things. “After all these things do the Gentiles seek.’’ Sons
of God, on the other hand, do not seek things. When they have need of things they ask -
and receive. God graciously and generously gives things in response to asking. What divine
simplicity! But the heathen do not know this wonderful privilege of receiving simply by
asking the heavenly Father - so they seek, search, pursue, and actively strive to acquire
“things”. They devote themselves to it. They work at it. They expend all their
time and energies for the acquisition of things. How busy they are! They burn the
Children of the
heavenly Father, who know God in the First heaven, learn to ask their Father and their
Father delights to give them everything. I don’t mean they don’t work - but they
rest in their work for they have found God as their source. But the unbeliever knows not
the heavenly Father. The man outside of God does not come boldly and confidently to ask
the Father for things, therefore he moves in another principle and seek things. Any of you
that are in the business world know what I’m talking about. That’s what this
whole “greed” economy is all about. All the push and shove and dog-eat-dog
mentality - I will trample everybody in my path, I will use everyone I can, I will cheat,
lie, abuse, grasp and scratch to get to the top. The salesman who convinces you that you
need something you can’t afford and don’t even want - do you know what principle
he is working on? You’ve got a dollar and he’s seeking it! The whole spirit of
the economic system of the world is based on the “greed factor,” and it’s
the principle of seek things at any cost. So Jesus says that the Gentiles seek things
because they never learned about asking. They have never been translated out of the
lowlands of the earthy into the first heaven of spiritual experience. If you’re in
business with God, you’ve got it made, my friend. You don’t have to push, shove,
sweat, misrepresent, lie, cheat, use hard-sell tactics, take advantage and all the rest.
But those outside this Kingdom are busy burning the rubber on the road trying to make it
by seeking things. Hear now the word of the Lord! “Therefore take no thought, saying,
What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after
all these things do the Gentiles seek: For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need
of all these things. But seek ye first the
Let me tell you
something about the word seek. In the Old Testament Hebrew, where it appears most
frequently, it is the word DARASH which is derived From a root meaning “to tread,
frequent, chase, pursue relentlessly and unceasingly.” In the New Testament Greek,
seek comes from a word that means not simply to “desire” something, but to
“require” it. In other words, it indicates that you will not take “No”
For an answer. That is something more than asking! Asking means requesting. Seeking is
demanding. The Lord said, “Ask, and it shall be given; seek (the Kingdom), and ye
shall Find.” And it is a great fact that in all the pages of the Bible God never
instructed a Gentile, or an unconverted man, to seek God. Did you know that? Every
scripture within the pages of God’s Book - and they are numerous - that says, “Seek
ye the Lord,” is addressed to the people of God.
“Seek ye
the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near...and our God...will
abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:6-7). We used to preach that evangelisticly. We hung
those poor sinners over the Fires of hell until they could hear the flames crackling, they
could feel the heat blasts from the pit, they could hear the fiendish cackle of the devil’s
laugh - and we exhorted the sinner to seek the Lord while He may be found, to call upon
Him while it is still the day of salvation, because life is uncertain, death is sure, and
he might die before the sun rises and go out into eternity to meet God. That makes good
evangelistic preaching - but it’s not scriptural. Furthermore, it’s a lie. God
never said to the sinner, “Seek the Lord.” I’ve got news for you - there is
no sinner that can seek the Lord!
I do not believe
that the Bible anywhere teaches that man is a “free moral agent” and can “choose”
or “reject” the Lord of his own volition. That teaching is a figment of the
imagination of the harlot church system. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite. It
tells us, “It is NOT of him that WILLETH or of him that runneth but of GOD that
showeth mercy” (Rom.
It is a wicked
and cruel lie to say that the unregenerated man is a “free moral agent” and can
voluntarily or by persuasion “seek the Lord.” He is no such thing! He is a
slave. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am a creature of the flesh (carnal),
having been SOLD INTO SLAVERY UN
The message is
clear - we were not sinners by choice. We were sinners by NATURE! We were born into this
condition, simply because the first man, Adam, put us all into slavery to sin. We had
nothing to say about it. We did not in any way will it, consent to it, or choose it, for
we were born into it. There is no fact more self-evident than the fact of the total
depravity of man, or his total inability to deliver himself from bondage to sin, and this
is rooted in the fact that he is spiritually dead (unresponsive to the spirit) from birth.
Total depravity means that man in his natural state is incapable of doing anything or
desiring anything pleasing to God. Until our spirit is quickened by His Spirit we are
slaves of the flesh and the devil and are enemies to God. When man contends that he is a
free moral agent and can seek after or spurn the Lord out of his own will, the Word of God
contradicts him, declaring, “There is none righteous, no not one! There is none that
understandeth, there is N-O-N-E THAT SEEKETH after God” (Rom.
Total depravity
means that man, of his own free will, will never make a decision for Christ. Our blessed
Lord bluntly says, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (Jn.
Natural men
cannot comprehend even that they should come to the Light. They are the unborn dead who
know only darkness UNTIL GOD SEES FIT TO GIVE THEM LIFE and understanding. Faith follows
the giving of Life. The giving of Life is by the will of God. Notice the order: “God,
who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in
sins, hath made us alive together with Christ (by grace are ye saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5).
Man is not saved by some mythical act of his own free will. He is saved by grace, the
divine enablement of God who first gives him Life and then imparts faith into his heart as
a free gift. Paul continues, “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not
of yourselves; it is the Gift of God. It is not of works, lest any man should boast”
(Eph. 2:8-9).
Wise men
standing by the grave of Lazarus might pronounce it an evidence of insanity when the Lord
addressed a dead man with the words, “Lazarus, Come forth.” Ah, but He who thus
spake was and is Himself the Resurrection, and the Life, and at HIS word even the dead
live! Just as Lazarus would never have heard the voice of Jesus, nor would he have ever
“come to Jesus,” without first being given Life by our Lord, so all men “dead
in trespasses and sins,” must first be given Life by God before they can “come
to Christ” or “seek the Lord.” Since dead men cannot will to receive Life,
but can be raised from the dead only by the power of God, so the natural man cannot of His
own volition will to have Life and seek after the Lord. If Jesus had had no more than an
“invitation” for Lazarus to receive Life, He could have knocked at that
tombstone door for a long, long time. But Christ spoke the Life-giving Word and that Word
brought Lazarus to life and caused his heart to begin to beat and his lungs to work, and
Lazarus heard the voice of his Master and received the faith to arise and walk out of the
darkness of that tomb of death.
Part 3
TEACH US TO PRAY
(continued)
In this article we continue our thoughts on prayer in connection
with the mysteries of the
In the lower
heavens you know God in a more elementary way. How wonderful it is to know God in His
heavens! Each heaven bespeaks of a plane of relationship with God by the Spirit. When the
Lord unveils Himself to you on a higher plane, in deeper measures, in richer and fuller
dimensions of His life, wisdom and glory, and you experience Him in it, you ascend in Him
to a higher heaven. In the lower heavens you see and touch and experience God spiritually
in limitation. As you pass through the heavens you come to know God in greater and grander
measures. You experience Him in a deeper way. You come to know God more fully. In our
progression through the heavens we encounter the laws, or order, or ways of God in each
heaven. What is true in the physical realm is likewise true in the spiritual realm. The
world of the spirit is governed by spiritual laws just as powerful and precise as the laws
of the physical world. They cannot be discovered by the natural mind, nor by man’s
search or investigation through natural or scientific channels. They can neither be
discerned nor touched by the natural senses. They belong to the order of divine revelation
and are revealed to man only by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God.
God has dealt
with me over many years in the area of His laws. I continue to share with you in this
writing three laws of the Kingdom. They are not new. You have heard of them on some level
or in some context many times. But I want to set forth these laws that we might understand
precisely the method God is using to bring us from where we are unto the place to which He
has appointed us in Himself. All three laws are found in Matthew 7:7 in connection with
Christ’s great teaching on prayer. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” According to these laws, what
happens when you ask? You receive! What happens when you seek? You find! And, what is the
result of knocking? Why, it is opened unto you! Those are exact and immutable laws. They
are not promises; there is a world of difference between a promise and a law. Jesus says,
“Ask, and it shall be given you: for everyone that asketh receiveth”-there’s
the law! Not a promise - a law. How awesome, expansive, and all-inclusive! How glorious,
positive and absolute!
EVERYONE THAT ASKETH, RECEIVETH.
Now listen. I
want to share with you an elementary truth of supreme significance. “If ye then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
Father which is in heaven give GOOD THINGS to them that ask Him” (Mat. 7:11). Good
things! T-H-I-N-G-S! Those who ask are given things. I draw your reverent attention to the
two significant words: ask and things. If you ask, what do you get? THINGS! What kind of
things? Good things! But they are, nonetheless, things. This realm of asking for and
receiving things is the first heaven. If you are going to touch God, experience God, and
know God in the realm of the Spirit, the very first dimension in which you will come to
know Him is in the realm of “things”. This is the external realm. And the vast
majority of Christians are content to remain in that first heaven of spiritual experience.
They are satisfied with the forgiveness realm, the blessing realm, the gift realm where
all is received by free grace through faith. Everything in those elementary realms is
free! It is yours for the asking. There are no conditions, no qualifications, no price,
neither is there any great attainment in God. It is the realm of children, of babes in
Christ. But the realm of children receiving gifts from their parents is a blessed world
indeed!
A minister once
asked one of the young boys in his congregation if he had prayed the night before. The
quick response was, “No, I couldn’t think of anything I needed last night.”
A little black girl came to her preacher one day and joyously exclaimed, “I prays
every night before I gits into bed.” “That’s wonderful,” was the
preacher’s commendation, “but do you also pray in the morning?” Her
immediate reply was, “Oh no, I ain’t sceered in the morning.” We know that
many children, and some who have passed childhood years, pray for a good day for the
picnic, to pass examinations, to win the ball game, for a new doll, or a new coat. Their
prayers are centered in themselves and their wants. Many times they ask God to do for them
something they are not willing to take the time or the trouble to do for themselves.
Perhaps all school term one drifts along, doing little studying, often missing classes,
and then he asks God to pass the examination for him. Such praying is understandable in
the lives of youngsters, and we know that our loving Father hears and answers prayers born
of distress. Like earthly parents, out of His love He sometimes “bails us out.’?
But there is a blessed realm beyond the childish prayers prayed, not just by little
children, but by the vast majority of believers who are only little children in the
Spirit.
In this glorious
transition from realm to realm we hear a Voice saying, “Come up hither,” and are
translated from the first heaven to the second. Now, let me present to you the law of the
second heaven: “Seek and ye shall find” (Mat. 7:7). The difference between
asking and seeking, and between receiving and finding, is that in the first heaven one
asks for things, whereas in the second heaven one seeks for God and His Kingdom and finds
the Lord Himself. The line is drawn between these two realms in the teaching of Jesus in
Matthew 6:25-33. “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for the body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
life more than meat, and the body than raiment? For after all these things do the Gentiles
seek. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all these things. But seek ye the
The second level
in knowing and experiencing God is denoted by this word “seek”. You cannot think
of what it means to seek without understanding that an element of time is involved. You
can ask in a moment-but seeking is not a single act. It is a process, a series of acts.
Every mother knows that husbands and children think of seeking as a single act. They will
stand in the middle of a room, or pull open a drawer, and cast one sweeping glance around
it, looking for a lost object, and then call for help. “Mom, where is my red sweater?”
And mother opens the drawer or the closet door and lifts the clothes and there it suddenly
appears right in the place where Susan just looked for it. Searching involves a process.
It is
instructive to note that throughout the scriptures the term seek is always related to the
Lord. One of the very few places where things are associated with seeking is in Matthew
6:22 where Jesus states that the Gentiles seek things. But unto His own He speaks of
seeking the Lord. “This is the generation of them that SEEK HIM, that seek THY
FACE...” (Ps. 24:6). This speaks of the generation-a people generated or brought
forth- to seek the Lord. There is a generation, a people generated out of Himself, that
can only find their fulfillment and destiny in Him, so they seek Him. As the salmon seeks
out the place of its spawning, so these return unto their God. “Lord, Thou hast been
our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever
Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art
God. Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest, Return, ye children of men” (Ps.
90:1-3). There is something within us, when our spirit has been quickened by His Spirit,
whereby we recognize that there is a realm, there is a God, there is a Father out of whom
our life has come, and we have known and experienced that realm in our origins. The
Psalmist proclaims that God has been our dwelling place before the mountains were brought
forth, or ever God formed the earth and the world. Suddenly, when God reveals Himself in
our life, we remember; we were somewhere before, there is a reality to which we are drawn
to return.
Some years ago I
made a trip to
There is a
passage in the book of Hebrews that speaks of those great heroes of faith under the Old
Covenant, and it says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such
things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of
that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to
be called their God for He hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:13-16). These men
of God were seeking a country-Abraham knew that the ground he walked on in the land of
Canaan was not the true land of God, for “he looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” He was searching for the City of
Blessed be His
name! God has provided some better thing for us and now we can return. The way has been opened into the presence of God,
into the life of God, into the
Do you know what
it takes to discover and appropriate all the glorious and eternal reality of this land-
what is required? It takes some seeking. You don’t just glide into the Feast of
Tabernacles. You don’t slip into God’s glory. You don’t coast into the
fullness of God. You don’t accidentally enter into life and immortality. You don’t
just wake up one fine morning to discover yourself a manifested son of God. There are laws
that govern our ascent. There is a prescribed order for entering into the
Childishness in
prayer is chiefly evidenced in an over desire to beg things from God rather than desiring
above all else the LORD HIMSELF. The same growth must take place in the life of every son
and daughter of God that occurs in a normal relationship between a child and his parents.
At first the child wants the parents’ gifts, and thinks of the parents primarily in
terms of the things that they do and provide for his pleasure and comfort. He is not able
yet to appreciate the value of the parents’ personalities. A sure sign of a wholesome
maturity is found in the child’s deepening understanding of the parents
themselves-his increasing delight in their fellowship, thankfulness for their care,
acceptance of their ideals, reliance on their counsel, and joy in their approval. The
child grows through desiring things from his parents into love of his parents for their
own sakes. He is then able to enter into a partnership with them in their business with
all the respect and responsibility called for.
Sons desire the
Lord for Himself, for His intrinsic excellencies. The Savour of the ointment of Christ’s
graces draws the virgins’ desires after Him (S. of S. 1:3). “With my soul have I
desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early”
(Isa. 26:9). We desire the Lord not only more than the world, but more than heaven. “Whom
have I in heaven but Thee?” (Ps. 73:25). If God should say to the soul, “I will
put thee in heaven, but I will hide my presence from thee, I will draw a curtain between,
that thou shalt not behold my glory,” we would not be satisfied. “Where Jesus
is, ‘tis heaven there,” are the inspired words of the old hymn. Truly, “as
the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after Thee, O God” (Ps.
42:1). As a drop of water is not enough for a thirsty traveler, so the “first-fruits
of the Spirit” are not enough for the sons of God. A glimpse of Christ through the
lattice of the gifts and blessings of the Church age is sweet, but sons of God will never
stop hungering and thirsting until they see HIM face to face. We would be swallowed up in
God, and be ever bathing ourselves in those perfumed waters which flow from the throne of
God.
George Hawtin
wrote: “As a boy I was raised on a farm, an experience that has been a lifelong
blessing to me. As little boys we made games of the work we saw the men do. When the giant
threshing machines came around in the fall, we played threshing machines. We concocted our
engines and separators. We imitated the shouting of the men, the hissing of the steam, the
fire in the boilers, the turning of belts and the whir of pulleys, and the clanging of the
giant monsters as they waddled about. We even changed our names to names that seemed more
suitable for threshermen, such as Bill and Jack, Ray or Chet. But for all our threshing
and all our noise not one kernel of grain ever trickled from our toy machines. The people
of God have become like this. They are interested in sound effects and fanfare more than
in reality. They are more concerned about the noise that follows the train than about the
train itself. They are far more concerned about the signs following the believer than
about the true state of the believer that the signs follow. They are more interested in
the conglomeration they call doctrine than they are in the fullness of Jesus Christ who is
the truth. They are more interested in redemption that in the Redeemer, more enthused
about the work they are doing for Christ, than they are about Christ Himself, more worried
about the tradition of assembling together than whether or not He is in the midst of them,
coveting earnestly the best gifts but giving neither thought nor heed to the more
excellent way.”
“Seek ye
the LORD,” saith God. That is, seek His Lordship, seek His Kingship, seek the
Dominion of God. Seek ye first the
“At the
same time, it is the last thing we are willing and able to do-to cease to be children, and
to grow up to be men, in the things of God. To learn and know that God is a spirit, and
that He dwells not in temples made with hands; but that His true and only temple is the
temple of the penitent, contrite, holy and loving heart- that takes much time for most of
us to learn. My brethren, be no longer children in understanding; but in understanding be
men. Think, my brethren, think! Think your greatest and your best, your most magnificent,
your most deep, and inward, and spiritual, about God, and about man, made in the image of
God. Think with all your heart, and soul, and strength, and mind about the Divine Nature.
Blessed be the glory of the Lord out of His place. Glory be to God for His Godhead, His
mysteriousness, His height, His depth, His sovereignty, His almightiness, His eternity,
His omnipresence, and His grace! But it is in the heart of man that God establishes His
temple. His high throne is prepared and set up in the heart of man. His holy altars are
builded and kindled in the heart of man. The sacrifices that alone please God are offered
continually in the heart of man. There, the Holy Ghost ministers in prayer and praise
without ceasing, making intercession within us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
There also is the golden mercy-seat with the two cherubim above it. And there the Great
High Priest speaketh peace, and pronounceth His great Benediction, because He continueth
there forever.
“Seek thy
God, then, in thyself! Oh, ye sons and daughters of the Most High, seek Him whom ye have
lost, and seek Him in your own hearts, for ye have lost Him only because ye know not where
He is. Come, O prodigal son, come to thyself. Enter into thyself. Enter deep enough into
thyself, and thou shalt come unto His seat. For He still sits there, waiting to be
gracious there to thee. Oh, what a glory! Oh, what grace! Oh, what a God! Oh, what a
heart! To have thy God in thine own heart, and to have Him wholly there for thee. His
whole almightiness, His whole grace and truth, His whole wisdom, life and power, His whole
redemption, His whole salvation! Arise, then, and enter into God’s holy temple, order
your cause before Him there, and fill your mouth with your best arguments there. Till you
fall down before Him in your own heart, and say, ‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing
of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee!’ Are you, then, one of those who are this
day saying, ‘Oh that I knew where I might find Him: that I might come even to His
seat!’ Then seek Him where Job sought Him and at last found Him. Seek Him in a
humble, broken, believing heart. Go on seeking Him in a still more, and a still more,
humble, broken, believing heart. Seek Him deep enough, and long enough; seek Him with your
whole heart; and sooner, or later, you too will find Him. Seek Him like David, seven times
a day. Like David also, prevent the night watches and the dawning of the day seeking Him.
“My beloved
brethren! What are you living for? What is your life yielding you? If you are not finding
God in all parts of your life-what a fatal mistake you are making! And what a magnificent
reward you are forever missing! But, when all is said, it is not to be wondered at that so
few of us seek, and seek out, God. For His greatness passes all comprehension, and
imagination, and searching out of men and angels. It is only one here, and another there,
who ever get the length of crying out with Job, ‘Oh, that I knew where I might find
Him.’ And with Isaiah, ‘Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.’ And
with Paul, ‘Dwelling in light which no man can approach unto: Whom no man hath seen,
or can see.’ ‘Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge
of God!”‘-end quote.
Oh, I want to
seek the Lord! I will never truly know who I am, or what are the riches of this treasure
which I have in an earthen vessel, until I have fully sought out the Lord God, sanctified
in my heart. What does “seek” mean? It means “to pursue, to chase, to
follow after relentlessly and unceasingly.” It means to be unwilling to take “No”
for an answer! It means to be the way I was with the young lady who became my wife. I only
knew her a few days before I was convinced in my deepest heart that she was the one for
me. So I went after her. The Bible says, “They that are after the flesh do mind the
things of the flesh, and they that are after the spirit do mind the things of the spirit.”
Do you know what it means to be “after” the spirit? It means to be about the
spirit the way I was about my wife. I went after her! And I chased her until she caught
me! That’s what it means to seek the Lord. This is the hour for all who have received
the call to sonship to seek the Lord, seek the Kingdom, seek the righteousness of His
dominion and authority. Let it work in us in every situation of our lives -let HIM be
Lord. Make Him Lord in our thoughts. Make Him Lord in our words. In all our attitudes,
crown Him Lord. In our actions, let Him be Lord. Seek the LORD. Seek the Lordship of the
spirit of His life within. Let Him speak and rule out of the temple within the heart.
Crown Him King that He may reign in all that we are.
The absence of
His Lordship is why we had so many preachers that went bad back during the great healing
and miracle revivals of the 1950’s. There were men of great fame who received the
power of God without the corresponding righteousness of God. They had the power of the
Kingdom apart from the righteousness of the Kingdom. Hence the command of the Pattern Son:
“Seek ye FIRST the
There is a
beautiful footnote to the second heaven. “Seek ye first the
The law of the
Kingdom is that he who makes the
Ray Prinzing has
aptly written: “Some years ago we used to sing the simple little chorus: ‘He’s
all I need, He’s all I need, all that I need, He’s all I need, He’s all I
need, all that I need.’
“Then one
day a preacher made the remark that the chorus was not true, that we also need groceries,
clothes, place to live, etc. and with a smirk on his face indicated that he would balance
out this ‘super-spirituality’ that claimed ‘He’s all I need,’ by
making us face up to natural needs. What an insidious attack of carnality! If our
expectation is in what SELF can provide, obviously we are not centered only in the Lord.
But when HE is FIRST in all of our thoughts-we see every provision that comes as from HIM.
How sovereignly HE can make a way where there is no way. ‘I will even make a way in
the wilderness, and rivers in the desert’ (Isa. 43:19). It is GOD who provides the
job, it is God who gives strength for the day, and we have come to see that ‘without
Me ye can do nothing”‘-end quote.
It’s like a girl
who marries a rich man-she gains a husband, but she gets the money, too. Before she is
married she may benefit in some measure by her fiancé’s wealth, but married to him
all that he has is part of the package. If it is true love, it is HIM she desires, not the
money. The money is a fringe benefit included with the man. In like manner, seek the Lord
and all the “things” of God come along with Himself. I do not hesitate to tell
you and I say it as a testimony to having tried and proven this great law of the Kingdom.
I have come to the place in my personal experience where I seldom ask for anything. When I
discovered this law working powerfully in my life I almost got “under conviction”
about it! My mind said, “You haven’t spent time before the Lord asking Him to
meet your needs in months.” As I meditated upon it I realized God had been meeting
all my needs! True, sometimes He supplies at the very last minute; and seldom does He
supply a great abundance beyond what is needed. But He does supply almost entirely apart
from my asking. And why? Because He has led us in paths of seeking the Kingdom, seeking
the Lord, and finding righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is the law,
just as precise, exact and constant as the law of gravity. It works. I tell you it WORKS!
Now, I do ask. I ask for others. I ask of God blessings upon thousands of people, small
and great. I pray over every prayer request that comes across my desk. I ask for His
Kingdom to come, for His will to be done in earth as it is in heaven. But I ask very
little for myself. There is a blessed realm where you will never again need to pray about
your needs. But you will pray for others. Would that not release you from a world of
anxiety and spent time? Would it not enlarge your capacity to intercede for other people,
to bless humanity, to participate in a prayerful way in the redemptive and reconstructive
activity of the Spirit on behalf of creation? This truth is beautifully expressed in the
little chorus we sing:
“True worshippers of the King,
His worthy praises we now sing;
In earthen vessels here to dwell,
and we ask nothing for ourselves.”
As we move from
‘‘things’’ to seek the reality of the Christ within we discover that
our goal in life is not to make money or accumulate things. If that is our goal, then we
need to set our priorities straight. You see, in the world within, that world which you
are, there is no money and there are no things. There is no need for money and there is no
need for things. The only need for money and things is in the world on the outside. But if
we go out and try to seek that which is on the outside, then we have left the Kingdom. The
To choose or
seek anything in the outer world, whether it be a job, money, relationships, or
possessions, must be for the divine purpose of expressing the inward through the outward.
Anything that does not fulfill that purpose has nothing eternal or of God-substance or
life in it. It is void. It is vanity. It is temporal. It is death. So choosing a vocation
is not for the purpose of making money, but to fulfill the will of God, to express His
life and bless the world. The carnal mind says, “If I live for God and bless the
world, then I get nothing for myself.” But that isn’t true-because the real
world is not the one out there, it’s the one within. The world within is one of love,
life, light, joy, peace, grace, righteousness and blessing. Therefore the inner world
delights to bless all men on whatever level they are, asking nothing in return. But the
outer world is one of selfishness, ego, pride, avarice, greed, stinginess and meanness.
The resources of the inner world are unlimited; the resources of the outer world finite.
People who live only in the outer world feel they have a right to cheat one another, take
advantage of one another, use one another. You can’t trust anybody in the business
world today, everybody is out for themselves. They are not for the people they serve, they
are in it for what they can get out of it, and they will lie, misrepresent, cheat or steal
to come out on top. Men will do that to you because they believe that when they do that to
you they are not doing it to themselves, because that’s the way it is out in this
world. They are living by the spirit of the world. They know nothing of the reality, power
and glory of the inner world, so their perceptions of the outer world are distorted.
All our choices
in the outer world should serve to extend the reality of what we are in the inner world.
When we choose a job or any activity, we don’t choose on the basis of its value in
the outer world, we choose that which will serve as an expression of the inner man. That’s
where peace is. That’s where joy is. That’s where fulfillment is. And that’s
where success is! Because that is where the Kingdom is, that’s where life is, that’s
where reality is, that’s where heaven is. So many people work on their job just to
make money, to pay the bills and put food on the table. They don’t really like the
job, and are miserable. That is what the outer world calls “making a living.”
But making a living is more than making money, for “a man’s life consisteth not
in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Lk.
THE
THIRD HEAVEN- KNOCK AND IT SHALL BE OPENED
Notice the order
and meaning of these words: ask, seek knock. “Ask” is first. A child asks its
father for a toy or a suit of clothing. It is an admission of helplessness. The child
cannot earn it or provide it for himself. And before God there are many times we can do
nothing for ourselves, there is no way out, and we can only come asking. We are His
children, and that gives us the right to ask without shame.
“Seek” is the next word. Many things in life do not come merely by
asking. The old prospectors were looking for gold-and there was no use in asking. One must
diligently search for a place where he has reason to believe there is gold and stake a
claim. The ore must be dug out of the earth. The gold is there, but awaiting man’s
effort. That is as it should be. We don’t want to go through life as mere beggars.
This brings us
to the final, the third heaven. In the first heaven you ask your Father for things and you
receive from His hand all things. In the second heaven you seek the Lord and find the Lord
Himself; and all things come with Him without asking. The second heaven includes the first
heaven in such a way that it is unnecessary to function any longer in the first heaven.
The two become one, The provision of the first heaven in met in the overflow of the second
heaven. But there is another heaven, a higher heaven in which we can meet God, touch God,
experience God and know God-and the law of that heaven is knocking. “Knock, and it
shall be opened unto you.” There is a distinct difference between seeking and
knocking, just as there is a difference between asking and seeking. What happens for the
man who knocks? “It shall be opened unto him.” I may find a box of chocolates.
But that is not the same as opening the box and eating some. In these three words the Lord
uses, ask, seek and knock, there is an obvious difference of meaning. These words are
often treated as though they were synonyms, alternative words for the one prayer. We have
supposed the Lord is saying the same thing three ways. He’s not! He’s saying
three different things. They refer to a progression-each more intense and demanding than
the last. They represent an ascending scale, stages of increasing intensity moving toward
a climax. ASK refers to the things we pray for. But I may ask and receive the gift without
the Giver. SEEK is the word scripture uses of the Lord Himself-”And ye shall seek Me,
and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). But it is
not enough to find God, even the God within.
KNOCK speaks of
admission into His realm, to dwell with Him and in Him. Asking and receiving the gift
leads to seeking and finding the Giver. Finding the Giver leads to the knocking and
opening of the door into that high and holy realm where HE DWELLS. So the Lord says,
“Knock.” Knocking is more intense than seeking. Here, both time and intensity
are involved. Knocking is not a single rap; it is a series of raps. It is a request for
admittance, repeated if necessary. Those who hunger and thirst deeply enough for entrance
into the power and glory of the
Let me put it
this way. When you seek you find the Lord, and you find Him within that temple which you
are. The experience is internal. But knocking admits you into a realm beyond yourself
where it’s no longer Christ in you, but it’s YOU IN CHRIST. When Christ is in
me, people see more of me than they do of Him. Because the treasure is in the earthen
vessel, men see the vessel before they perceive the treasure. When you have jewels in a
jewelry box, is it not true that the box is seen more than the jewels? When the Lord is in
me, do you not still see more of me than you do of Him? The incorruptible seed of His life
is planted within the earth of the outer man and there germinates, bursting forth into
visible manifestation. It is a wonder, a great and glorious mystery; but it is still
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
There is a place
where we must enter into Him, swallowed up into Him, until all that is seen is HIM, not
us. It is here that we “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ. It is here that we “put
on” the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. It is
here that we “put on” our house from heaven. It is here that this mortal must
“put on” immortality, and this corruptible must “put on” incorruption.
You see, the purpose, the goal, the consummation of God’s work is that we become what
we contain. Multitudes of Christians are content to be merely containers of God. This
mystery of God is entirely beyond our being containers of God. We have had the notion that
we are containers of God, in the way a bucket is a container for water, and that God is a
great container for us. But when we see God in us as that which fills a container there is
still a separation from God. When you fill a bucket with water there is no mixture, no
commingling, no union, no oneness between the bucket and the water. The two touch one
another, there is a relationship and association, but no change or blending of substance.
The water is still water and the bucket remains the same. Each is separate and distinct
from the other. When we see ourselves as a container for God and God as a container for
us, we remain one element while God remains another element. And, therefore, THERE IS NO
NEW CREATION.
The law of the
New Creation demands a change, a transformation-everything that God puts within us, WE
MUST BECOME, until we are what we contain. The transition is from mere possession to a
state of being. We have quoted the scripture, “Christ is made unto us righteousness,”
and we have confessed, “Christ is my righteousness!” We have talked about
imputed righteousness, imparted righteousness, and how Christ within us is the righteous
One. That is a great and blessed truth. But the scripture also says, “He hath made
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN
HIM” (II Cor.
Let me
illustrate. In the process of a chicken being formed the egg must first be fertilized. In
the moment the egg is fertilized the new little chick comes into existence in the egg. A
tiny speck of blood appears in the yoke of the egg. That speck is the embryonic life of
the chick formed in the egg. You still have the egg- the white, the yoke, the shell-and
within the egg is that little germ of life living and growing. But the egg is still the
egg and the chick is the chick. Each is separate and distinct from the other. The marvel
of it is that as the chick develops the Creator has wonderfully provided for the chick to
live off the egg. Both the yoke and the white of the egg are drawn upon by that life,
consumed by that life, absorbed into that life, completely swallowed up by that life. One
of the laws of nature is that what you eat becomes you. It has been said that you become
what you eat, but that is not correct. What you eat becomes you. Over the years I have
gained and lost weight from time to time-sometimes in significant amounts! When I weighed
fifty pounds more than I do now, every one of those pounds was me. They were one and all
J. Preston Eby. They came from eating steak and potatoes, and, of course, many other
things. The steak and potatoes became Preston Eby. The beef that once grazed contentedly
in the pasture was now raised up into the human family. Out from the vegetable kingdom,
the lowly potato had now by transformation been raised up into the kingdom of man. That
beef and potato had truly BECOME A HUMAN BEING. They were-me! When I waddled down the
street no one exclaimed, “Look at that 180 pounds of steak and potatoes!” It
wasn’t steak and potatoes walking-it was me. You could examine that paunch around my
middle under a microscope or with the most sophisticated medical tests and you would not
find one milligram of steak, nor one molecule of potato. What I eat becomes me. What I
drink becomes me. What I contain becomes me-and I become it. I take it in and contain it
to this great end-that it become me. In the same way, the life of the chick in the egg
consumes the egg, and when that little chicken finally pecks his way out of the egg-where
is the egg? It’s walking on two feet! There it goes! Isn’t it cute! Why, the egg
now has feathers! The egg is the chicken, whereas before the chicken was in the egg. The
egg has been changed -metamorphosed-and has become the chicken. What a beautiful figure of
what is spiritually transpiring in our lives in this day of the Lord! God puts Himself
into us, the hidden man of the heart. We seek Him and discover the riches of the glory of
the divine deposit within. But we are not content to just contain this life-we are drawn
by the Spirit to truly enter into Life. So we knock, and a door is opened unto us, the way
of Life is revealed, and we find an entrance into God. As we follow on the heavenly
swallows up the earthly and we become what we contain, Christ is raised up in us-AS US. We
become what we contain; yea, rather, what we contain BECOMES US! Hallelujah!
If you ask, what
do you get? Things! When you seek, what
happens? You find-the Lord! And then you begin to knock. And what is the result? God opens
Himself to you and YOU gain an entrance into the personal appropriation of all that He is
and has! There is a beautiful footnote to the reality of the third heaven. When you come
up into this highest ream of the knowledge of the Lord, you don’t seek anymore.
Neither do you find anything, because now you ARE. I’ve known brethren who moved in
prophetic ministry and a powerful word of the Lord flowed through them. I’ve watched
these brethren prophesy and never miss-they hit the nail on the head every time. I’ve
sat in astonishment as the secrets of men’s hearts have been revealed, when these
prophets had not met a soul in the congregation and knew absolutely nothing about anyone.
But in a couple of instances I’ve had the experience of having these same brethren
come to me in confidence-and I discerned that their own lives were utterly confused. They
were uncertain about the will of God, they didn’t know where God wanted to plant
them, what city they should live in, what fellowship they should be joined to-and they
asked me to pray or asked me for a word from the Lord. I’ve seen these brethren a
year, or two, or more later, still just as confused, perplexed, unsettled and concerned
about their own situation, still asking for prayer, still seeking a word from the Lord. I
thought, “My God, what’s going on here? Here’s a man that has a word for
everybody, but he has no word for himself.” Do you know what the problem is? He
sought the Lord and found the Lord, and the Lord flowed through him. He became a
container, a channel for the outflow of blessing from the Christ within. But he failed to
knock until the Lord was opened, that he might gain an entrance into the heart and mind of
the Father, to become what he contained. The message and the messenger must be made one.
It is one thing to minister peace, another to be peace. It is one thing to minister
knowledge, another to be knowledge. It is one thing to have the will of God to flow
through you in a word, and another thing to be His will in the earth. It is one thing to
contain something of God, to possess a gift or manifestation of God, to be a channel for
God to flow through-and another thing altogether for all that we contain to BECOME OUR
STATE OF BEING.
“For if
that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second. But finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not
according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant,
and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with
the house of
God says that He
made a covenant with
The contrast is
between the law written and engraved in stones and the law inscribed in men’s hearts.
The law of God is the revelation of the nature of God. For instance, when God says, “Thou
shalt not commit adultery,” He is not merely trying to prevent us from “enjoying
the pleasures of sin for a season.” He is telling us something about Himself-how He
is. It means that GOD HIMSELF is committed, reliable, true, dependable, faithful and
trustworthy. He keeps His commitments. He keeps His covenant. He honors His word. He is
faithful to all His responsibilities. He will not cheat on you, lie to you, deceive you,
forsake you or fail you. He loves you and will take care of you, cherish you, nurture you,
protect you, and cleave to you. THAT IS HOW HE IS! He is love, He is good, He is faithful,
and His nature is fixed and unchanging. He is not adulterous, with a roving eye and a
lying, cheating heart. When you understand the nature of One who is not adulterous in
thought, desire, or action, you understand something about the character of God. And that
is how He wants us, His sons, to be! His law reveals His nature. And when His law is
written in our heart, His nature-how He is- is inscribed upon the tablets (genetic code)
of our inner life.
From the redeemed and
transformed heart the law (nature) of God flows forth as a river of life. This is not the
nature of God within you as a seed, it is not merely the heart feeling the impulses and
the power of His Life within, but it is the heart being fashioned and molded into the
divine image. There is a complete transformation, a complete change, a divine
metamorphosis, out of the natural into the spiritual, out of the soulish and into the
divine. This is BECOMING WHAT WE CONTAIN! This is knocking until entrance is granted into
the very fullness of the life, character, mind, nature, wisdom, knowledge, power and glory
of God-to be all that He is. There it is HE that is seen, for it is no longer “Christ
in me, the hope of glory,” but “I in Christ”-the glory!
Part 4
TEACH US TO PRAY
(continued)
“And
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. And if ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (Jn.
How often a
passage of scripture seems to be a sealed treasure. You read it time after time but it
never yields its riches to you. No light breaks from its words as you search its depths.
But one day, all unexpectedly, it suddenly leaps like flames of fire from the page and
shouts its beauties, even as a jewel box might unclose under the touch of a secret spring
and lay bare in an instance all the radiance and loveliness of the priceless gem that lies
within. In just the same way, as you let the spirit of Truth lift out from the heart of
this passage, the deep blessedness contained within the phrase “in my name,”
note the precious jewel of truth that is laid bare thereby.
R. A. Torrey has
written: “This is one of the most familiar, most wonderful, and at the same time most
commonly misunderstood promises in the Bible regarding God’s willingness to answer
prayer. Here our Lord Jesus Christ Himself tells us that if a certain class of people pray
in a certain way, He will give them the very thing that they ask. Look at the promise
again. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be
glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, that will I do.” These
words are plain, simple, positive, very precious and cheering. They tell us there are
certain people who can get from God anything that they ask for, if only they will ask for
it in a certain way. According to Jesus, prayer in the name of Jesus Christ prevails with
God. No other prayer does. But just what does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? I have
heard many explanations of this. Some of them were so profound or mystical, or so mixed,
or so obscure, that when I finished reading them or listening to them I knew less about it
than when I started.”
What does the
word name imply in the meaning of scripture? What does it mean to pray “in Jesus’
name”? Prayer in the name of Jesus is a multi-faceted privilege. To pray in the name
of Jesus is the deepest mystery in prayer. The name of Jesus is the greatest mystery in
heaven and on earth. In heaven this mystery is known; on earth it is unknown to most
people. The word name, as it was used in the time of Christ, implied three principal
things. First, the name is the person. To praise the name of Jesus is to praise Jesus
Himself. To love the name of Jesus is to love Jesus Himself. To exalt the name of Jesus is
to exalt Jesus Himself. To deny the name of Jesus is to dishonor Jesus Himself.
THE NAME-THE NATURE
Second, the name
represents all we know of the person-his nature, character and personality. When Moses
hungered to draw closer to Yahweh, to know Him as He really is, he asked to see His glory.
God replied that no mere mortal could survive such a divine encounter, for “there
shall no man see Me, and live” (Ex. 33:20) and truly no man can see God face to face
and live, that is, he cannot live as he lived before, for the glory of the Lord will bring
death to all that is carnal, earthly, soulish, natural and corrupt. No man can see God and
remain the same. He will live, but he will live on a higher plane, for what was once life
to him will be consumed in the blazing glory of our God who is a consuming fire. God
promised to reveal Himself partially to Moses. That is what the Law, the Old Covenant,
is-a partial revelation of God. Yahweh said, “I will make all My goodness pass before
thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee” (Ex. 33:19). Then Yahweh
ordered Moses to stand in the cleft of a rock, and covered him there with His hand. When
the glory of the Lord passed by in front of Moses, He removed His hand for a second only
so Moses could see the glory that lingered after God had passed by. The record states:
“And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with Moses there, and proclaimed the
name of the Lord” (Ex. 34:5). When Yahweh proclaimed His name, it was a revealing
two-sentence name: “And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will
by no means clear the guilty...” (Ex. 34:6-7). To know God was to know all that His
name represented-all He IS. To understand the name was to see God.
The name of
Jesus represents all that Jesus is revealed to be. It includes His love, His mercy, His
goodness, His transforming power, His quickening life, His wisdom, His knowledge, His
righteousness, His holiness, His redemption and salvation. In our day, in ordinary life,
names bear no great significance. They are a mere legal and social convenience. In our
modern society we are obligated to bear a mark of identification of some kind. In a large
prison, where only numbers distinguish one prisoner from another, the unhappy man finds
the humiliation of being reduced from a name to a number. There is some warmth and color
in our names, and they add a flavor to our personalities. There is even much history in
them, as when a child is named Martin Luther, George Washington, Abraham, Sarah, Mary, or
even named after some beloved grandfather or grandmother, uncle or aunt. Many of our names
are revered with the life of the centuries, and rich with quaint or hallowed memories. But
all the same, they have no real power in our lives.
Names do not, in
most cases, describe the person whom they indicate. They tell us nothing of his character,
or power. They do not represent or embody the attributes of his nature and being. A man
may be called Hunter though he has never seen an animal wilder than those at the petting
zoo nor looked at a gun except on someone’s wall or in a glass case at the store. He
may be called Baker though he knows nothing of bread except that he eats it. Mary,
notwithstanding the meaning of her Hebrew name, is not always bitter, and John is
sometimes quite different from a visible embodiment of the grace of God. Not so with the
Biblical treatment of names. A name stood, in the Old Testament life, for the sum total of
the characteristics and attributes of the person who bore it. In the Bible many names were
given because of something that had happened, or because of what was prophesied to happen.
A good illustration is that of Jacob, born with his brother Esau as a twin. He was holding
on to Esau’s heel during the birth process. They called him Jacob, which means “heel
grabber,” “supplanter.” For ninety years he bore that name and, from his
history, seemed to do his best to live up to it. Taking advantage of his brother’s
great hunger, Jacob obtained Esau’s birthright. Later on, with the aid of his mother,
he robbed his brother of his blessing. Some years went by, and there came a great time of
crisis in his life. In that crisis he spent a night wresting with God; and when the
morning broke, he obtained his blessing and God gave him a new heart, a new nature, and a
new name,
Why is so much
promised through the name of Jesus Christ? A name is the value of the person it
represents. When I mention or hear a name it calls up before me the whole man or woman,
what I know of him or her, and the impression the person has made on me. For example, if
someone says, “Althea,” I do not react, or if they call out the name “Fiona”
still there is nothing. I have no close friends or acquaintances with those names. But
when they say, “Lorain,” immediately there is a response-for there is the image,
the love, and all the personality of my wife. That is the name of the one I love. The name
“Lorain” is not any prettier or any more meaningful than Angelica or Nicole, but
what the name implies to me is different. When someone says, “Billy, the Kid,” I
see an image of a wild and murderous youth who once rode the old West, but when someone
says, “Billy Sunday,” I think of a great evangelist of yesteryear.
Names create an
immediate image in the mind, and regardless of the actual meaning of the name, it stands
for the character of the person to whom it is given. For instance, would you name your
daughter “Jezebel”? Would you name your son “Judas Iscariot”? Of
course not. But Jezebel is just as good a name as Jane or Jessica, and actually means
“chaste,” and Judas is just as good a name as Jude or James, but its meaning to
us is not as acceptable because of the actions of an ancient person who bore that name.
Let me give you
another example. Were I to go to State National Bank in El Paso and hand the teller a
check for one million dollars bearing the signature of J. Preston Eby, she would look at
the check and laugh and push it back through the window. You see, my name is not worth a
million dollars there or anywhere else, for I am not worth a million dollars. But let me
present a check for one million dollars bearing the signature of Ross Perot and
immediately I will be a rich man. The money will be credited to my account because the
check does not stand on my merit, my worth, my name, but I present it upon the basis of
the merit of one who is worth a million dollars many times over. A name stands for the
total character and resources of an individual. My name is all that I am and all that I
have, your name is all that you are and all that you have. Whatever you are and whatever
you possess, that is what your name means to others, it is the value of your name. The
name of a king includes his honor, his power, his wealth, his kingdom. His name is the
symbol of his power. So each name of God embodies and represents some part of the glory of
the Unseen One. And the name of Christ is the expression of all He has done and all He is
and all He lives to do as the firstborn among many brethren and the Captain of our
salvation. The work of Jesus Christ during those thirty-three and a half years of His
earthly life was to unveil to us the total authority and resources of the Father, to
manifest His name, so that we might discover what a tremendous, unending resource we have
in God. We can never get to the bottom of the barrel. The supply is infinite for the
supply is HIMSELF.
What if I want a
million dollars not for myself, but for Ross Perot. Supposing that he is my friend, and I
want to give him a very impressive gift. It is for his sake, not mine, that I request a
loan from the bank. I say to the loan officer, “For Mr. Perot’s sake I request
one million dollars.” I will not get the money. Why? Because it cannot be “for
his sake”-it must be “in his name.” Now, for some who read these lines the
meaning is the same, but the meaning is not the same. We are nowhere told to pray “for
Jesus’ sake” or “for Christ’s sake.” There is not one word in the
Bible about that. We are not promised to receive anything from the Lord by asking “for
Jesus’ sake.” It must be in Jesus’ name. There is a significant difference
between asking something for Jesus’ sake and asking it in Jesus’ name.
R. A. Torrey
related the following incident. During the Civil War there was a father and mother in
Dear Father and
Mother: I have been shot and have only a short time to live, and I am writing you this
last farewell note. As I write there is kneeling beside me my most intimate friend in the
company, and when the war is over he will bring you this note, and when he does be kind to
him for Charlie’s sake. Your son Charles.
There was
nothing in that house that was too good for that poor tramp. “For Charlie’s
sake,” and there is nothing in heaven or earth too good, or too great, for you and me
“for Jesus’ sake.” You say-”So we can ask for Jesus’ sake!”
Not at all. Notice-it was not the friend who asked “for Charlie’s sake”-it
was Charles himself that asked his father for his sake. We do not ask “for Jesus’
sake,” but THE LORD JESUS HIMSELF HAS PETITIONED THE FATHER FOR US “FOR HIS
SAKE,” and that is why we can now ask “in Jesus’ name”! God has
delivered all things to us for His Son’s sake, for His Son’s glory, for the
increase of His life and power and wisdom in His body-therefore we are able to ask
whatsoever we will in Jesus’ name.
Christ’s
name is the revelation of Christ’s character and to do a thing in the name of another
person is to do it as his representative, as realizing that in some deep and real sense we
are one with Him. And it is when we know ourselves to be united to Christ and one with
Him, representative in a true fashion of Himself in the earth, and we draw near, that our
action and our prayer have power. When we so pray we get an answer. The reason such
multitudes of prayers never travel higher than the ceiling, and bring no blessings to him
who prays, is because they are not prayers in Christ’s name. “In Jesus’
name” is not a magic formula of faith. “Name” means nature. “He
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake,” means, “He
leads me in right ways because that is His nature.” “His name shall be in their
foreheads,” means, “His nature shall be expressed through their minds.”
When we ask in Jesus’ name, we ask in His nature, in His identity, and out of His
mind and will and purpose. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name”-that is, in my
nature; for things with God are called according to their nature. We ask in the name of
Jesus Christ, not when at the end of some request we attach the phrase, “This I ask
in Jesus’ name,” but when we pray according to His nature, which is love, which
seeketh not its own, but only the will of the Father and His purpose of blessing for all
creation. Such asking is the cry of His own Spirit within our hearts.
Here, I am
convinced, we are often “forgers,” putting Christ’s name to a prayer He
would not pray, using His name to secure things He would not endorse! The Lord Jesus did
not promise to answer any prayer we say is in His name, but rather any prayer that is
prayed in His nature-because that is what He wants, and what He would ask for. All of us
are familiar with the phrase, “in the name of the law.” Policemen do their
business in the name of the law. Now, let’s suppose a policeman is sent into an
inner-city ghetto about
Now, let’s
shift the scene to the dark hours of early morning, about two o’clock. That same
policeman is traveling through a residential area, only now he’s off duty and has
spent most of the night drinking in a bar. In a drunken stupor he staggers up the steps of
a house, knocks on the door, and shouts, “Open up in the name of the law!” The
inhabitants of the house hear the commotion and it is plain that there is a drunk at the
door, so they refuse to open up. In a belligerent rage the policeman breaks down the door,
and when he does, the police are called, and this time it is the policeman who is arrested
and carried off to jail. What’s the difference? It is the same action, the very same
words, and exactly the same man. Ah, the action at
IN
Acting, praying,
or doing anything “in Jesus’ name” means doing it in union with Him. Many
prayers go unanswered because they are not prayed in union with Christ. People have prayed
for fair weather, and it has rained in torrents. People have prayed for healing, and the
sickness has become chronic. People have prayed for protection, and danger has brought
hurt or disaster. People have prayed to live, and they have died. Recall Huckleberry Finn’s
account:
Miss Watson she
took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day,
and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a
fish line, but no hooks. It wasn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the
hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn’t make it work. By and by, one day, I
asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I
couldn’t make it out no way. I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long
think about it. I says to myself, if a person can get anything they pray for, why don’t
Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can’t the widow get back her
silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can’t Miss Watson fat up? No, says I to myself,
there ain’t nothing in it.
Praying “in
Jesus’ name” does not mean praying by a formula. It means praying in union with
Him. Huckleberry Finn, obviously, was not praying in union with Jesus! When a woman
marries a man she gets a change of name. Whereas before she was Mary Brown, now she is
Mary Jones. But why does she change her name? Is it because she didn’t like the name
Brown, or because the name Jones sounds more exotic? Not at all. She takes the name Jones
because she and Mr. Jones have become ONE. She has come into union with him. That’s
what using the name of Jesus means. Hear now the poignant words of God spoken through
Jeremiah to the nation of
Eventually there
was born into our world and history a man named Jesus, who was so utterly surrendered to
the Father that there was no obstacle, no barrier at all between him and God. A power such
as the world had never seen before sprang into existence because of this perfect
relationship between the Son and the Father. This power is what we call the Holy Spirit.
It is an incredible torrent of living energy let loose into the world. It is a shaft of
light that has penetrated all darkness and depth and bondage. When called upon in spirit
and in truth it can overcome anything-disease, fear, despair, ugliness, pain, sorrow,
death, all the black, cold chains that have kept us from the glory of the Father.
“And
whatsoever ye shall ask in union with Me, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in union with Me, I will do it” (Jn.
There were seven
sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, who thought they could cast out devils
by using the name of Jesus. They said, “We adjure you by the name of Jesus whom Paul
preacheth.” But the devil replied, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are
ye? We don’t need to recognize you-that name doesn’t mean a thing to you-you are
not in union with Him. His authority does not back up your words.” “And the man
in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them,
so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded” (Acts
So we begin our
prayer by saying, “In the name of Jesus I pray,” or most often we conclude our
prayer by saying, “Father, I ask this in Jesus’ name.” In view of this let
us quickly run through the only prayer the Lord Jesus taught us to pray. How does it end?
“For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, in Jesus’
name-Amen!” Does it end like that? No! Of course, I have suspected that it isn’t
a true prayer. I knew all along that God wouldn’t answer it because it doesn’t
have the right words at the end! Do you think perhaps God will answer it anyway, even if
it doesn’t say, “In Jesus’ name”? Let me ask you a question. If Jesus
was the only One who had a right to call God “Father,” how could you or I
possibly call Him “Father”? Is it not by virtue of our union with Jesus
Christ-THE SON? “In Jesus’ name” simply means being in union with Him.
So-you don’t have to say “in Jesus’ name” at the end of your prayer.
All you have to do is say at the beginning, “Our Father,” and you know that the
reason God receives you is because of your oneness with, and your identification in, Jesus
the Son. This is what sonship is all about-Jesus is the Head and we are the members of the
body of the Christ. There is but one Christ, one Son, and there are many members.
“In Jesus’
name” is not a prescription. It is not a sort of magical Alladin’s lamp that we
can rub and ask for anything in the world. Nor is it a talisman or an “open sesame,”
turning on the spigot of heaven. It is not writing a letter to Santa Claus. There are many
sincere believers that think it is necessary to end every prayer with the stereotype,
“In Jesus Name.” This is a perfect example of how we deny the spirit of Christ’s
teaching on prayer by adherence to the letter. That Jesus Christ meant every prayer of the
younger members of His body to end in the same way is an absurdity, for this is but to use
“vain repetitions.” If the phrase is used as a necessary cliché it is
absolutely indefensible, and is closer to the Tibetan prayer wheel than it is to the
spirit of Jesus. It is nowhere said that we are to put such a phrase in our prayers.
Saying it does not make it so. The early Christians did all things in the name of the Lord
Jesus, but I do not recall a single Bible prayer in which people told God they were asking
“in Jesus’ name.” God would know without our saying. The Father knows all
who are in Christ. We do not need to tell God that it is in Jesus’ name. He knows.
The great apostle Paul has several prayers recorded in the New Testament and he did not
put “in Jesus’ name” either before or after a single one of them.
I know this will
shake some people up, because they are theologically oriented to repeating the phrase,
“in Jesus’ name.” But remember, precious friend of mine, the Lord Jesus
Himself also warns us that “many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and
shall deceive many” (Mat. 24:5). Some popular evangelist comes to town and draws a
crowd with the spectacular, but it doesn’t bear witness in your spirit. Something is
not right. Yet it all seems so right because all he does he does using the name of Jesus.
That doesn’t prove a thing. He may use the name of Jesus with his mouth, but his
whole life and ministry may be out of union with Jesus. Out of union with Jesus he is a
fraud-using the name of Jesus to promote his own kingdom, to build a name, and for
financial gain. It is not the formula of His name, but doing it in union with Him.
“Not
everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he
that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say unto Me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and
in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I NEVER KNEW
YOU: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat. 7:21-23). There is another most
significant passage in Mark 16:17-18. You know how it reads...”These signs shall
follow them that believe; in My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new
tongues; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” It should read,
“These signs shall follow them that believe in My name; they shall cast out devils,
etc.” You see, there is no punctuation in the original, and the way we have all
learned this passage is the way the translators punctuated it in the King James Version of
the Bible. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” Then you add, “In
My name they shall cast out devils.” That’s how we have understood it. But that’s
not what it really says. It’s not, “These signs shall follow them that believe.”
It is, “These signs shall follow them that believe in My name.”
It is just as
the Holy Spirit records in John 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” It is not
believing that saves you. The Philippian jailer cried out, “Sirs, what must I do to
be saved?” Paul didn’t answer, “Only believe.” He said, “Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” It is not FAITH that saves-it is
faith in the Son of God.
George Muller
left a lifelong record of his prayers and their answers-more than twenty-five thousand of
them. On one occasion, when asked by a friend to explain his secret, Bro. Muller replied,
“Have faith in God.” If I interpret George Muller correctly, he was not placing
the emphasis on the word faith, but rather on the word God. George Muller knew God, so his
faith was not in his own boldness or daring or positive thinking, but in the living God.
It is the object of our prayers that makes the difference. “He that spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all
things?” (Rom.
“Neither is
there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved” (Acts
If you have a
problem with this, let us do it your way first and see if you won’t prefer it mine.
“These signs shall follow them that believe. In My name they shall cast out devils”-so
if there is a devil there, how do you get him out? You say, “In the name of Jesus,
come out!” That’s we way we feel it should be. But now you are in trouble. What
else are we supposed to do in Jesus’ name? “They shall speak with new tongues.”
You see, each of these actions is something done “in Jesus’ name.” Have you
spoken in tongues? Have you spoken in tongues today? This week? Within the past month? I
do not hesitate to tell you that it wasn’t real-if the popular interpretation of Mark
16:17-18 is true! How can I say this? Because when you spoke in tongues you did not say,
“In the name of Jesus-ra ha she ka lame tie!” If it is necessary to say to a
devil, “In Jesus’ name, come out,” in order to cast out devils in His name;
if it is necessary to say, “In Jesus’ name, be healed,” in order to heal
the sick in Jesus’ name; is it not also necessary to say, “In Jesus’ name I
speak with new tongues,” and then break out in tongues? If you spoke in tongues today
and did not say, “In Jesus’ name,” before you spoke in tongues it was
false-if repeating the phrase “in Jesus’ name” is what it means to do
something in His name!
You see, what we
do is use the name as a formula or magical incantation. What is your magic word? “Abracadabra”
It’s not that at all. It’s not believing in a formula or employing a magical
phrase, but believing in HIM-coming into union with Him, standing in His nature, will,
purpose and identity as sons of the living God. If His life is in me I speak with tongues
by the indwelling of His Spirit and I don’t have to use the formula, the fact that it
is the Spirit of the Son within me, the spirit of sonship, makes it in His name, His
nature, His identity. If His life is in me I will heal the sick by His indwelling power
and I don’t have to use the formula, for the compassion and power of Christ within
make it in His name, His nature, His identity. If His life is in me I cast out devils by
His indwelling authority, and I don’t have to use the formula, for the authority is
the authority of the Christ within and it is thus in His name, by His authority, in union
with Him, in His nature, character, and identity.
Jesus said,
“The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me” (Jn.
If one is at all
acquainted with Latin American people or Spanish speaking people, you will know that
thousands of the men are named Jesus. It is a common name. The name they bear has
absolutely no power or authority in heaven or with God. God will not receive them in any
special way just because they bear a name that is made up of the five letters J-E-S-U-S.
But He will willingly and gladly receive them in the name or nature of HIS SON who is
called Jesus. Also in the New Testament we read of others who were named Jesus, for it was
a common name in Bible days, too, but they had no special place or power in the work of
God. And if today you say, “In the name of Jesus, be blessed!” the question
follows: In the name of which Jesus? For there are millions of people named Jesus in the
earth!
The “name”
of the Lord is thus something far beyond and greater than a series of letters in the
alphabet and their pronunciation. The true name of God is not YAHWEH. The true name of God
is the nature signified by the meaning of the word YAHWEH. Yahweh means “the
self-existent-the One who IS.” “The name of Yahweh is a strong tower: the
righteous runneth into it and is safe” (Prov.
Again we remind
ourselves that we have all prayed hundreds of prayers that have not been answered, yet we
sprinkled all of them thoroughly with the phrase, “in the name of Jesus.” The
sick came to be healed and we prayed a powerful prayer, placed oil upon them, repeated
that phrase, “in the name of Jesus,” perhaps a dozen times, and nothing
happened. Yet Jesus said that if we asked in His name it would be done for us. Can we not
see THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG! There must be something we have not learned, for Jesus
surely spoke the words granting us whatever we ask. We are to do and say everything in
Jesus’ name. God has given Him THE NAME that is above every other name in heaven and
in earth. Does that mean that if I take my sick neighbor a bowl of soup I must say, “In
Jesus’ name I give you this soup?” Not at all. The fact that the loving nature
of the Christ within compels me to take the soup makes it in Jesus’ name. The name of
Jesus is not the word Jesus. It is His nature, His character, His authority. Repeating the
five-letter word JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, before and after will not get our prayers answered.
We must stand in a position before God. We must be in the same position before God that
the firstborn Son occupies. We must know that we are the sons of God and must ask out of
the nature of sonship. When the spirit of sonship within motivates, directs and births all
our praying, there will be one hundred percent results. The only things God grants are the
things prayed in the name of Jesus. The prayers we have had answered are the only prayers
we have prayed that were prayed in the name of Jesus. All others were prayed outside His
name. If they would have been prayed in His name, we would have received the thing we
asked for, for the promise is true and unfailing: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My
name, I will do it.” This can be achieved only through union with Him. Only then will
we get ALL of our prayers answered.
“And in
that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask
the Father in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name:
ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (Jn.
“A brief
study of the use of the term ‘in My name’ will help us understand the divine
principle by which all true sons of God are to be guided in their approach to the work of
the Lord. When Jesus taught on the matter of gatherings, fellowship and ministry, He said,
‘For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of
them’ (Mat.
“If we
would do those greater works, then we will have to come under the proper authority and
discipline by which those greater works shall be manifest. The time is coming and now is
when all the Lord’s elect will learn to function by a new and greater principle, even
the divine principle of ministering and functioning in the name of the Lord. We can no
longer function in our own name, for we have seen the constant futility of man’s
works. Now the Lord commands repentance and a sincere turning away from all of man’s
past fruitless efforts, for He would lead us to the divine principle whereby we will
witness those greater works.
‘When Jesus
made His triumphal entry into
Sometimes my
head has trouble with my body. I woke up this morning and my head said to my feet, “Get
out and walk.” My feet said, “We’re tired of doing all the walking, let the
hands do it.” Is that how it is? No-the body is in perfect union with the head. Jesus
is the Vine, we are the branches. As long as the branch abides in the Vine it brings forth
fruit. And it guarantees the answer to our prayer! “If ye abide in Me, and My words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Ye have not chosen
Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go forth and bring forth
fruit, and that your fruit should remain: and that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father
in My name, He may give it you” (Jn. 15:7,16). In union with Christ there is an
expression of the Christ life. This is not a formula. No words can add anything to it. It
is life and reality. All that the branch bears it bears in the name (nature) of the Vine,
and in union with the Vine. You believe in His name-therefore you cast out devils, heal
the sick, speak with new tongues, or fulfill whatever expression of Christ you are-as He
moves within you to so do.
Someone still
asks, “Brother Eby, don’t you use the name of Jesus when you pray?”
Sometimes I do. But you don’t have to-if you are praying in union with Him. After we
have prayed a very selfish prayer, “Oh Lord, I would like a BMW this fall, and a big
sail boat for next summer,” to make it spiritual and to have an edge on getting it
answered we ask it “in the name of Jesus.” But the name of Jesus has nothing to
do with this! We pray a lot of childish, selfish, carnal prayers that have nothing to do
with the mind of God. And then we tack the formula on, “in the name of Jesus,”
as though that will induce Him to indulge us. I tell you the truth-you might as well say
“abracadabra” and expect the vault of heaven to open! God deliver us from
formulas, from magical words, from spiritual sounding hocus-pocus and superstitious
mantras and bring us mightily into union with the Lord Jesus Christ until the prayer we
pray expresses His mind, His heart, and His purpose.
“Many will
say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name
have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Mat.
So what did
Jesus say to those who told Him that they had done wonders in His name? “Congratulations,
blessed are ye, enter into the Kingdom and receive a hundred more stars in your crown!”
Is that what He said? His answer was, “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work
iniquity.” “I never knew you-you whose prophesying is iniquity; you whose
casting out devils is iniquity; you whose mighty works are iniquity.” Do you know
what “I never knew you” means? It means that the works were not done in union
with Him. “And Adam KNEW His wife, and she conceived...” (Gen. 4:1). “Know”
in the Bible is the most intimate word of union. Jesus says, “I never KNEW you, I was
not intimate with you, you were not acting out a deep and abiding love relationship with
Me.” He classified their works as iniquity. “Iniquity” means lawlessness,
something done outside authority.
Isn’t the
whole business of the Gospel just this: “All power in heaven and in earth is given to
Me...I give it to you...you go and preach the Gospel and when it’s all over I will
reward you!” No-”Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
“And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and
confirming the word with signs following” (Mk. 16:90). The Lord was with them,
working with them- IN UNION WITH THEM. So using His name may be blasphemy, it may be
iniquity, it may be lawlessness, it may be foolishness like the seven sons of Sceva-if the
words and the works are not done in union with the Christ. We have seen in our day the sad
spectacle of men who get hold of God’s power, God’s ability, and use it to their
own ends, for a name, for power, for money, to build a kingdom. The word will yet come to
these in a terrible day of judgment, “Depart from Me ye that work iniquity; I never
knew you.” So this business of the name of Jesus-watch it. Is the person who is using
the name using it in vain? Or is the usage of the name an expression of love, devotion,
obedience, divine nature and authority? What is your motive? What is back of it? Is it
that God alone may be glorified?
Part 5
TEACH US TO PRAY
(continued)
We are beginning today a study of that matchless gem
of the life of sonship called “The Lord’s Prayer”. I trust that the
precious mind that was in Christ Jesus will lay hold upon our hearts as we take our place
at the feet of Jesus in the study of this prayer. No other form of words has a hold upon
mankind like the few brief sentences of the Lord’s Prayer. Not a day has passed
without their use since the firstborn Son of God taught them to His disciples. Some
portions of the Word of God are so rich and inexhaustible that we come back to them again
and again, as the Spirit quickens new vistas and depths of truth in words long since
familiar. Such a scripture is the Lord’s Prayer. As we try to plumb the depths of
these great and wonderful words, let us do so with the continual prayer, “Lord, teach
us to pray!
I doubt that there is a teaching in
the whole Bible that unfolds more deeply the wonder, meaning, and power of prayer than
does the Lord’s Prayer. It is, it seems to me, the key which opens the door in the
blessed kingdom of prayer. The profound, eternal truths compressed into its few, concise
phrases shine with celestial brilliance. These truths radiated from the very heart of our
Lord as He moved among men. They embrace the deepest secrets and the highest purposes of
God, stated in human language of disarming simplicity.
Some contend that this is not
“The Lord’s Prayer” because He never prayed it. It was given to His
disciples, they say, therefore it should be called “The Disciples’ Prayer”.
But the prayer is called “The Lord’s Prayer”, not because it was expressive
of Christ’s own relationship with His Father, or of His own needs, for He, who was
pure and sinless, certainly never prayed, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those
who sin against US.” It is called “The Lord’s Prayer” simply because
it was taught by Him. The possessive form is used in the same sense as when we speak of
“Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” thereby indicating that the address was
authored and given by
It seems strange that Jesus’
disciples would say, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk. 11:1). These men had grown up
in religious homes. They had attended Synagogue and had learned all the prayers of the
rabbis. They had been taught the eighteen petitions of the Shema. These were eighteen
prayers a Jew was to pray every day. Pious Jews paused three times each day to pray the
Shema. The workman would quit his task and the teacher his lesson, to stand before God and
“say” his prayers. A year earlier if you had asked these disciples, “Do you
know how to pray?” they would have indignantly replied, “Of course, we know how
to pray. We have prayed regularly every day since we were children.” However, when
they saw Jesus pray, they realized they knew nothing about prayer as they ought to know.
To them prayer was a form-but to Christ it was a life and a power. As those disciples
witnessed Jesus communing with His heavenly Father as a Son, as they saw Him go into
prayer in one way and come out in another, as they saw the power of the
Let me give you an illustration.
Look at this number: 16175663451
It tells a whole story. Can you
retell it? It is hiding a number of secrets. Do you know them? It holds a universe of
meanings. Do you understand them? What does this number say to you? What does it mean? And
if it is not obvious, how do you go about unlocking its meaning? Try commas. You can
divide it into hundreds, thousands, and millions, but that will get you nowhere. You can
take out your calculator and look for mysterious factors or perfect squares or multiples
of pi, but to the best of my knowledge that will lead you nowhere. Likewise, you can try
to find meaning in the number of times the sacred numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 are used, or
speculate on why the ? is missing, but this too is a dead-end. So is any attempt to find
historical significance to the dates 1617, 1756, and so on. If you add all the numbers
together, you’ll come up with 45. It is a nice number, but it is not a story, a
secret, a meaning, or a revelation.
The real secret is hyphens. If you
put them in the right places, everything is revealed: 1-617-566-3451. Even though the
information was there before, now that you see the pattern, you understand almost
everything. Think about it! The “1” is the first clue. It says, “This is a
long-distance call.” The “1” works like a switch. When the computer hears
the tone for the one, it shunts the call out of the local circuits and into the
long-distance track. There are, however, other clues to the same lesson. The “617”
is an area code. You can tell that both from the position and from the 1 in the middle.
All area codes (and no prefixes) have either 1 or 0 in the middle. That’s another way
the call is tracked as long-distance. In this case, 617 is in the eastern part of
The Lord’s Prayer is exactly
like the numbers 16175663451. Apart from the spirit of wisdom and revelation from God, it
is just as unintelligible as those numbers. Ah, we can understand the words with the
natural mind just as we can identify each of the individual numbers above. But we are
still without understanding. Only the Holy Spirit can give us understanding of these
things. If you memorized this prayer as a child, it is still spiritually a meaningless
jumble like 16175663451. In these Studies, with the Lord’s help, we are going to put
in the hyphens and unlock the pattern. We will examine each of the connections in this
wonderful prayer and trace its paths into the
One of the outstanding
characteristics of the prayer is its exceeding brevity. All-inclusive as the Model Prayer
is -- all it represents is compressed into seven brief petitions. And everywhere in
scripture, seven is the perfect number, the symbol of completeness. There is a beautiful
interconnection of these petitions. Each petition grows out of the preceding one as
naturally as the different parts of a plant grow out of an original seed. The primary seed
in the Model Prayer is the Fatherhood of God. “Our Father” is like the “1”
at the beginning of a long-distance phone call-it is the access code that makes the first
connection that moves us along the path of omnipotence. It shuts us out of the circuits of
“this world” and guides us along the track to a heavenly destination. The
fruitage of that connection is the hallowing of God’s name, the revelation of His
Kingdom, the accomplishment of His will, the provision of divine sustenance, the effectual
dealing with sin, deliverance from evil, and the full manifestation in and through us of
God’s Kingdom, power and glory. As the colors of the prismatic spectrum spring from
white light, so the Fatherhood of God is the white light of the full beam, the source and
the end of the seven petitions. Far from being a prayer to be recited or a formula for
talking to God, the Lord’s Prayer enables us to explore the depths of God and His
great purpose of the ages. It reveals God as He really is and our relationship to Him in
sonship. Almost a billion people regularly repeat the words of this prayer. If they really
prayed it, they would bring the
Truly did Paul Mueller write:
“Jesus taught us to pray, ‘For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, for ever. Amen.’ These are not idle, empty, meaningless words, but are words
of life and truth. This prayer is not merely a declaration of faith, or a set of words
intended to give Him the glory. It is that, and much more than that, for it is an
expression of trust and confidence in God, giving us the assurance that He will do what He
said He would do. The kingdom and the power and the glory belong unto the Lord. By His
mighty power He shall bring His kingdom to earth. By His mighty, sovereign and omnipotent
power, He shall cause His perfect will to be done in all the earth as it is in heaven. By
His mighty, creative power, He shall give us our daily bread, both the natural and the
spiritual bread that we need every day. By His mighty, kingdom power, He shall forgive us
our debts, a truth we shall yet experience in a greater measure. By His power He keeps us
from temptation, and delivers us from evil. And by His mighty, kingdom power, He shall
subdue the nations and bring them all into the peaceful and righteous dominion of His
reign. For His is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.”
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
The
When Jesus taught this teaching,
His fame had been spread abroad. He had come announcing the
THE PATTERN PRAYER
The disciples came to Jesus and said,
“Teach us to pray.” They did not say, “Teach us a prayer.” When you
always go through the same form of words in prayer you are simply in a rut, and not truly
communing with your heavenly Father. Your prayer is a form-you are “saying your
prayers”-not praying. One of the most obvious examples of this is saying “grace”
at the table. Most prayers said before a meal are merely prayers that are “said,”
not prayers that are prayed. A brother shared this observation: “When I was in high
school in
Saying “prayers” is a
lone of professional praying. The preachers in the pulpits of the church system are
masters of professional praying. They “say prayers” every Sunday as a part of
their program, and on special occasions. Long, written, discursive, dry, and inane are the
prayers of those who have never learned at the feet of Jesus how to pray! Without unction
or heart, without inspiration or revelation, they fall like a killing frost on the dull
ears of congregations that are just as dead as the prayers of their preachers. Every
vestige of life has perished under their breath. The deader the prayers, the longer they
grow until death becomes hell in the name of God. “After this manner therefore pray
ye,” said Jesus. It was not a prayer to be repeated-it was to be the “seed plot”
of all sonship praying. The teaching is to “pray like this,” not to “pray
this.” It speaks of a way to pray, not a form of prayer. If you direct the attention
of a one-year-old child to some object by pointing with your hand, he will look only at
the pointing finger. He cannot realize that you are referring to something beyond. In like
manner, the baby Christians of all generations have missed completely the great truths and
principles to which our Lord pointed when He gave this prayer to His disciples. A mockery
and a vanity are these words when said as a memorized form, when nicely repeated before a
crowd, or privately. It is like a baby staring at the pointing finger. The great and
eternal truth is missed entirely in such empty and meaningless activity.
There is doubtless not a single
man, woman, or child reading these lines that cannot quote the Lord’s Prayer from
memory. You can say it while thinking of something else. You can say it while looking back
upon yesterday or forward to tomorrow. You have prayed it with the tender lips of
childhood. You have prayed it in the intimacy of the family circle. You have prayed it in
the small prayer group and in the great congregation. And, yet, it is possible that with
all your praying of it you have never really prayed it at all! For saying a prayer is not
praying. Elijah is a splendid example. James says that “he prayed earnestly”
(James
ENTER THE CLOSET
“When thou prayest, enter into
thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and
thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Mat. 6:6). How many
varieties of inner chambers there are! For example, Abraham’s “closet” was
the oak of Morey; Isaac’s closet was the field of
I have known saints who were
embarrassed because of the frustrating failure of being able to pray in public. Now, while
there is an occasional place for public prayer, the God-ordained place of prayer is in the
enclosed privacy where there is no other motivational influence than the fellowship of a
son with his Father. I do not hesitate to tell you that I do not enjoy public prayer. I
would rather never pray in public. It is unnatural to me. Why do others need to hear the
words that are addressed to my Father alone? I cannot pour out my deepest heart or express
my most intimate thoughts, desires, concerns, and confessions in the ears of the listening
multitude, or even in the hearing of my most intimate friend. Not one word of my prayer is
meant for any but my Father, not one word of my prayer is directed toward any but my God.
It is this being with God and God alone, that is the essence of prayer. And that brings to
mind the solitary nights of clear starlight which Jesus spent on the hills of Galilee,
when the holiest events that ever occurred in a human soul took place in His, when
marvelous discourse with the Father unfolded within His consciousness the reality of His
sonship to God, when it must have seemed as if a quite unique tone released itself from
our earth and made its way to the farthest expanses of the heavenlies above. And now-in
the secret place of the Most High His younger brethren, the sons of God, are bidden to
live this over again! A reflection of it is still to be found on this earth as long as
there is one child of God coming to the secret place to know the Father as his very own
Father.
We live in a day of distractions.
We are beset. Radios blare. Televisions run from early morning till late at night. Traffic
roars. Neon lights flash and dazzle. Headlines explode. Advertising is a vast conspiracy
to make us look and listen. Our lives are incredibly busy, with more responsibilities
crowded into each day than can be done. Nerves are frayed, emotions tense we are stressed
out. We are assaulted by a constant battery of sights and sounds and smells. The solution
is not to be found in the doctor’s office, the psychiatrist’s couch, or in a
bottle of pills. Jesus teaches us we must free ourselves. Man has been given dominion over
all things. The environment is not to rule us, we must rule our environment. The first
step to such liberty and power is found in the words of wisdom which distilled like dew
from the gracious lips of the One who truly lived life as it was meant to be lived, “but
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door….”
We can close the mind against the distractions, soul and body against the pressures, and
deliberately expose ourselves to the quickening, transforming power of the presence of
God. Prayers should be made in a quiet and private place. The counsel is specific: the
place should be free from distractions, the door shut against the spirit of the world, and
the prayer free from influence or posturing, because it is in “secret”. Jesus
Himself set the example. He often went away apart into the desert or into a mountain. At
times He arose early in the morning, before the awakening sun had kissed the clouds in the
eastern sky, and went apart to pray alone.
Close the door when you enter into
your “closet”. Get into the inner chamber and close the door. Sometimes it is a
good thing to close the door of the eye so that things that are suggested by sight will
not come into your mind. I have seen sometimes that it is a very good thing to close the
door of the ears, and not so much as listen to what anyone else has to say about the
issue. Go right inside and close even the door of human touch. Do not put out your hand to
lean upon your dearest one. There are times when we need the counsel or support or help of
another, but sometimes you need to close the door of all the five senses and all that
speaks to them, and commune in spirit, as spirit with spirit, with the Father of Spirits-
our Father! Get inside and talk to God in Spirit, apart from all outward sensation. You do
not need to close the door of your inner chamber by going to an inner chamber in your
house. That is a good thing to do if you have one; but you can close the door of the inner
chamber- of your own being by shutting the five great gates of sensation at any time and
place and communing with God there.
The life of sonship is a hidden,
inner life, having to do with the spiritual and invisible One who sees in secret. It is a
secluded life, hid with Christ in God. The life in Christ neither strives nor shouts, nor
does one hear its voice in the streets. It shrinks from all outward displays, whether
showy public almsgiving, conspicuous religious exercises, oratorical prayers, ceremonious
fastings, broadened phylacteries, processional parades, clerical costume, titles, or
degrees, or holy tones. Like a planet around the sun, it rolls in its orbit of obedience
to the Father without fanfare or advertisement; like the sun itself, it shines without
noise. We live in a day of much feverish running to and fro, and Martha-like preoccupation
about much serving; a day of organizations, conventions, television shows, and public
meetings and programs of all sorts. It has almost come to be understood, even in “sonship”
and ‘‘kingdom’’ circles that we can do nothing for God unless we
organize, promote, and hold a public meeting. The secret life of aloneness with God has
largely given way to the public life of gatherings, meetings, and activities. The closet
has given way to the Synagogue. There is indeed a time for the corporate expression, but
first and foremost let your watchword be: Alone with God. We need to hide ourselves with
God before we show ourselves for God. Elijah did. God said to Elijah, “Hide thyself,”
before He said, “Show thyself.” “Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward,
and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan” (I Kings 17:3). “And
it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third
year saying, Go, show thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth” (I
Kings 18:1). It is my deep conviction that we are living in the hour of the hiding of the
sons of God. The sons shall come to intimately and fully know the Father in the secret
place, and be prepared and equipped by Him there, before they are shown to the world in
the long-awaited manifestation of the sons of God.
There is an aloneness that
transcends physical location. We have all had the experience of being in a crowd, but so
occupied with our own thoughts, that we were oblivious to all around us. We were alone in
a crowd! The true closet is within- in the secret place of the Most High in the depths of
our Spirit. We can, at any time and in any place, shut the door and be alone with God,
shut in with God in the secret place.
What do these four words suggest:
“Enter into thy closet”? The word “closet” is unusual. The original
Greek word, TAMEION, is found but four times in the New Testament, in one place being
rendered “secret chambers” and in another “storehouse.” To the Hebrew
mind there was one place that was pre-eminently a secret chamber: it was that inmost court
of the tabernacle and temple, where God especially dwelt, and which was known as the
There is a quest higher than mere
request- a search after knowledge of God and communication from Him. In this secret place
we are changed, just as Jesus was metamorphosed on the holy Mount “as He prayed.”
The closet is the perfect school teacher for a son of God. One can learn more in an hour
alone with God than from many hours of study. Books are in the closet that can be found
and read nowhere else. Revelations are given in the closet that are given and received
nowhere else. Power is obtained in the closet that is available nowhere else. The true
closet of the son of God is not built of stone and lime. The secret place of God is not a
thing of wood and nails, or bolts and bars. The man after God’s own heart builds for
himself a little sanctuary, all his own; he builds a house for God in the inner world of
the spirit. We say, “This is the house of God: this is the gate of heaven.” This
inner sanctuary of the spirit, in the deepest part of our life, is the quiet place of
inner reality where we experience God as our ALL. “Be still and know that I am God,”
saith the Lord out of His holy place within.
The sons of God are predestined to
be conformed to the image of the Son. “Having PREDESTINATED us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will”
(Eph. 1:5). The Greek word translated “predestinated” is POORIZO, a compound of
the preposition PRO, meaning “before,” and the verb HORIZO, meaning “to fix
a limit, to establish a boundary.’’ Our English word “horizon,” the
boundary that sets the limit to how far we can see, comes from HORIZO. Thus,
predestination means that in love God has PRE-ESTABL
Several years ago while teaching in
a meeting a sister asked the question: ‘‘Brother Eby, don’t you think there
are some people who are predestinated to sonship in this hour, and, regardless of what
comes or goes, what they do or don’t do, they will make it?” Now, I perceived by
the Spirit where she was coming from, and what she meant was that there are certain
persons who are predestinated to be sons, and matters not the depth of consecration, how
they live, what they do, how they conduct their lives, what is their lifestyle, whether
they revel in worldliness, wallow in sin, or any other thing, they will finally make it in
by grace just because they are predestinated.
I replied, “It is true that
certain persons ARE
Nothing but the knowledge of God,
as the Holy One, will make us holy. And how are we to obtain that knowledge of God, except
in the INNER CHAMBER? It is a thing utterly impossible unless we take the time and allow
the holiness of God to shine on us. How can any man on earth obtain intimate knowledge of
another man, if he does not associate with him, and place himself under his influence? And
how can God Himself transform us into His nature and character, if we do not yield
ourselves to His holy promptings to turn aside and be brought under the power and the
glory of His presence and life? This is how our Elder Brother teaches us to pray- He
brings us into the Father’s living presence. Nowhere can we get to know the holiness
of God, and come under its influence and power, except in the inner chamber. No one can
expect to be changed into His glorious image who is not often and long alone with God.
“Shut in with God in the secret place,
There in the Spirit beholding His face;
Gaining new power to run in the race,
I love to be shut in with God.”
The following words of inspiration
from the pen of Carl Schwing add precious height and depth to this blessed reality. “There
is a special feeling in the forest during the winter which only comes with the absence of
man. All nature seems free as the cold wind howls through the frozen fingers of the mighty
monarchs of the forest. The bear rest safely in their dens...the deer search for
delicacies hidden in the snow, and birds find warmth in the brush of the field. As far as
the eye can see there are no footprints in the soft white gift of winter…there have
been no intruders into this holy place. The only sounds are that of the blue jay, hawk, or
owl...or the screaming of a wildcat. In these precious moments one truly knows that the
earth is the Lord’s. Indeed there is a peace and sacredness that exists in the
absence of man. There is a still small voice which can only be heard in the absence of
man. Our spirits are free as the wind as the Spirit gently moves within our hearts. There
can be no intruders into our holy place. We are alone with the Father...we hear His
voice...we know that we belong to Him, and that once again we are dwelling in the regions
of His Kingdom. Indeed there are truths that we can see and know and become...in the
absence of man.
“Let all who will, turn
against us...God is for us, nothing else really matters. We are the firstfruits of the
Kingdom, not by choice, but by predestination. We were created to sit with Christ in
heavenly places, yea, to sit with Him in His Father’s Kingdom. Soon the light of His
Kingdom shall cover the earth, and all shall see and know God’s Christ. We can see
the light of the dawn as it breaks through the darkness of an old dying age. We can hear
the Living Word as it flows from the ‘still small voice.’ And with the mouth of
the Spirit, we speak the things of the Father. Alone, forsaken, rejected, and
despised...how lovely to worship in His presence...in the absence of man. In the absence
of man, there is truly an entering into the
VAIN REPETITIONS
But when ye pray, use not vain
repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much
speaking” (Mat. 6:7). For centuries men have practiced their VAIN REPETITIONS before
the Lord, thinking they would be heard for their much speaking, hoping that by often
repeating their requests God would at last take heed to their supplication and grant them
the answer they desired, all the time forgetting that our heavenly Father knows what
things we have need of before we ask.
This element of wordiness, of
reiteration of the same phrases and words over and over, was characteristic of all heathen
prayers. The idea was to overcome the indifference or preoccupation of the gods by the
continual drum-beat into their ears of your desires and needs. This laborious and time
consuming custom resulted in the creation of the prayer wheels of the Tibetans and other
Eastern peoples. Thin paper prayers are attached to a great wheel. Then the wheel is
cranked and the devotee turns the wheel all day long. Each revolution of the wheel is
supposedly equivalent to the utterance of the prayers inscribed on the wheel. Each time
the wheel goes around it means that your prayer has been made without you doing anything.
It is a mechanized prayer life! In Christendom the burning of candles is supposed to
fulfill a similar purpose. This, my beloved, is the death-knell of all prayer, the chief
aim of which is to bring man into intimacy of fellowship and vital union with the heavenly
Father.
Does our Lord forbid all
repetitions of the same words? Certainly not. There is misunderstanding here with some
people that all repetitions are vain. The emphasis is not upon repetitions, but upon vain.
There are some repetitions that are not vain. There are some repetitions that are good.
For example, how many times does our Lord Jesus say “Father” in the 17th chapter
of John? Sixty-two times! Is that a vain repetition? Abba, Father! You can say it
adoringly. You can say it respectfully. You can say it confidentially. You can say it
tenderly. Again, Jesus repeated the same prayer three times in
The howling Moslem devishes will
yell, “Allah! Allah!” for hours without any praise or petition. One Greek poet
has in a single prayer nearly a hundred verses filled with a repetition of the same
invocation to the gods. The Hindu fakir will stand all day long and repeat the name of his
god. The Buddhist thinks there is salvation in the endless repetition of a magic formula.
The pietistic Jews are still under the influence of this error. When they read their
prayers, nothing can exceed their vehemence. They read with all their might, and then cry
aloud like the prophets of Baal. But is this much worse than the ritual of our Pentecostal
friends who gather at the altar and shout the same requests over and over, as they cry out
loudly and emotionally to God in much the same way as the prophets of Baal on far away
Carmel? Ray Prinzing once wrote: “I remember standing outside the building one day,
having gone to my car to retrieve something I had forgotten, and I could hear the noise
rising in pitch as it came through the open window, and wondered what others walking down
the sidewalk would think. Is God so deaf He must be screamed at? Or, was this simply an
indication of their own soulish frustration in prayer? I was used to this method of
praying, having been raised in a Pentecostal denomination where they would often say,
‘God is not deaf, so you can pray in a whisper, but neither does He get nervous if
you shout.’ And often it was deemed a measure of the anointing upon you as to how
loud and fast you gave voice. We learned that loudness was not synonymous with anointing.
Prayer is not a screaming at God, but a communion with Him. A child may demand attention
with its screaming, and the parent will immediately set about to first quiet the child,
and then gently minister to the need. But as that child grows into maturity, he approaches
the parent calmly, quietly, to share whatever is upon his heart and mind. He has learned
to get past the noise approach into an intimate relationship.”
SEASONS FOR PRAYER
All the various works of God know
their appointed times. The wise man said, “To every thing there is a season, and a
time to every purpose under heaven (Ecc. 3:1). Everything in nature sets the example of
precise order and patterns, and so it is also in the realm of spirit. Every spiritual
activity has its appointed time and season. There is a time to be a babe in Christ, a time
to grow, a time to learn, a time to mature. There is a time to give oneself to prayer, a
time to devote oneself to the Word, a time to share and witness, a time to work and bless,
a time to heal and encourage, a time to correct, admonish or rebuke, and a time to simply
BE the expression of God in the earth. But while I am asserting the necessity of seasons
for prayer and all other spiritual activities, let no one think I am suggesting that we
should carnally determine these seasons, for instance, “I will pray for an hour every
morning between
The seasons for spiritual
work are spiritual seasons, not natural. They depend upon the leading and moving of the
Spirit of God, the flow of His life, the discernment of His mind, the unction of His will-
not the position of the hands on the clock or the sun in the sky. Are you familiar with
the legend of Chanticleer, the rooster? Chanticleer thought that his crowing caused the
sun to rise. He even felt that if one day by accident he should fail to crow, the sun
would not rise at all. Of course, the universe is quite different from what Chanticleer
imagined. For in fact it was the sun with its soft rays of dawn that awoke Chanticleer. He
was only a herald, the announcer of all the light and warmth contained in the sun. It is
so with God and us. We do not move God by our efforts and prayers- it is God who moves us
to pray!
There are times when I have “decided”
to spend time in prayer, but when I turned aside to give myself to it, no matter how I
labored there was no sense of His presence, no flow of His life, no quickening of His
Spirit; the heavens were brass and God seemed a million miles away. I could get nowhere
and the whole time proved unproductive. But there are other times when I found myself
praying, I found myself desiring to pray, moved to pray, and that was the Holy Spirit
urging me to do what was necessary to enable things to happen the way they were supposed
to happen. It’s a mystery I don’t fully understand, but there are times when I
have to pray, there are times when the altar of my soul is full of clouds of holy incense
as I send up petitions, as I decree a word, not for myself, but for others, and when I can’t
articulate them in English I send them up in an unknown tongue. This is the spiritual
“season” of prayer of which I speak determined, not by my carnal understanding
or soulish effort, but set by the Spirit Himself.
Ah, dear one, discern the “mood”
of the Spirit, be sensitive to the “times” of the Spirit, find the “stream”
of the Spirit, and
If we would fulfill the divine
function of the
TO BE THE LORD’S PRAYER
It is one thing to understand. It
is another thing to do. But it is yet another thing to BE. “We shall be, like Him...”
As we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ we do not merely
understand the great truths of the Lord’s prayer; we do not only truly pray the Lord’s
Prayer; WE S
The greatest manifestation of power
is not in what we say or what we do- it is just simply what we are. If we are the image of
God in the earth, the Lord’s prayer will be inspired in the minds and hearts of men
though they have never heard nor learned it. Beholding in us the nature of God lived out
will create in men, the intense longing, the deep and insatiable cry for God to be their
Father, to know the Father as we know Him, to receive from the Father what we have of Him,
for His rule to come in their lives, for His will to be done, sins be forgiven, temptation
and weakness to be conquered, and evil to be overcome. Simply, men will want what they see
in us. When the glory, power, love, purity, reality and life of God in you evoke the
desire for salvation and transformation into the likeness of God in other’s hearts,
YOU HAVE BECOME THE LORD’S PRAYER!
The entire Lord’s Prayer must
be something that flows out of a transformed heart. It must be a definition, a statement
of your spirit, the expression of God, what is inside you, what you are. Thus:
I can not
say “our” if I live only for myself.
I cannot
say “Father” if I do not endeavor each day to live and walk as His son.
I cannot
say “who art in heaven” if I am not seeing by the spirit.
I cannot
say “hallowed be Thy name” if I am not expressing His nature.
I cannot
say “Thy Kingdom come” if I am not making Him Lord in my life.
I cannot
say “Thy will be done” if I am not following His leading and obeying His word.
I cannot
say “in earth as it is in heaven” if I do not yield my members unto Him.
I cannot
say “give us this day our daily bread” if His Word is not being made flesh in
me.
I cannot
say “forgive us our debts” if I harbor a grudge or bitterness toward anyone.
I cannot
say “lead us not into temptation” if I deliberately place myself in its path.
I cannot
say “deliver us from evil” if I do not put on the whole armor of God.
I cannot
say “Thine is the Kingdom” if I do not give the King the loyalty due Him from a
faithful subject.
I cannot
say “Thine is the power” if I fear what men may do or blame things on the devil.
I cannot
say “Thine is the glory” if I am seeking honor only for myself, promoting my
ministry, or taking any credit for what God does through me.
Jesus prayed. How He prayed! And
yet, the fact of the matter is that when we contemplate deeply the prayer life of Jesus we
find that prayer was not simply a part of His life; it was His life. Prayer was the
underlying attitude of His mind and heart. Prayer was the atmosphere in which He lived,
the energy that fueled His engine, the air that He breathed. So true was this of God’s
firstborn Son that the Hebrew of Psalms 109:4 was literally true of Him: “But I am
prayer.” The King James Version reads, “But I give myself to prayer.”
Notice, however, that the words “give myself to” are in italics. That means they
are not in the original, but were supplied for some reason by the translators. Without
those added words the Hebrew says, “But I prayer.” There is no word in Hebrew
for “am”- it is understood. The correct way to say “I am prayer” in
the Hebrew language is to say “I prayer.” And that is how it reads! Jesus was
prayer. And God is making a people prayer in this hour- it is becoming our nature, our
state of being.
I would close by sharing these
meaningful words by Ray Prinzing: “The Greek word for prayer is PR
“There is a principle which we
have spoken of over and over again through the years, namely: The highest form of anything
is TO
“James
brings us a very enlightening point, when he says, ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much’ (James
Part 6
FATHER
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...”
(Mat. 6:9).
We have known so
little of the scripture. We have been so busy arguing over it, formulating doctrines, creeds, and dogmas about it, that we failed to hear what
it was saying. Sonship has been the theme of the scriptures
from the opening scenes of Genesis to the closing dramas of Revelation. Sonship is the
heart of God’s great and glorious purpose from the shimmering mists of
What a
difference one word makes! Jesus taught us to pray that wonderful prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer by saying “our” rather than
“my” Father. The word my implies exclusivity, as if God could be the personal
property of one group or one individual over all others. Just the thought of “our
Father,” on the other hand, immediately recognizes God as the
Father of all! The plural pronoun reveals that no son of God is an “only child.”
This does not mean that it is wrong, in our personal communion with God, to call Him
“my Father,” for Jesus Himself certainly did. But we must not approach Him feeling we have some special possession or position that excludes
others — we are one of a vast family of many sons of God with this same privilege.
Our Father
which art in heaven is the greatest word on mortal tongue, and the truth of the Fatherhood
of God is the greatest that ever dawned on the intelligence of man. But did it ever dawn
upon the mind of man in such a way that other truths have done? When Peter made his great
confession, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord answered
Him in joy and thankfulness, “Blessed art thou, Simon,
son of Jonah; flesh and blood hath
not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in
heaven.” May we not say that flesh and blood never revealed this truth of God’s
Fatherhood? It is God’s own direct, supreme revelation of Himself in Christ His first-begotten Son. That which marks off the message of Christ
from every other is this teaching of the Fatherhood. It is unique in the history of man’s
troubled search for God. If we name the most barbaric of the world’s religions, if we
name the most refined of them, we shall Find that the revelation of Jesus quite infinitely transcends it, and does so by reason of its revelation
of God’s Fatherhood. It is the master-idea in the revelation of Christ, that which is
the seed-bed of all that follows. It is the architectonic thought — and the whole
plan of God in Christ is the expression of it.
This thought is
Christ’s own. It is native and original with Him. In the world there had been nothing
like it before. None of the world’s religions knew of it. The Old Testament only vaguely refers to it. But the
very first recorded words of Jesus in His earthly life and
His last breath, the Father’s name. The child is sought by His parents and found in
the temple, and He asks them, “Wist ye not that I must
be about My Father’s business?” Gethsemane lies
behind; the agony of
In each one God is addressed as Father
and in no other way. Not as Yahweh. Not as Adoni. Not as God. Father! The Father is addressed by Jesus no less than sixty times in the prayer of Jesus in the seventeenth
chapter of John. It is a
remarkable thing. How wonderful it is that our Lord, in a prayer that covers only twenty-six verses, should make
direct appeal at least sixty times to God as Father. The
thought that I desire to impress upon your mind by this fact is how Christ glorified the Father and presented the love of the Father to
creation through all His ministry. We should remember above all things, that He came to
reveal and glorify the Father. “These things spake Jesus; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said. Father...” Father! Father! Get that word Father into your spirit. Not the word merely, but all that lies in it! Ask God to give you by the spirit
of wisdom and revelation increasing knowledge of its meaning. It will take eternity to reveal all that is in that word.
Regeneration,
begotten, new birth, being born again into the kingdom of God, becoming
sons of God — these are all principles with which every
Bible student is familiar. The beautiful ANALOGY is accepted by everyone. But all this means to the
average Christian is that he conjures up the nice religious feeling
of thinking of himself as if he were a real son of God, as
Jesus is. The average Christian has absolutely no idea of the transcendental implications
of this birth into the family of God. Most think of being a
child of God as sort of an “honorary” title conferred on them by an indulgent
God who accepts them as “little adopted human children” to whom He plans to give as their reward for accepting
His gift of eternal life, a beautiful park, a celestial
Disney World, a spiritual playground in the sky called
“heaven”. This heaven is designed for them to enjoy for eternity,
loafing, romping, playing, shouting, visiting, rejoicing, playing harps, and floating about doing whatever sinless thing their hearts may
desire.
But let us understand what it really
means to be born into the very family of GOD. Let us turn that phrase around in
order to better catch its
significance. Rather than saying we are born into the family
of God, it is just as proper to say that we are born into the GOD FAMILY! By way of
illustration, I may say that I was, by natural birth, born
into the family of Luke Eby. But this also means that I was
born into the EBY FAMILY. I am of the
EBY KIND. I AM EBY. Not only are men born into the family of God, but they are born into the GOD FAMILY. Not only are we birthed into the
Before you
dismiss this thought as blasphemy, let us consider a dialog that occurred between Jesus and some Jews. It is recorded in John 10:30-36. “I
and the Father are one. Again the Jews brought up stones to stone Him. Jesus said to them, My Father has enabled Me to do many good works — I have shown many acts of
mercy in your presence. For
which of these do you stone Me? The Jews replied, We are not going to stone you for a good
act, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, make
yourself out to be God. Jesus answered, Is it not written in
your law, I said, Ye are GODS (Elohim)? So men are called gods — by the law — men to whom God’s word came,
and the scripture cannot be set aside or canceled or broken
or annulled. If that is true do you say to Me, the One whom
the Father has consecrated and dedicated and set apart for
Himself and sent into the world, You are blaspheming,
because I said, I am the Son of God?” The quotation of
Jesus from Psalm 82:6 says simply, “I have said, Ye are gods (Elohim); and all of you are the children of the most High.”
Oh! Let us see this thing as God sees it! Why do parents have
children? Do they beget them for the
benefit of the children that are to be born? Not at all.
There is inherently a PATERNAL DESIRE within the heart of a
husband and wife, in the union of the love they share. And it is this paternal nature that
drives them to project the experience of the love they share
into a new expression of their identity. Children are the projection
of our life, our love, our
union, OURSELVES, into an extended and expanded reality. If you had one son in whom you
found unspeakable delight, would it not be normal to desire another? It is exactly so with
the heavenly Father who by nature and choice has purposed to
have a vast family of human-divine sons who are just like
His first-begotten Son. God has not brought us into His
family as a hobby to play at for pastime. He has birthed us
out of His own paternal desire to extend and expand HIMSELF! God is our Father because He
has from eternity been in the process of begetting and
bringing sons to birth, sons to be born in His image, spiritually perfect as He is
perfect, ever-living as He is ever-living, God as He is God — the purpose of all
creation, the goal of human life, the plan of God — is sonship!
The four
Gospels, written in Greek, preserve for us only a few of the Aramaic words from the
everyday language spoken in
The Lord’s
Prayer changes everything. Everything changes
when our perception of reality changes. We learn through this prayer that God
is, my Father. That changes my
perception of myself. I’m
not just an animal dressed in clothes. I’m not a highly developed ape. Nor am I just a
“sinner saved by grace” as the preachers are wont to say. No! I am a son of God the Father in
heaven. That makes my origin heavenly. God is more than a Creator. God is better than a friend. God is closer
than a brother. He’s more than just a wonderful teacher or a great ruler and law-giver. He’s my Father. My very
own Father! Anybody who has that kind of close, intimate, loving relationship with God
is somebody special.
Surely our Lord
Jesus was teaching us a transcendentally
important lesson when He told us that we should address the mighty Creator and God of
the universe as “our Father.” There is but one God. There
are things that the heathen
called gods, ugly, repugnant, often hideous and terrifying
things, that are supposed to be gods. But there is but ONE GOD; and with reverence and great respect we address Him, not as Dear God, not as Almighty God, not as 0
Thou Great Jehovah, not as 0 Thou Unknowable,
Unapproachable, Infinite, Most Efficacious, Eternal
Sovereign, not as Yahweh, nor yet as Precious Jesus —
but in sincerity and truth as OUR FATHER. The wonder of this
was expressed by a brother in
telling of an incident that occurred
in his life. He said: “When my daughter was about five or six years old and passing
through a certain phase which a lot
of children pass through, she
heard other people calling my wife
and me by our first names, Anne and Jim. She thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. So she began to call us Anne and Jim. I thought that she
would soon pass through that phase so I didn’t say anything about it. It was ‘Jim’
so and so, and ‘Anne’ such and such, and we let it go for a few days, then a
week, then a couple of weeks. Finally, I thought to myself, ‘Enough is enough!’ I will never forget the day that I took her into the living room, sat down in an easy chair,
and sat her on my knees. I said, ‘Sweetie, daddy wants to have a talk with you.’ ‘Okay,
Jim, what’s your problem?’
I said, It’s about you calling me Jim. You see, there are millions of people out
there in the world who call me Jim, but none of them can call me what you can call me. You are the only one who can call me
Daddy.’ You see, I had entered into a closer relationship with her
than even on a First name
basis. The first name basis is the realm of friendship. But Daddy is the realm of worship. She was losing that and I did not want her to lose it. That
was thirteen or fourteen years
ago. Do you know what my name is today? Daddy. That’s right! And that is very dear.” Praise
God, we have gone beyond the first name basis! We have come
into that intimacy of relationship — OUR FATHER. How Filled
with meaning, reality and glory are those words!
Let us suppose
that a man by the name of John Smith has a son named Mike.
When Mike addresses his father he doesn’t call him John
Smith! Mike doesn’t say, “John Smith, may I have a quarter?” or “John
Smith, I love you!” No. Instead he will say, “Daddy, may I have a quarter?”
or “Daddy, I love you!” Only persons who have no sonship relationship with John Smith will address him as John Smith or Mr.
Smith or simply John. A son does not address his father by name, but by relationship. A
son does not pray to an impersonal “God,” nor to the Old
Testament “Yahweh,”
nor to the New Testament
“Jesus.” “And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” Jesus came to reveal the
FATHER’S NAME. He came not to reveal some other name
that the Father has had — He came to reveal the name — FATHER. To all those
blessed ones apprehended of God to sonship there is a
recognition, a conscious awareness, when we pray, or praise,
or worship, that it is to our FATHER. What that holy name
means is more than I can say in a thousand articles such as this, but this we may well
know — He who is called Father must of necessity have a relationship with His sons and
daughters that transcends that of any father on earth that
we have ever known. Every boy and girl in the world likes to be able to look up to his or her father as the most dear and exceptional man on earth.
Unfortunately some are deprived of that love, but we will
never be disappointed with our
Father who is in heaven.
Christ
taught us to pray what no one else
ever did, what Abraham never did, what Moses never did, what David never did, what the prophets and priests of Israel
never did; He makes us understand it
still: that the mission of the Spirit is to cry, “Abba,
Father!” and help us to know Him. How wonderful is the fact that
in teaching us to pray Christ never taught us to pray to
Himself; never taught us to pray to the Holy Ghost; never taught us to
pray to Yahweh; never taught
us to pray to saint or angel, Virgin, or human being. How simple is the teaching, how simple is the
prayer, “Our Father.” Oh, that is it!
God has revealed Himself to us in a three-fold manifestation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and He brings us into relationship
with Himself in each of these three manifestations. All
Christians have entered into a relationship with God as Son, experiencing
Him as SAVIOUR in the person of Jesus
Christ. Jesus said, I am the door: by Me if any man enter
in, he shall be saved” (Jn.
10:9). In this “Saviour” relationship we come to know Him in the joy of
sins forgiven and the blessed
reality of redemption. Jesus
as Saviour is the door, the gate
the entrance into the
“For as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom.
You can usually
tell the difference between a
babe in Christ and a more mature son by their terminology.
The babe knows JESUS THE SAVIOUR, and will always be talking about Jesus, calling on Jesus, “Jesus...Jesus...Jesus!” This is
quite natural, although unscriptural.
However, as one grows up into
Christ he receives a revelation of the FATHER. When a baby is born it
knows nothing about its father. This understanding comes through growth and development, becoming more precious and
meaningful as time goes on. The cry of a son is —
“FATHER!” Our sonship is the extension of Christ’s sonship, the Spirit of sonship within us is the
Spirit of THE SON. The new man within
IS CHRIST. The Spirit of the Son, the Christ within cries
not, “Jesus!”, because it
is the Spirit of Jesus. This Spirit causes us to cry, not Jesus, but FATHER! A simple truth is this: If there is a spirit within you that cries “Father!’ then know, my beloved, that you are beginning to enter into
your sonship to God!
In His great sermon on the mount Jesus was
teaching His disciples not to worry about the future or the mundane things of this earthly existence.
He said, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat,
or what ye shall drink, nor
yet for your body, what ye shall put on, etc.” He
reminds them that our heavenly Father takes care of even the little birds and feedeth them, and then He says, “Are ye not much better
than they.” He tells them how God causes the lilies to
grow, and has clothed them with such beauty, and the grass of the Field; and then He continues, “Shall He not much more
clothe you, O ye of little faith...for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things.” Yes, it is our heavenly
Father that is the source of
our supply; He is the giver of
every good and perfect gift; the supplier of every need on every level, and Jesus wanted us to know this and
to know and trust this mighty
God as our Father. Jesus said, “It is not I that doeth the works, but My Father who dwelleth
in Me.” So it was God the Father who healed the sick, it was the Father who stretched forth His hand and did signs and wonders, who cleansed the lepers, made the lame
to walk, and raised the dead. Jesus Himself said so. It is still the Father who does the works today,
and we know nothing of sonship until we thoroughly understand this principle. Though the Son and the sons
are the channel through which the divine fullness flows, the Son and the sons are not the
source, the Father is the source of all. From the Father flows the mighty river of divine fullness. Though two thousand
years ago it flowed through the
channel of His First-begotten
Son, and today may flow through the channels of the sons of God, it does
not originate with any of us; the
Father is the source, and all emanates from God the Father.
To know Him, the only true God, is to be joined unto Him,
the fountain of Life; to be one with Him who is the fountainhead of all life, wisdom, love, power and goodness, is to have eternal life, and to be a channel
through which the divine fullness can flow. Truly, “There
is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things...”
(I Cor. 8:6).
When we look at some of the prayers of the early
disciples, we can see how, and to whom, they prayed. “For this cause,” wrote the apostle Paul,
“I bow my knees unto the FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant to you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with His might by His Spirit in the
inner man.” Again, “I cease not to give thanks for
you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him” (Eph. 1:15-17).
Every other prayer in the epistles and the book of Acts is
prayed to the Father. And James pointed out that “Every
good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights...”
(James 1:17).
The Church world
today has lost the cry, “Our Father!” Humanity never really
had it, until Christ revealed the Father. “Have we not all one Father?” Yes, but men do not know it, and they do not pray to the Father.
They pray to God, to Jesus, to Yahweh, to the Holy Spirit,
to the blessed Virgin, to the saints; but few pray to the Father. Never shall the heart of mankind be turned, father to
son, mother to daughter, until they know God as Father. Never shall we understand the mission of Christ, or the true value of our lives, until we know that He came
from the Father to reveal the
Father, because we too came from the Father, and He is the
way to the Father, and will bring us back to God. Never shall men understand the mighty power
of that word “Father” until they know that all
things are from the Father; that all things subsist by the
mighty operation of the power of the Father.
Let us not
forget that God is our Father — not the Father of some men, but the Father of all men. He was the Father of
Adam (Lk. 3:38) and we are all the offspring of Adam; that
is why it takes the second man, the last Adam, to bring us
back to the Father. The propitiation
which Christ made is not for our sins only, “But also for the
sins of the whole world”
(I Jn. 2:2). The Father’s love is reaching out to all
humanity, to every prodigal son, far away from Father’s house. The message of Christ was a message from the Father, and when He
left us He said, “I ascend unto My Father and your
Father, and My God and your God.”
Consider the scene with me. Up the victor’s way, to the
Oh, great God!
God is wonderful! God is all-powerful! He is the Imperator!
He is absolute. But God is merciful! If you but cry, “Father, Father!” He will
rein the chariots of the stars; He will reign the chariots of the
suns; He will rein the planets in their courses, and He will leap from His heaven, and
raise His child to His heart. He is your Father; He is my
Father. He is our Father — and “like as a father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.”
Ray Prinzing, in his excellent little book
“Although
He was actively doing the works of His Father, so that He
was able to say, ‘Son, thy sins be forgiven thee...’ (Mk. 2:5), yet when it came time
for Him to pour out His life at Calvary, and He faced those who would crucify Him, though He was well able to
forgive them, still He said, ‘Father, Forgive them; For they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:24). He knew that while the eyes of the multitude were riveted upon Him, yet they saw only the outward human form, and recognized Him as the
‘Son of man,” and though it would have sounded
noble to a few, for Him to
have uttered His own words of forgiveness, yet even in that
moment He sought to raise their consciousness to a higher level, and thus He directed their attention TO THE FATHER,
for total forgiveness comes from Him. And in due time man would understand ‘that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. (II Cor. 5:19).
“There is a
ONENESS WITH THE FATHER, a relationship that He would have us enjoy, where we receive directly from Him all that we need. Jesus also spoke of that deeper dimension when He said, ‘In that day ye shall ask Me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you’ (Jn.
To the above
Paul Mueller adds these instructive
insights: “There is another significant stop for us in our spiritual growth in God. It is the maturity of our worship
and devotion to the Father. Although Jesus accepted the worship of others, He clearly directed those who were more spiritual to worship the
Father. He said, ‘But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the
Father seeketh such to worship
Him’ (Jn.
“The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father. Yea, the hour is here now, and a people are now
worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth. It is not that a certain
date was reached, and the hour arrived. It is that we
matured in God to the point where we now worship the Father. When we grew sufficiently in the Spirit, the hour of our more mature worship of the Father came. Now we can say we are ‘true worshippers’. We
speak directly to the Father and relate to Him in all
things. In this higher realm of worship, our Father reveals His secrets and mysteries
plainly to us (Jn.
“Jesus also
said, ‘At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father Himself loveth
you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God’
(Jn.
“We have
entered a new relationship with our Father. The old form of
worship is being replaced. We are now walking with our Father as His sons. Our sonship relation with Him is being confirmed. We are now privileged to ask of our Father that our joy may be
full. By the Spirit, we are believing for the heathen as our inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for our possession (Ps. 2:8).
This is the purpose of the
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS
The reverent heart is made to wonder at the unmistakable simplicity of the ways of
God. Long centuries ago the apostle penned these meaningful words,
“We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we
gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in
subjection unto the FATHER OF SPIRITS, and live?” (Heb. 12:9). This
verse tells us that just as our natural, earthly father is the father of our flesh, so is God the FATHER OF OUR SPIRITS! Ah, He is not the Father of your empty religious
rituals and static creeds; He is not the Father of your denomination; He
is not the Father of your flesh; He is not the Father of your carnal mind, your self-will,
or your fleshly emotions.
You can never meet God in any of those realms — He is not there. God is the God of
your spirit, you must be in your spirit to be with God and touch God. Today I am sitting in my office in
God is both
Creator and Father. There is a vast and distinct difference between the two. A scientist may invent and construct
a robot that walks, talks and works. Is he then the father of the robot? No one would impute fatherhood to
the scientist because of his invention. He is clearly the creator, but not the father.
Should another scientist invent an egg that hatches a bird,
would we then characterize the
scientist as the “father” of the bird? Certainly not! In the beginning God said,
“Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). God made
cattle to reproduce “after their kind,” after the cattle kind. He made every winged fowl to reproduce “after his kind,”
after the bird kind. That was the
standard of parenthood in
that long-ago beginning, and still is, ONE’S OWN
Is God, then, a man? Unless we can establish that
God is a physical and corporeal Being with a body composed
of flesh and bone, then His creation of man did not make
Him a “father” any more than did oceans full of fish,
or mountains filled with bear and elk. The book of Genesis gives two accounts of the
origin of man. As I have studied the Word of God, many things have become very evident, one of which is that there are two distinct creations or works of God revealed in chapters
one and two of Genesis. In Genesis 1:26-27 the first of these creative acts,
in respect to man, is presented, and as we consider the
wonderful advent of man created “in the image and likeness of God” we can only
conclude that this is a SPIRITUAL MAN brought forth out of the very spirit-substance of
God Almighty and bearing His own divine nature, character, and attributes. The image of God is the nature of God reproduced in man. The second
work of God wrought upon man is related in Genesis 2:7 where we see this significant action taking place: “And the Lord God FORMED MAN
OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul.” Reading this passage we have
the definite assurance that, as man has first been “created” in the spiritual
image of God, a further work is being carried forth and the
man is now being “formed” into another expression
“FORMED of the dust of the ground,” thus becoming a “living
soul” — manifest in the earth realm. The First is
the created man, the second reformed
man. The first is out of God in the spirit, the second is out of the earth after the flesh.
The first is a spiritual man bearing God’s image, the second a physical man
resembling the animals. The First bears the image of the heavenly, the second bears the image of the earthly. The first is known unto God in the Spirit, the second is known by the creatures of earth. The very fact that the scripture
states that Adam became a living soul, reveals that there was a process from pure spirit existence,
into a lesser realm.
The Lord Jesus
in His resurrection said, “A spirit has not flesh and bone as ye see Me have” (Lk. 24:39). He also said that
“God is a SPIRIT” (Jn.
“For this
cause I bow my knees unto
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is
named” (Eph.
The prophet Zechariah declared that from the beginning God “stretcheth forth the heavens,
and layeth the foundations
of the earth, and formeth
the spirit of man within him” (Zech. 12:1). Who can
gainsay the obvious truth that the outward physical form we
recognize as man is indwelled by a spirit? The mighty Moses
declared that God is “the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num. 27:16). The
apostle Paul said, “For what man knoweth the things of
a man, save the spirit of man which is in him”? even
so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God” (I Cor.
2:11). And again, “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”
(I Thes.
God is spirit. Get a Fix on this one grand truth — God IS
Hans
Christian Anderson was a great storyteller. He could spin a
yarn and tell a tale with the best of writers. He also recognized a greater writer, the
storyteller of life. “Every man’s life is a fairy
tale,” he wrote, “written by God’s fingers.” When do our tales begin? Many say, “Why, at
birth of course, when the
cord is cut and the child draws its first breath and sees
the light of day.” God, the storyteller of life, tells us His “fingers”
were busy long before that. Long before your conception in
a physical world, you existed, because you are the children
of the Father in heaven. If you did not exist before your conception, then, my friends,
you have no spirit ) within you, and God, the Father of
spirits, the Father in heaven, is not the Father of the spirits of all men. The question
begs an answer: From whence came your spirit? From God?
From the devil? Did God by a special act of creation form it at the moment of your conception or your
birth? Was it pro-created in the physical union of sperm and ovum? If you did not exist before your conception you are merely a beast and you do not
belong to the celestial family of God, nor are you the sons
of God, nor did Jesus descend from the heavenly realms to
redeem you and bring you back to the Father, and there is
not much that I can tell you that will do you any good.
I turn to the
passages of scripture which with divine certainty relate this. In Ephesians 1:4-5 we find, “According
as He hath chosen us IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
WORLD, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children (placement as mature sons) by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will.” Blessed be God! The apostle
Paul informs us that God chose and pre-destined a company
of sons before the foundation of the world. The word “before” translates the Greek word PRO meaning “to go before, precede.”
Hence, the Father’s act of choosing the first-fruit
sons preceded the laying of the foundations of the world
(that is another story, but I will not deal with it here). How, I ask, could God choose
you IN CHRIST and predestinate you in that long ago eternity
IF YOU DID NOT THEN EXIST? Now, therefore, when I talk to
you, I am talking to a household of God’s sons and daughters; I am talking to a celestial race, a divine household;
and these are the people of whom the apostle spoke when he wrote to the saints in Rome, saying, “For whom He did
FOREKNOW, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).
Yes — the Father in heaven FOREKNEW you, knew you beforehand, my beloved brother, my
precious sister in Christ. And that can mean nothing else
but that He KNEW YOU BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD and at that time when He KNEW YOU
BEFORE He pre-destined you to enter this earth experience and thereby be conformed into the image
of the First, unique, and preeminent Son, Jesus Christ.
We were in Christ before the ages began. There
was something in God — spirit — marked off with your
name on it, you were chosen in Him before the garden graced
the eastern slopes of
Spirit is
superior to physical. Eternity is superior to time.
Non-dimensional is superior to dimensional. God, the eternal
spirit, created something that would not last. I have no desire to detract from the
material creation, but words fail me to explain how
momentarily unimportant the natural realm is in comparison to heavenly and eternal things.
The natural creation is here for a short visit — it began and it will end. Some fundamentalists believe that the material creation has been in
existence for only 6,000 years. Scientists believe that it is some twenty billion years
old. But even twenty billion years is but a moment, an infinitesimal
time in relation to God and eternity. It is so
insignificant in the greater scheme of things. And you were marked out in Him, I was marked out in Him, before the worlds began and that makes the part of me that is spirit very, very important!
I do not
hesitate to say that only that which is spirit is real. “The things which are seen
are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal”
(II Cor.
As poor Job sat
on the ash heap in the midst of trial and suffering the Lord commanded him to stand up
like a man and respond to the questions He, the Lord, would put
to him. The Lord then asked forty questions, none of which Job could answer. Among the questions was
this one: “Where wast thou
when I laid the foundations of the earth...when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:7). Job was speechless, for he had
no idea where he was in that time of long ago, if ever he knew his memory had
failed completely. The truth, however, it seems to me, was that Job was there
among the company of the sons of God, beholding with wonder the plan of God on earth with its sufferings
and testings and the glory
that should follow. These sons of God that shouted for joy
on that primeval morn understood the wisdom of a plan by
which they should gain the
enlightenment of perfection by experience
instead of an inherent and
innate perfection guided only by divine instincts, and that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to
follow as a result of them, and so awesome was the prospect that they shouted for joy in
holy expectation. We do not shout
unless there is something to shout about. The message is clear — there was a time before the foundations of the earth were laid; there were sons of God who already
existed in that ancient time; and those young sons of God
lifted their voices with the morning stars in contemplation
of the marvelous purpose they were
to fulfill. It is precious to know that God’s first Son, our own Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is named the
Bright and Morning Star.
Never were words
more sublime uttered by sage or prophet than those spoken by king David when
he lifted up his heart to God in a prayer of thanksgiving and adoration saying, “Lord,
Thou hast been our dwelling
place in all generations. Before
the mountains were brought
forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God” (Ps.
90:1-2). Here the prophet David assures us with great
plainness of speech that the Lord has been our dwelling place in all generations. Even before the mountains were brought forth or God had
formed the earth, from everlasting to everlasting He is our God and
in Him we dwelt and from Him we came. Our spirits were with
Him before the creation of the earth, for the Father was then
our dwelling place. We were sent to this earthly realm for
a wise and glorious purpose — for testing, learning, instruction, training, discipline, and perfection — preparation for our part in that
magnificent work of deliverance of the whole creation from the tyranny of
darkness, decay and death. The Psalmist said, “Thou turnest
man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men”
(Ps. 90:3). The Lord turned
man to destruction, which is to say, He sent us down to
this earth realm of dust, sin and death, and then said to
us, “Return! ye children
of men.” What a revelation that is!
Far away in the depths of my spirit today there is a chord that still vibrates to that
wondrous shout of joy before
the foundations of the earth were laid, when, in that long
forgotten past we were there with the Father in spirit, and there is an inward sense of
assurance that much of the truth we now possess was known to our spirits since that early beginning.
Because the spirit is burdened down with the earthly and
visible, man has come to the place in his experience where the inner sanctum wherein God lives in man’s spirit is veiled by the flesh and
his spiritual consciousness is imprisoned by this gross material realm. We remember not the things of old — until that heaven blest
day when Christ comes in quickening power and touches the
mind of our spirit, restoring the memory of those former
things. For lack of true understanding we call this
restored memory “revelation”. When by the eyes of spirit we see Jesus, crowned with glory and honor, the powerful
attraction kindled in our hearts for Christ and reality is, in fact, just the beginning of the wonderful RENEWING OF THE
From out of
eternity, Before time began; In the bosom of the Father, While the morning stars sang, I
shouted for joy, While beholding His great plan; God’s
purpose on earth, His election in man! While meditating upon the wonder of these things, I was struck by the Lord Jesus’
statement in Matthew — “Call no man your father
upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
It seemed to be asking me if I was thinking of God as my Father or
if I was instead simply thinking of myself as the outcome of a whole network of human beings who stretched back
through time to our proverbial ancestors Adam and Eve! In
other words, instead of thinking of ourselves as the outcome of materiality, we can all relate to our Father
in heaven, just as Jesus told
us to. And since God is spirit, it follows that in our true nature we must all be spiritual because we are His children. Looking at ourselves from this spiritual
basis can really bring about a great change in our lives. It can set us free from inherited tendencies or from a checkered past. For instance, if one’s human family has been
a bit on the shady side of the law, or with a
disproportionate number of alcoholics, this knowledge of our true identity and the true value of our life can help
to free us from believing we’re stuck with repeating the same mistakes.
I saw this very clearly during the time when I traveled to the Alps of northern
Surely this is what Jesus had in
mind when He gave us this most spiritual, yet practical,
teaching: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall
be called the children of God. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on. Is not
the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
Part 7
OUR FATHER
(continued)
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...” (Mat. 6:9).
“Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that
when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (I Jn.
3:2). That is the truth, the final, absolute, and ultimate truth about you and me. It is a
dogma, and an intolerant dogma, as all dogmas are. It does not permit any compromise. If I
am the son of God revealed in Jesus Christ, then I am not just a little better than the
beast, nor just a little lower than the angels — I am better and higher than the
angels and have obtained a more excellent name (nature) than they, raised up in Christ to
sit together with Him in the higher than all heavens, to sit with Him upon His throne even
as He is set down with His Father in His throne, crowned with glory and honor. Every kind
of thought or action based upon the belief that I am anything less than this — a
spirit being in the image and likeness of God — any idea that my life is limited like
the life of the animals, or controlled as theirs is controlled — is a tissue of
falsehood and all action based upon that falsehood can only issue in disaster. If I am the
son of God then I am born of the Spirit, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
If I am the son
of God, nothing but God will satisfy my longing; no amount of comfort, no amount of
pleasure, no amount of wealth, will give me peace or rest. If I had the cup full of all
the world’s joys held up to me, and could drain it to the dregs, I should still
remain thirsty if I had not God. If the feast of all the good things of life, pleasures
and powers, fame and prestige, that have been and are, could be laid out before me and I
could eat it all at one meal, I should still be hungry if I had not God. There is not
enough in a hundred billion galaxies to satisfy a fully developed spirit — I must
find my life in the Father. I must know the Father. I must fellowship and commune with the
Father. I must dwell where He dwells. There are not in reality two worlds or two lives,
there is but one — and that is life eternal, which is to know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent (Jn. 17:3).
TWO LEVELS OF SONSHIP
Although
God is “the Father of the spirits of all flesh (Num. 27:16; Heb. 12:9), ” it is
evident that not all sons are created equal. Let me give you an example. The first son
that Abraham had was Ishmael. Ishmael was conceived when Sarah had despaired that she
would never bear the son of promise. She persuaded Abraham to take unto him her Egyptian
maidservant, Hagar. Ishmael is a type of the son of the flesh, rather than promise.
Abraham loved Ishmael! He was indeed his son, and undoubtedly a beautiful and winsome
child. But — while Ishmael was the son of Abraham, he was also the son of the
Egyptian bondwoman. The analog is just this — your first birth is that of Ishmael. It’s
the love of the Father, it’s the Father’s son, His very offspring — but it’s
born out of the Father in an Egyptian (earthly, worldly, sensual) mind. Abraham could not
tell that when he looked at his son — he looked at Ishmael and all he saw was his
son. His bowels cried out, “This is my son — O Lord, please bless Ishmael!”
But the Lord responded, “No — in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” “Who
in the world is Isaac, Lord? I’m one hundred years old — what do you mean,
Isaac? Sarah is ninety years old — how are you going to give me a baby?” But the
record states: “He believed.” And in that wonderful day when Isaac was born the
Bible says that Ishmael mocked the son of promise. And then Abraham could see the real
nature of things. Two sons — two natures — but both from one father. One of the
low realm of the flesh, and one from above by the power of God. Can we not see by this how
it is that God is the Father of the spirits of all flesh.
We might ask,
Who really is entitled to think of, or to pray to God as Father? In one sense, every
living soul, if we take into consideration such a passage as Malachi 2:10, “Have we
not all one Father? Hath not God created us?” Jesus said to His disciples, “I
ascend to My Father, and to your Father; to My God, and your God” (Jn.
God is the
Father of all men. There is a special sense in which God is the Father of those only who
are reborn of Him through the Holy Spirit of re-generation. To these He gives, in a
blessedly distinct sense, the “spirit of adoption” or the revelation of their
sonship, whereby they cry, “Abba, Father!” Nevertheless the fact remains,
universal and unalterable, that God is the Father of the spirits of all men. Father Adam
is declared by the spirit of inspiration to be “the son of God” (Lk.
Now
consider how this truth of God’s Fatherhood will affect some views of ours. God is
the Father of the spirits of all flesh. He is the Father of all virtuous and lovely souls,
and He is equally the Father of the sinful and the vicious. He was the Father of the
exemplary, dutiful, faithful, industrious son who stayed at home and worked. He was not
less the Father of the prodigal who wandered into a far country, spent his substance in
riotous living, and began to be in want. “If you are not good God will not love you,”
a parent sometimes says to a child. But He will! He cannot help it. You do not cease to
love your little one because of his mistakes and shortcomings. You smile and are sorry
together! But the love is there. God may have to punish — but that need not be
unloving. His strokes may be mercy, His chastisement grace. He cannot possibly treat all
alike, the responsible and the irresponsible, the faithful and the rebellious. He may have
to leave the unfaithful alone, to taste the fruit of his doing, and see what results from
his sin. He may leave him to pass through sorrow, the grave, and hell. In a word, God may
have to deal with a sinning child of His as the noblest and purest earthly parent might
with his prodigal son or daughter who would not come home. Yet God is still the Father,
and God is love.
Charles Aked
wrote: “This fact of Fatherhood is indestructible. On that we must insist. In the
nature of the case it is indestructible. A father cannot become an un-father. You cannot
travel back in time and prevent the birth of your children. Fatherhood is not a contract.
It is one of the inevitabilities of life. If I am already, here and now, your son, how can
you make it otherwise? I may be unworthy of you. You may desire to disown me. You may even
disinherit me, but the fact of your fatherhood is one of the facts of the universe. And to
many of us it is inconceivable that God should ever want to destroy such a fact, or
abdicate His Fatherhood. Suppose your son is so unworthy, and you so righteously grieved
and pained and angry with him. Suppose he came to himself, with tears and shame and
through a cleansing baptism of repentance sought his way back to your heart. Suppose you,
with divine insight, saw that his repentance was sincere and that he longed with a great
longing for your moral and spiritual help and uplift in his toilsome, agonizing struggle
backward to the forgotten good and forward to the light of day. It is only barely
conceivable that you would turn a deaf ear to his petitions and prayers. And when it is a
question of God’s love and of His eternal Fatherhood, it is forever and forever
impossible to conceive of a time or a circumstance, when, if the prodigal wishes to return
to his Father, the Father will refuse to receive him. We may trust death and if need be
hell itself to demonstrate the Father’s love.”
Now in a
very real sense — and I ask that you follow me closely — all mankind are the
sons of God. I must emphasize that. Scripture is very accurate and careful to make this
assertion. Paul, when speaking to the pagan Athenians on Mars hill said, “God that
made the world and all things therein...hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and
the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might seek
after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live,
and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, FOR WE ARE ALSO
HIS OFFSPRING” (Acts 17:24-28). And the word he used — offspring — is GENOS
in the Greek which carries the meaning of that which is generated or begotten. When Adam
sinned mankind fell from that intimate and sweet relationship with God, dying the
spiritual death, unresponsive to the reality of the spirit, and knows not of his sonship,
but walks estranged and without God and without hope in the world.
So, there
are two levels of sonship — those whose spirits have been quickened by HIS Spirit,
begotten again unto a living hope; and those who walk estranged from the Father’s
house, lost even from the knowledge or remembrance of their true identity, for they have
not yet “come to themselves.” They are the Father’s sons even while they
wallow with the pigs in the stench and filth of the pig pen of sin, eating the swill of
the flesh.
MAN — THE IMAGE OF GOD
You may remember
the story of Helen of troy. According to legend this beautiful queen was captured and
carried away and became a victim of amnesia. She became a prostitute in the streets. She
didn’t know her name or the fact that she came from royal blood. But back in her
homeland, friends didn’t give up. One Greek man believed she was alive and went to
look for her. He never lost faith. One day while wandering through the streets, he came to
a waterfront and saw a wretched woman in tattered clothes with deep lines across her face.
There was something about her that seemed familiar, so he walked up to her and said,
“What is your name?” She gave a name that was meaningless to him. “May I
see your hands?” he pursued. She held her hands out in front of her, and the young
man gasped, “You are Helen! You are Helen! Do you remember?” She looked up at
him in astonishment. “Helen!” he yelled out. Then the fog seemed to clear. There
was recognition in her face. The light came on! She discovered her lost self! She put her
arms around her old friend and wept. She discarded her tattered clothes and once more
became the queen she was meant to be. God searches for all men in the same way. He uses
every method possible to look for men and women to convince them of their worth to Him
— their true value.
The almost
universal urge to pray is due to the fact that originally man was created in the image of
God, begotten of the Father in heaven. It is true that as a result of man’s fall into
sin and death the divine image in his character has been much blurred, and in many
instances almost erased, yet remnants of it still remain, and one of its manifestations is
the urge to pray — to fellowship and commune with God in the realm of the spirit.
Even atheists pray, sometimes!
The story
is told of a painter who saw a child so perfect in his beauty that he painted him, and
said that if ever he found a face as vile as that face was angelic, he would paint that as
a contrast to it. Years passed, and he had not seen a face so absolute in its degradation
as that child’s in its loveliness. But one day he visited a prison, and there saw a
felon, still young, but with face almost devilish in its vicious demoralization. He
painted this wretched prisoner, and while painting him found, to his appalling
astonishment, that this man was that lovely child, as drink, and lust, and greed, and hate
had made him; and the two pictures, it is said, hang side by side in some Italian gallery.
But the awful tale they tell is a tale of every day, and in all these cases the holy image
of God is not seen, but is distorted by the fraud and malice of the devil and the carnal
mind.
What was fully
manifested and seen in Jesus is potential in every man. Something of that same divine
spirit that was expressed in Him in all fullness is also in us. Something of the same
divine likeness in which we were created is hidden in all men. Concealed and corroded by
sin the resemblance is not evident save to the penetrating search of love, but there is
something of God-life in every man. Our spirit must indeed be quickened by His Spirit
before it can be made evident and recognized. To be “dead” does not mean to be
non-existent, but to be unresponsive to the realm of spiritual life. The body in the
casket is not non-existent, but it is certainly unresponsive to this world. This is what
Paul meant when he wrote: “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and
sins. Wherein in time past ye walked (dead men walked!) according to the course of this
world...among whom we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of
wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He
loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus...for
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before
ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:1-6,10). This is the second birth BY
WHICH THE DIVINE PART OF MAN MAY COME TO LIFE.
It has been said
that in Jesus Christ the divine and the human meet, but this is also true of every one of
us. He is the true humanity who is the Son of God. It is not that He is super-human, but
that we are sub-human. But inasmuch as we are human at all we are akin to Him. The first
man and the second man are both men. The first Adam and the last Adam are both Adam. Those
in the first Adam are in part what the last Adam is in perfection. The whole purpose of
our lives is to become human in the sense in which He was human; to be changed into the
same likeness from one glorious conversion to another, even by the Lord who is the Spirit
— PERFECT MANHOOD. Christ is to grow up in us, and the whole process of life is one
in which “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Paul said so well: “It
pleased God to reveal HIS SON in me,” which precisely describes the life of sonship,
for the Son of God is the PERFECT MAN IN GOD’S IMAGE. It is as the Spirit of Christ
becomes manifest within us that we approach nearer and nearer to the true humanity as it
was seen in Jesus, “till we all come to a perfect manhood, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph.
As one brother
has so ably said: “God is equipping a people by revealing the power of words —
the Word. Thus saith the scriptures: ‘The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in
thy heart’ (
“There isn’t
anything that isn’t done by words. The method of educating all children is with
numbers and letters. With numbers and letters, configured in various forms, you raise the
educational and functional level of a human being from nothing at the time of birth, to
become a surgeon, a politician, an architect, a scientist, or accomplishment in a vast
number of fields. We have surgeons that perform brain surgery. They are people just like
you and me. The only difference is the words of letters and numbers that are ingrained
within their thinking. The combination of that learning, the disciplines of those sciences
of mathematics, medicine, politics, etc., have given to them a different personality and
capability. They have a personality and consciousness that enables them to open up your
head and operate on it. Let me ask you something — would you let me open up your head
and operate on it? Of course not — and I wouldn’t ask you to! And you know why
— you know that the knowledge contained in those words and letters is not in me! The
words and letters used in medical school have not trained me to be a doctor. But the
greatest doctor started out as a baby with no knowledge, no ability, no accomplishment, no
skill. He started out with nothing in his head — just like you and me. The only
difference is that someone took the time to instruct him and put the knowledge of medical
science into that person who by the assimilation of that knowledge and experience became
that reality. And it was all done by words. Jesus said that the
Someone has
pointed out that we are more attracted to a personality than to an idea. In very fact,
most people respond more heartily to a weak idea presented by a great personality, than to
a great idea presented by a weak personality. The Bible says that “In the beginning
was the Word” (Jn. 1:1). Every word originates in the realm of thought. All words are
merely ideas expressed verbally. You cannot divorce the spoken word from the idea it
articulates — they are the same. I may pray, for example, in audible words or I may
pray silently, sending only my unspoken request to the Lord by the spirit of my mind, as
did Hannah of old as she prayed for a son and was heard. “Now Hannah, she spake in
her heart: only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had
been drunken. Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee
thy petition that thou hast asked of Him” (I Sam.
Now, the best
way to promote an idea is to wrap it up in a personality. That is what God did in Jesus
Christ. He wrapped up all His nature, character, glory, grace, wisdom, knowledge, love and
power in a man and stood Him up in the earth. This man was God’s Idea — the
Word! And Jesus Christ is the ideal of all mankind, the second Man, the last Adam, the
example and pattern and proto-type of God’s will and purpose for all men. What Jesus
is, is what God meant when He said in that long ago beginning, “Let us make man in
our image, and after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). That is GOD’S IDEA! That is GOD’S
WORD! That is the glory and majesty of man AS HE WAS INTENDED TO BE!
George Hawtin
once wrote: “Did you ever stand in awe and marvel at the work of the great artists on
earth? Perhaps expressions failed and words became inadequate as you stood before
Michelangelo’s statue of David or gazed with wonder at the faces of the presidents
carved in the heights of
Christianity
today has no need greater than the need to know the power and glory of the CHRIST WITHIN.
CHRIST is the image of God, the scripture says. I know these words may seem to be
incredible, but they are truth — the very first mention of the “image of God”
is applied, not to Jesus Christ, but to our forefather ADAM. “And God said, Let us
make MAN IN OUR IMAGE, after our likeness: and let them have dominion...so God created MAN
IN HIS OWN IMAGE, in the IMAGE OF GOD created He him” (Gen. 1:26-27). As we consider
the wonderful advent of man created “in the image of God” we can only conclude
that this is a spiritual man brought forth out of the very spirit-substance of God
Almighty, and bearing His own divine nature, character, power and attributes. The image of
God is the nature of God reproduced in man. Thus, man is the true image of God. The divine
nature was best and fully expressed in the man Christ Jesus who shed upon mortals the
truest reflection of God and lifted man’s sights higher than their poor
thought-models would allow. Jesus revealed to men their true origin, heritage and destiny.
He came to show man what man really is, was intended to be, and through redemption shall
be — THE IMAGE OF GOD. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last. In Jesus Christ you see man as he was in the beginning and as he
ever shall be world without end — THE IMAGE OF GOD. Of Him it is written, “He is
the expression of the glory of God — the Light-being, the out-raying of the divine
— and He is the perfect imprint and very image of God’s nature...” (Heb.
1:3, Amplified). Christ, and humanity in Christ, is like a ray of light that comes from
the sun — man, the extension of God, emanates God.
Consider the
scene! After having created man a spiritual man, in the image and likeness of God, God
then formed a man of the dust of the ground. God then came to man in the earth realm. He
breathed into the man, so magnificently formed, the spiritual realm, the winds of heaven,
the breath of divinity. He released into Adam something of the heavenly, and out from His
breath came a brilliant, sparkling, effervescence like a living star that entered into the
clay. That wind, that spirit, that breath, that substance of God animated the clay model,
creating within a dimensionless quality, condition, and state of being. That “breath
of lives” as the Hebrew states it was the glory of the spiritual man breathed or
infused into the clay model. Only the Light that God Himself is more beautiful than this
creature. And the magnificent wonder is that this man can see right into the heavenly,
spiritual realm. The animals can’t see into that realm, the birds can’t see into
that realm, the fish can’t see into that realm — no creature on earth can see
beyond this gross material realm except the man in God’s image.
Please mark
this! Here is a physical, visible creature who can see the unseen. He is not frightened by
it. He is not intimidated by anything or any creature he beholds in that glorious realm.
In all the brilliance, purity, glory, and power of that high and holy realm that he
beholds, he is at home with who he is and who they are. He looks around and all things are
open to him. He sees all, perceives all, understands all. The face of God bent down and
looked into the face of man, and man looked up into the face of God and they looked like
each other. They looked like Father and son. They looked like twin brothers. They looked
like clones. They bore an incredible, remarkable resemblance. God stretched forth His
hand, Adam stretched forth His hand, and Adam stood up from the dust and faced his
Creator. He belonged to this planet, but the winds of heaven were within him. He belonged
to the heavens as well as the earth. Man is the only creature that ever has been, is now,
or ever shall be that belongs to both realms!
Contrary to
popular teaching man has never LOST the image of God, although the image has been
obscured, marred, and corrupted by the usurpation of the carnal mind, the outer man. A
lost image is NO image. The true likeness cannot be lost in divine Being. It would be like
fire without light. The out-raying image of God is the Word of God. To destroy the Word of
God you would need to destroy God Himself, for God and His Word are ONE. To destroy the
image of God would necessitate the destruction of God, for God and His image are ONE. The
apostle Paul confirms that man, even in his fallen and mortal state, is still the image of
God in his remarkably significant words to the saints in Corinth: “For a man indeed
ought not to cover his head, foreasmuch as he IS THE IMAGE AND GLORY OF GOD” (I Cor.
11:7).
What is man?
Brain, heart, blood, bones — the material structure? If the real man is in the
material body, you take away a portion of the man when you amputate a limb; the surgeon
destroys manhood, and worms annihilate it. But the loss of some physical member has
sometimes become the quickener of manhood as in the crucible of suffering there appear the
virtues of humility, thankfulness, patience, compassion, drawn from the rich resources of
INNER SPIRITUAL STRENGTH. The unfortunate cripple may present more nobility of true
manhood than the dashing athlete — teaching us that the man on the inside is of far
more enduring substance than the man on the outside! Take away the physical and take away
the outer worldly elements of wealth, possessions, fame, social recognition, which weigh
not one jot on the scales of God, and in what remains we get a clearer picture of man as
God made him. Let goodness, mercy, justice, purity, health, holiness and love — the
Adam’s sin
in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lay in his walking after the flesh
(sense realm) instead of the Spirit. It consisted in his making the outer, physical,
material, sensual man his center, identity and existence rather than the inner man of
spirit. The remarkable thing is that he perceived not that all that pertains to the
material world is illusionary, transitory, corruptible. Sensual treasures are laid up
“where moth and rust doth corrupt.” Mortality is their doom. Death breaks in
upon them, and carries off their fleeting joys. The sensualist’s affections are as
imaginary, whimsical, unreal and short-lived as his pleasures. Covetousness, fleshly
passions, gluttony, drunkenness, immorality, fame, fashion, vanity, worldly wisdom,
political power, military might, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, hate, and so forth, pass away
with the works thereof. Stripped of its coverings, what a mocking spectacle the flesh is!
When the almighty Creator counseled the first man and his wife, “But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die,” He gave precisely the same instruction in wisdom and
prudence that the apostle Paul offered long millenniums afterwards when by inspiration he
wrote, “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they
that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death;
but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die: but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (
George Hawtin
has eloquently expounded on this thought, and I share a few of his valuable insights.
“Well did the apostle Paul know that the vast majority of humanity was ‘at home’
only in the REALM OF THE BODY. They belonged entirely to an earthly realm where things are
visible, audible, and touchable. Their minds seldom mounted higher than things physical,
and when for a few moments they did rise to walk upon a spiritual plane, they were not
really ‘at home’ there, but waited for the moment when they could LAPSE BACK to
the NATURAL AND NORMAL, for that is where they were ‘at home.’ So, while men are
‘at home’ in the body, they are always ‘absent from the Lord’ (II Cor.
5:6-7), absent from the spiritual world of true reality. HEAVEN IS CLOSED TO THEM. Their
minds dwell in the realm where men buy and sell, plant and build, marry and are given in
marriage. They dwell in a realm of eating and drinking, of finding pleasure for the body,
amusing their minds with silly things of the world, absorbing, listening to, or looking at
some fictitious thing that serves only to amuse the natural man, keeping his heart away
from the realm of eternal reality.”
My heart burns
within me and my spirit is flooded with joy unspeakable and full of glory as these sacred
and wonderful truths find lodging and substance within my consciousness. With what clarity
I see that when Adam stood between the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, his future condition was to be shaped by the tree-identity (consciousness) he
pursued. “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they
that are after the spirit the things of the spirit” (
Again I would
share significant and enlightening words from the able pen of George Hawtin. In his
excellent paper, THE PASSING AND THE PERMANENT, he explains, “Now, since the flesh
lusts against the spirit and is at endless conflict with it, then anything that seeks to
make you earthly and fleshly-minded is a great evil. The things that belong to the realm
of the flesh are passing away. Even the flesh itself is passing away. Anything that is
passing away is not real. It is like a bubble that floats prettily in the air only to
burst never to exist again. It is like the darkness that disappears with the dawn and has
no certain dwelling place. It is like a flower in the field that blooms for a moment and
disappears, a vision of the night, a fleeting shadow, a moment of joy, a passing sorrow,
or a sudden pain. When such things have passed by, no one knows where they came from or
whither they have gone. Those, however, who indulge themselves in the things that belong
to the body grow to think that nothing is true or real but what is bodily and can be
touched or seen or eaten or drunk or enjoyed by the passions of men. Unwittingly they
change true riches for false; things that are unseen by mortal eyes for things that are
seen. They exchange things that are spirit for things that can be touched, tasted, and
felt by the body. The soul now begins to think that these things which belong to the body
are real and therefore becomes fleshly minded. The carnal or earthly mind is an enemy of
God and an enemy of all things spiritual. It is small wonder then that the natural man
cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God; for all things connected with the natural
belong to time and change, while all things belonging to the spiritual are eternal and
changeless. So then all who would know the WISDOM OF GOD and the REVELATION OF THE LORD,
must turn their spirits from the realm of the physical and changing, the corrupt and
mortal, and fly away into the realm of the pure, eternal, unchanging and immortal.”
When the Lord
lowered man into this gross material realm man possessed, by the spirit, the divine
potential to overcome the flesh, sanctify it, transform it, infusing it with the qualities
of life — holiness and incorruption. Jesus, the last Adam, the Ideal Man, came and
demonstrated for us this very principle. This potential in man to rule the natural by the
spirit is shed forth in Jesus’ mighty works — by His healing the sick, cleansing
the lepers, casting out devils, forgiving sins, doing miracles, and raising the dead
— He transcended by His life, words, and actions all the so-called laws of the
material, mortal realm. The great significance of Jesus’ mighty works will never ring
clear in our spirits until we understand that He did not perform as a unique, different
kind of man — all His wonderful works were the teaching of what is NORMAL FOR MAN IN
HIS TRUE
By His
resurrection Jesus proved the Spirit within to be OMNIPOTENT, all-conquering,
all-sufficient. He met and mastered death itself by the law of the Spirit of Life. He took
no drugs to fight infection or inflammation. He did not depend upon health food or pure
air or vitamins or herbs to renew depleted energies. He did not require the skill of a
surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and the nail pierced feet,
that He might use those hands to remove the napkin and the grave clothes, and that He
might walk as before. Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law of
matter, and stepped forth from His gloomy grave, crowned with the glory of a sublime
success, and everlasting victory — the second man, the last Adam — the
role-model for each and every man and woman of Adam’s race! Jesus’ victory over
sin, sickness, pain, limitation, death and the grave was for the enlightenment of all men
and the salvation of the whole world. Paul writes, “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
Before closing
this message I am moved to share some anointed, inspiring, and penetrating words from Bro.
Carl Schwing. “Many of you have wondered who and what I am. I am not a teacher or a
prophet. I do not bear a great title, nor do I seek the praise of men. I am, so to speak,
a sower...I have gone out to sow the seeds of the Kingdom. I seek no reward except His
good pleasure. I am one of you, I seek a better country whose Builder and Ruler is God. I
am like you...I yearn for the Spirit to rule over the outward man. I am part of you...for
I too bear the suffering of Jesus in my body. And with you I look up...for total
redemption draws near. I sat with you in another time and another place...and we all
shouted for joy! We share together our birthright in Christ Jesus and share the longing
for our manifestation: the hour of truth and freedom for the creation. Hallelujah! Truly
we are blood relations...born of His Spirit before there was time, place, or things. But
most important is what He is in us. He is more beautiful than beauty. He is richer and
fuller than life. He is the One who hath made us one in Him. We follow the Lamb...we hear
His voice...He is the fullness of the Word within our inner son. And we shall plunge
ourselves into His depths until He alone remains. Truly, we are of a higher order; all
that is inflicted upon us is a blessing and a cause to rejoice in His perfecting will.
“We are not
dreamers, we share a vision. We are seeing beyond the limitations of the past, beyond the
consummation of the age...perhaps beyond the Millennium. It is a vision we shared long ago
within our Father’s house. A vision of the finished plan: man in the image and
likeness of God. A vision of the place by Him where condemnation and punishment is met by
mercy...ah, His mercy endures forever. A place where His light overpowers all darkness. A
place where reconciliation replies to the cry of vengeance. And when ‘It is done’
is heard, a beginning rises like ten thousand suns...for all things, good and evil, light
and darkness, truth and error, life and death, hell and the grave, have all served in His
perfect plan to establish forever His glorious Kingdom upon the earth, within the hearts
of all mankind and upon all creation; unto the filling of the universe and all therein.
This vision leads to attainment...and attainment is the accomplishment of predestination.
Hallelujah! Do you realize, my faithful ones, just what it means to be one with the
Father? or to be filled with His fullness? or to sit with Him upon His throne? Do you
realize the depths of this truth?...we are to share all things in common with Him. Do you
recall when He said to us, ‘All that I have is thine?’ Awesome, is it not? Born
of the seed of God’s Christ...heirs with Christ of the Father’s glory. Is it any
wonder that we could not find life in the religions of men! Is it any wonder that He
called us unto Himself! We are receiving the inheritance we have in Christ Jesus and the
Father is receiving the inheritance He has in us. Oh! the wonder of it all...
“Have you
ever wondered why you could not find fulfillment in the form, or in the letter, or in the
ministries of men? I would imagine that we have all wondered that at one time or another.
It is simply because of this: it was never meant for us to find fulfillment in anything,
or anyone, except the Father. The six days of man’s feeble rule is coming to an end,
as the reign of God’s eternal Christ rises in transforming glory within our inner
son. The way of life is breaking forth in the wilderness of man’s dead ideologies,
theologies and philosophies. Time could only give us ‘present truth’...now
beyond time, ministries, and dispensations, comes the ageless truth of our union with God.
Though we have walked with the understanding of a child, we are now coming to the full
knowledge of the Son of God, which will enable us to walk as mature sons, entering our
appointed place in the fullness of Christ.
“Do you
think it awesome to call God Father? Are you beginning to see that as sons we have been
freed of all the gods and idols of the world and of religion? Who do we have in heaven
besides Him? Who is there on earth that we could desire more than Him? There is not one!
Whenever we cry Father, the Christ-son within us leaps for joy! As sons, we see the
creation as a visible expression of the Father. It is not true that the Father made all
things from nothing, rather, all things were made out-from-Himself...everything bearing a
likeness, to some degree, of His infinitely perfect nature. In this hour it has pleased
the Father to reveal a son in us. The full scope of this is beyond my finite
understanding. A Christ-son covered over with the skin of flesh...ah, such a treasure in
an earthen vessel. ‘Christ in you’ is no longer the hope, it is the
glory...Hallelujah!
“Many years
have passed since we were ‘called out’. Even then there were ‘leaders’...they
too drew followers unto themselves, and sadly there are still those today who play ‘follow
the leader’. How vain is man to think he has control; even more vain are their
followers. The truth which so many have missed is simply this: He called us out unto
Himself, to be His sons...and He, our Father. There were always the few who were strangely
different, eccentric little creatures who enjoyed the beauty of isolation, the joy of
solitude, and they heard only the voice of their Beloved. They were not ‘torch
bearers’...they were the light. Today, my brothers, we are the light that shines in a
world of darkness. We are the stars of the Kingdom Morning, our Beloved has come to set up
His Kingdom within our inner son. He shall rule, with a rod of iron, the earth that we
are...till He has conquered us, and our inner son stands in His perfect image; receiving
once again the glory we had with the Father in a beginning. If all voices were silenced,
all pens put aside, and all men laid to rest, the truth and light would only burn brighter
within the bosom of the sons. Nothing, and no one, can hinder the plans which the Father
made with His sons in eons past. All power, political or religious, falls backward in the
presence of God’s Christ. All preaching, teaching and prophesying are but shadows in
the light of God’s Christ; even the sacred page fades in the presence of the Living
Word.
“For you
that are called and chosen of the Lord, this is the hour of freedom and great holiness.
This is probably the most serious and sacred hour in the history of the world. That which
the Father is doing within His sons shall change the course of time and man. He has
quickened our spirits (the inner son), and our minds (the understanding); all that remains
to be conquered is the flesh. Now we wait in the silence of the morning for our Mighty
Christ who shall redeem and quicken our mortal bodies. The creation is on tiptoe, waiting
and longing, perhaps even sensing, that the time is at hand for the manifestation of the
sons of God. The world and its people are crying out for freedom; proclaiming the dawn of
a new age...yet, how little they know of what THE DAWN shall bring. Far greater is the
rising of the sons than the sunrise of the morning. They bring with them the fulfillment
of all that the creation has moaned for: Justice, Peace, Equality, and the
Some dear heart,
a new reader of these precious truths, may inquire — If all men are sons of God, and
ultimately to be brought back into oneness with the Father, what then is the hope of
MANIFESTED SONSHIP? Why is there a special calling of sons and a distinct dealing of the
Father with these sons? Manifested sonship is the
A man’s last words can be of supreme
importance and significance. This was no less true of Jesus. It is significant that in His
Upper Room Discourse with His disciples that somber night before the crucifixion, and in
His great prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel, He should
refer or make appeal at least sixty times to God as Father. His first words following His
resurrection were instructions to Mary Magdalene to go tell His “brothers” that
He was going to be returning to His Father and to their Father. He then exhorts them with
tender concern just prior to His ascension not to try to establish the Kingdom apart from
their sonship relationship to God. They were to wait in
Sons of God know
they are sons of God, not by the message of some preacher or writer, but by the revelation
of the Spirit of God. Jesus revealed God as Father. How do we respond to it? A child
responds to fatherhood when it reproduces the father’s likeness. The child inherits
the father’s nature — but he must then develop the father’s character.
Press on, saints of God — the hour of the great unveiling is at hand!
Part 8
OUR FATHER
(continued)
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...” (Mat. 6:9).
Jesus was a Son of God treading the dusty paths of earth. His
life and ministry had been spent revealing this sonship relationship to God. “I know
you hear me always,” He had said outside the tomb just before crying, “Lazarus,
come forth!” He knew who He was and was so certain of that position that every
petition He asked of the Father was granted. He, the Son, was on a mission for the Father.
He had come only to do His will, and then all that He needed to accomplish this, when He
needed it, was as certain as yesterday. His declarations of His position were stated many
times: “I and my Father are one...the Son does only what pleases the Father.”
The first thing in prayer is: I must meet my Father. The light that shines in my secret
place of prayer must be the light of the Father’s countenance. The fresh air from
heaven which permeates the atmosphere in which I breathe and commune must be the
overwhelming love of the Father, God’s infinite Fatherliness. In this knowledge and
experience of God’s Fatherliness all the mysteries of the
Man needs to
know God as Father. If we can visualize with our mind’s eye the finest Father in the
world, we think of a man with loving strength that provides for and protects his loved
ones. There is nothing in the world he would not do for his children, if he felt it was in
their best interests. He would do it regardless of the cost in money, life, health and
comfort. God is like that, only He is a more wonderful and gracious Father than any human
father that ever lived! His will for our lives is that we may receive out of His love and
wisdom all that we need to walk as His sons in this earth.
At the very
beginning of the Lord’s prayer the word of identification is “Father,” and
it reminds us that He once said, “Call no man your father on earth, for you have one
Father, who is in heaven” (Mat. 23:9). The patriarchal society of Jesus’ day
reveals why He chose this word. The entire life of the family revolved around the father.
As one has written of the culture of that time: “Genealogies were traced through the
father; the family was utterly dependent upon the father for everything: their protection
depended upon the father; inheritance came through the father; food and the meeting of all
physical needs was the job of the father. The father held a very special place, so much so
that it is difficult for us to imagine his importance in terms of today’s society. In
the West today, where women work and compete on equal terms with men in every area of
life, and where women can inherit and be financially and socially independent, it is
well-nigh impossible to appreciate the role of the father in distant times. In our
imagination we can sense, however, what the word must have meant to Jesus.”
It is a great
tragedy that in the flesh many people have known only harsh, hard, or irresponsible
fathers. Their father may have been a selfish, self-centered person who cared little for
their well-being. He may have been lazy, shiftless, a drunkard, a dope addict, a deserter,
or some other perverted person who wrought havoc with their personalities in early
childhood. He may have been a weak-willed person who could command no respect from his
children. Even at best he may have at times fluctuated in his moods and temper, one day
lenient in dealing with his children, the next tough and terrifying. So how could one so
inconsistent, so unpredictable, bring strength, understanding, counsel, stability or
wisdom to his offspring?
A brother once
wrote: “I recall one lady at a conference honestly confessing that she found it much
easier to go to Jesus for forgiveness than to think of approaching her holy, austere,
heavenly Father. In fact, she inwardly hoped the matter could be taken care of by Jesus,
and not even mentioned or brought to the attention of God the Father! In her mind, Jesus
was perceived as being far more understanding and forgiving than the Father. I have raised
this concern many times in audiences the world over and found the majority of people have
similar feelings. Most of them know better in their heads, but many can’t really
grasp the reality of the Father’s love in their hearts. Indeed, some have such a
distorted concept of His character, they subconsciously picture God the Father as a
divine, but distant, legislator, judge and executioner who seemingly finds a peculiar
pleasure in severely punishing violators of the law. Such legalistic mentality leads to a
life that is continually under a cloud of condemnation.”
Recently David
Wilkerson shared some significant and sobering observations. He said, “Not long ago,
Newsweek magazine featured a cover story entitled, ‘A World Without Fathers.’
The focus was primarily on African-American families and the alarming increase of children
being raised without fathers. Consider, for example: (1) A black child born today has only
a one-in-five chance of growing up with a father until he is sixteen. This statistic
reflects not just poor families, but also a staggering 22 percent increase among those
families making $75,000 or more. Right now some 62 percent of all black families are
without a father. (2) Divorce is taking its toll among Caucasian families, as fathers flee
their responsibilities in increasing numbers. There is no longer a stigma placed on
fathers who just ‘disappear.’ The government is having to track down a growing
army of runaway fathers who won’t support their children. (3) At Hannah House, New
Life for Girls and Teen Challenge Home for Women, one of the biggest struggles for women
in the program is to forgive their father or stepfather for having molested them while
they were young. Many of these young women have spent years battling memories of being
terrorized by a lust-driven father or stepfather. One girl at Hannah House had a most
difficult time forgiving her biological father for getting her pregnant. The Holy Spirit
helped this young woman to forgive him recently, just before he died. But her life has
been marked by his brutal sin. (4) A stepfather in upper
DISTORTED VIEWS OF THE FATHER
Plutarch, the
great Greek biographer, once wrote, “I had rather a great deal men should say there
was no such man at all as Plutarch than that they should say there was one Plutarch that
would eat his children as soon as they were born.” He preferred to have men deny his
existence rather than to have them hold an unworthy conception of his character. Carrying
this thought into the spiritual realm we may raise the question as to whether it would be
more pleasing to God to have His existence denied or to have men hold a distorted and
unworthy conception of His character. We may not be able to answer that proposition with
certainty, but the fact is that in this world far vaster multitudes of men hold distorted
concepts of God than deny His existence! There are fewer atheists in the world than
religious folk who continually malign and slander the character of the heavenly Father!
It is helpful to
understand how men in ancient times viewed their God; the way in which they conceived of
Him who created them. Would that we could go back to those ancient days in India or China
or Japan and see the hideous idols with their grimacing countenances, their devouring
teeth, their many arms and sharp claws, something of the devouring, hateful nature of
their deities — or go back to the cruel Assyrians or Babylonians or Egyptians and the
monstrosities, the tyrannies, which they worshipped as gods. The people of
Among the many
references to the Almighty crowding the various books of the Old Testament the name Father
is applied to God only seven times — five times as Father of the Hebrew people, and
twice as Father of individuals. One of these is a prediction that men will one day pray to
God, calling Him Father. That which was dim in the Old Testament becomes bright in the
New. Jesus called God His Father, and bids us, “When ye pray, say, Our Father.”
He takes us into the presence of the great Yahweh, and says to us, “He who is my
Father is your Father too.” Absolutely everything depends on this one fact, that it
is Jesus Christ who teaches us this prayer. He alone, in His life, in His death, and in
His resurrection, is the guarantor that there is a Father. This is the grandest,
tenderest, most glorious thought of God that has ever come to man — the Father
revealed in Christ.
Since it is an
everlasting truth that men become like the god they worship, so this revelation, the
unveiling of the face of the Father in heaven in the person of Jesus Christ, has done more
to soften and conquer the hearts of mankind than anything that man has ever discovered. It
has brought more love and more genuine progress to civilization than anything else.
Without it we might still be as the Assyrians who worshipped cruel and merciless gods and,
therefore, when they descended upon their foes they placed thousands of sharpened stakes
in the ground, picked up their adversaries and left them impaled to die an agonizing
death. Those they did not impale they flayed alive and covered the walls of their captured
towns with the skins of their victims because that was the kind of god they worshipped.
But have we
really made that much progress? The same beloved John who wrote so extensively of God’s
marvelous love left us this solemn warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from
IDOLS (that is, false gods, or false ideas and representations of the true God)” (I
Jn.
“Little
children, keep yourselves from false ideas of God!” False ideas about God. How the
world and the Church are filled with them! Many who read these lines have gone through
several rounds of smashing idols, false images of the Almighty, and will probably continue
to drop false ideas until Christ be formed in them. Many people view God as a schoolboy
did: “...the sort of person who is always snooping around to see if anyone is
enjoying himself and then trying to stop it.” Then others make God out to be a
tyrant, or a vengeful, wrath-filled FIEND. But the Bible knows of no such God. No more
terrible insult was given to the God of all grace who came in Jesus Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself. This story is told about a little girl. After she had heard her father
preach a sermon on the awful wrath of God, and that the unsaved would go to a red-hot,
sizzling, burning hell the moment they died, and that they would twist in agony and
torment forever, without mercy, this little girl said, “I wish Jesus were as good and
kind as my father.” God does bring judgment upon sinners — swift, strong,
effective, corrective judgment — but never meaningless, sadistic torture.
Do you know what
God wants more than anything else? And in the end, will it be God or the devil who gets
what he wants? “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who
WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim.
2:3-4). His mercy runs so deep that He sent Jesus as the redeemer of the race, and has
mapped out a beautiful and comprehensive “Plan of the Ages” in which to
reconcile all things unto Himself. He has revealed that His tender mercies are over all
His works; that He hates nothing that He has made; that it was all for His pleasure; that
He is kind unto the unthankful and the evil; and that He has provided a way that even the
banished may return to Him — self-banished though they may be by sin. The
unquenchable and eternal love of God our Father for all of His creation is the great
center of all Christ’s teaching. He said, “For GOD SO LOVED the world...”
He said, “I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father
Himself loveth you.” He is not pleading with the Father to love us or any man in the
world infinitely, for He came from that Father with the Gospel, with the glad tidings of
the Father’s love; that He so loved the world that He sent His Son into it, not to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. What compassion! What
wisdom! What love! What a God!
In coming to
know God we pass in through all His power, and all His majesty, and all His overwhelming
surroundings — and we are not content until we come to His heart, to God’s very,
very heart. What a thought! Oh, all ye thinking men! What a thought! What a heart must God’s
heart be! What knowledge it must have! What pity it must hold! What compassion! What love!
How deep it must be! How wide! How tender! What a mystery! What a universe we belong to!
What creatures we are! and what a Creator we have! and what a God! Above all, what a
Father! “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For of Him, and through
Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
And now our
relationship to God is one of a Father infinitely loving a son. One author tells of a boy
who again and again broke the laws of the land and would end up in jail. His father would
go down to pay his fine and get him free. Finally it cost the father about all that he had
and also his heart was almost broken. A friend said to the father, “If that were my
boy, I would let him go.” He replied, “If he were your boy, I would too, but he
is my boy and I can’t let him go.” Well, God is your Father and, no matter what
happens, He is ever seeking to bring you back to Himself.
When the apostle
Paul described his prayer life he said, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
(Eph.
Let us define
this name Yahweh. He is the one who is what He is. When He appeared to Moses He said,
“I AM WHAT I AM.” He is the eternal, unchanging One. That is clear, but it does
not describe what He is eternally and unchangeably. There is a deeper meaning in the
Hebrew name. Andrew Jukes has given the following definition of the Hebrew name Yahweh.
“Yahweh is the expression of God’s being as truth and righteousness. Therefore
He loves righteousness and hates iniquity and finds in all evil something that is
antagonistic to His nature, which because it is not true or just must be opposed and
judged.” That is the underlying principle behind God’s everlastingness and
unchangeableness. He never deviates from truth and righteousness, and will not ultimately
tolerate error or sin anywhere in His universe. Jesus Christ is the Son of this God,
Yahweh, whose being is truth and righteousness, who loves righteousness and hates
iniquity. For this very reason the scripture bears witness of Him, “For unto which of
the angels said He at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again,
I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son. Unto the Son He saith, Thy throne,
O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath
anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” (Heb. 1:5,8-9).
THE DISCIPLINE OF SONS
Some months ago
I was deeply moved by a message from our dear brother, Bennie Skinner, on YAHWEH AND THE
FATHERHOOD OF GOD. I am constrained to use most of the rest of this Study to share this
vital and significant word with my readers in the hope that it will speak as profoundly to
your heart as it has to mine in this significant hour. I quote...
“People
say, ‘How can a God of love do this, or do that; permit this, or permit that? How can
a God of love permit fires, wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues, and a world of other
catastrophes and sorrows that befall mankind. How can a God of love allow all these things
to take place?’ You see, if you knew all the sides of God’s nature, you would
understand how a God of love can allow all of this — and not only allow it, but bring
it to pass. You need to know God in all the sides of His nature and not think of Him as an
indulgent old granddaddy, a goody-goody, and everybody can do anything they want to, and
He still loves them anyhow — ‘it’s alright darling, everything is going to
be wonderful in the end.’ Ah, yes, it will be wonderful in the end — but let me
tell you something, beloved; before you get to that end you are going to discover another
side to God’s nature. You will know a number of sides to God’s nature.
“When I had
children born to me I loved those children unconditionally. There were no reservations to
my love, because I am a father. Regardless of what they did, how they acted, or what they
didn’t do I still loved them the same. But suppose I had said to them, ‘I love
you — I don’t care what you do,’ and just let it go at that. Do you know
what kind of un-holy terrorists I would have raised? Do you know what kind of juvenile
delinquents I would have reared if I would have said, “Anything goes, everything
goes, I love you darling, it’s alright, it’s O.K.,’ and never taught them a
thing about life or responsibility. Can you imagine how they would have lived? There are
multitudes of people today who think of God in this way and so they think of themselves
like that as parents. They don’t want to bear the responsibility of showing another
side to their nature. They equate love with permissiveness. They invest nothing into their
children to teach them and train them. Consequently the children grow up to be juvenile
delinquents. The real problem is parental delinquency. If you know and understand God and
the different sides of His nature it will put a balance in your life that will be
reflected in your home, in the way you treat your wife, in the way you treat your husband,
the way you treat your children, the way you treat your parents, the way you treat your
neighbor, the way you treat your employer, the way you treat your employees, the way you
treat humanity — in all these relationships the way you know God in the sides of His
nature will be reflected. That’s why it’s important for you to know the names of
God and the sides of His nature they stand for.
“YAHWEH is
the Father side of God. Yahweh is the stern One. Yahweh is the Law-giver. Yahweh is the
Head. ‘And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Yahweh: and I appeared unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but my name Yahweh was not
known to them’ (Ex. 6:2-3). El Shaddai means ‘the breasted One.’ What is it
that a baby learns first? Or, better yet, what is it that a baby doesn’t have to
learn? A baby doesn’t have to learn how to suck — it is born with that ability
— it learns that while still in the womb. The first thing a baby learns is what to
suck, and where to find it. A baby learns about mother’s breast. A baby learns where
dinner is. A baby learns who mother is before he or she learns who father is. Whenever we
come to God, the first thing we learn is to know that He is our sustenance, He is our
provider, He is the One we draw our life from, He is the One who blesses us, helps us,
keeps us, protects us, watches over us, looks out for us, and cares for us no matter what.
We know Him as El Shaddai — we know the motherhood of God. We learn to eat of Him and
drink of Him, we learn to eat His flesh and drink His blood, we learn to partake
continually of His life and draw all sustenance and strength from Him who is our Mother
— the breasted One.
“Elohim can
say, ‘I am Yahweh,’ just as I can say, ‘I am a father.’ We are not
talking about more than one God — it’s the one and same God who can be all these
things. Each of us, though we are one person, has various relationships and offices. I am
a father. I am also a son. I am a husband. Furthermore, I am a citizen of
“Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob knew God in only two sides of His nature — Elohim and El Shaddai.
They knew Elohim the Creator, and El Shaddai the breasted One, the nourisher and
sustainer. No wonder that Abraham could lean on Him and draw from Him and when he was a
hundred years old and Sarah was ninety they could have a baby. They drew from His life.
They partook of His life. But they did not know Yahweh.
“Let me ask
you something. Can children be raised without a father and there not be something lacking
in their character? Unwed mothers and single mothers are one of the plagues of our
society. They are trying to bring up their children without a daddy. But the children have
a flaw, a defect in their character because they haven’t had a father to train them.
I’m not speaking against these children or the mothers — I’m just telling
you that a woman by herself cannot raise her children as well as if she had a husband in
harmony with her, working together with her, bringing that balance into their children’s
lives. We must come to know Yahweh. We must know the Fatherhood of God. We must experience
Him as our Father. We have known Him as the One who loves us. ‘For God so loved the
world.’ We have known Him as El Shaddai, the provider, the breasted One, the One who
nourishes us, who blesses us and watches over us with that tender, loving care of a
mother. And now, we’re going to have to learn to know Him as a Father.
“‘Fill
their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O Yahweh. Let them be confounded and
troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish: that men may know that Thou,
whose name alone is YAHWEH, art the most high over all the earth’ (Ps. 83:16-18).
Have you ever prayed that kind of a prayer for anybody? ‘Lord, make their faces
ashamed, that they might seek Thy name, O Yahweh.’ No — we’ve wanted God to
reveal Himself to those we pray for as El Shaddai — ‘Lord, bless your children;
Lord, help them, have mercy upon them, reveal to them your love and goodness.’ We
want people to know God as El Shaddai or Elohim. But here the Psalmist has come to know
Him in a deeper way, so he says, ‘Fill their faces with shame, O Yahweh, that they
may seek Thy name.’ Do you dare to release your children, to release your loved ones,
to release your friends, to release your neighbors — do you dare to release them in
prayer to Yahweh? That’s the only way there will be any mighty changes take place in
them. They have to be released into the hands of Yahweh. They have to learn some things.
They’ve got to learn that they can’t do whatever they please and get by with it.
Not with Yahweh! Oft times a mother will let children get by with things and are less
stern than a good father. Father will tell you one time, and that is it; do it again, and
punishment will be sure and swift. Now I know this is not always the case. We have a lot
of fathers who won’t be fathers. They are not men, just males.
“There is
an awesome responsibility with being a father. It requires wisdom, knowledge and backbone.
You see — in many mothers there is a soft streak, a tenderness that overlooks. And
that is how it should be. God made mothers that way because it is the balance for the
sternness of the father. Both are aspects of God’s nature in mercy and in judgment.
So the ladies should not try to make the men like them, nor should the men try to make the
women think and act like them. God made us different — God took the woman out of the
man that she might be a different creature to think differently, act differently, and
react differently. Men are reasoners, they are logical, they face the issue squarely,
whereas a woman goes by intuition and feelings. Each needs the other. My wife has saved me
from many a hurt by that intuition she has. And I thank God for her, I need her, I’m
not complete without her, but she’s not complete without me, either. Whenever I
disciplined my children, and I was pretty stern with them sometimes, she went along with
me. And whenever I chastened them they didn’t run to mother to get help. Mother
wouldn’t give them any help. And when mother chastened them they didn’t run to
daddy, because daddy wouldn’t give them any help.
“So let me
assure you, beloved — we need to know the Fatherhood of God. We need to know Yahweh.
You don’t fool with Yahweh. He says what He means and He means what He says, and if
you don’t obey you will be punished for your disobedience. He loves you enough to
correct you. You say, ‘When a father takes off his belt and lays a whipping on his
children does he not love them? Why be so stern? Why be so hard? Why not make a
compromise?’ He loves them enough to do that. And the God we are serving — part
of His nature is Yahweh. He has given some commands and He wants those commands to be
obeyed. And He’s not fooling around with us. If we don’t do what He says, if we
refuse or neglect to do what He commands, He will lay the rod on us. If you don’t
believe the Lord chastises His children you just fool around with Him and you’ll find
out. He will lay the rod on you. And I’m glad! For ‘whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth’ (Heb. 12:6). We’re not
dealing with an old gray-headed, long-bearded granddaddy that you can twist his nose, pull
his hair, or pout, and get him to do anything you want him to do. You are dealing with
GOD. Elohim, yes. El Shaddai, yes. But YAHWEH who is going to be obeyed.
“Do you
know what’s lacking so much in the deeper truth message today? It’s balance.
There is no balance in so many areas. It’s out of balance. When things get out of
balance there is trouble. Remember Uzza — when the children of
“Do you
think it didn’t hurt me when I had to chasten my children when they were little ones,
and I was a big strong man, and I laid the belt on them and they cried — their tears
fell, and they were hurting because I put a hurting on them. Do you think I didn’t
feel that? Don’t you think there was a side of me that would rather just have
dismissed the whole thing, and forgotten about it? Yes, — I hurt when they hurt. I
felt it when I had to severely chasten them. It actually hurt me more than it did them.
They got over theirs in five minutes. But I would go in that night, and watch them lying
there in the bed asleep, and how my heart would go out to them! I would hurt in my heart.
But I knew I had to do it. It had to be done. The alternative was unacceptable. The
alternative would mean rebellion, trouble and heartache. And Yahweh loves us enough that
He will chasten us.
“‘And
in that day ye shall say, O Yahweh, I will praise Thee: though Thou wast angry with me,
thine anger is turned away, and Thou comforteth me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will
trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord YAHWEH is my strength and my song; He also is
become my salvation’ (Isa. 12:1-2). How many who read these lines know that there was
a time when the Lord was angry with you? When you disobeyed, when you did your own thing,
when you acted in the flesh and acted as if you didn’t even know Him, do you think
God winked at that? ‘Oh,’ someone says, ‘God never gets angry with His
children; He loves them.’ Yes He does get angry! Let me ask you as a parent —
have you ever been angry with your children? Do you think God can’t be angry with
His? If they disobey Him He is angry with them until that thing is straightened out, until
that sin is confessed and forsaken, until there is repentance — a change of mind
— and a turning back to Him with a whole heart. Then there is great mercy, there is
abundance of compassion, there is love, there is forgiveness, there is acceptance, and
there is blessing from that same One who a few moments before was angry with you. Now
there is balance!
“In this
Kingdom message there has not been a enough emphasis on this side — the Yahweh side
— of God’s nature. So we thought we could do just anything and get by with it
— the grace of God would cover it. ‘I’m O.K., you’re O.K.’ is the
mentality of a world without God. But a lot of us would have been saved from a number of
pitfalls if we had truly understood the anger and wrath of God as Yahweh. ‘Though
Thou wast angry with me...behold, God is become my salvation’ says the verse we
quoted above. The One who was angry with me has become my deliverance, to bring me out of
that condition, to change me, and make me like unto Himself.
“I know who
my Father is. I had an earthly father who was like Yahweh in this respect. He loved us
— he showed us in many hundreds of ways that he loved us — but whenever he said
for you to do something and you didn’t do it, he didn’t argue with you, he didn’t
use a little psychology on you, he didn’t take away privileges. He would grab that
razor strap that he had on the back porch and he ‘laid it on,’ he applied the
rod of correction to the seat of understanding, and you gained some understanding. Do you
think I hated my dad for it? No — I love him, I honor him, and I respect him to this
day. He didn’t go to school a day in his life, he couldn’t read or write, but he
knew how to raise children. He raised fourteen of us. One day one of my brothers-in-law
said to him, ‘Mr. Skinner, you successfully raised fourteen children — what’s
your secret?’ Dad looked away from him and didn’t speak for a long time. He didn’t
speak for so long you would think he had forgotten the question. But dad was thinking.
Finally he fastened his eyes on my brother-in-law and said, ‘When you speak to
children, say what you mean, and mean what you say.’ Let me tell you — that’s
a pearl of wisdom. That’s a proverb from a wise man. That is what it takes. And let
me assure you — when our heavenly Father speaks to us He says what He means, and He
means what He says. And you won’t have to wonder whether this is His nature or not,
whether this is His will or not, He will make it clear and plain to you.
“God is
very patient. He will let you try to do any way you want to — but when you know what
He has said, you had better obey Him. I tell you, my beloved, I fear the Lord. I’m
not afraid of Him, but I have a good healthy respect for Him. I don’t fool around
with the Lord, because He doesn’t fool around with me. And when I need the Lord I
call upon Him, and I don’t want any foolishness then, because I need Him now and I
need Him then — and He comes to my rescue. Before I ever call He hears, and while I
am yet speaking He answers. What a wonderful Lord! But you must walk with the Father, you
have got to know the Father like this. This is what the overcomer must do, he must know
the many sides of God’s nature. That’s why I am preaching this word of the God
of the Melchizedek Order — because if you come into the overcoming company, if you
become a part of this Melchizedek King-Priest Order, you are going to experience and know
the different sides of God’s nature. You have to respect that, and God will respect
that in you, too, because He knows that His nature is built into you” — end
quote.
TO BE A FATHER — TO BE A SON
Fathers and
mothers want their children to have “the best of everything.” But sometimes that
comes when certain things children want are withheld from them. Ann Landers, the newspaper
columnist, shared a letter sent in by someone who wrote about what her parents did not do
for her. They didn’t let her do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and they
didn’t shower her with things, things, and more things. They also did not pass up the
opportunity to teach her the value of money and the benefits of hard work; they never
failed to listen to her when she had a problem; they never refused to give her advice when
she asked; and they never left any doubt about their love for her. Whoever wrote that
letter understands that parents try to do for their children what will help them grow into
responsible adults. The Bible, too, teaches that the relationship between parents and
children is based on a natural love that God established when He made them. God even
requires this love in one of His commandments. Parents and children must love each other
in the Lord. The best expression of this is when loving parents ask for their children’s
obedience and children respond by obeying in love. As children honor their parents and
parents conduct themselves as worthy of their children’s honor, both parents and
children benefit immeasurably.
This principle
is just as true in the family of God as in earthly families. There is responsibility on
both sides — the parent and the child. God has a responsibility to each of His sons,
and every son has a responsibility to his Father. This responsibility is powerfully
expressed by the Holy Spirit in II Cor. 6:17-18. “Wherefore come out from among them,
and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive
you. And I will BE a Father unto you, and ye shall BE my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty.” God can never BE a Father to you until you receive and walk out the
revelation of your sonship. Millions of Christians today call God Father, and pray to the
Father. Yet their sonship to God is totally meaningless to them. They see themselves as
Christians, believers, forgiven, saved, justified, redeemed, sanctified, etc., but they
walk not in the consciousness or experience of SONSHIP to God. They live out their lives
as believers in Jesus, Christians, Church members, teachers, preachers, etc. But God is
not their Father! He is their Saviour, their Healer, their Deliverer, their Comforter,
their Blesser, their Baptiser and their “soon coming King” — but He is not
their Father. They have not been sons, and He has not been a Father to them.
Now, let me
explain what I mean by this. “I will BE a Father to you, and ye shall BE my sons and
my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” There are two levels of Fatherhood. The first
is biological, the second practical and experiential. On the first level one bears the
title of “father” merely because he has biologically generated an offspring. His
name will appear on the birth certificate as the father of the child, even if he has never
been seen again since the night of conception. On the second level, however, one is
respected and loved as a father because he fulfills all the responsibilities, privileges
and potentials of fatherhood. He is there when the child is born. He provides, cares for,
loves, nurtures, disciplines, guides, trains, and counsels that child through all the
years of his growth into adulthood. Thus, there are fathers who are not fathers —
they have merely contributed the sperm to generate an offspring, but have never had a
father’s heart nor fulfilled the responsibilities of fatherhood. They have not
actively, truly, caringly BEEN a father! With what wonder and understanding do we now
receive the promise of the Lord: “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord...and I will BE a Father unto you!”
In like manner
there are children who are not children, sons who are not sons. Oh yes, their name, too,
is on the birth certificate as the child of the one who gave them life. They are
biologically the offspring of their parents, but they do not relate to the parents in a
functional way. Rather than submitting to, obeying, respecting, honoring, and loving their
parents, they are rebellious, disrespectful, uncaring, and hateful. On the one hand they
are legally the children of their parents, but on the other hand they have not BEEN sons
and daughters. They have refused to fulfill the responsibilities of sonship. They have
failed to walk in the relationship of sonship. They have spurned the spirit of sonship.
Can we not see by this the deep cry of the Father’s heart when He says, “Wherefore,
come out from among them (the idols, false gods and false ideas of the true God —
We have seen
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only One who could have revealed the Fatherhood of God
to us. In fact, that is the very thing He came to do. Truly God is a Father, as far as He
is concerned. His whole attitude toward all men is that of a Father, but the trouble is
that our attitude often is not that of sons. Men see themselves as human beings, sinners
saved by grace, Christians, Methodists, Baptists, or Catholics. These are the most common
terms used both in the world and in the Church. It never dawns upon their understanding
that the terms “children,” “son,” “sons,” “daughters,”
and “Father,” appear multiplied hundreds of times in the scriptures, whereas
“Christian” appears only twice and Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, or Roman
Catholic not at all! Sonship is God’s revelation in Christ Jesus. Sonship is the
central issue of God’s great and eternal purpose. Sonship is the hope of creation.
Sonship is our calling and our destiny in God. When we are quickened through Jesus Christ
it is not God who becomes our Father, but we who become His children. It is not He who
changes His identity, attitude, and relationship toward us, but we who change ours toward
Him. We become in a conscious and practical way His sons and His daughters.
May the blessed
spirit of Truth within make this real and precious and powerful to all who read these
lines. With what confidence and unhindered joy can we then pray, “Our Father, which
art in heaven!”
Part 9
OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...” (Mat. 6:9).
Now, as we are
trying in these messages to realize the full significance of this model prayer, we must
give our attention specially to this expression, “which art in heaven.” There is
perhaps no subject in the Bible about which there is such shallow thinking, such dullness
of understanding, and so many distorted notions, as the subject of heaven. Where is
heaven? What is heaven? Is it a place? Is it in another galaxy? Is it beyond the stars? Is
it a condition of life? Is it a different dimension of living? If our very Father is in
heaven, then we ought to know something about heaven, for it is the source of our life,
the realm of our origin. We know this because the Father who begat us dwells in heaven;
therefore we are out of heaven and from heaven. If He is our Father and heaven is His
natural environment, His habitat, we should understand what that realm is really like.
The English word
“heaven” is derived from the old Anglo-Saxon term “heave-on,” meaning
to be lifted up, up-lifted. It means to be “heaved-up” or “heav-en.”
As someone has written, “In the scriptures, heaven is used to describe three rather
distinct and different realms. First, we find it used over and over with reference to the
earth’s atmosphere. It is used to describe the envelope of air that surrounds the
planet, conditions our climate, and sustains life. ‘And God said, Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament...and God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day’ (Gen. 1:6-8). The formation of clouds, the precipitation
of rain or hail or snow, are regarded as coming from heaven. Also the birds fly in heaven.
In other words, all that we normally associate with the atmosphere about the planet is
said to be heaven. ‘For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it
may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater’ (Isa. 55:10).
“Second,
there is a very much broader sense in which the word heaven or heavens is used to describe
outer space. It specifically refers to the sun, moon, and stars, and the sky. It denotes
the unmeasured immensity of numberless galaxies flung across infinite expanses. It is used
for the unending realm of stellar constellations that circle through the night in majestic
movements. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His
handiwork’ (Ps. 19:1). Again and again the scriptures speak of the stars of heaven
and the heavenly constellations.”
But the heaven
where God dwells is beyond all this. Not only is God our Father, but He is our Father in
heaven. By saying God is in heaven, Jesus does not mean to localize or locate God. He is
not telling us of a place where God is and where God lives apart from any other place in
the universe. Those who think of heaven as a place, usually think of Him as being very
distant. Somehow we have gotten the idea that heaven is a long way off. This error has
crept into many songs sung by the church world. In the
Let us turn to
the Word of God for the understanding of heaven, and forget all the perversions we have
heard and all the nonsense of religion. We want no theories or guesses. We want truth and
reality. We want nothing but the highest authority. And what better authority can we find
than the One who made the heavens and who Himself dwells in the heavens. If anyone
understands the facts of heaven, it is He. Let us see what He said. He had left His
heavenly glory. He had humbled Himself, had taken upon Himself the form of sinful man; and
becoming a man, was despised and rejected. He was of no reputation. And yet, while in
humility and reproach, a man among men, He made this statement: “No man hath ascended
up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man WHICH IS IN HEAVEN.”
And still the unlearned and the ignorant and the unbelieving say that heaven is a place to
which the redeemed go after death. Any fool can understand foolishness. But those blessed
ones called to sonship to God have a higher heritage than these. We who are of the Day
have been given the unfailing Word and understanding of the deep things of God.
The eternal Word
of God left His glory, and descended to the depths of shame and reproach. He came and took
our place of disgrace. He became a man among men in order that we might be raised and
exalted and honored and, under Him, be given a name above every name. He, the Christ, who
was made in all things like unto His brethren (Heb.
Our Lord was in
heaven; He came down from heaven, and still was in heaven; and this heaven is, in the
Greek, OURANOS. It is something a person can be in, can descend from, and still possess.
And the meaning of the word is “elevation, height, exaltation.” Our Lord was the
King of the universe. But He descended from that state. He humbled Himself, and took upon
Himself the form of sinful flesh. He became despised and rejected. But nevertheless, in
His humiliation He was still the Lord of the universe. All things were subject to Him. He
still could command the winds and waves and they obeyed Him to the astonishment of those
men who saw it. He still could control the atoms, multiply the loaves and fishes, raise
the dead, and was Master of all laws of nature. He still saw into the unseen realm of
spirit, was consciously aware in both the earthly and spiritual dimensions, unlimited by
the physical world. He was still elevated, exalted; He was still in heaven!
God gives us
definitions in His Word. He tells us exactly what certain things are — if we have
ears to hear. And He tells us exactly what heaven is. “Heaven is my throne, and earth
is my footstool” (Acts
How many still
hope that God is in heaven? The first Sputnik the Russians put up scared a lot of people
— they were afraid it might knock God off His throne. Thank God, so far it’s
missed the throne! But let me ask — How far is heaven away from earth? We know how
far it is to the moon — 240,000 miles. We know how far it is to the sun —
93,000,000 miles. So how far is heaven from the earth? Let me assure you — it’s
not very far. Maybe twenty feet? Perhaps ten feet? Five feet? Do those figures seem a
little too close? We have all read the story of Jacob, when he was fleeing from his
brother, Esau, he laid his head upon a stone and saw a ladder from the earth, passing by
the moon, reaching past the sun, extending past Jupiter, right on through the Milky Way
until it finally reached heaven! He saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven and God was
standing at the top of the ladder and spoke to Jacob from the top of the ladder. Jacob
could both see and hear God from the top of the ladder and he could see the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the ladder. Jesus said HE was the ladder. “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (Jn. 1:51). The ladder is the Christ of
God — with its Head in the heavens and its body upon earth. The Christ body is the
connecting link between the earthlies and the heavenlies. In and upon this body heaven
comes down to earth, and earth is raised up into the heights of the Spirit realm of God.
Jesus Himself is the proto-type of this reality as He walked on earth in the conscious
awareness and active participation of both dimensions. He was both in heaven and earth at
the same time. At the very moment when Jesus spoke these words, heaven could have been no
more than six feet away, for Jesus was Himself the ladder that connected heaven with
earth! In Him men could see God at the top of the ladder, and by Him God spoke to men upon
earth. So heaven isn’t that far away! When Christ comes into your life — where
Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there.
The heaven of
God’s presence, wherever it is in the universe, is constantly available to all who
walk in the Spirit. And it doesn’t take a hundred years or even eight minutes for
your prayers to reach heaven. We know that light travels at the speed of 180,000 miles a
second, which is an incredible, almost incomprehensible, speed. At that rate it takes
light eight minutes to reach the earth from the sun. But if you can determine how long it
takes for your prayer to reach heaven, and the answer to return, you will know how far
away heaven is. Someone says, “Brother, heaven must be very far away, because it
takes a year for my prayer to get answered!” But have we not also discovered that the
moment we pray, God hears? “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will
answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isa. 65:24).
God says that
men enter His heavenly Kingdom by being born into it (Jn. 3:5). Men do not die to go to
heaven, they are born there, for our Father is in heaven. And then after they are born
into that state — after they become heavenly beings — they can lay up, by
obedience to the heavenly Father, heavenly riches which will not only be a place, but
royal pomp, splendor, majesty and dominion beyond compare. Sonship not only entitles one
to residence in God’s limitless and eternal domain, but to the ownership and rule of
that domain, in proportion to qualifying in spiritual growth and development. Oh, that it
were possible to lift men up above the shadows, and give them just a glimpse of something
higher! Mortal minds are so entirely inadequate; human eyes so dim; human ears so dull!
Heaven is not a
mansion over the hilltop, not the gratifying of the needs and desires of this vessel of
clay. It is not that which will bring creature comfort. It is not a state of eternal
creature enjoyment or rest. The celestial realm is something infinitely higher. It is
eminence, power, majesty, life, glory. It is becoming the same kind of a Being as the One
who made the worlds (Jn. 10:34-36; I Jn. 3:2), and will bring, not inactive rest with
fluttering wings and strumming harps, which in a few short hours even becomes exceedingly
tiresome, but activity and accomplishments far surpassing that of earth’s limitation.
And it includes kingship and priesthood over God’s eternal and infinite domain. It is
dominion and power and influence far above that which earth can contemplate or even
imagine. And it begins here and now as the power and glory of God begin to move and
manifest in and through our lives on this earth. Truly, “Heaven came down, and glory
filled my soul.”
The King James
version of the Bible gives us this prayer in these words, “Our Father which art in
heaven,” but in fact the verb “art” in not in the original Greek text. The
Greek expresses it more this way: “Father of ours, the One in the heavens.” Why
is there no verb in the Greek text? Because there has never been any particular time when
God was not “in the heavens.” One of the laws of Greek grammar is that whenever
a verb is missing, it indicates limitless time. If our common version were correct and
this verse said, “Our Father which art in heaven,” it would indicate that the
Father was in heaven at the particular time that the prayer was made. Our Lord, however,
is revealing the great truth that our heavenly Father has always dwelt in the heavens. He
was, is, and ever will be in heaven. It is the permanent dwelling of God.
WHERE IS HE
Jewish thought
was fond of dividing the heavens into seven different strata, the “seventh heaven”
being God’s dwelling place. But God does not dwell in one certain heaven — the
third, the seventh, or any other. He is in the heavens, and above and beyond all heavens.
A philosopher of yesteryear once referred to God as “God, whose center is everywhere,
whose circumference is nowhere.” Ah, that is it! If God’s center is everywhere,
then wherever I may be the center of that center would be in my deepest being. From where
I stand the center of God is right in the innermost part of my life, and His circumference
is infinite. The Greek word for heaven, in the New Testament, is most often in the plural.
When you read Jesus’ great parables of the
In other words,
that heaven that is so vast, so expansive, so extensive, so all-inclusive that it embodies
within itself all the other heavens — even that heaven cannot contain our God! And
yet I hear some say that God is not omnipresent! God is the God, not of heaven, but of THE
HEAVENS. And in our journey into God we pass through all these heavens. Jesus passed
through all the heavens on His way into the glory of the Father. “He that descended
is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things”
(Eph.
Let all who read
these lines clearly understand that God’s heaven is not the inexhaustible universe of
stars and suns and planets — swirling nebulae. Heaven has nothing whatever to do with
the time-space continuum or matter in any form. The true heaven is beyond it all, above it
all, before it all. Heaven is that high and holy and invisible realm of SPIRIT, the pure
and divine and eternal and incorruptible realm of GOD HIMSELF, which existed before ever a
star or a planet appeared. Heaven, therefore, can only be entered BY THAT WHICH IS SPIRIT.
Let every man know for a certainty that natural eyes cannot pierce the invisible realm of
spirit. The Russian astronauts returned from space and said, “We have been up there,
we looked around, and we didn’t find or see God.” Of course not! Natural minds
know nothing of that realm, for we perceive only those physical things recognizable by the
physical senses. Natural ears are unable to hear that which is spoken in the realm of the
spirit, for spirit vibrates on a frequency higher than and superior to the low vibrations
of matter. Heaven is all around us, in us, and through us, just as radio waves and various
other rays are all around us, within us, and through us without our knowledge. We must be
raised out of our natural consciousness in order to touch it. But the dimension of heaven
is ten thousand times MORE REAL than this gross material realm to which our mortal form
has been subjected.
The highest
realm revealed to man is called HEAVEN, and all who have been born again from above by the
Spirit of God have had opened to them a realm higher far than the heavens perceived by
astronomers and astrologers. These know nothing of heaven at all! Paul tells us that we
are to “seek those things which are ABOVE, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of
God. Set your affection on things ABOVE, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).
The man or woman who is born again from that bright glory world above becomes an entirely
new creation in Christ Jesus. And from that time forward he lives for God. His chief
delight is in spiritual things. His affections are set above and not on things below. His
citizenship is in heaven. Before his eyes there is opened up a kingdom which is beyond his
full articulation or expression. He has only glimpsed some of the ineffable glories that
God has revealed, is revealing, and will reveal to him. He is now part of a kingdom so
vast in scope and so enduring in quality that the things of this world seem crude, mean,
narrow, and insignificant by comparison.
Have you ever
thought of the meaning of the name ascribed to God, the MOST HIGH? Why the Most High? Does
this not indicate that there are other high authorities in existence, and that He is the
Most High: the highest of them all? We often talk about Jesus, His death on the cross, His
resurrection, and His ascension. We say that after He was raised from the dead He ascended
up to heaven. What do we think of when we make such a statement? Do we visualize Him going
somewhere away beyond the stars, millions of miles out into space, to a place called
Heaven? The scriptures say that when He ascended up on High, He led captivity captive, and
gave gifts unto men. He ascended up ON HIGH. What does this mean? High above what?
I want to draw
your attention to a few scriptures that will make the truth crystal clear. In Hebrews 7:26
we read these words concerning Jesus: “For such an High Priest became us, who is
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made HIGHER THAN THE HEAVENS.”
This doesn’t say that He merely ascended up to some far off heaven somewhere, but
that He was made
Paul tells us
something about this high and exalted realm. “I...cease not to give thanks for you,
making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His
calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is
the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of
His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set
Him at His own right hand in the HEAVENLY PLACES, FAR ABOVE ALL PRINCIPALITY, AND POWER,
AND MIGHT, AND DOMINION, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in
that which is to come” (Eph. 1:16-21). In verse twenty of this beautiful passage we
have the Greek phrase “en tois epouraniois,” translated into
English as “in heavenly places.” “...He raised Him from the dead, and set
Him at His own right hand IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES.” The word for heaven in the Greek
New Testament, as I have pointed out, is OURANOS, only in this passage we have something
added to it. And the compound word thus formed is of such great import to us that we must
consider it very, very carefully. We have the Greek word EPI which means SUPERIMPOSITION,
or in plain speech, ABOVE, HIGHER THAN, OVER. And when joined to OURANOS, it becomes
EPOURANIOIS. These two words joined together mean ABOVE HEAVEN or THE HIGHEST HEAVEN or
HIGHER THAN ALL HEAVENS — SUPERIMPOSITION! This word is found twenty times in the New
Testament.
Our Lord and
Saviour when on earth, even though He had humbled Himself and had descended to the depths
of the realm of death and had borne our sins, was still the exalted One. He was still in
heaven (Jn.
So the heavens
He has been raised up far above are the Principalities and Powers, the Might and Dominion,
that inhabit and dwell in all the heavens. God has given Jesus an exalted position, far
above all other Principality and Power, good and bad, and given Him a name (nature) that
is above every name that is named throughout the vastnesses of infinity. He has put all
other Power and Authority everywhere under His feet, and made them all His footstool, that
before His glorious name, that wonderful name of Jesus, every knee should bow, yes, every
knee, of the inhabitants of the heavens as well as those on the earth and things under the
earth; and every tongue shall confess, the tongues of those in the heavens, of those on
the earth, and those in the underworld, every one of them shall proclaim Him Lord, to the
glory of God the Father.
And let demons
rage. Let fools and unbelievers hang their heads in shame. We quote once more from the
incomparable Word of God. “But God...
And yet
Christians in ignorance sing, “In the sweet bye and bye, we shall meet on that
beautiful shore!” Heaven for those who have been born from above is not a future
hope. It is a present reality. It is the realm far above all other forms of natural and
spiritual life that inhabit God’s vast universe and far above all power and might and
dominion of any order; not above them geographically, but above them in RANK, in QUALITY
OF LIFE, in EMINENCE, in POWER and AUTHORITY and NATURE and GLORY! All the elect sons of
God must find their existence and experience enthroned with Christ in the higher than all
heavens. They must find all their source and reality of being IN
If my Father is
“in heaven,” then I can expect from Him only such things as come from heaven,
are heavenly in character, and such as will make me heavenly. All that comes to me from
heaven will make my life and my world more heavenly. In prayer I am making a link between
earth and heaven; I am opening up a channel for heaven’s bounty to come into this
world. We do not, then, pray to gain divine power for doing worldly tasks, or for
realizing worldly ends. We come in prayer to open up the way for heaven’s life,
heaven’s reality, heaven’s power, heaven’s glory, conditions, qualities and
purposes to flow down into the earth realm, thereby establishing the Kingdom of Heaven
— the Kingdom of God in earth. We come not to lay hold upon heaven’s power to
fulfill earthly plans, hopes, and dreams, but to open the door of heaven for godliness to
come down and transform all it touches. As a son of God I cannot ask for anything contrary
to the character or will of my heavenly Father, for anything out of keeping with the
heavenly order. To the Father in heaven I come seeking heaven’s glory. When we
understand this, and by conscious awareness live in the reality of “our Father,”
we live and move and have our being in God. It is a great mistake to think of heaven as
something that happens after we die. It separates us in the “here and now” from
the reality of our Father. It is said that the
In the Garden of
Eden the footsteps of Yahweh were heard. He walked in the Garden and talked with man face
to face. As far as Adam saw, the wonderful Creator was ever present. The thought that God
was far away, removed from the habitation of man, never entered the pure minds of our
first parents. It was later that worldly philosophy placed God at a terrible distance,
while idolatry lowered Him to the earthly and sensual.
HEAVEN WITHIN
Heaven is our
Father’s native realm. It is His natural environment. It is His home and habitat.
Heaven is heaven by virtue of the fact that His presence, nature, power, wisdom and glory
make it such. If God dwells in me, then heaven is within me, for He is my Father “in
heaven.” When teaching His disciples this magnificent prayer, Jesus was not thinking
of a distant Being in some remote area of the universe. He was referring to One whose
existence was the very essence of His life. What was true of Jesus Christ as He lived in
Every child when
thinking of his father associates with that personality an abode or dwelling place of some
kind. It may be a tumble-down shack on the other side of the tracks or the king’s
palace, yet it is home, sweet home. Home is where father is. Home is the storehouse where
father keeps his resources to meet the need of his son. Home is the place from whence
emanates peace, love, wisdom, joy, harmony, security and provision. It is the place where
the child goes to find comfort, understanding, counsel and strength. It is the one place
to which the child can go to express his joys and share his happiness. That is the picture
of the abode of our heavenly Father which we call heaven. Heaven is our home — not in
the sweet bye and bye, but in the here and now! Heaven is where the Father is, the realm
from which He radiates and sends all His love, wisdom, power and purpose. Jesus went to
prepare a place for us in the Father’s house, and He has come again in mighty Spirit
power to receive us unto Himself, to bring us to the Father, seated together with Him in
the heavenly places. In the true and inspired words of the old hymn:
Once heaven seemed a far off place,
Till Jesus showed His smiling face;
Now it is here within my soul,
‘Twill be while endless ages roll.
O Hallelujah! yes ‘tis heaven,
‘Tis heaven to know the Son that’s given;
O’re land or sea, what matter where,
Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there!
We must realize
Him as our living, ever-present God within. He is closer to us than the air that we
breathe. Yea, closer is He to us than the blood that courses through our veins. He is in
our spirit, and He is our very life. He is in heaven and we are in Him and He is in us.
There is such a commingling that we cannot tell where heaven ends and earth begins, where
God begins and we end, or where we begin and God ends. He that is joined to the Lord is
one spirit.
Some time ago a
brother shared a word and I now communicate it to you as faithfully as I can. He pointed
out that heaven does not have a present significance in the mind and spirit and
understanding of vast numbers of God’s people. Somehow the churches relegate heaven
as an aftermath, something beyond this life, the category that awaits us after death. And
that is to the great detriment of the Church. The Church is, by definition, a heavenly
institution on earth and in time —
Everything in
this world works against this kind of consciousness. Everything in modern civilization,
everything in the scientific, educational, medical, industrial and social institutions of
the world is calculated against heaven, against eternity, against SPIRIT. They want to
delude the masses of mankind to believe that this is it — this temporal, spatial,
physical and visible world is the sum and substance of REALITY. That is the wisdom of the
world, the wisdom of this age that undergirds and permeates the entire kingdom of
corruption and death. The world operates on the supposition and premise that everything of
value is now, in time, material, the things that are seen, tangible, felt and held, and
that when this life passes it is over. Therefore, eat, drink and be merry; therefore
fornicate; therefore overindulge; therefore grasp; therefore get all you can get and enjoy
all you can enjoy, for this is all there is. And that is a LIE! The world is living in a
lie. And the church world is living in another (and just as serious) LIE. The churches
tell us that heaven is a future hope — beyond the grave. They understand not that
heaven and spirit are synonymous — you cannot have SPIRIT without having HEAVEN. And
the
What is wanting
is a people that are in consciousness so in the heavenly dimension now; are so alive to
the things that are eternal, the things that are spirit, that even without them speaking
this explicitly, their very presence exudes the atmosphere of life and the fragrance of
eternity. God is after a people, a heavenly and celestial race, set in time. “...and
hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His
grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
(Eph. 2:6-7). This is meaningless prattle unless the Spirit opens our understanding. We
have been warned by the carnal minded of this age about the danger of being so “heavenly
minded” until we are “no earthly good.” That is what the world says, and
what should you expect from the world but to controvert and take the wisdom of God and so
distort and pervert it until it appears ridiculous and absurd to have mankind believe
exactly the reverse! But these words are being written to show that we have no choice, no
option as to whether we will be heavenly minded or not; for the truth is, IF WE ARE NOT
HEAVENLY MINDED IT IS IMPOS
It is when we
are quickened to the realm of SPIRIT, to the heavenly and celestial, to that bright glory
world where alone can be perceived eternal truth and reality, that we hear our heavenly
Father speaking from the throne of eternity, long before the ages were framed and before
the cosmos appeared out of the wastes of chaos, there in the glory and wonder of His
presence, from out of the depths of His omniscient mind, His purpose for the ages, the
dispensations, the worlds, was laid down upon the infinite blue-print, plan by plan,
purpose by purpose, age by age, so that each eonian purpose and every divine decree shall
be guided and controlled by His omnipotent hand to grow and mature from glory to glory
until His vast family of beloved sons shall deliver up to Him all things in perfection
that God Himself might be All-in-all. The very idea that one could in some way become so
“heavenly minded” that he would be “no earthly good” reveals the
incredible darkness and deluded stupidity of the carnal mind and its pitiful inability to
comprehend things that belong to heavenly realms. Oh, that the wisdom of man which is
foolishness with God might be torn from our hearts that we might see beyond the mists and
theories of time and tradition right into the very heart of the eternal where is found the
infinite wisdom that teaches us how it is that until one becomes truly HEAVENLY MINDED, he
CANNOT be of any EARTHLY GOOD! The fact is, the only reality in the universe is SPIRIT.
The things which are seen are TEMPORAL, says the Lord, and the things which are not seen,
are ETERNAL. This is the wisdom of God in a mystery. Until one learns how to live and have
his being OUT OF SPIRIT, out of the invisible realm, out of his very innermost being, he
will continue to be held captive by the corruption of the flesh and dwell in the shadow of
death.
“Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all SPIRITUAL
BLESSINGS IN HEAVE
He who writes
these lines testifies to those who read them that all who live after the flesh, out of the
flesh, and for the flesh are earth dwellers, and woe! unto them that dwell upon the earth,
for the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever. All who by faith live after the spirit, out of the spirit, and for the
spirit have now become PART OF THE ETERNAL. Neither can they die anymore. Death’s
cruel sting, filled with its venom of sin, has passed away, and victory has been snatched
from the yawning jaws of the tomb. We have passed from the realm where all is death to the
realm where all is life. Our citizenship in this present age has been revoked and we have
a new citizenship conferred upon us from the eternal and undying realm. And just as the
stars in some mystical way influence and control the destinies of earth, so does the power
of the SPIRIT quicken and metamorphose all natural things and even our mortal bodies as we
live out of the high and eternal realm of the Spirit.
We are not
citizens of earth, we are the true SPACE PEOPLE. Neither are we to be governed by the laws
of earth. We are to be governed by the laws of heaven, the principles of the
When the day of
Pentecost was fully come, and the Spirit was shed forth, Peter stood up with the eleven.
Consider the scene that day! There was Peter, a fisherman, a little man, an uncouth and
apparently inconsequential man. But on that day of the outpouring of the Spirit, when he
rose to testify and proclaim that Jesus was resurrected and ascended to the heavens, this
little man was in a position higher far than the most exalted rank of earth. The greatest
and highest on this earth could not compare with Peter and those standing there with him.
Why were they so high? How could such as they be so exalted? It was because at the very
moment their spirits were quickened by HIS
Living,
experiencing and expressing out of the heavenlies is not a matter of geographics, not a
question of physical location at all. It is a matter of consciousness and experience. Our
citizenship IS in heaven. We do not move in and out of the heavenly realms at our whim.
But according to the positive declaration of the scripture, we exist constantly in the heavenlies. This is a state
of constant spiritual existence, but because our outer man is still in this flesh realm,
we are not always aware or conscious of the greater privileges of our heavenly existence.
We must continually heed the admonition of scripture: “Be not conformed to this
world: but be ye transformed by the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND” (Rom. 12:2). Transformed
by the renewing of the mind! Almighty Father! what words are these which instruct us to be
transformed by the way we THINK and PERCEIVE! I am sure that as the Holy Spirit illumines
these significant words to your understanding you will find them among the most revealing
and deeply meaningful and most powerful and life changing of all inspirations.
Various
ministers and writers through the centuries, with keen spiritual insight, have seen and
expressed these glorious realities. The Scottish preacher, Dr. Alexander Whyte, adds this
testimony from one of his sermons delivered back in the 1800’s. “The spiritual
world is essentially and fundamentally different from the material world. The geographical
and astronomical dimensions and distances of the material world bear no manner of relation
at all to the dimensions and distances — so to call them — of the spiritual
world. We speak of English miles, we speak of nautical miles, when we take our
measurements of the material world. But the distances and the directions of the spiritual
world cannot be laid down and limited in such miles as these. When Holy Scripture speaks
of the ‘highest heaven,’ it does not speak mathematically and astronomically,
but spiritually. The highest heaven is not so called because it is away up above and
beyond all the stars that we see. It is called the highest heaven, because it is
immeasurably and inconceivably above and beyond us in its blessedness and in its glory; in
its truth, in its love, in its peace, and in its joy in God.
“When it is
told us in the Word of God that the Son of God came down from heaven to earth in order to
redeem us to God with His own blood, we are not to think of Him as having left some
glorious place far ‘beyond the bright blue sky,’ as the children’s hymn has
it. Wherein then did His humiliation consist? His humiliation consisted in His being born,
and that in a low condition, born in a stable and laid in a manger, made under the law,
undergoing the miseries of this life, and the cursed death of the cross. That was His
descent from heaven to earth; and it was a descent of a kind, and of a degree, that no
measuring-line of man can tell the depth of it, or the distress of it, or the dreadful
humiliation of it. ‘Our Father which art in heaven.’ Now heaven, here, is not
the sky. It is not the heaven of sun and moon and stars. Heaven here is the experience and
enjoyed reality of God — wherever that is. Heaven here is our Father’s house
— wherever that is. Heaven is high up above the earth — yes; but let it be
always remembered and realized that it is high up, as Almighty God is high up, in His
Divine Nature, above mortal man in his human nature. It is high up as goodness is high up
above evil and as perfect blessedness is high up above the uttermost misery.
“As often
as we kneel down again, and begin to pray, we are to think of ourselves as at a far
greater distance from God than we ought to be, and now desire to be. All true prayer is a
rising up and a drawing near to God: not in space indeed; not in measurable miles; but in
mind, and in heart, and in spirit. ‘Oh for a mountain to pray on!’ thou criest.
‘A mountain and a temple on the top of it; high and exalted, so that I might be
nearer God, and that God might hear me better; for He dwelleth on high!’ Yes, He
dwelleth on high; but all the time, He hath respect to the humble. ‘Wouldst thou pray
in His temple?’ says Augustine; ‘then pray within thyself; for thou thyself art
the true temple of the living God.’”
The English
preacher, G. A. Studdert Kennedy, back in the 1920’s wrote the following penetrating
words in his book THE WICKET GATE. “What is heaven, and where it? Is it a place, or a
state of mind? Is it here or hereafter? What is hell? Is it a place, or a state of mind?
Is it here or hereafter? Heaven is where God is. God is here, and now, and so is heaven.
God will be hereafter, and so will heaven. Hell is, where God is not, and that may be here
and now for us. Hell is where God is not — and that may be hereafter for us too. Ah,
God is even there, but to us it is as though He is not, for He is unperceived. Heaven is
the truth about earth. It is what earth really is. It is the true meaning of life, both
now and hereafter. Men have cried, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven!’ It may be
doubted whether the best of them ever bothered their heads about the distinction between a
place and a state of mind; and it is doubtful whether we need bother our heads either, for
a place is never very much but a state of mind. A place is always what a man sees in it,
and thinks of it. It is to him what it means to him. I remember standing with a friend of
mine, who was not born again — or, at any rate, if he was born again, his eyes were
still shut like a kitten’s. We were watching the sun go down behind the blue Welsh
hills, and turn the still wet sands of
“Heaven can
be, and often is, wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, and He stands
there in the midst of them. But, although that heaven is so near, closer than breathing,
nearer than hands or feet, yet it is a long way off; because the road that leads to it is
the way of the Cross, the way of sacrifice, which all men fear to tread; and because they
fear to tread it, they are always postponing it, or, having started, are always turning
back. That is the real danger of putting off heaven to the hereafter. It means that we do
not set out in earnest to find it here on earth; and if we do not begin to find it here,
we certainly shall not find it hereafter. I have no reason whatsoever for supposing that I
shall be any nearer heaven by the mere act of death than I am now; neither mere living nor
mere dying can in themselves bring me nearer heaven. Everything depends upon how I live
and how I die. Mere lapse of time cannot lead us to eternity. Heaven is not another world
from this, as a matter of time. It is another world from this as a matter of kind. It is
this world and the next seen in another light, the light that never was on land or sea,
which shines in the eyes of those who have been quickened by the Spirit of God. Postponing
heaven means doubting its truth — that is the only sense in which it can be
postponed. The distance from heaven to earth is measured not in moments, nor in miles, but
in terms of faith or of doubt. If we put it off to the hereafter, it tends to become an
ideal rather than a reality; and an ideal, which is not recognized as a truth, is
something which everyone is expected to honor, and no one is expected to attain.
”Our
fathers tried to drive men into heaven by threatening them with the horrors of hell. The
truth is, that a man cannot see the horrors of hell until he has caught a glimpse of the
joys of heaven. You cannot learn the Love of God through the fear of hell. You can only
learn the fear of hell through the Love of God. Less and less do men fear God, and less
and less can be accomplished by preaching the fear of Him. I do not fear God. I reverence
Him, but I am not afraid of Him. He could not, and would not, do me any harm, anywhere, or
at any time. If I have any fear of Him, it is a fear that is born of love, a fear of
grieving Him, which love begets. He is, and always has been, and always will be, pure,
infinite, unmitigated Love. His justice cannot be separated from His Love — justice
has no meaning apart from love. If He is the Judge of the world, He is not in the least
like a human judge, for a human judge does not administer justice in any true sense of
that word. Human justice is a caricature and a travesty of the Divine. The human judge
administers those pains and penalties, which a chaotic and sinful community believe to be
necessary in order that some measure of order and decency may be maintained; but, in the
nature of things, the man condemned must often be less of a sinner than the jury that
condemns him. What mainly governs the penalties imposed, is, not what is calculated to
redeem the criminal, nor what is the absolutely right retribution for his wrong — but
what is assumed to be necessary to deter others from committing like crimes.
”We
have really nothing to fear from God, and I am not afraid of Him; but I am terrified of
life without Him, for that is hell. Apart from God, when the sense of His presence grows
dim and disappears, when men lose their hold upon goodness and beauty and truth, there
appears to be no accursed cruelty, no damnable crime, no hideous villainy of which they
are not capable. Men without God are infinitely lower than the beasts. A man who does not
believe in hell, and who fought in Flanders and in
“Hell
is life without God; and that can be, and often is, the most terrible of all realities.
That is what I am afraid of — life without God, life outside of heaven. I am afraid
of it for myself, and I am afraid of it for my people. When I used to walk about the slums
in which I worked, passing from house to house among broken and despairing women, hundreds
of whom had taken to drink — and when I get near to the heart of the West End of
London with its drugs and its prostitution — I murmur to myself, ‘They lie in
hell like sheep, and death gnaweth upon them.’ And there seems to me to be for them
no morning, no fresh dews of early dawn, and no sweetness of the sunshine ever, unless the
Eternal Love can find a way to turn their darkness into light.
“A linnet that had lost its way
Sang on a blackened bough in hell,
Till all the ghosts remembered well
The wind, the trees, the golden day.
At last they knew that they had died,
When they heard music in that land,
And Someone there stretched forth a hand
And drew a brother to his side.
”Then
hell was hell no longer. For hell cannot be where love and beauty and God are. God grant
we may find it true, ‘Even if I go down into hell, Thou art there also’”
— end quote.
Part 10
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
What a depth of
thought, what a wealth of meaning, what a world of reality, the model prayer contains that
the firstborn Son of God has given for His many brethren with the opening words, “Our
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name!” This is the first petition of the
Lord’s prayer. But while it is the first upon our lips, I fear that it is often the
last in our minds and hearts. Even in the secret place of prayer, many of us think first
of ourselves and our own needs. “Oh God, bless me, help me, make a way for me, speak
to me, meet my needs, heal me, use me...” and on and on we go. But Jesus does not put
our needs first. “Hallowed be Thy name” comes first because it is the gateway in
the mind and heart of the Father. Before we pray for the coming of the Kingdom, before we
pray for God’s will, before we pray for daily bread, before we pray for the
forgiveness of sins, we are to pray that the name of God — God Himself — be
hallowed.
What does it
mean to hallow? To many it suggests cloistered halls, ivy-covered walls, long robes,
dismal chants, halos, musty dim cathedrals, solemn music, and other tired, religious
traditions. Because the old Anglo-Saxon word “hallowed” is not used so much in
our modern world, we shall do well to remind ourselves that it means “sanctified,”
“separated,” “held sacred,” “reverenced.” It means to be set
aside for a specific purpose. For example, if I said to you, “Please set that bowl
aside for the dinner with our friends tonight,” then the bowl would become “hallowed,”
that is, set aside for a specific function. It would not be used for any other purpose
until the special dinner.
The words “saint,”
“holy,” and “hallowed,” are synonymous. In the King James version of
the Bible the first two translate two Hebrew words, GADOSH and HASIDH. The root idea of
the first is separation, and in a spiritual sense it means that which is separated or
dedicated unto God, and therefore removed from secular use. The word is applied to people,
places and things, as: the temple, vessels, garments, the city of
If a person,
activity or thing is separated unto God and for God, the Bible calls it “holy,”
being separated unto holiness. For example, the Lord Jesus in Matthew 23:17-19 shows us
that gold, if used for the temple, and a gift, when placed upon the altar, becomes “sanctified”
or “holy”. All the gold in this world is for human use and is therefore common;
however, if a portion is separated and placed in the temple for God’s use, it becomes
sanctified or hallowed. Again, if an ox or a sheep are among the herd, they are for human
use and are common. When chosen and placed upon the altar, however, they become an
offering unto God, being separated unto holiness. It is altogether a matter of whether
they are for human use or whether they are separated and belong to God. Before they are
separated, they are common; after they are separated, they become holy. Simply speaking,
holiness means all that pertains to God, and all that is of God, unto God, and for God!
Holiness or
hallowed means to be separated and different from all else. In the whole universe only God
is inherently separate and different from all else; thus the scriptures affirm that ONLY
HE IS HOLY. However, if a person, place, thing, or activity is separated unto God and for
God, it is also called holy, being separated unto holiness. Objectively, the saints are
God’s chosen and peculiar people, belonging exclusively to Him by virtue of His own
choosing and grace. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy
nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called
you out of darkness into His marvelous light: which in time past were not a people, but
are
The saints are
God’s chosen and peculiar people, belonging exclusively to Him, made one with Him, to
bear His nature and glory, that HE might be glorified in the earth. One more and more
comes to know what it means to be a saint as he follows on into deeper and deeper measures
of His dealings and further separations unto His purposes. As we become ONE WITH GOD the
world does not understand what has happened; but they know that a separation has taken
place between us and them which is more than bodily separation. Although we are living and
moving among them, and they see us at our earthly tasks and daily living, they realize
that we have mounted up beyond them and their understanding.
Many times it is
most grievous and perplexing to those who know not the Lord, as well as to those
Christians bound in the religious systems, who cannot understand the workings and
separating processes of the Spirit of God, to have one who is near and dear to them in the
flesh, separated from them in the spirit. Though the body with its personality, is still
in the home, office, or business, it is as though the loved one were not there. In such
cases, how often do they who are watching the lives of those who are following hard after
the Lord, entreat them that they will return; that they will again be unto them as they
once were. When an apprehended one has entered into this experience, he has counted all
things but loss, and suffered the loss of all things that he might win Christ. Truly HIS
DRAWING leaves us no choice but to FOLLOW ON that we might know HIM in all His glorious
and eternal reality! As we follow on to know the Lord, earth and friends fade away in the
exceeding brightness of our vision of Christ. Our eyes are fixed with a steadfast gaze
upon Him who has gone before us, opening up the way into that fuller glory which lies
BEYOND THE VEIL.
As someone has
written, “Those apprehended to be conformed to the image of the Son of God have been
caught away in the Spirit and set in the ranks of the chariots of the Lord, even among the
company of the overcomers who shall come forth in the name of the Lord to rule and reign
and conquer and bless until all things have been subjected unto God. Those called to this
high calling are being separated from all that binds them to a lower order, that they may
enter into His fullness. Many people find it a lot easier to be “one” with the
Babylonian religious systems, where the crowds are, and the excitement, than to become
separated and go out beyond, leading the way for others to follow. How I rejoice that God
is now calling a people — saints — separated ones — to a realm beyond the
norm of religious activity, beyond the programs and promotions, beyond the sensationalism
and hand-clapping, beyond the revivals and crowd assemblings, into the new and seemingly
strange paths of HIS LEADING. The separations are not easy, friends and loved ones and
brethren do not readily understand, especially the preachers and organizations who try to
hold you to their own programs — which programs are often BEING USED OF THE LORD to
enrich many lives with salvation, infilling of the Spirit, healings, etc., with their
methods and techniques for an outreach to bless the world. We praise God for His blessing
on every level where He chooses to work, but when the call comes, FOLLOW ME, wait upon ME
in deep separation and holy brokenness for the greater glory soon to be revealed, those
“called to be saints” come aside to make ready for the next great move of the
Spirit!”
“Hallowed
be Thy name!” That is what I desire above all things. I desire in my own life that
sense of the majesty of my Father that will sanctify and make sacred all that I think, say
and do. Thy name be hallowed in me! That is first and foremost. And I long for this
knowledge of the presence and love and power of the Father to be in all men in my world.
So my first and unending petition is for the name — the character — of my God to
be recognized and responded to and participated in among men.
TAKING GOD’S NAME IN VAIN
The third
commandment is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain; for the
Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain” (Ex. 20:7). We live in
an age where profanity is commonplace and blasphemy is equally commonplace, where cursing
and swearing are habitual and looked upon not as heinous sins, but actually as virtues.
Many
Woodrow Wilson’s
father, a minister of the Gospel, was at one time in the company of a group of men when
one of the men used God’s name profanely, and then looked over and saw Dr. Wilson.
The man apologized. “Oh, excuse me, Dr. Wilson. I didn’t realize that you were
present.” Dr. Wilson answered, “It is not to me, sir, that you owe your apology.”
It is amazing how many times people have apologized to me for their blasphemy and
profanity, when it is not my name that they profaned. How absolutely incredible it is that
people are more concerned about offending a mere man that they are about offending the
holy God of the universe!
But — men
often put far too narrow an interpretation on the words, “Hallowed be Thy name.”
We limit their application literally to a name or title such as “God,” “Jehovah,”
“Yahweh,” “Lord,” or “Jesus Christ.” As though it meant we
are not to misuse the name, but always treat it reverently and discreetly, and to speak it
with bated breath. When someone vulgarly uses the expression, “God d---,” we say
they are “taking God’s name in vain.” Or when in exasperation or anger they
cry out, “Jesus Christ!” we accuse them of “taking God’s name in vain.”
But when we come to look at the real meaning of the name of God, we find that it has much
wider bearings and much deeper significance.
The real
profanity of man is not some swear words we use. Those words are more stupid than sinful.
The true profanity is our thoughts, desires, attitudes and actions that fall short of the
character of God, that reveal and express a nature baser than His in a life that is
professedly His son or daughter! The way we hallow that wonderful Name of names is by
living what we preach, by revealing in our lives the nature and character of God. If
through our spirit we at all times express the heart of our Father, then we do indeed
hallow His name. To walk as a worthy son is to sanctify the Father’s name in the
earth. It is the sweetest incense in the temple of worship.
The Jews held
the sacred name of Yahweh in such reverence that they would not even pronounce it lest it
be profaned upon their lips. Yet these Jews, with all their seeming reverence, were
continually taking God’s name in vain! Oh, they were not cursing or using profanity
— but the name of God was called over them in vain. As a people they had become the
vehicle of God’s revelation in history, but again and again they had proved false to
the trust. Many of them, while scrupulously hallowing God’s name with their lips,
were defiling it in their hearts, attitudes and actions. They read into God’s nature
their own ignorance and prejudices, and made Him altogether one like unto themselves. They
did exactly as the idolaters whom they despised; they built up a God for themselves, not
out of wood and clay in the image of a beast or a man, but out of the materials their own
hearts supplied; and He was harsh, narrow, vindictive, bigoted, and cruel as they were.
And the secret of the bitter hostility of these men toward our Lord Jesus Christ was, that
He came to teach them a new God. His work was to depose this glorified Tyrant whom they
worshipped, and set in his place a loving and tender Father, infinitely just in His
dealing with sin, but infinitely merciful in His dealing with sinners. In the eyes of
Jesus Christ, the theology of the scribes and Pharisees did real dishonor to God. It
libeled His character, besmirched His reputation, and took His name in vain.
When we hear
people cursing, using the title of Christ, God, or Jesus, we regard them as taking God’s
name in vain. The reality is, such profanity has nothing whatever to do with “taking
God’s name in vain.” In order to take God’s name in vain one must first
“take” God’s name upon him. It is not by words spoken — it is in a
standing, position and relationship. To take the Lord’s name is to take His nature
and authority, for the name expresses the nature and character of God. Most folk who curse
and swear with the Lord’s name have never taken the name, or yet taken God as their
Lord and Master. They have made no effort to take the Lord’s name upon them, or to
live and function in His name. At every wedding the minister or officer says to the bride,
“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” She responds, “I
do.” She “takes” the man for her husband and she also “takes” his
name. She is no longer Sally Smith — now she is Sally Jones. She has taken a husband
and she has taken a name. Now, if after taking this man and his name she does not love
him, refuses to live with him, spurns his support and fails to fulfill her
responsibilities or receive her privileges as Mrs. Jones — she has “taken his
name in vain.” It is all to no avail, for naught, in vain. She is called “Mrs.
Jones” — but it is in vain.
Today an
alarming number of men and women have taken the name of the Lord in vain. They call
themselves Christians (Christed ones) or children of God. Yet they deny the nature and the
character of the One whose name they have taken. They do not live up to their
responsibilities as the people of God, nor do they walk in the privileges of their
relationship to God. When a woman loves her husband, shares all with him, makes a happy
home and compliments him in every way — his name is hallowed, honored, enhanced,
enlarged, exalted and magnified. This is what the Lord has in mind with His people. “I
will mention the loving-kindness of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to
all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of
Israel...so didst Thou lead Thy people, to MAKE THYSELF A GLORIOUS NAME” (Isa.
63:7,14). “God at the first did visit the nations, to take out of them A PEOPLE FOR
HIS NAME” (Acts
Ray Prinzing has
commented upon this: “The loving-kindness of the Lord, His great mercy to us-ward
stagger the mind, and stir deep into our spirits, when He illumines the fact that HE IS
APPREHENDING A PEOPLE TO BECOME HIS NAME, to be a living expression of His nature and
character in the earth. Under the blessings of obedience promised to
“How could
they pollute His name? It was HIS NAME, it stood as a revelation of His nature and
character, and His nature and character remained pure. It was because He placed His name
upon them, so they polluted His name when they polluted themselves. In the measure that
they bore His name and then went and corrupted their own lives, they were also polluting
the name of the Lord. Thus it is written, ‘Let every one that nameth the name of
Christ depart from iniquity’ (II Tim.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
In order to
learn the meaning of this prayer, let us go back to the beginning, to God’s original
intent for man. CHRIST is the image of God, the scripture says. I know these words may
seem to be incredible, but they are truth — the very first mention of the “image
of God” is applied, not to Jesus Christ, but to our forefather
Some years ago a
brother shared a word of revelation with which I heartily concur. In the following
paragraphs I will share as faithfully as I can the concepts he set forth. In that
wonderful day when the Lord God planted a Garden in
Man, formed of
the dust of the ground, lay just outside this realm of the interface. God came to man
there — just beyond the shining
Man in Christ,
man in God’s image, is God’s government in the
By such
rulership committed to Adam we get some idea of what kind of beings we are. One might be
so impressed with the majesty of the silent, speechless mountain that lifts its white peak
high above the clouds as to worship in silence at its altar; so suggestive is it of the
infinite. But what is a mountain, or a star for that matter, or billions of galaxies of
stars and suns and planets and moons as compared with a man? They think not, speak not,
neither do they feel or hope or love or plan or build or have a duty or a destiny. Man is
God’s image and likeness! It is interesting to note that the almighty Creator
fashioned and formed everything of nature throughout the unbounded heavens and unto the
depths of the earth and then, after completing and ordaining all, He gave us the true
estimate of man’s greatness and purpose when He said, “Let us make man in our
image, and after our likeness; and let them have dominion.” Man therefore is not only
the most important creature on the earth, but the most important creature anywhere in the
universe. Even mighty angels are not made in His image, nor are they given dominion over
all the works of His hands. Can we not see by this that Adam stood in the midst of the
vast creation as the revelation of God to it all. In man in God’s image the invisible
God became visible to the material creation. God’s purpose was to reveal Himself to
His creation and bring everything everywhere into intimacy of fellowship and vital union
with Himself.
Adam was God’s
special gift to the entire creation. He came not from the brute ancestry, nor from the
muck of some primordial sea, nor from the mire of the jungle, but from the hand and spirit
and breath of the Divine Creator. Time will not allow us to dwell on the glories of man in
God’s image, but Adam was perfect, pure, powerful. He was without spot or stain,
taint or tarnish. Pure in character, perfect in holiness, powerful in personality. He was
the embodiment of all wisdom and knowledge. He was able to do on the morn of creation what
no sage, scientist, or naturalist could do today. He found himself surrounded from the
beginning with vast kingdoms of living things — fish, birds, animals — many more
than exist today. These were brought to him and at the command of God he gave them names.
In the typology of scripture a name denotes a nature. Make no mistake about it, my friend,
Adam did something greater far than merely classifying all the creatures which God had
created in the world. When he “named” these creatures the wonderful truth is
that he “natured” them — that is, he spoke creatively into them the nature
that his mind of wisdom and knowledge conceived. Sovereignty and authority rested like a
crown of glory upon the head of Adam. He was made the Lord over all the creation of God to
rule and reign as the visible expression of the invisible Creator. In him God was to be
seen and known and touched by everything everywhere.
We are never
told how long Adam lived in that wonderful Garden where the glory of God was revealed
through him in dominion and blessing to creation, but that glorious reign of wonder and
peace under the direction of a son in the image of God was but a dim figure of the day
when a whole company of sons in God’s image would reign in splendor over all things
in all realms throughout all worlds and all things in heaven and in earth would be
gathered together into union with God in His life and purpose. Our Lord Jesus Christ is
the first and Head of this glorious company, and as typified and shadowed by the first man
Adam He is the connecting link between God and creation — the revelation of the
invisible Father to the physical worlds. A God who is unseen and unknown, or who is only
the product of inferences from creation, or providence, or the mysteries of history, or
the wonders of my own inner life, the creature of logic or reflection, is very powerless
to sway and influence men or to affect creation. The limitations of our physical faculties
and the boundlessness of our hearts both cry out for a God that is nearer to us than that,
whom we can see and love and know. The whole world wants the making visible of Divinity as
its deepest desire.
Christ meets
this need. How can you make wisdom visible? How can a creature see love or purity? How do
I see your spirit? By the expression and deeds of your body! And the only way by which God
can ever come near enough to the natural creation to be a constant power of eternal life
and light and love is by creation seeing Him at work in a man who is His image and
revelation. Christ’s whole life is the making visible of the invisible God. He is the
manifestation to the world of the unseen Father. Jesus Christ in all His words and in all
His works is the perfect instrument of the heavenly Father, so that His words are God’s
words, and His works are God’s works; so that, when He speaks, His gentle wisdom, His
loving sympathy, His melting tenderness, His authoritative commands, His prophetic
threatenings, are the speech of God, and that when He acts, whether it be by miracle, by
wonder, by transforming grace, by creative energy, what we see is God working before our
eyes as we never see Him in any other creature or thing anywhere in the whole vast
universe.
The grand fact
is that this Jesus of Nazareth, by the sheer force of His personality, has so impressed
Himself upon mankind, and upon human history, and upon principalities and powers in the
heavens, and upon spirits in the darkest underworld, and continues to impress Himself,
that the only adequate description we can give of Him is EMMANUEL — God with us; that
in the Man Jesus dwelt and dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, under bodily
conditions. In Him all we can ever know of the invisible Creator becomes concrete, and
therefore becomes powerful to save. And if all this has been effected by one son of God
revealing the Father to creation, what, I ask, shall be the result when A VAST COMPANY OF
SONS SHALL BE BROUGHT TO RULE AND REIGN in His glorious image and likeness over all the
earth and throughout the vastnesses of infinity forevermore. Ah! What an Eden of God’s
glory it will be when judgment is given TO THE SAINTS of the Most High, when all the
OVERCOMERS out of all the ages SIT WITH THE CHRIST OF GOD IN HIS THRONE even as He
overcame and is set down with His Father in His throne; when SAVIOURS shall come up on
MOUNT ZION to judge the house of Esau (flesh) and the Kingdom shall be the Lord’s
(Obadiah 21). Then shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters
cover the sea. Then shall all things in heaven and in earth be reconciled and gathered
together into one in Christ. Then shall God be All-in-all.
The firstborn
Son said, “Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify
Thee. I have glorified Thee on the earth: and now, O Father, glorify Thou me with thine
own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was” (Jn. 17:1-5). To
“glorify” God means that man’s total expression of life would emit the very
presence and effulgence of God. An illustration of what it means to glorify God can be
seen in the simple incandescent light bulb. Screw it into the socket and the invisible
electrons flowing through it are transformed into the light and heat energy that causes
the halo of light. The bulb is glorifying the invisible electricity making it visible and
beneficent to mankind. The sons of God are thus ordained to glorify the Father, emitting
His presence, revealing His character, manifesting in a visible way His invisible glory.
John Wesley, it
is recorded, was one day preaching in a rough neighborhood of
We are all
aware, I believe, that in each of us there are areas where God’s name is not
hallowed, where God’s name is still taken in vain, where He has not written His name.
No matter how we try to arrange every step of our lives to express Him, there is a fatal
weakness, a flaw that somehow makes us miss the mark. When we say, “Father, there is
no area in my life that I’m not willing to let you deal with me about, that I am
unwilling to submit to your judgments” — that is saying, “Hallowed be Thy
name!” When we pray that way, and mean it, we discover that God will walk into the
dark closets of our life where the odor is sometimes too much for us, even us, to stand
and clean them out and straighten them up and make them fit for His dwelling.
“If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,”
Jesus said. All death is not the same death. Many think that when the scriptures speak of
death they always refer to the death of the body. The truth is, in the New Testament death
only occasionally speaks of the death of the physical body. When Jesus says that we must
take up our cross and follow Him, He does not mean that we all must be martyrs, laying
down our bodies to fly away to heaven. Jesus died physically on the cross, the symbol and
the pattern of the death of old Adam. But Adam in us is not crucified by hanging on an
outward, wooden cross. Paul says, “Mortify (put to death) therefore your members
which are upon the earth...” (Col. 3:5). Paul said, “I die daily.” He said,
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” In none of these passages is he
talking about leaving this body and going to some far-off heaven somewhere; he’s
talking about dying to that outward, that external, that realm of appearances, that
natural, that physical, that human, that carnal realm of old Adam’s life. That’s
why he’s saying, “To die is gain.” There is no gain in going to the
cemetery, but to die to the carnal mind is to gain the mind of Christ. To die to the
natural is to gain the spiritual. To die to the Adam nature is to gain the divine nature.
God gives us the opportunity every day to die. Are we taking up our cross and following
Him to
The death of the
cross was the death that was reserved for criminals and for the vilest of men. What would
you think of a person who had a gold chain about their neck with a pendant of an electric
chair on it? Or a hangman’s gallows? Or a guillotine? Or a gas chamber? Or a
hypodermic needle? “How gross, how repugnant, how macabre, how gruesome, how
insensitive,” you say. “How terrible to think that anyone’s mind is that
death oriented!” Let me tell you something, my beloved — in the day of Christ
the cross was an instrument of execution, no different than the gas chamber or the
electric chair today. It was the place where criminals were put to death. And Jesus said
we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross — our gas chamber, our electric chair,
or hangman’s noose — and follow Him. It’s a place of execution. It’s
the place where you are brought to your extremity, where old Adam reaches his final
catastrophe.
The church world
knows very little of these great truths of which I now write. The church world understands
very little of the depths of Jesus Christ. They are too busy seeking to be blessed, to be
protected, kept, provided for, watched over, pampered, healed, delivered and to go to
heaven when they die, or meeting Jesus in the air. Those are their great and consuming
concerns. They want to get others saved, too, so they can be blessed and go to heaven when
they die. But when it comes to laying your life down, being broken and melted before God,
taking up your cross and being obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, the
church world for the most part has never even spoken of it. They have no idea of what this
really means.
My surname was
inherited from my father; I didn’t choose it. Much of my natural constitution, also,
is not of my own making. It is inherited — including my small stature, bald head, and
pre-mature graying. To a great extent, in the natural, I am what my parents made me. I am
known by their name and have sometimes been recognized, even in far-away places with
strange-sounding names, as an Eby because of my physical features. I bear a facial, and
sometimes a behavioral, resemblance. This bearing of the family name involves a certain
responsibility on my part. I must seek to honor my parent’s name. I must not hold it
unworthily. Either my behavior must be consistent with what my name stands for, or I must
be responsible enough to change my name. This is exactly what we mean when we pray the
great prayer, “Our Father...hallowed be Thy name!” If He is your Father, you are
His son or daughter and you bear His name. Creation looks to you as God’s son, and
men hope to observe in you the family characteristics of God. At one time or another, we’ve
all heard it said of someone, “He’s just like his father.” That is the
witness that must be given of every son of God. In the words of the popular
country-western song:
I’m seein’ my father in me,
I guess that’s how it’s meant to be;
And I find I’m more and more like him each day.
I notice I walk the way he walks,
I notice I talk the way he talks,
I’m startin’ to see my father in me.
God’s name
has been conferred on us, not by virtue of our imitating God, or keeping certain rules or
regulations, but by virtue of our birth into the God-family. The story goes that a group
of tourists visiting a picturesque village saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather
patronizing way, one of the visitors asked, “Were any great men born into this
village?” Without looking up the old man replied, “No, only babies.” The
greatest men were once babies. The greatest saints were once toddlers in the things of the
Spirit. Saints are born to become sons of God, but become such only after the divine
process has been completed.
We hear of the
new birth and think we understand it. Faintly we hear the truths of sonship and imagine we
are already sons of God. We have seen through a glass darkly, but face to face we behold
all things as they really are. The mists that have hung like shrouds upon the distant
majestic peaks are fleeing away before the rising sun of righteousness that we may know as
we are known. In the true and eloquent words of another: “Believers of all ages have
sold themselves woefully short on all the great promises of God. We have been content to
say that every believer was born again and needed but to wait until some distant day when
he would fly away to heaven either by death or by rapture. I remember seeing this sign
vividly portrayed by the public highway: Except a man be born again, he CANNOT GO TO
HEAVEN. That statement, I fear, has been the sum and substance of Christian belief, but we
have missed the true meaning of the truth given to Nicodemus so long ago. To be born from
above is to be BORN FROM A HIGHER
“The realm
of the new birth is the REALM OF SON
How wonderful
are these things! They are far beyond our expression or the ability of the most eloquent
to describe! It is a marvelous fact that the very life of God is communicated to the
believing heart via the new birth. But what is the life of God? It is the content of God
and God Himself. All that is in God and all that God Himself is are the life of God. All
the fullness of the Godhead is hidden in the life of God. The nature of God is contained
in the life of God — His wisdom, knowledge, will, power and glory. Every facet of
what God is and can do, is included in the life of God. With any kind of living thing, all
that it is rests within its life. All its capabilities and functions issue out of its
life, and all of its outward activities and expressions originate from its life. It is
that kind of living thing because it has that kind of life. Its being rests in its life.
God is the supreme living Being, and all that He is, of course, is in His life. All that
He is — whether truth, holiness, light or love — is derived from His life. All
His expressions — whether goodness, righteousness, mercy or judgment — are
derived from His life. His life causes Him to have such divine capabilities and functions
inwardly, and such divine actions and expressions outwardly. The reason that He is such a
glorious and powerful God is that He has such a glorious and powerful life. Hence His
being God rests in His life.
Oh, to be able
to grasp the greatness of our calling! We have been born again of the very life of God!
When we have matured and God has brought us experientially to the full potential of His
life in us, there will be nothing impossible to us. We will even have creative powers. We
will be creators! Can your faith go this far? If we are born of God we are born of the
life of the Creator. This is the life that Jesus lived and demonstrated. Twice out of a
few rolls of bread and a couple fish, He created enough food to feed five thousands of
people, and He said we would do the same. “The works that I do shall ye do also, and
greater works than these shall ye do...” I want to know the life of this God! I want
to know experientially the power He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. I
want to know and experience all His holiness, righteousness, love, power and goodness. To
this end I seek to completely surrender myself to Him and I am asking Him for grace to be
able to do this.
Gracious Son of
God, reveal the Father to us in a way we have not known before! Make us overcomers, that
you may be able to write the name of your God, the Father’s name, the name of the
city of your God, and your new name, on our foreheads. God is in the process of preparing
a people FOR HIS NAME — a company that will bear His name, that will be called by His
name, those who know His name and will hallow His name in all the earth. To these the Son
reveals the name of His Father, He reveals the Father unto them. They will bear the name
of Yahweh for they will be filled with His fullness and they will do His works, for the
fullness of His power and understanding and nature will be in them. He will be in them in
the measure that He was in Jesus, and will speak His words and do His works through them.
They will be like His first-begotten Son, they will be conformed to His image, the express
image of His person.
Jesus, the Son,
knew the Father and He was the only one in His day who did. The Lord said to the
religious, as He undoubtedly says to the religious today, “...ye say that He is your
God; yet ye have not known Him; but I KNOW HIM and keep His saying” (Jn. 8:54-55).
“As the Father knoweth me, even so KNOW I THE FATHER” (Jn.
There is a
Jewish story in which rabbi Nahman once asked rabbi Isaac to bless him as they were saying
good-bye. Rabbi Isaac replied: “Let me give you a parable. A man traveled a long way
in the desert. He felt hungry, weary and thirsty, when suddenly he came upon a tree filled
with sweet fruits, covered with branches that provided delightful shade, and watered by a
brook that flowed nearby. The man rested in the tree’s shade, ate of its fruits, and
drank its water. When he was about to leave, he turned to the tree and said, ‘O tree,
beautiful tree, with what shall I bless you? Shall I wish that your shade be pleasant? It
is already pleasant. Shall I say that your fruits should be sweet? They are sweet. Shall I
ask that a brook flow by you? A brook does flow by you. Therefore I will bless you this
way: May it be God’s will that all the shoots taken from you be just like you.’”
Ah, that is it! We bless God, we glorify God, we hallow the name of God by being like Him,
the radiance of His nature, power, and glory in the earth. This is how God Himself is
blessed. And this is most truly what we mean when we pray as the firstborn Son has taught
us to pray: “Our Father...hallowed be Thy name!”
Part 11
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
(continued)
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name...”
(Mat. 6:9).
A name, in our
modern usage, is a mere sign, badge, or title by which we call a person — a means of
identification. It has no significance except to distinguish that person from everyone
else. It does not tell us anything about a man, except that he exists as a person and is
himself, not someone else. His character, his exploits, his attainments in life, his
history, are not contained in his name. It is a mere mark of identity, and no more. But it
was quite different in Bible days, and more especially among the Semitic peoples. In the
Old Testament there is abundant evidence that names were looked upon as very sacred and
pregnant words.
There is not
much meaning in our modern names. “Edgar” means a javelin to protect property,
though few Edgars own a javelin, and many of them no real estate. “Irene” means
peace, but I have personally known Irenes who had little inner peace, they were often
upset, frustrated and miserable. As for our surnames, they have been so changed by the
years that they are now only a tag by which the mail carrier marks us off from our
neighbors. The name “Eby” is, we have reason to believe, an ancient Celtic name,
but previously was spelled Ebi or Ebee, and is now sometimes spelled Ebe or Eaby —
and who today knows what it could mean? Most of our names originally came from one of four
sources. A name may have come from a characteristic that an individual had. He could run
very good, so he got the name Swift. He was sloppy, so he got the name Hoag. He was
shrewd, so he got the name Fox. Sometimes men got named by virtue of where they lived.
There was a fellow by the name of John and when somebody was asking for him, and another
person knew him, he said, “Oh, yes, that’s John — he lives over the brook;
so he got the name Overbrook. Or there was a guy named George. “Oh, yes, we know him
— he lives at the water; so he became known in the course of time as George Atwater.
Sometimes we got named by virtue of our father’s name. You see, men did not always
have second names — that’s relatively recent in history. There was a man by the
name of John and he had a son. People said, “Oh, yes, that’s John’s son, or
that’s Ander’s son, or that’s Robbin’s son,” so we got names like
Johnson, Anderson and Robbinson. At other times we got names by virtue of the trade in
which men worked: Cook, Taylor (tailor), Smith, etc.
Biblically,
names had the concept of describing some characteristic of an individual which set that
individual apart from other individuals. The idea of a name was to express as dramatically
as possible the nature or characteristic of the bearer. In this connection there can be no
separation whatsoever between a man’s name and what he is as a person. Some are said
to have a “name of integrity,” while others are declared to have a “bad
name.” In such instances “name” and “character” are one and the
same. In the Bible the innermost being of a man is expressed in his name. Take Jacob, for
instance. He starts life by holding on to his brother’s heel to keep him from
emerging first from their mother’s womb. Then comes his opportunistic acquisition of
his brother’s birthright in exchange for a bowl of lentils; and then the climax
— deceiving his blind father Isaac to receive his blessing by posing as the
first-born Esau. Spurred on by his mother, who plots the deception, Jacob is an
all-too-willing participant. He dresses up in goatskin so he will feel and smell like his
brother, the hunter, and when asked who he is he lies and says, “I am Esau, your
first-born.” Even though the old man appears to have some doubt, the ploy works, and
Jacob receives the blessing. This is why Esau declares of his conniving brother: “Is
he not rightly named Jacob (Supplanter, Schemer, Deceiver, Trickster)? for he has
supplanted me these two times” (Gen. 27:36). But in later years, after wresting with
the angel of the Lord he underwent a change of attitude and an alteration of character
that was accompanied by a change of name. Having seen the “face” or nature of
God he was no longer the same man that he had been before his encounter with the Lord.
Since name and character are absolutely identical there had to be a change in Jacob’s
appellation. The angel of Yahweh, therefore, said, “Thy name shall no more be called
Jacob, but
“To him
that overcometh will I give...a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no
man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2:17). “Him that overcometh...I
will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God...and I will
write upon him my new name” (Rev. 3:12). “And they shall see His face (nature);
and His name shall be in their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). A new name bespeaks of a
change of nature in those He is dealing with. But God has also revealed the various sides
of His own nature and character through His names. At the beginning of history God
revealed Himself by the name Elohim, the plural of Eloah meaning strength, might. This
name reveals the plurality in God, His many-sided wisdom, His diverse attributes, powers,
and abilities displayed like the colors of the spectrum through the unique expression of
each of His multitudinous offspring — His sons and daughters, the body of Christ, the
family of God, or the God-family. In the name Elohim God has revealed Himself first as
Creator and second as a plural God.
Then when
Abraham came along God revealed Himself as El Shaddai, the almighty, the all-sufficient.
El Shaddai means literally “the breasted one” or “the one who has breasts.”
We never thought of God as having breasts, but He revealed Himself to Abraham in this way
as the nourisher, the One from whom he could suck and draw strength. This enabled Abraham
and Sarah to have Isaac when they were past age for having children. Abraham was a hundred
years old and Sarah was ninety when they had their baby.
God later
revealed Himself to Moses, not as Elohim, not as El Shaddai, but He made Himself known to
Moses as Yahweh, which generally is pronounced in English as Jehovah. Yahweh was the
lawgiver. Yahweh was a stern God, the One who commands and says, “Do it, or you die.”
Yahweh was a warring God, the Lord of hosts (armies). Then, of course, when Jesus came we
have a combination of all these, for in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
Finally, after Jesus, comes all of us. The question follows — Who are we going to
reveal?
THE NAME IS THE NATURE
The name of God
is more than a group of syllables or a configuration of letters of the alphabet. It is the
meaning of the name that is most truly the name. It is His nature and His character
revealed to us. The names of God reveal all that God IS, all that God HAS and all that God
can DO. So when we pray, “Hallowed be Thy name,” we ask that our idea, our
understanding of God’s nature, power and glory may be purified and made more true;
that we may be delivered from unworthy conceptions and false notions of God, from
superstitious beliefs and folklore learned from religion; that there may be nothing in our
thought of Him and the living out of His life in us which shall cast any reflection on
Him, that is beneath His glorious and eternal reality; that He may become more and more
known to us and His nature loved by us and fulfilled within us.
George Wylie
wrote some years ago: “In His high priestly prayer, recorded in John 17, twice the
Son of God said that He had manifested and declared the Father’s name unto those the
Father had given Him. ‘I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest me
out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to me; and they have kept Thy word’
(Jn.
“I would
like to quote these verses from some other translations. Most translations, as well as the
Aramaic and Greek, in which these scriptures were originally written, say ‘name’
— but Goodspeed renders it this way, ‘I have revealed your real self unto the
men you gave me from the world...I have made yourself known to them and will still do so.’
Phillips says something similar, ‘I have shown yourself to the men whom you gave me
out of the world...I have made yourself known to them and I will continue to do so that
the love which you had for me may be in their hearts.’ It would appear from these
scriptures that there is some connection between knowing the name of God and knowing God
Himself, and having His love in our hearts. I don’t think it was because the
disciples were ignorant of what God’s name was, that is, the form of His name in
letters. How could they be? For it was written in the Old Testament scriptures thousands
of times: so how could they not have known what the name of God was? There must be a
difference in knowing what the name of God IS, and knowing His name. This may sound
strange, but I will try to explain.
“There are
many things said about those who know the name of God. For instance, ‘Because he hath
set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high because he hath
KNOWN MY NAME’ (Ps. 91:14). Would this promise apply to all who merely knew what His
name was? The children of Israel all knew what God’s name was, but because of their
sins and iniquities they were cast down, chastised by the Lord, and given over into the
hands of their enemies to be tormented. But then God spoke comfort to them, and told them
the days of their chastisement were over. By their sinful ways they had caused His name to
be blasphemed among the Pagans, but now God was going to exalt His name and His people
would know what His name really meant, when He had delivered them from their bondage.
‘Yes, Yahweh says this: You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without
money. Yes, Yahweh says this: Once my people went down to
“I will now
quote a few more verses where God emphasized His name. ‘Sing unto God, sing praises
to His name, extol Him that rideth upon the heavens by His name YAH, and rejoice before
Him’ (Ps. 68:4). YAH is the short form of Yahweh. The Hebrews did the same thing we
do, we shorten some names such as Joe for Joseph, Sue for Susan, Bev for
When it is said,
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the
Lord our God,” the meaning is not that they will recall the letters or pronunciation
of the word YAHWEH, but that their confidence can be strengthened and maintained by
reflecting upon what God has taught and proven concerning Himself, which is also contained
in the meaning of His name. When it is said, “They that know Thy name will put their
trust in Thee,” it does not mean that those who know the word YAHWEH will put their
trust in Him, for multitudes have known that name and have never walked in confidence in
God; but whoever has that idea of God that He Himself by His dealings and teachings has
made known to us in our lives, will trust in Him. This name we are not left to find out
for ourselves, for from the first it has been the care of God to spell out Himself to us.
There are many
names and descriptive titles of God in the scriptures. He is called Counselor, King,
Shepherd, Rock, Shield,
In I Samuel
18:30 we read, “Then the princes of the Philistines went forth: and it came to pass,
after they went forth, that David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of
Saul; so that his name was much set by.” They were not esteeming the letters in his
name nor the pronunciation of the name. They were not writing “DAVID” in large
and beautiful characters on some enormous banner and stretching it over the main street of
“I will set
him on high because he has known my name” (Ps. 91:14). To know His name is to become,
in union with Him, the name-nature of God in an every-hour, every-day reality. To know His
name is to enter into the pure inner life of God, and exude His nature, His life, His
character, being one with Him. To know means more than mere intellectual understanding or
carnal knowledge. It means intimate “union” as when “Adam knew his wife;
and she conceived, and bare Cain” (Gen. 4:1). Some people think because they use or
pronounce El Elyon, Yahweh, or Yahshua and all the others they have dug out of the
concordance, that this makes the use of these names magical, procures favor with God, or
is a mark of spirituality. People without a revelation from the Lord, or participation in
His life, are disposed to go back and use the “letter” of that given to past
generations of men of God. Let me quote Psalm
“After this
I will return, and build again the tabernacle of David...that the residue of men might
seek after the Lord, and all the nations, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord”
(Acts 15”16-17). The “name” here means a surname. That is the precise
meaning of the Greek word EPIKALEOMAI used in this passage. Correctly translated it says,
“That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the nations, upon whom my
surname is called.” The nations have been surnamed! Surname is from two Greek words,
EPI and KALEO. EPI means “upon”, and KALEO means “called”. EPI means
identification, as in the laying on of hands on or upon a person, designating them for
some special purpose or blessing. God has chosen to identify with us and bring us into
relationship with Himself and He has placed His name upon us — has surnamed us.
Surname, by definition, is “a family name as distinguished from a given name; a last
name.” God came and surnamed us, gave us His family name. We have an altered name,
indeed, a NEW NAME! God altered Abram’s name, Sarai’s name, and Jacob’s
name and they got a new nature. It was only after Abram’s and Sarai’s name
change that they gave birth to Isaac, the promised seed. And it was only after Jacob’s
name change that he fathered Joseph and Benjamin. You won’t birth nobility or kings
or a “son of the right hand” until you get altered — surnamed. I meet a lot
of folks I would like to alter. You may have a husband, a wife, children, boss, neighbor
or mother-in-law you would like to alter. And you are probably an expert on all the ways
they need to be altered! But I do not hesitate to tell you, precious friend of mine, that
only God can alter anyone — only God can call His name over a man, woman, or child,
only God can give a surname, a new name, a new nature.
The scripture
declares that “the name of Yahweh is a strong tower.” There are many precious
revelations coming forth these days concerning the names of God, and the depth of meaning
therein. Some immediately get caught up with an emphasis on the mechanics — the
spelling, syllables, and pronunciation of the names — dealing with the outward or
“letter” of the Word. But it is the “letter” that killeth — that
is, there is no life in those things. They strike no chord deep in my spirit. In fact,
they leave me somewhat cold and uninspired. The “spirit” of the Word gives life.
The spirit is the substance, the reality of His nature that the outward name reveals. As
Ray Prinzing has so aptly written: “Of this we are certain, there is a walk that is
‘not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth
LIFE’ (II Cor. 3:6). When certain truths are set down as a doctrine, and one receives
only the letter thereof, it does not serve to gender life within, it only becomes one more
burden to bear, adding to the load of traditions and commandments. But when the Spirit of
God illumines the inner man, quickens the heart to receive that Word of Life within, it is
not some doctrine to contend for, but it is a LIFE TO BE LIVED.”
Now listen
— we have people today who will not call God anything but Yahweh. There are other
people who only call God Jehovah. We have people today who refuse to call the Son of God
Jesus, they call Him Yahshua — and that is His name in Hebrew. But that is not what
is important. It is not important what the Hebrew form of a name is, or what the Greek
form of a name is, or what the English form of a name is. Whether we say Petros, Pedro,
Pierre or Peter — all these names are the same name in different languages, have the
same meaning, and point to the same reality — a man whose character is that of a
If you know the
nature of God and you become a partaker of that divine nature, there is a safety built
into your makeup because you have run into or you have become identified with the name of
God. A tower has height, a tower carries you heavenward. A tower is not a military bunker
— if you run into a tower and climb the heights of that tower you are lifted above
all the dangers arrayed below. That’s what the name of the Lord does for us. When we
know that name, becoming partakers of that nature, it elevates us in our outlook,
perspective, understanding, consciousness and state of being. It raises us up
experientially into a higher dimension. It lifts us to a higher level of faith, trust and
confidence, because we stand in His name. Knowing the word YAHWEH will not do this for
you, but knowing the nature of Yahweh will! I’m not interested that you should learn
the correct form and pronunciation — whether it be, as various scholars argue,
Yahweh, Yahveh, Yahvah, Yehovah, Jehovah, or quite a number of other forms that are hyped
as the “correct” Hebrew form. The best known, Yahweh, is only one among many.
There is no value in wrangling over letters of the alphabet or ancient vowel sounds. There
is no purpose in it. There is no spirituality in it. There is no profit in it. Our
language is not Hebrew. I doubt if more than one or two persons among the thousands who
read these writings each month actually speak Hebrew. There is no change of nature for you
should you learn it, and all the names of God in Hebrew. And yet we have men and movements
that place great emphasis upon names today — spelling them correctly, pronouncing
them right. To which I respond — “Who cares?” That’s not important.
Furthermore, it is natural, carnal, fleshly. What is important is that you understand what
the name stands for and partake of the nature that the name stands for. “And they
that know Thy name — Thy nature — will put their trust in Thee.” You don’t
learn this name, this nature, from listening to sermons or reading printed messages. Those
things are profitable — for we must hear the truth. But we must not only hear, we
must receive a revelation of truth and follow on to experience truth.
“For God
will save
“Because he
hath known my name, I will show him my salvation.” Are you interested in knowing the
name of God? When you truly come to the name of the Lord, God will show you His salvation.
The word for salvation is YEHOSHUA. “My salvation” is “my Yehoshua.”
Translated into English “Yehoshua” is JESUS. “Because he hath known my
name, I will show him my Jesus.” When you know the nature of the Lord you will SEE
JESUS! Jesus is the salvation of the Lord. That is the meaning of His name. He came in the
nature and power of God’s salvation. He is the mighty Deliverer. He is the mighty
Saviour. That is His name. That is His nature. Whether you call Him Jesus or Yahshua
— until you meet Him as the mighty Saviour you have missed His name altogether.
Millions of people repeat the name “Jesus” or “Yahshua” and yet know
nothing of His wonderful name — His nature. They know the pronunciation of His name
in a language, but they have never experienced Him in His name.
YAHWEH
The name Yahweh
is derived from the Hebrew verb HAVAH meaning “to be,” or “being”.
This word is almost exactly like the Hebrew verb CHAVAH which means “to live” or
“life”. One can readily see the connection between being and life. Thus, Yahweh
means “the self-existent One” or “the eternal”. He is the One who in
Himself possesses essential life, permanent existence, derived from no source other than
Himself and absolutely dependent upon no other person or thing for its continuance. Any
being whose existence is dependent in any manner upon another, or upon conditions such as
food, light, air, etc., or even upon some cosmic influence, is not SELF-EXISTENT. This
quality inhered originally in Yahweh alone, as it is written, “The Father hath life
in Himself” (Jn.
Anything that is
absolutely eternal is not only unending, but is also UNCHANGEABLE. Anything that changes
in any way is not eternal, for in the change some characteristic is left behind and a new
one acquired. In every change something ends and something else begins. That which dwells
in an eternal state knows NO CHANGE. Change is possible only in that which is limited,
imperfect, or undeveloped. Yahweh declares of Himself, “I am Yahweh, I CHANGE NOT”
(Mal. 3:6), and the inspired apostle says of Him, “with Whom there is NO
VARIABLENESS, neither shadow of turning” (James
The origin and
meaning of the name Yahweh are especially brought out in relation to
“I AM THAT
I AM” is Yahweh revealing what His name means — the UNCHANGE
Jesus made a
statement that the first Adam, in all of his glory, could never have made. He said, “For
as the Father
From the
incorruptible seed of Christ, placed in the womb of the believing heart, comes forth that
incorruptible New Creation which lives and abides forever. When John said, “He that
hath the Son hath life,” he was speaking of that incorruptible life which Jesus is.
When Jesus said, “He that believeth on me shall never die,” He was not teaching
us merely of the possibility of extending our physical, Adamic existence for another
thousand years so we would not go to the grave. He meant that He was planting an entirely
NEW
How many of the
Lord’s dear children understand not this one simple but sublime truth — they
have within them the SELF-EXISTENT
Baby Christians
are believers who are always loaded down with problems. They are always sick, discouraged,
depressed, frustrated, confused, offended, upset, worried, fearful, or... These are the
ones who take up ninety percent of the ministers’ time, strength and patience in most
groups. You must constantly be praying for them, encouraging them, petting and pampering
them, counseling them, delivering them, and lifting them up. These you will see answering
every altar-call, standing in every prayer line, sitting in the chair in the center of the
prayer circle, and following after every meeting, ministry, prophet, healer, or teacher
where they may receive yet another “blessing” or “experience”. These
have the victory while everything is going good, when they are struck with some ecstatic
spiritual experience, or when they receive a word of prophecy. But as soon as the “blessing”
wears off they are so weak they can’t make it without another spiritual “fix”.
What’s
wrong with these folk? I will tell you! Their source of life is ON THE OUTSIDE! Being
babes, they are not aware that all-sufficient, self-existent life dwells within them. They
are unable to appropriate that life for themselves. Their senses have not been exercised
to discern that HE THAT IS IN THEM IS GREATER than he that is in the world. They have not
yet developed to that place of maturity where they know Christ as the substance of their
inward life, their all-in-all, sufficient to conquer every enemy and transcend every
problem within and without. And what a tragedy it is that so many preachers and churches
keep their people perpetually on this baby level of existence by restricting their diet to
“milk” and training their “babies” to always be need conscious,
acknowledging their faults and limitations, and looking to the “pulpit” to be
fed, encouraged, healed, delivered, pampered, taught and blessed.
God is raising
up a people in this hour who are coming to know that they HAVE
What is the
secret of these people’s victory? I will tell you! THEY HAVE LIFE IN THEMSELVES! Only
one who has life in himself can be an overcomer. There was One who perfectly walked in
this realm and He overcame ALL THINGS. Upon Him rested the fullness of the Spirit of
Yahweh, the spirit of self-existent life. Can you imagine Jesus, on the road to
This is the life
we now have in Christ and which Christ is within us. Nothing brings greater joy to my
heart than seeing members of Christ’s body growing up into the “measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ, growing up into Him in all things, which is the Head,
even Christ” that they “henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and
carried about by every wind.” Oh, may the spirit of wisdom and revelation illumine
our minds, giving a mighty revelation of the glorious and eternal reality of the CHRIST
WITHIN!
THE NATURE OF GOD IN THE ROYAL PRIESTHOOD
The name of the
Son of God is Jesus. That is His complete name. That is His correct name. That is His full
name. The name of the eternal Word of God who stepped across the stars to the planet earth
to be born in a stable in the
Since He would
be the salvation of Yahweh unto His people, call Him Saviour. Some of you are saying,
“Now hold the fort, Eby; isn’t His first name Lord and His last name Christ?”
NO! Neither Lord nor Christ is a name. It is important that we understand that. Christ is
not a name. Christ is a position. Christ is an office. Christ is a title, as also is Lord.
Christ is a description of an individual who holds a particular office. If I were to say
to you, “What is the name of the man who holds the highest office in the
But ye shall be
named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the ministers of our God...for as the
earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to
spring forth; so the Lord will cause righteousness to spring forth before all nations”
(Isa. 61:6,11). The inspired prophet summed up in one bold statement what it means to be a
priest of God. “Ye shall be NAMED the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the
ministers of our God.” There is marvelous significance in that word “named”.
Named! You shall be NAMED the priests of the Lord. This passage forcefully reveals the
great truth that all who would be priests of God MUST UNDERGO A CHANGE OF NATURE, to
become priests by name, by nature, so that priesthood is not merely a title given to them
but a nature lived out through them. If our spiritual minds can grasp the fact, to be
NAMED the priests of the Lord means to be NATURED the priests of the Lord, to so be imbued
with the priestly nature until we become a priest in our very state of being.
Jesus, when
teaching His disciples in Matthew 5:38-48, said these words, “Ye have heard that it
hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” In other words, give
back to people exactly what you receive from them. This is the way of the human nature. If
someone blacks your eye, then blacken his in return. This is what the human nature desires
to do. In a Sunday School class the teacher had been teaching on the principles in the
Sermon of the Mount, and she inquired of little Johnny, “Johnny, what would you do if
Tommy slapped you on the right cheek?” He answered, “Teacher, I would turn the
other one.” And then as an afterthought he said, “But boy, if he hit that one, I
would beat the stuffing out of him!” This little fellow was just being true to his
human nature. Jesus went on to say, “But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but
whosoever shall smite you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man
will sue you at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And
whosoever shall compel you to go with him a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that
asketh you, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn him not away. Ye have heard that
it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
Ah, to act thus
is contrary to human nature. The human nature wants to retaliate in the way it has been
treated. If someone loves us and is gracious to us, we seek to requite their love and
kindness; but if they strike us, we want to strike back. If they curse us we return the
same to them. Jesus said, “It is easy to love those who love us, the publicans and
sinners do that.” But to love those who hate you and despitefully use you, that is
something else! To be able from the heart, by nature to do those things that Jesus teaches
us here is evidence of the possession of the divine nature. Not to so act as one under law
or compulsion; but to so love and forgive and bless because it is within our nature to do
this — then we are getting somewhere in God! It requires a change of nature. It is
not natural to be a priest, it is not according to the human nature to respond to the
shortcomings, insults, injuries, sins and wretchedness of men with understanding,
compassion, mercy and redemption.
Jesus continued,
“That ye may be the sons of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
You see, God makes no difference; He is not a respecter of persons. He treats the evil man
exactly the same as He treats the good. He is as gracious and kind to the hostile and
belligerent as He is to the gentle and obedient. This is OUR FATHER! And we are His sons,
those who share His nature, who think as He thinks and act as He acts. This is what it
means to be named — NATURED — the priests of the Lord! Let us note in passing,
the Authorized version says, “that ye may be the children of your Father in heaven.”
The Greek word here is HUIOS meaning “sons,” mature sons, not little children.
Mature sons are NATURED priests!
Paul Mueller
adds these inspiring words: “When Moses came down from the mount with the tables of
the law, the people had turned to idolatry. They made a golden calf and were worshipping
that idol just like the heathen. The Lord then told Moses that He would not go with them.
But Moses replied, ‘If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up thence.’
Moses continued to intercede for the people, so the Lord said, ‘I will make all my
goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee.” Did
this mean that God would merely speak His name in the language of man? No, it meant much
more than that. Moses was then called up into the mount to receive the second set of the
tables of the law. The Lord then descended in a cloud ‘and stood with him there, and
proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed,
Yahweh, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that
will by no means clear the guilty’ (Ex. 34:5-7).
“Remember
that the Hebrew word for ‘name’ implies ‘honor, authority and character.’
Therefore, when the Lord proclaimed His name to Moses, He was in fact imparting His
authority and character to him. The Lord proclaimed Himself as being ‘merciful and
gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.’
“These are
characteristics of God that were imparted to Moses when the Lord proclaimed His name to
him. When the Lord declares that He will proclaim His name to His chosen ones, He is in
fact imparting His character and authority. After the Lord visited Moses, He gave him this
solemn promise: ‘Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels,
such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among
which thou art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is a terrible thing that I will do
with thee’ (Ex. 34:10).
“The Lord’s
promise to Moses was that He would do marvels, ‘such as have not been done in all the
earth.’ The divine promise to the remnant in this day has been given, ‘Behold I,
and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and wonders’ (Isa.
“The Lord
gives this promise to the overcomers: ‘I will write upon him the name of my God, and
the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem...and I will write upon him my new
name’ (Rev. 3:12). Realizing the awesome glory and power that was given to Moses by
the Lord when He proclaimed His name to him, we can well understand the significance of
‘the name of my God’ which is to be written upon all who overcome. It is
certainly not merely the Hebrew name of the Lord, nor is it a new spiritual name which
some are now using. Rather, it is an impartation of His authority and character. Let us
clearly understand the truth of God’s holy Word. When He proclaims or writes His name
upon His elect, He is in fact imparting to them His honor, His authority, His
characteristics and His power.
“When the
prodigal son returned to father’s house, he was given the best robe, shoes on his
feet, and a ring on his finger (Lk.
“The Lord
is declaring His name unto His brethren, who are the sons of God. The fullness of all that
He is, as represented in the robe, the shoes, and the ring, shall be imparted to this
remnant. He who spoke forth as the thunder on mount Sinai, shaking the earth by His power,
who set the bush ablaze by His mighty presence, causing Moses to declare, ‘I
exceedingly fear and quake,’ is now being manifest in the greater glory of mount
Zion. At Sanai His voice shook the earth so that those who heard it asked that He not
speak to them again (Heb.
Part 12
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
(continued)
“After
this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name”
(Mat. 6:9).
The name YAHWEH
is translated GOD about 300 times, and LORD more than 6,000 times in our English Bible. It
is mentioned in scripture more than any other name of God. The Old Testament combines the
name YAHWEH with other words to form what are known as compound names or the Yahweh
Titles. Several of these are: YAHWEH-YIREH — Yahweh will see, or Yahweh will provide
(Gen. 22:14); YAHWEH-NISSI — Yahweh my banner (Ex. 17:15); YAHWEH-MEKADDISHKEM —
Yahweh who sanctifies you (Ex. 31:13); YAHWEH-SHALOM — Yahweh send peace (Judges
6:24); YAHWEH-SABBAOTH — Yahweh of hosts (I Sam. 1:3); YAHWEH-TSIDKENU — Yahweh
our righteousness (Jer. 23:6); YAHWEH-SHAMMAH — Yahweh is there (Eze. 48:35);
YAHWEH-ELYON — Yahweh most high (Ps. 7:17); YAHWEH-ROI — Yahweh my shepherd (Ps.
23:1).
Some other names
of God used frequently in scripture are: EL — the mighty, the strong One; ELOAH
— the living God; EL ELYON — the Most High; EL SHADDAI — the almighty, the
all-bountiful, nourisher, the breasted One; ADON — the ruler; ADONIM — the
plural of Adon, carries all the meaning of Adon but to a higher degree; ADONAI — the
Lord.
English is a
phonetically oriented language. Our poetry often depends on phonetic symmetry —
rhythm and rhyme. Hebrew poetry, on the other hand, depends more on a symmetry of ideas
than a symmetry of sounds. This is one of the reasons why the power of Hebrew poetry comes
through in translations. So it is with Hebrew names. They are more oriented toward
meanings than toward sounds. In the Bible names are generally descriptive of the person,
of his position, some circumstance affecting him, etc. Thus, the “name” often
came to stand for the person. This is illustrated by the fact that a Hebrew name may be a
word, a phrase, or even a sentence. For example, Penuel means “the face of God”.
Samuel means “Asked of God”. Examples of a name being a sentence are Abijah,
“Yah is a Father,” and Eliab, “God is a Father”. To underline the fact
that it is meaning that is important in a Hebrew name rather than the phonetic sound,
compare II Samuel 11:3 and I Chronicles 3:5. Both scriptures give the name of the father
of Bathsheba, but in the one case he is called Eliam, meaning “God is a kinsman,”
and in the other case he is called Ammiel, meaning “A kinsman is God”. Still
another example is king Jehoiachin (II Kings 24:6), who was also known as Jeconiah (Jer.
24:11). There are many other such examples in scripture where people’s names were
said in different ways simply because the same thought was expressed in different words,
though it meant approximately the same thing. This shows clearly that it was the meaning
of the name that was important, not the way it was pronounced.
I cannot
emphasize too strongly that the thing of importance is not the spelling or Hebrew
pronunciation of God’s names. God never gave Himself a name because it sounded nice
or because there were some magical powers in the combination of letters. God’s
purpose in a name is it’s MEANING! You see, the name YAHWEH is absolutely meaningless
in English. If you were to address God as “The Self-Existent,” or “The
Eternal,” you would actually be saying His name in English, rather than merely
pronouncing meaningless Hebrew syllables. I know many people who feel they mouth all the
correct forms of God’s name, but they know absolutely nothing about God’s name,
for they have never entered into relationship with Him IN HIS NATURE REVEALED BY HIS NAME.
God’s name is His nature.
The name YAHWEH
is derived from the Hebrew verb HAVAH meaning “to be,” or “being.”
This word is almost exactly like the Hebrew verb CHAVAH meaning “to live,” or
“life.” One can readily see the connection between BEING and
Anything that is
absolutely eternal is not only unending, but is also UNCHANGEABLE. Anything that changes
in any way is not eternal, for in the change some characteristic is left behind and a new
one acquired. In every change something ends and something else begins. That which dwells
in an eternal state knows NO CHANGE. Change is possible only in that which is limited,
imperfect, or immature. Yahweh declares of Himself, “I am Yahweh (the Eternal), I
CHANGE NOT” (Mal. 3:6), and the inspired apostle says of Him, “With whom there
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James
It is a great
and blessed fact that Yahweh is the eternal God. Transition, adjustment, change —
these words seem to be constantly with us, until we fain would grasp for something that
seems to be stable, solid, enduring. Much of the inner drive for change is simple evidence
that man is not satisfied, has not found his completeness in Christ, for “beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that
when He shall appear WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM...” (I Jn. 3:2). Here is stability —
immutability — the quality of His nature remains the same, HE IS THE ETERNAL! And
this is the nature of which we would be a partaker, the fullness of which we find in
Christ, and through union with Him we shall be changed until we become changeless in the
absoluteness of that which He is. He who is eternal cannot be influenced, affected, moved,
changed, altered, damaged, destroyed, or improved in any way. He cannot grow tired or old.
The character of God is eternal, changeless, unaffected. The love, joy, peace,
righteousness, and power of God do not rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall.
Matters not what happens or what men or devils say or do, the love of God, the nature of
God, the purpose of God and the power of God are steadfast, unmoved, unquenched,
undiminished, unaffected, without fluctuation. The eternal existence of God is certain for
He is the source of all life. Death cannot touch Him for He is not dependent upon the
sustaining power of another, He is Yahweh, the Self-Existent One.
With these lofty
thoughts of God in our minds, our hearts respond with joyful accord when Christ in His
wisdom shows that it is God’s intention that he who walks in the blessed realm of
sonship should be as constant and unchanging as is God Himself. To His disciples Christ
spoke these incredible words: “For as the Father
THE JEWS AND YAHWEH
It is a clear
fact of history that from the time the house of Judah was carried away in captivity to
Babylon they laid aside the use of the name Yahweh, through a superstitious dread, but
also because the Jews left behind the Hebrew language in the Babylonian captivity,
returning to the land of Israel as an Aramaic speaking people — the language of
Babylon. They substituted, therefore, the courtesy title “Adonai,” or “Lord.”
Later the name was written with the consonants of the word Yahweh and the vowel sounds of
the word Adonai. And in some time very late in history, probably about the time of the
Protestant reformation in
The third
commandment is: “Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain; for Yahweh
will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.” No people could have been
more scrupulous in their reverence for the name of God — the word YAHWEH — than
the Jews. Their scribes wrote it with reverence upon their scrolls, but regarded it as
blasphemy to repeat or read it aloud, lest it should become defiled upon their lips. The
very Hebrew letters of it were considered sacred, and became a superstitious fetish —
a thing to conjure with. They attributed magical powers to the Name (word) so that it
became a talisman or a charm — indeed, an idol! The name Yahweh, in all of Israel,
was pronounced only once a year, and then only by the High Priest when he entered into the
Holy of holies on the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Whenever the scribes, who copied the
scrolls of the scriptures, came to any one of the names of God, they would change the pen
and pray and then write the name. Whenever they came to the great unpronounceable name of
God, the name of Yahweh, they would stop, bathe, change their clothes, change their pen,
confess their sins, pray to God and then, with great reverence, they would dip their pen
into the ink only once. They would never dip it again in the midst of the writing of the
name. They were commanded that should the king speak to them in the midst of writing that
name they were to pay him no heed at all — so intense was their superstitious
reverence for the name Yahweh.
THE SACRED NAME
There is much
misleading teaching in these days concerning what is known as the “Sacred Name”,
and so, let us shine the Light of the Lord upon the matter, so that any darkness of
confusion or error might be dispelled, and that His Truth might be seen in all of its
glory. No child of God need be uncertain or doubtful about speaking of, and to, the Father
in the words of his or her own language. We speak of the Lord God; we speak of Jesus, our
Saviour and Lord — all wonderful words that spring out of the depths of our hearts,
and speak volumes of an intimate love and reverence of our heavenly Father and for our
Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s name
is important! But — must we, as some claim, use only Hebrew names when speaking of
the Father and the Son? Is salvation or true reverence based on the pronunciation of God’s
name in a certain language, or on a certain set of sounds? The notion that we must use
only God’s Hebrew names is of no ancient origin. Those names were not used by the
early Church, nor by the Church fathers, nor by the great men of God through the ages.
Actually, the Hebrew-names teaching had its beginnings less than sixty years ago, in the
late 1930’s. At that time, proponents of the idea began to claim that it is gross sin
to say the name Jesus Christ, which is an anglicized spelling of the Greek words Iesous
and Christos. God’s name, they alleged, must be spoken only in Hebrew. This is an
important prerequisite for entering God’s Kingdom, they claimed. These same few teach
that the sacred name of our heavenly Father is Yahweh and that the name of the Son of God
is Yahshua. The word Elohim, too, must be used instead of our English equivalent word God.
They declare that when we pray or speak about God and Christ, we must use only these
Hebrew names. It is wrong, they say, to translate the names of the Deity into English or
any other language. In other words, we may freely read or discuss the Bible as translated
into the English language in all terms except the names of God or Jesus Christ. Then we
must speak Hebrew. It is alright to say Mary instead of
I’m quite
sure the name “Yahweh” does not convey to me the identical same thing it
conveyed to the ancient Hebrews. I did not hear the word until I was in my early twenties.
When I heard it for the first time, I was not impressed. In fact, the word did not even
sound like a name. It was, for all practical purposes, meaningless to me. The word “God,”
on the other hand, is a deeply meaningful word, as are the words “Lord,”
Eternal,” and “Father.” When I hear the word God, or when I say or think
the word, I think of the Great Creator. The word means Eternal Ruler of the universe; it
means The Almighty. It means God. Think about it! You can kneel in the presence of your
heavenly Father and say, “My Father, my God...” with a certain depth of genuine
emotion and meaning — for the words “Father” and “God” are
meaningful to you. But when you pray, “O Yahweh, my Elohim...” something
personal, deep, and intimate is missing. If your mind works anything like mine, the
English terms enable you to express yourself before God with a greater depth of
relationship than do the Hebrew words. So, what was appropriate for Moses may not
necessarily be appropriate for you — as far as words are concerned.
There are three
basic assumptions behind the “Sacred Name” idea. The first is that Hebrew is God’s
language. It is somehow special and holy. The second is that the New Testament was written
in Hebrew or Aramaic — thus the originals were not contaminated by Greek paganism.
The final assumption is that the correct pronunciation of YHWH has not been lost in the
mists of time. If any of these assumptions are false, then the doctrine of the Sacred Name
crumbles.
Most Sacred Name
people believe that Hebrew is a special language — the language of God — or at
least the language He has chosen and ordained in a peculiar way on earth. They believe it
is a sin to translate God’s name into any other language because it thus becomes
“paganized”. The question follows — Is Hebrew God’s special language,
or a normal, humanly developed language that just happened to already be the language of
the first people God chose to reveal Himself to and choose for His unique purpose —
namely, the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? All authorities on linguistics and
archaeology agree that Hebrew was no isolated or divine language in Old Testament times.
It was exactly what Isaiah calls it — the language of
One of the
common Old Testament names for God is the Hebrew word EL. EL creates real problems for the
Sacred Name people. The name EL was in use among the pagan Canaanites long before Moses
penned the first five books of the Bible. In the cuneiform religious tablets excavated at
Ras Shamra (an ancient Canaanite city north of Israel), for example, EL (El the Bull) is
described as the head of the Canaanite pantheon of gods, husband of Asherah and father of
all the other gods. If it is a sin for us to use the English word God because pagan Druids
used it to refer to their idols, or the word Lord because the name of the pagan god Baal
meant “Lord,” then, by the same reasoning it is also a sin to use the Hebrew
words Elohim, El, and all the other forms of God’s name containing El. Also notice
that the Hebrew word Elohim is used 240 times throughout the inspired Old Testament to
refer to pagan, heathen idols! This usage by the Holy Spirit Himself shows that it is just
as permissible to use the English word God today for both our heavenly Father and for
pagan idols. When used of our Father it is the meaning that is important, not the
language, spelling, or pronunciation.
The Sacred Name
avoidance of the word “Lord” is very curious because the Old Testament, which
most Sacred Name believers use in preference to the New Testament, calls Yahweh Lord on
several occasions. Ezekiel 2:4 is an example of this. Here the words “Yahweh”
and “Adonai” (Lord) are used together to form one name or title — Lord
Yahweh. Since the Old Testament uses the word “El” for God and “Adonai”
for Lord, and these words are of human origin, and anciently used also by the pagans, how
can it be wrong to use the English equivalent of these words today? EL or YAHWEH or ADONAI
mean little to today’s reader, whereas God and Lord are pregnant with meaning to
English speaking people. The Sacred Name believers cite Hosea 2:16-17 as proof that it is
an abomination to use the word Lord. It says, “And it shall be at that day, saith the
Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali (my Lord). For I will
take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by
their name.” The passage clearly states that in the day that the Lord’s people
no longer call Him “Baali” they will call Him “Ishi.” And yet — I
have never met the person who goes around calling God “Ishi”! Those who use
Yahweh and Yahshua do not go about calling God Ishi. They do not pray to “Ishi,”
or cast out devils by calling over them “Ishi,” or heal the sick in the name of
“Ishi.” Ishi is the intimate Hebrew word that could have just as well been
translated “husband.” Furthermore, while “Baali” does indeed mean
“my Lord” in the sense of a Master or a Husband, Baal in English is NOT “LORD”
— it is BAAL! And in Hebrew that name has many compound forms just as Yahweh has many
compound forms. And the fact that none of those compound forms of Baal anciently used by
Israel in their idolatry is used by us today IS THE PROOF THAT GOD HAS
Though the vast
majority of the Old Testament was inspired in the Hebrew language, Daniel and Ezra wrote
portions of their books in Aramaic or Syriac, the prevalent language spoken throughout the
But what about
the New Testament books? The original inspired language of the New Testament was Greek.
Greek was virtually a universal language in the time of Christ and the apostles, widely
understood by both Jews and Gentiles. Much of the New Testament was written by the apostle
Paul, the apostle sent to the Greek-speaking nations who did not know Hebrew or Aramaic.
When Paul wrote in Greek to the people who spoke Greek, did he pause in mid sentence to
switch from Greek to Hebrew to write Yahweh or Yahshua when faced with a sacred name?
Never! Paul invariably used the Greek word for God, theos, and the word for Lord, kurios.
And he used the Greek name Iesous for Jesus. And so did the other writers of the New
Testament books, as inspired by the Holy Spirit. In 665 places in the New Testament, the
apostles translated the Hebrew word YHWH into the Greek word kurios. THERE IS NOT ONE NEW
TESTAMENT GREEK MANUSCRIPT WITH THE NAMES OF GOD WRITTEN IN HEBREW!
In the face of
these clear facts, the Sacred Name proponents have no choice but to deny that the New
Testament was originally written in Greek. They assert — wrongly — that the
whole of the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic (some even say Hebrew!), and
only later translated into Greek. At the time of this alleged translation, they claim, the
sacred Hebrew names were wrongly removed and pagan names substituted. THE BURDEN OF PROOF
IS ON THEM. The evidence? There is none! For it is a totally false and contrived notion,
devised out of necessity to justify a false premise! The Aramaic version of the New
Testament available today is clearly a later translation from the original inspired Greek.
The only copies of the original New Testament writings that have been preserved are in
Greek — none in Aramaic or Hebrew. Nobody on earth can produce one single “original”
copy in those languages!
Furthermore,
there is no doubt that the Greek of the New Testament is inspired of God, for it is
perfect in every way, including numerically. Therefore, as the Greek word kurios is used
in the New Testament in quoting from the Old Testament, it demonstrates again that without
doubt it is perfectly right and proper to TRANSLATE THE NAMES AND TITLES OF GOD FROM ONE
LANGUAGE INTO ANAOTHER. Again, as the Greek of the New Testament is inspired of God, we
know that the Greek word Iesous is inspired, which is used, of course, to translate the
Old Testament name Yahshua. As someone has said, the numeric design in the Greek New
Testament is not a mere curiosity. We find that the numeric value of the name Jesus is
888, whereas the name of His satanic counterpart is 666. Eight is the number symbolic of
the new order, resurrection, regeneration. In Isaiah 53:10 it states that “all the
ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” The numeric value of the
phrase “salvation of our God” in Greek is 888. Such examples could be multiplied
hundreds of times. Obviously this is by DIVINE ARRANGEMENT, for no other Greek writings
bear these marks of numeric design. Can we not see by this that Iesous IS the inspired
name of Yahshua in Greek? In English, we obtain the name Joshua from the Hebrew, and the
name Jesus from the Greek, all having the power of the same meaning — Saviour!
Blessed be HIS wonderful name! No matter what language it is in! While Hebrew was the
language, under God, of the times of the Old Covenant, Greek was the language chosen by
God to set down and to reveal the glorious truths of the Gospel of Christ — the New
Covenant. The time for the Hebrew language had passed with the Old Covenant. Its time, no
matter the opinions and efforts of men, will never come again. The Hebrew language and the
Old Covenant are inextricably and forever linked! But in the final analysis, the Hebrew
language is no different from any other, for the Hebrew language is not the language of
Heaven. God is a Spirit, and the language of Heaven is neither Hebrew nor Greek, but a
spiritual language that can be known only in and by the Spirit. It is a communication from
mind to mind, from spirit to spirit, in a realm beyond the languages of man. To speak of
God as having names in the sense in which men have names is to limit Him as if He were a
man, but He is an infinite Spirit who has deigned to reveal the many sides of His nature
in the words of man, be it in one language or another!
In addition to
these facts, there is acknowledged disagreement among Sacred Name writers and movements
about the correct Hebrew form of God’s name. I have read a number of Sacred Name
books and articles through the years and have found all the following (and more!) given as
the one and only “correct” and “inspired” form of the name: YAHWEH,
YEHWEH, YAHVEH, JAHVAH, YAHWOH, YAHVE, YEHVOH, YAHAWEY, YAHAWAH and YEWE. Each has his
“proof” and thinks he, and he alone, is right! A dear brother wrote that he has
six Sacred Name Bibles and not one of them agrees! Why? Simply because the true
pronunciation was LOST through all the centuries when it was not used by the Jews,
ten-tribed
Since the
pronunciation of God’s name in Hebrew has been lost for the past two and a half
millenniums, it is as though God deliberately hid the “letter” of His name
— that we might come to know Him by the Spirit! As a brother has written: “We
may sum this up by saying that God gave the name YHWH to Moses as a temporary measure.
When it had served its purpose, He obliterated its memory in three steps. (1) He allowed
the Jews to have a spurious reverence for it, so that they did not dare pronounce it. (2)
He caused Hebrew to be written without vowels, so that it could not be fully recorded, and
(3) He did not allow it to be transliterated into Greek or any other language while its
pronunciation was still known.” If the correct phonetics of His name were so
important — indeed, if our very salvation depended upon it; if our entrance into the
High Calling of God in His Kingdom depended upon it — then we are of all men most
miserable. And, if we are blaspheming God by mispronouncing His name, or dishonoring Him
by not using the Hebrew form of His name, is it not true that all the Sacred Name people
are just as guilty as anyone else with the possible exception one group? And who knows for
certain which group that might be? It is like the law, “For whosoever shall keep the
whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James
The solution
lies not in the “letter” of His name but in the meaning of His name —
understood by the Spirit! The work of God in our lives is not based on pronunciation!
Those who would worship the sound of a name — treating it with superstitious and
mystical reverence — make an idol out of that sound. Thinking they have some gift of
greater revelation, they actually miss the whole point and intent of the scriptures, and
engender needless strife and division. Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21: “Not
everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does
the will of my Father.” Performance, not pronunciation, is of paramount importance to
God. We honor His name by walking out His nature and character as His sons, not by
mouthing a certain sound. Do not be misled by the naive and misguided “scholarship”
of those who would make a “show of wisdom.” Their teachings are not
substantiated by the Word of God, but are based on a multitude of woefully misapplied
scriptures.
There is a
powerful lesson about the name of the Lord in the life of Dr. Thomas Wyatt, an apostle of
faith, mightily used of God in the earlier days of this century. I met him in the days of
the great Latter Rain move of God. The well-known author, Basil Miller, in his biography
of Thomas Wyatt, records the events in Wyatt’s life that immediately followed his
conversion. He says, “Though Thomas Wyatt had found spiritual elation, the physical
pain and body torment steadily increased. It was difficult for him to bend. Only with
severe anguish could he carry the duties of the larger farm he rented the following year.
Every move, every action was a knife stuck into his vitals. It became so serious that he
decided to go to
“He was
drawn and haggard. The doctor, after a complete examination, said, ‘The cushions
between your vertebrae are causing your pain. The X-rays show that your vertebrae are all
growing together. That is why you cannot straighten up. We recommend that you go back home
and set your house in order. Your chances of living are slight. If you live, you will be a
cripple throughout life.’ Dr. Mayo suggested that Tom return to
“Returning
home, the emotional strain proved too great, and Tom went to bed. For eighteen months he
was bedfast, a total invalid. A cousin came to oversee the work of the farm. Day after day
the patient’s strength waned. Despite the fact that these were days spent in
communion with the Lord, there was no thought or idea of calling on the great Physician
for a healing hand to be laid upon Tom’s body. He became weaker as the months passed,
until at length the twisted, pain-racked body could endure no more. Tom sensed death
lurking in the shadows. He had been sinking for several days, and finally went into a
coma. His relatives had been called, and they gathered to be with him in his last hours.
Funeral arrangements were made. Since the local newspaper was published weekly, the editor
thought it wise to print Tom’s obituary in the current issue, giving the day of his
death, and the time of the funeral. The night before his supposed death-day, Tom dropped
into a deep coma...then God stepped in with the miracle of Thomas Wyatt’s healing.
“While his
relatives were out of the room, Tom wakened from an eighteen-hour death coma. Utterly
helpless, physically wasted, death appearing and inviting, he looked up and was touched by
the finger of God. Regaining consciousness, Tom’s eyes were fixed upon the ceiling.
He lay there convinced he was dying. But he did not seem to care. In fact, he actually
welcomed death. He had lived in pain so long. Life had been hard, filled with suffering
and dire need. He felt that these were his last conscious hours. He had no regret at
leaving loved ones, for he was tired of life’s toilsome road. Then out of the
eternities came a clear and distinct Voice. The Voice seemed to come from everywhere. In a
firm and quietly-spoken tone the words of the Lord sounded: ‘I AM THE LORD THAT
“How he
reached deliverance’s blessed mount he had no idea, but he sensed the rarefied
atmosphere of the Supernatural. He had always believed God from the instant Christ had
saved him, and now he was possessed by an instinctive urge to act upon this overwhelming
truth spoken by the Lord. Shortly the relatives returned to the room. As they approached
the bed they saw that he had regained consciousness. They leaned over, and in a faint
voice Tom whispered, ‘The Lord has come and healed me.’ Tom had lain in bed
without any overt motions for eighteen months. Now he asked his relatives to lift him up.
He wanted to sit on the edge of the bed. When they protested, Tom demanded that they lift
him up. As they lifted him, thousands of pain-needles shot through his body, and he fell
over in a dead faint. They picked him up from the floor and laid him back on the bed,
thinking this was the end. But Tom did not sink into another coma, though he remained
helpless throughout the day and night. It was evident that the death power which had
visited him earlier was broken and he had been delivered. Though he could not move, his
heart was filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
“Tom asked
to be taken to the table to eat the noonday meal with the family. He was lifted from the
bed, carried to the table, and set into a chair. The second day was a repetition of the
first. Tom went back to the table for three meals. The return of strength was speedy after
that, for faith had motivated action, and action had evidenced faith. For thirty days
faith pushed Tom into act after act, until at the end of a month, not a trace of the old
sickness remained. Having lived in the Bible and experienced Christ’s marvelous
transforming and healing power, Tom Wyatt would soon be ready to carry the message of
total deliverance to all mankind. He could not pass by suffering humanity, as the priest
and Levite had done, when he himself had experienced the warm fellowship of the Good
Samaritan in balming his broken body” — end quote.
The point I
beseech you to consider is the manner in which the Lord Himself spoke to Thomas Wyatt. The
Lord says in Exodus 15:26, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Yahweh
thy God, and wilt do that which is right in my sight...I will put none of these diseases
upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am Yahweh that healeth thee.”
The phrase in our English Bibles, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” appears in
the Hebrew text as one of the great compound redemptive names Yahweh. It is
YAHWEH-ROPHEKHA — “I am Yahweh your healer.” God certainly knows who He is!
And, while in the Hebrew He says that He is YAHWEH that heals, yet when this same
ever-living God spoke sovereignly and audibly to poor Thomas Wyatt on his death bed, He
did not say, “I am YAHWEH that healeth thee,” but, “I am THE LORD that
healeth thee!” God Himself called Himself “the Lord” and thereby honored
the title most often used of Him in the English language. If “Lord” is the name
of “Baal,” as some contend, and is an abomination from which we must be
cleansed, then the Lord Himself certainly made a serious mistake and a grave error in
calling Himself “the LORD that healeth thee.” I could cite scores of examples
like this one of which I have first-hand knowledge. I am not aware of any supernatural
revelation of the Lord to any non-Hebrew-speaking man or woman in this age of the Spirit
in which God identified Himself as “Yahweh” or in which the Lord Jesus announced
Himself as “Yahshua.” He could certainly do so should He choose, and may have on
some occasion, but it is almost unknown in the recorded history of God’s dealings
with men.
JESUS IS YAHWEH!
We ought not to
be ashamed of calling Christ our “God,” because He is Yahweh; He stands upon
earth and calls to us “I AM!” And we need not make a big issue out of it, but
fall down as did the disciples of old and cry, “My Lord, and my God!” In Him we
know the living God, the Father in heaven. “No man hath seen God at any time; the
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (Jn.
Jesus Himself
said it this way: “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from
henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him. Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and
yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how
sayest thou, then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the
Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that
dwelleth in me, He doeth the works” (Jn. 14:7-10).
Now let us read
Isaiah 9:6. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given...His name shall be
called...the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.” It does not say mighty man, but
Mighty God. A little child is called the Mighty God. All Christians agree with the
prophecy of this verse. The child mentioned here refers to the child born in the stable in
God’s name
is written in Jesus. It would little avail to ask how we know the Father’s name is
written in Jesus. That would be like asking how we know that Beethoven’s “Hymn
to Joy” is joyous. If a man were to say, “It is not joyous to me,” he would
not condemn the music; he would only reveal his own morbidness. The name of the Son of God
is Jesus. That is His complete name. That is His correct name. That is His full name. The
name of the eternal Word of God who stepped across the stars to the planet earth to be
born in the little
I know many
people are struggling with the different names of God — is it Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh,
Yehovah or something else, all of which wrangling is stupidity and ignorance. The name of
God has ever been a progressive unfolding. “And God spake unto Moses, and said unto
him, I am Yahweh: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of
El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh was I not known unto them” (Ex. 6:2-3). So many
suppose that “Yahweh” is the FINAL REVELATION OF GOD’S NAME. Not so! God
has progressively revealed Himself by different names. Think! Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did
not even know God as Yahweh! The very first sentence of the Bible reveals God to us as
Elohim — the Creator. The Bible then reveals to us God as Yahweh Elohim — the
Creator of the heavens and the earth, and the One who formed and gave life to Adam. The
Bible reveals to us God as El Elyon — whom all nations worship and of whom all
nations seem to have the “God consciousness.” The next great stage of the self
revelation of God is as El Shaddai — the nourisher, the breasted One, sustaining the
fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The next stage is the further revelation of God as
Yahweh — the eternal, self-existent Lord and Redeemer of Israel. The next great stage
is the manifestation of God in the Person of Yahshua — Yahweh as salvation unto all
the ends of the earth. It was God’s plan from the beginning to reveal Himself from
glory to glory, from name to name.
The people of
God purposed
from the beginning to reveal Himself BEYOND YAHWEH. And now He has delivered the Kingdom
to His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father. Oh, the
mystery of it! Oh, the wonder of it! Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given
Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, of things in the earth, and things under the earth; and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”
(Phil. 2:9-11). The King James version says that God has given Jesus “a” name
above every name; but that is not how it is in the Greek. The Greek has the definite
article — “the name” above every name. This title, ‘THE NAME,” is
a very common Hebrew title denoting office, rank, dignity, as well as honor and worship
bestowed on the one on whom this name was conferred. Then THE NAME is revealed —
“that at THE NAME OF JESUS every knee should bow...” And the wonderful name of
Jesus is THE NAME above every other name both in heaven and in earth! Think of it! That
certainly includes the name Yahweh. If the name of Jesus is THE NAME that is above every
other name in heaven, then God has given Jesus the name that is above Yahweh! God Himself,
yes, Yahweh Himself, has highly exalted Jesus and given Him the name above every other
name anywhere. There is no name of God that He has ever revealed His nature in that is as
high as the mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, there is no revelation
of God’s nature that is as high as the nature of God revealed in Jesus. Jesus is God’s
nature revealed in its fullest. And that is what sonship is.
The
consciousness of the power of God’s name was in the heart of every faithful
Israelite. A young man was not afraid to stand before Goliath and say, “Thou comest
to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of
Yahweh of hosts” (I Sam.
There is authority in the name of Jesus because He inherited it.
We cannot measure the vastness of the power in the name of Jesus without realizing that He
inherited that name from God the Father. “God...hath in these last days spoken unto
us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds;
who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on
the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as He
hath BY INHERITANCE OBTAINED A
Those who cling
to the name Yahweh are living under the Old Testament economy of God with fleshly
I write to you
today of the power of the name of Jesus Christ. It is the name of omnipotence for our Lord
Himself declared, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Mat.
28:18). In that name the lowliest and most vile of God’s prodigal children may be
saved and transformed. With the name of Jesus on their lips, martyrs have calmly and
joyfully faced death by fire and sword. In His name multitudes have lived their lives of
service, cheerfully doing their rounds of mercy and goodness. In the name of Jesus the
first lisping prayers of infant hearts arise. The name of Jesus has comforted and
sustained broken, bleeding hearts in hours of darkest sorrow. In His name the most
glorious victories of faith have been won. The name of Jesus is all-conquering. It is the
name that is above every other name in heaven and on earth. Therefore it is higher than
the name Yahweh, and higher even than the name El Elyon! That name is called Wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. It is in this name that every
knee shall bow and every tongue swear allegiance — of things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things in the underworld. All hail the power of Jesus’ name!!
And remember,
precious friend of mine, there is no need to say the name in Hebrew. It is not at all
necessary to speak the name of Yahshua, although His name in Hebrew is just as precious
and powerful to those who speak Hebrew as Jesus is to us. The greatest proof, to my mind,
is the authority, power and value GOD HIMSELF PLACES IN THE NAME. I have seen devils come
out in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have seen cripples walk at the name of Jesus.
I have seen every manner of sickness and disease healed in the name of Jesus. I have seen
signs and wonders wrought in the name of the Lord Jesus. Untold millions of people have
been saved, cleansed, delivered and transformed by faith in the name of Jesus Christ. All
the works accomplished in all the great revivals in
Let us exalt the
glorious name of Jesus Christ the Lord! Let us with bowed heads and worshipful spirits say
with deepest emotion, “Hallowed be Thy name!” Let us exalt Him to that
resplendent heaven where He sits enthroned on the throne of the Father. Let us exalt Him
as the image of God, the only visibility of God, God manifested in the flesh, Emmanuel,
God with us, the Man in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily — of whom
we are members in particular and brothers in the great family of God. Let us exalt Him and
put His name above every other name in which God has ever revealed Himself; and above
every name that has ever been spoken into human ear or uttered by mortal lips. Let us
shout it out in song, roll it forth on organ swell, blast it out in trumpet call, and
proclaim on the lips of eloquence that His name is above every name; that God the infinite
Father has exalted that name above all of His names and has ordained that in the name of
Jesus all shall bow in worshipful adoration in heaven and in earth.
In closing let
me add one more thought. The name of Jesus is more than the letters J-E-S-U-S. The power
of a name, the life of a name, the reality of a name is not in the letters or
pronunciation but in the meaning it embodies. Name means nature. It is the NATURE of Jesus
Christ that has been highly exalted. He has been given a SAVING NATURE that is above every
other nature in heaven and in earth. Every living creature possesses a nature. The dog
barks and the cat meows because of their nature. There is the elephant nature, the lion
nature, the horse nature. There are the natures of mighty angels and pernicious devils,
and the nature of Adam — mankind. There may be myriads of creatures on other planets
in far away galaxies of the universe, I do not doubt it for one moment. But the man Christ
Jesus has been highly exalted into a Nature that is grander and more glorious and far
superior to the nature of any other being throughout the vastnesses of infinity. It is the
divine nature. It is the active side of the divine nature, a nature that is not content to
just BE what it is, but reaches forth to impart to creation all that it is. It is the
divine SAVING NATURE. This is the man Christ Jesus’ new name — His NEW NATURE.
In this name is the hope of sonship and the ministry of the manifested sons of God. These
sons are destined to deliver creation from the bondage of corruption and this can only be
accomplished by the saving nature of God. That is the highest expression of all that He
is. That is His new name.
“And I saw
heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and
True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire,
and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew (or had
experienced), but He Himself” (Rev. 19:11-12). And to the overcomer it is promised:
“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no
more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my
God, which is new Jerusalem: and I will write upon him my new name” (Rev. 3:12).
The key to
receiving His new name is overcoming. The starting point in overcoming is with the little
things, the little foxes that spoil the vine. You will be defeated if you start with the
giants. You must first slay your bear and kill your lion before you take on Goliath. Start
overcoming the little things, those little quirks and idiosyncrasies in your personality
— those things you think, those words you speak, those attitudes you manifest from
time to time, facial expressions, body movements, gestures, slothfulness, sins of omission
— these little things that fall short and miss the mark of the nature of the Christ.
God wants us to be changed! We will never be changed just by hearing the message and
giving assent to it. We must take on — appropriate — a whole new nature that is
absolutely contrary to the human nature. I’m not talking about warring with the
“old man” or wrestling with the “devil.” I’m talking about so
putting on a new nature until all that is contrary to that nature is put to death. I’m
talking about so putting on a new nature until it becomes natural to be supernatural.
HE must
increase, WE must decrease — and it must be in that order. You do not die in order to
live, you live in order to die. By accentuating the positive you eliminate the negative.
By turning on the light you drive away the darkness. By the infusion of life you abolish
death. Truth destroys error. Reality negates fantasy. That is the law of conformation into
the image of Christ. You fill your mind with the Truth of Christ, you flood your life with
the Word of God, and “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue
confess.” The “name” denotes the “nature.” If you have partaken
of the nature of Jesus then every knee within you must bow before that nature and every
tongue, every voice within you, must confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the glory of God
the Father.
My beloved,
until this happens within us we are not Saviours to the world. We can talk about
manifested sonship all we please, we can confess it, name it and claim it, teach it and
preach it, blab it and grab it, and pride ourselves in our superior calling — but
until the nature of Jesus rules within we are not one whit beyond the religious world
around us. Every enemy within must be routed and cast out by the power of His glorious
name, His glorious nature. Do you want power to cast out devils? Begin by having the
devils cast out of you. That’s the starting point, you see. You say, “I don’t
have any devils in me.” That may be true — but it is nothing short of amazing
when the right testing, temptation, problem or pressure comes our way how many devils can
be raised up in us! Sometimes it takes very little. But at the nature of Jesus every knee
bows and every tongue confesses His Lordship within. “Believe on the name of the Son
of God,” the scripture says. But the Greek is a little more definitive: “Believe
into the name of the Son of God.” This means more than believing on the name of the
man Jesus who lived two thousand years ago. It speaks of believing into His nature so that
His nature becomes our nature. It is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is hallowing His
name in our lives. It is raising up and exalting the nature of Christ within. May God make
it reality to all those blessed ones who read these lines today! HALLOWED BE THY NAME!
Part 13
THY KINGDOM COME
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...Thy kingdom come...” (Mat.
6:9).
I will do
you a special favor today. I will change that prayer somewhat. But it is not really I that
am changing it — the church world has changed it. When they were through changing it
they liked it a lot better. From then on they have prayed it the new way: “Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy saints go to heaven...” Isn’t
that what a lot of people are praying for? Vast multitudes believe a false doctrine that
is called “The Rapture of the Saints.” It means “The Going of the Saints.”
This idea is based on the scripture that says, “If I go away you will also go away...”
Ah — how does that text go? “If I go away I will come again and receive you unto
Myself.” The Lord Jesus never said that He would come and take us to heaven; He said
He would come and receive us unto Himself, unto a Person, not a place, unto union with Him
in all that He is. What the church world is looking for today is not the Lord’s
coming, nor yet the coming of the
The Lord’s
prayer, however, does not refer either to the Lord’s coming or our going — its
cry is, “Thy Kingdom come!” What is the Lord’s title when He comes? In what
office does He come? We have said that He is coming as King. No, He’s not. People
testify that Jesus is their Saviour, Healer, Baptizer and Coming King. But He is not a
coming King. When He comes He does not come as King. He is already King. He is the King
eternal. He rules over all. When He comes He comes as King of kings. There is a great
difference. Let us put Him where He belongs. Let us not drag Him down to just a king level
— for the world has had a bumper crop of kings. He comes as King of kings. But I’m
going to tell you something — He had better come soon, because there are very few
kings left in the world at present! If the revolutions continue and He waits any longer He
will be unable to come as King of kings because there will be no kings left! But that is
not what He is talking about.
“John to
the seven churches which are in
The Bible is a
book of faith and hope. It looks, not backward or downward, but forward and upward. Its
face is ever set toward the Dawn. It always points us toward the best that is yet to come
— the completion, maturity, fullness, consummation. In its first pages we read of the
heaven blest
Then Jesus came!
The message He gave was the
And as He, the
firstborn Son of God, preached, so He would have His many brethren preach. When He
commissioned His Twelve, He sent them forth two by two, and charged them, saying, “As
ye go, preach, saying, The Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the
lepers, raise the dead and cast out devils.” When He commissioned the Seventy, He
sent them two by two before His face into every city and place, whither He Himself was
about to come, saying, “Into whatsoever city ye enter and they receive you, cure the
sick that are therein, and say to them, The Kingdom of God is come nigh to you.” When
He was traveling through Peraea, and one of His disciples asked leave to go and bury his
father, the King said to him, “Follow me; leave the dead to bury their dead; but do
thou go and announce the Kingdom of God.” And as the King bade, so His brethren did.
When the
persecution arose about Stephen, Philip went down from
The petition for
the coming of the Kingdom brings us face to face with the supreme concern and purpose in
the heart of Jesus. The Kingdom was His dearest dream, the one consuming passion of His
life. As a child, when He studied the holy scriptures and communed with His heavenly
Father, the reality of the
When Jesus
turned aside from the carpenter shop that day, He set out to proclaim the
“Thy
Kingdom come.” An incredible statement — three simple words in both English and
Greek, yet they open to us a realm so vast and glorious that one approaches the thought
like a little boy with a pail standing before the fathomless seas, wondering how to fit it
all into his bucket. There is no way one can contain it, no way one can comprehend or
articulate all that is here. The preachers in the church systems have misinterpreted this
petition. They think that the prayer for God’s Kingdom refers to the end of the world
or the so-called second coming of Christ. But when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy
Kingdom come,” He is not speaking of the end of the world, or the rapture of the
saints, or the return of Jesus, but the coming of the Kingdom. He means that we are to
pray that God may reign here upon the earth, yea, even here in this earth which we are;
that men here may acknowledge Him as King, that life here may express and accomplish His
will in earth as it is in heaven. “But rather seek ye the
This is not a
prayer that we might be taken away from this planet to some far-off heaven somewhere, but
it is a prayer that heaven may come down to earth, that joy may swallow up sorrow, that
peace may overtake strife, that love may overcome hatred, that fullness may cancel
limitation, that weakness may be overwhelmed by might, that mortality may be swallowed up
of life, that sin may be banished by salvation, that the knowledge of the glory of the
Lord might cover the earth as the waters cover the sea so that the earth itself and all
within it may BECOME HEAVENLY. It is a prayer for the “new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness” as men’s lives are brought under the sway of the
WHAT IS THE K
The dictionary
defines “kingdom” as “a government or country headed by a king or queen; a
monarchical state; a realm or domain.” The word “kingdom” is made up of the
noun “king,” and the suffix “dom”. “Dom” is a noun-forming
suffix to express rank, position, or domain. For example, a dukedom is the domain over
which a duke has authority or exercises rule, and in the abstract the rank of a duke. In
like manner a kingdom is the domain and the people within that domain over which a king
exercises authority and rule. It is the “king’s domain”. “Kingdom”
is thus a contraction of “king’s domain”. The term,
Many of us who
do not come from a country where the king or queen is sovereign, may have some difficulty
grasping this idea of a kingdom. But it should easily be understood that no king is a king
unless he has a kingdom to rule over. No sovereign is a sovereign without a state under
his control. The state is composed primarily of three things: people, territory, and
government. Without people, territory, and government no man is a king. And though there
be people and territory, except the king possesses SOVEREIGNTY — SUPREME POWER AND
How glibly the
masses in the church systems pray this prayer! It is repeated hundreds of millions of
times daily without any serious intention of it happening. People pray it without the
foggiest notion of what the words mean, and have no disposition for it to be fulfilled in
them personally in any practical way. There is far too much at stake. When all is said and
done, most of us from our earliest childhood believe that we are the king of our own
castle. We want to do things “our way.” We determine our own destinies, make our
own decisions, chart our own course, set our own goals, choose our own priorities, arrange
our own affairs, and govern our own lives. We become highly skilled specialists in
selfish, self-centered living where all life revolves around the epicenter of me, I, mine.
Millions sanctimoniously and religiously pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” thinking it
is something outside of themselves, is some distant age, under other conditions — and
have no intention whatever of abdicating the throne of their own inner wills and hearts to
the King of Glory. They are utterly unwilling to surrender the sovereignty of their lives
to God. They are no more prepared to accept the sovereign rule of Christ than were those
men who shouted at His crucifixion, “We have no king but Caesar!”
So, if I
sincerely, earnestly, and genuinely beseech the Spirit of God to rule in my life and
experience, there to establish His Kingdom, I can only expect that there will be a most
tremendous confrontation. It is a foregone conclusion that there will follow a formidable
conflict between His divine sovereignty and my self-willed ego. And this, precious friend
of mine, is the true BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON! S. D. Gordon ably stated it this way: “With
this prayer go two clauses that really particularize and explain it. They are included in
it, and are added to make more clear the full intent. The first of these clauses gives the
sweep of His will in the broadest outlines. The second touches the opposition to that will
both for our individual lives and for the race and for the earth.
“The first
clause is this, ‘Thy Kingdom come.’ The second clause is, ‘Thy will be
done.’ In both of these short sentences the emphatic word is “THY”. That
word is set in the sharpest possible contrast here. There is another kingdom now on the
earth. There is another will being done. The other kingdom must go if God’s Kingdom
is to come. These kingdoms are antagonistic at every point of contact. They are rivals for
the same allegiance and the same territory. They cannot exist together. ‘Thy Kingdom
come’ of necessity includes this, ‘the other kingdom go.’ ‘Thy Kingdom
come’ means likewise, ‘Thy King come,’ for in the nature of things there
cannot be a kingdom without a king. That means again by the same inference, ‘the
other prince go,’ the one who makes pretensions to being the rightful heir to the
throne. ‘Thy will be done’ includes by the same inference this: ‘the other
will be undone.’ There are the two great wills at work in the world ever clashing in
the action of history and in our individual lives. In many of us, yea, in all of us,
though in greatly varying degree, these two wills constantly clash. Man is the real
battlefield. The pitch of the battle is in his will. The greatest prayer then fully
expressed, sweeps first the whole field of action, then touches the heart of the action,
and then attacks the opposition. It is this: THY Kingdom come, THY will be done’”
— end quote. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” I am willing to relinquish
the rule of my life, my own will, my own ways, to give up governing my own affairs, to
abstain from controlling my own destiny in order to allow the indwelling Christ to be
raised up within me as the personality of my being.
The word “kingdom”
is from the Greek word BASILEIA meaning “rule” or “reign”. Sometimes I
wish that everywhere the word appears in scripture it had been translated “reign”
or “kingly rule”. I think that says something that “kingdom” does not,
at least to our modern minds. Kingdom makes us think of land and people, of riding horses,
pomp and ceremony, maidens and knights, castles and motes and walls and laws and all of
that. Even Pilate asked Jesus if He were a king, implying, “What kind of a king are
you?” Jesus replied, “My Kingdom is not of this world — that is, my Kingdom
is not after the order and systems of earthly kingdoms. It is the rule of God by the
Spirit.”
To the first
believers “evangelism” was merely the sharing of good news. In fact, “evangel”
or “gospel” means good news. The good news of a new and marvelous Friend —
the man Jesus who had walked the roads of Galilee with them, helped them mend their nets
by the lakeside, played with their children, healed their sick, even raised their dead,
talked to them in familiar yet fascinating words about the Kingdom of God — the
glorious new order of the reign of God where sin, sickness, oppression, cruelty, war,
famine, and death would pass away and all men would live in righteousness, peace, joy and
power in the Holy Ghost.
THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER
There is very
special meaning and deep mystery in the words, “Our Father...Thy Kingdom come.”
Earth is full of misery, sin and death. Many are the schemes of science and politics for
correcting and mending matters, and God knows they need mending. Each man has his own
nostrum, every quack his own panacea — but every council and summit, every invading
army and self-assertive leader, every carnal effort of man leaves God and His Christ out
of account, making every plan doomed to failure. We shall mend matters only by finding God
as reality, and deliverance comes only when HE is enthroned as King.
Someone says,
“But — is not God King now? Is not the world His? Are not all men in His
sovereign hands? Does not the Most High rule over all? Has He not always been King?”
That is perfectly true! I do not forget for one moment that even now the earth is the Lord’s
and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. “God is King of all
the earth” (Ps. 47:7). He is a King upon His throne. “God sitteth upon the
throne of His holiness” (Ps. 47:8). He has a regal title, high and mighty. “Thus
saith the high and lofty One” (Isa. 57:15). He has the ensigns of royalty. He has His
scepter. “A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy Kingdom” (Heb. 1:8).
He has His royal crown. “On His head were many crowns” (Rev. 19:12). He has His
jura regalia, His kingly prerogatives. He has power to make laws, to seal pardons, which
are the flowers and jewels belonging to His crown. Thus the Lord is King. He is a great
King. “For the Lord is a great King above all gods” (Ps. 95:3). He is great in
and of Himself; and not like other kings, who are made great by their subjects. That He is
so great a King appears by the immensity of His Being. “Do not I fill heaven and
earth? saith the Lord” (Jer.
God is a
glorious King. “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory”
(Ps. 24:10). He has internal glory. “The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with majesty”
(Ps. 93:1). Other kings have royal and sumptuous apparel to make them appear glorious to
beholders, but all their magnificence is borrowed; God is clothed with His own majesty;
His own glorious essence is instead of royal robes, and “He hath girded Himself with
strength.” Kings have their guard about them to defend their person, because they are
not able to defend themselves; but God needs no guard or assistance from others. “He
hath girded Himself with strength.” His own power is His lifeguard. “Who in the
heaven can be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto
the Lord?” (Ps. 89:6). He has a pre-eminence above all other kings for majesty. He
has the highest throne, the richest crown, the largest dominions, and the longest
possession. “He hath on His vesture a name written, KING OF
While we deliberate, He reigns.
When we decide wisely, He reigns.
When we decide foolishly, He reigns.
When we serve Him humbly, loyally, He reigns.
When we serve Him self-assertively, He reigns.
When we rebel and seek to withhold our service, He reigns.
At a given
moment in history it may seem to be true that the rulership of the world is not in the
hands of God but in the hands of selfish and ruthless men. Caesar sits securely on his
throne; Christ perishes on a cross. So it appears. But not so. It was easy for the Roman
Governor, Pilate, to make this mistake. How very impressive an empire that covered the
whole of Europe and reached into Africa and
What consolation
and understanding is inspired by the blessed knowledge that in spite of all the bluster
and might exhibited by the kingdom of darkness, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! But,
dear one, if you will examine the basis of that Kingship, the Kingship of the Lord from
the beginning of the world, you will find that it rests on God’s Creatorship. He is
Lord of the world and men and rules and overrules in all their doings because He is their
Creator with divine plan and purpose for their destiny. But God wants to be King in and by
Jesus Christ — that is to say, He wants to be King by virtue not of His power, but of
His love. He wants men to reverence and obey Him not because they are afraid of Him, not
because they are out-witted and out-maneuvered by Him, not because they cannot help
themselves, but because they love Him. It is reconciliation, union, oneness with man that
the heart of God is after.
Let us meditate
deeply upon these words: “Our Father...Thy Kingdom come.” Whose Kingdom is it?
Ah, it is “our Father’s” Kingdom. Not the Kingdom of the Lord God of the
Old Testament, not the
THE KINGDOM — PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
The prayer,
“Thy Kingdom come,” points to the Kingdom as something still to be realized. How
can that which is already fully realized be requested to come? As yet it is in some way in
the future. And yet, in other places in the scriptures it is spoken of as actually
existent, a present reality. How can this be? The reality is, both premises are true
— the Kingdom is both present and future. There are many indications that for Jesus
the
Again, “Verily
I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go (or “are going” —
Moffatt, as also Goodspeed) into the
The clearest
meaning of the Greek can always be ascertained by usage. The way a word is used reveals
its true meaning — the meaning that the Holy Spirit of inspiration puts upon it, not
the meaning our English translators give it. It is a thing of wonder — the Holy
Spirit has faithfully, powerfully and indisputably recorded for us the precise meaning of
the word here translated “within”. The Greek word is ENTOS meaning simply,
according to Strong’s concordance, “inside; within.” The word is used in
only one other place in the whole New Testament, in Matthew 23:26. It is the Lord Jesus
Himself that uses the word on both occasions, and notice what He says. “Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter,
but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that
which is within (entos) the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
No one can argue that ENTOS means “in the midst” or “among” in this
place — it clearly means “within”. “Within” is contrasted with
the “outside” of the cup and platter and plainly speaks of the pollution within
the hearts of men, not in their midst or among them. The evil in men is not something
apart from them or outside of them but something rooted deeply in the inward nature.
The question
follows — how could Jesus say to the same Pharisees that both corruption was within
them and the
So note —
not to the disciples who followed Him and kept His sayings, but to the Pharisees in their
spiritual blindness He spoke these amazing words: “The
The Bible says
that “God is the Father of the spirits of all flesh” (Num. 27:16; Heb. 12:9). We
might ask, “Who, really, is entitled to think of God as Father?” God is the
Father of all men. Some men walk as children of the devil, for they walk after the flesh,
after the serpent nature. But God is still the Father of their spirit. There is a special
sense in which God is the Father only of those who are reborn of Him through the Holy
Spirit of re-generation. To these He gives, in a blessedly unique sense, the “spirit
of adoption” or the revelation of their sonship, whereby they cry, “Abba,
Father!” The Holy Spirit quickens their spirit to know that they are sons of God and
to enable them to walk in that realm. Nevertheless, the fact remains, universal and
unalterable, that God is the Father of the spirits of all men. If we had no spirit from
God the Holy Spirit would be unable to quicken our spirit and make it alive unto Him.
Father Adam is declared by the Spirit of inspiration to be “the son of God” (Lk.
While the
If I did not
believe in the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God in all realms and everywhere and
over every thing throughout the vastnesses of infinity, and if I believed that this world
was to continue to be misruled and misgoverned as it is; if I believed that sin and sorrow
and death and wicked men and vile institutions were to continue unto the end, I should
despair of humanity and of God. But God never gives up. God reigns! The good news which
our Lord Jesus Christ came to preach is “good tidings of great joy to all people.”
Praise God for the good news! God reigns! — that is the good news. God shall be
Victor! God shall put every enemy under His feet and our feet! He is Lord of ALL!
The gospel that
Jesus preached was the gospel of the Kingdom. He announced that He had come to found a
Kingdom; He claimed the title of King for Himself; and in the Sermon on the Mount He gave
us the laws, the principles, the very constitution of that Kingdom. Well, what kind of a
Kingdom is it? Across millenniums of time the answer of the great apostle Paul rings
clear: “The
Righteousness is
right attitude, right motive, right living out of the spirit. You see, my beloved, it is
not just righteousness by man’s standard, not external obedience to the law, not
outward conformity to society’s norms, not mere human goodness. There is more than
one kind of righteousness. Paul says, “For they being ignorant of God’s
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:3). The
The
The
Truly the
Part 14
THY KINGDOM COME
(continued)
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...Thy kingdom come...” (Mat.
6:9).
The prophets of
Old Testament times regarded the
There are two
errors abroad in the land today in respect to the
The second error
recognizes no present literal
The great truth
I declare to you today is that Jesus Christ came two millenniums ago and brought the
Kingdom and established the Kingdom within the hearts and lives of the sons of the
Kingdom. “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching
the good news of the Kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of
God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the good news” (Mk. 1:14-15). And again,
“The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the
Upon your table
today there is or should be a book we call the Bible. This book alone reveals God’s
secret plan of the ages. It unfolds with unerring accuracy the mysteries of ages in the
dim and misty past and points with unerring finger to the purpose of countless eons yet to
come. The Christian Church as we know it has been living in a fool’s paradise,
propounding pet doctrines, ranting and raving about an endless eternity with golden
streets and harps and white nightgowns for some and crackling, searing, tormenting flames
for others, but almost completely overlooking God’s wonderful
As men with the
aid of God’s Word have gazed into the vista of the future, it seems to have missed
their understanding that God says very little in His Word about eternity, while devoting
many hundreds of passages to His will and works wrought through THE AGES. “God, who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all
things, by whom also He made the worlds” (Heb. 1:1-2). What tremendous statements we
have here! God has spoken to us through His Son — literally, “spoke to us in
Son,” or, God spoke to us in One who has the character that He is a SON, revealing
the realm and relationship of sonship to God. This Son is heir of all things and, blessed
be God! we are joint heirs with Him. “By whom also He made the worlds.” Many
people believe this refers to the creative act — “In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth.” It does not refer to that at all. The word here for
“worlds” is AIONAS. It means ages — “...by whom He framed the ages.”
This goes beyond His being Creator of matter and its arrangement into multiplied billions
of galaxies, stars, suns, planets and moons with their atmospheres and inhabitants. This
lends purpose to everything. He is the heir who GIVES THE
The age we are
now living in is not the last age nor is the age to come the final age in God’s vast
Kingdom program. The apostle Paul tells us that God “hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the AGES TO COME He might
show (put on display, exhibit) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us
through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6-7). According to these inspired words there are
“ages” yet to come — so there can be no less than two ages beyond our
present age and there could be many, many more. It is during these “ages to come”
that God shall take the wonderful work He has so meticulously wrought in His elect
throughout the past ages and put it on display in and through them for the whole creation
to behold and consider. This will certainly not be to the condemnation of creation, the
masses of unregenerated men that have lived and died upon this planet, but rather redounds
unto their blessing, deliverance and transformation; for it is HIS
While the
scriptures speak in the Greek of an age, and the ages, and the ages of the ages — one
age proceeding from, or out of, a previous age until all the ages have run their courses
— it also points to that glorious climatic age of all ages. We read the phrase,
“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). These words “for ever
and ever” come from the Greek which literally reads TO THE AGE OF THE AGES. This is
very familiar terminology in scripture.
Few men have
been caught away by the spirit of inspiration as was the wise king Solomon when he penned
the beautiful Song of Solomon. God dropped one thousand and five songs down into the heart
of Solomon, but of these, only five comprising the Song of Solomon, have been preserved
and found a place in holy scripture. Inspiration named it “The Song of Songs,”
that is, the one song that was above and beyond all the songs that have ever come from
human heart and human lips. Just as the “Song of Songs” was chief above them
all, just as the “Holy of holies” was the holiest place of all, just as the
“heaven of heavens” is the highest heaven of all, just as the “King of
kings” is the greatest King of all, so all through the scriptures, though obscured by
many translators, we have this remarkable phrase TO THE AGE OF THE AGES. It points to that
age that shall be the most glorious of all, and which finds its type in the year of
Jubilee.
This is the Holy
Spirit’s way of expressing the superlative, and so far as God’s plan of the ages
is concerned this AGE OF THE A
The Word of God
is crystal clear that there is to be an increase of the Kingdom from age to age. The very
fact that there are yet “ages to come” shows that the Kingdom advances from one
age to another. Historically, every new age has superseded the previous ones, bringing
greater light, a further revelation of God, and more advanced dealing with mankind. Each
new age inaugurates a higher dimension of God’s purposes in the earth. Nothing is
clearer in the scriptures than the fact that THIS IS NOT THE LAST AGE. There is no “final
windup” at the close of this present dispensation. We can expect, therefore, fresh
and greater manifestations and administrations of Kingdom dominion as we move from this
age into the next. What anticipation this evokes in our hearts!
The apostle
James made a statement to the council at
God’s
purpose in His Church is not to save men from sin and hell and take them off to some
far-off heaven somewhere. God’s plan is to first set up His government in the hearts
of His elect and then as they become totally committed unto Him to imbue them with His own
mind, spirit, thoughts, will, nature and power until they have grown up into the measure
of the fullness of the stature of Christ. But most Christians will not come to this! They
are too busy playing church, rejoicing that they are not going to hell or that they are
going to heaven when they die, and blundering around in the carnal programs and immaturity
and shame of a wretched, fleshly, Babylonian religious system which falsely calls itself
“the church.” But just as the dispensation of the law, at its conclusion,
brought forth that which it typified and pointed to — Jesus Christ the Son of God
— so this present Church age must, in these last days, at its conclusion, bring forth
that for which it was intended and to which it pointed — a many-membered BODY OF
CHRIST, perfected, matured, overcoming, and full grown into the exact likeness and full
glory of its Head and Lord.
God never
intended that Christ should rule over all the earth and all nations during this age. His
reign is confined completely to that company of footstep followers who have heard His
voice and follow Him all the way into sonship to God. Baptized in His fullness these sons
of God become the very embodiment of His government in the earth. This may seem to be an
extremely slow method and a very small Kingdom for such a great and exalted King, but we
cannot over emphasize the importance of this lowly beginning for a government whose
authority is destined to “subdue ALL THINGS.” So let us see that not only is God
establishing His government in the lives of His elect, but through His dealings with them
He is actually FORMING THEM INTO A GOVERNMENT — a ruling body of sons of God, kings
and priests after the Order of Melchizedek! God is calling out a people to bear His name,
to be His nature, authority and power in the earth. To bear His name WHERE? WHEN? HOW? To
bear His name only through their fleeting years in the flesh? Not at all. James says,
“AFTER THIS (after the Lord has completed His work of calling out a people for His
name), I will return and build again the tabernacle of David...THAT THE RESIDUE OF MEN
MIGHT SEEK AFTER THE LORD, AND ALL THE GENTILES...saith the Lord.” The “residue”
of men denotes “all the rest,” that is, all who were not part of the “called
out.” I tell you, my beloved, God is now forming a government composed of faithful
sons (the tabernacle of David) whom He shall use in the coming age and ages as kings and
priests after the Order of Melchizedek to bring God’s Kingdom to pass in all the
earth and in all realms. Through this glorious anointed body of sons ALL THE REST OF
MEN...ALL THE GENTILES...SHALL SEEK THE LORD. Hallelujah! This is not the “coming”
of the Kingdom, it is the next stage of “advancement” and “increase”
of the Kingdom. The Kingdom has already come! But this next step of the Kingdom’s
expansion cannot come until the sons of God are fully matured, perfected, trained,
prepared and equipped. God, through nearly two thousand years, has been slowly, surely and
wisely choosing this body of sons, preparing them through the furnace of affliction and
the discipline of testings to sit together with Him on His throne, for those that suffer
with Him shall also reign with Him!
The promise is
sure. “And He that OVERCOMETH, and keepeth my works unto the end (of the processing),
to him will I give POWER OVER THE NATIONS: and he shall RULE THEM with a rod of iron; as
the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Rev. 2:26-27). “To him
that OVERCOMETH will I grant to SIT WITH ME IN MY THRONE, even as I also overcame and am
set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21). “And now they sing again a
new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to break the seals that are on it,
for You were slain and with Your blood you purchased men unto God — from every tribe
and language and people and nation. And You have MADE THEM A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS to our
God, and they shall REIGN OVER THE EARTH!” (Rev. 5:9-10, Amplified). This great truth
cannot be any more forcefully presented than it is by the prophet Daniel when he writes,
“These great beasts which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the
earth. But the SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH SHALL TAKE THE KINGDOM, and POSSESS THE KINGDOM for
ever, even for ever and ever. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and
prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN TO THE
SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH; and the time came that THE SAINTS POSSESSED THE KINGDOM. And he
shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most
High...BUT THE JUDGMENT (of the saints) SHALL SIT, AND THEY (the saints) SHALL TAKE WAY
HIS DOMINION TO CONSUME AND DESTROY IT UNTO THE END. AND THE KINGDOM AND DOMINION AND THE
GREATNESS OF THE KINGDOM UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, SHALL BE GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE OF THE
SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and ALL DOMINIONS SHALL
SERVE AND OBEY HIM” (Dan. 7:17-18, 21-22, 25-27).
The work of the
sons of God only begins at the opening of the age that follows the Church age. “Then
I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom authority to act as judges and pass
sentence was entrusted...blessed and holy — spiritually whole, of unimpaired
innocence and proved virtue — is the person who shares in the first
resurrection...and they shall be MINISTERS of God and of Christ...and they shall RULE WITH
HIM a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4,6, Amplified). Ah, yes, they shall rule for that age
but the Kingdom doesn’t end there, for, “of the increase of His government and
peace THERE SHALL BE NO END!”
It is my deep
conviction that God’s Kingdom program for the past two millenniums has been the
calling out of the body of Christ, the formation of God’s divine government of Kings
and Priests after the Order of Melchizedek. These are called out by God, called out of the
world, and called out unto God. Furthermore, they are called out of every religious system
on earth including those man-made systems which have the audacity to call themselves
“the Church,” although their organizations are unscriptural, their programs
unspiritual, and their ceremonies uninspired. They are in reality a pretense and a sham.
The true Church is the ecclesia, the “called out” ones. They are called out by
the Holy Spirit of God and they are called out unto God. Their ears know His voice and not
the clamoring voices of strangers. Well they know by the Spirit that the Babel of voices
which clamor to be heard from the pulpit and radio and television are too often the voices
of strangers posing as the ministers of Christ who seek to draw away disciples after
themselves, and not to point men to the Christ of God upon whose shoulder is the
government of the world.
God has had no
plan to save the world during the Church age, only to call out a people unto Himself. If
God had purposed to save the world during the past two thousand years He most certainly
would have done so, for His IS GOD ALMIGHTY. God’s Kingdom program for the next age,
as His Kingdom progresses from age to age in that glorious increase of which there is no
end, is the subjugation and salvation of all the living nations on earth. The promise is
sure. Hear what the Lord is about to do through His Anointed Christ Body in this, our day!
“He that overcometh...to him will I give POWER OVER THE
Scripture could
be piled upon scripture, but it should be clear to every honest heart that God has a plan
beyond this age and beyond the Church, the called out, a plan that includes ALL THE
NATIONS OF EARTH. The Church age is the age of the called out, the formation of God’s
elect into a
Within this
principle lies the nature of the
For many
years now multitudes of preachers and people in the church systems would have us believe
that God has been in this great work of the ages for the short period of 6,000 years. They
tell us that in this day God is about to become so disgusted with the whole mess that He
is going to close it down, take a few saints away to a planet called heaven, and give up
on the rest of creation, the work of His love. What a WEAK and STUPID God some folk have
and worship! They worship a God who changes, one who in the beginning did start out to
bring about a glorious end, but somewhere along the line lost control of the situation and
has now thrown up His hands in despair and decided to destroy the whole thing and content
Himself with a “little flock” of followers for all eternity. What great pity I
feel for such people and for the god they serve! For this is going to put their god in the
unenviable position of being filled with regret throughout all eternity because He was
unable to carry out His purpose, a large segment of humanity and creation forever lost to
Him, and He will have to always remember that over in the hell He created is the vast
majority of men for whom Jesus died suffering the tortures of the damned for ever and
ever. What a prospect for God and His creation! What a prospect for God and His Kingdom!
What a prospect for God and His Anointed body of Kings and Priests after the Order of
Melchizedek! What an unthinkable prospect!
There
are worlds beyond this one, scattered throughout the vastnesses of infinity, all created
by our Lord Jesus Christ and all included within the scope of His ever-increasing Kingdom.
Long millenniums ago God “created the heavens and the earth.” A universe of
raging infernos called stars came into existence. Astronomers estimate that their number
is equal to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or one sextillion — yet, their utter
extremity has never been seen! There seems to be no end to the twinkling points of light.
And scattered among these myriads of stars and nebulae are millions of solar systems
composed of suns, planets and moons. Those worlds, too, are to be explored and God’s
great purpose fulfilled in them through the sons of God, for God’s Christ is heir of
A-L-L T-H-I-N-G-S. Ages to come...it will take them all, precious friend of mine, though
there should be billions or trillions of them, to complete the great and grand purpose of
our Creator. What a calling! What a plan! What a destiny! How magnificently awesome and
meaningful the words of the inspired prophet: “And of the INCREASE OF HIS GOVERNMENT
AND PEACE there shall be no end!”
When Jesus came
revealing the great truth and reality of sonship and the Kingdom of God He taught us to
pray, “Our Father...Thy Kingdom come.” In offering this prayer we must not stop
at ourselves. The prayer embraces the whole wide world in its sweeps and indeed all of
creation. Thy Kingdom come! Where? Everywhere. All nations are to bow down before Him, all
people are to serve Him, and unto all principalities and powers in the heavenlies the
wisdom of God is to be revealed. Men discuss the question sometimes as to which race is
likely to become the dominant race in the earth. Hitler thought that the Aryan race was
the master race and set about to conquer the world. The Jews believe that they will
eventually rule the earth. We who live in the United States, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, England and Northwestern Europe are sometimes inclined to believe that this
unique destiny is reserved to the ten-tribed house of Israel — the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic
peoples. There is abundant evidence that the ten-tribed house of
As a part of the
many-membered Christ of God I want to see the banner of HIS LIFE raised high in every
heart and in every land. I want to see every nation, every tongue, every tribe, every
people and every race acknowledging one and the same King of kings, even Jesus. I want to
see the crown of the world on the brow of the Christ of God and the government upon His
shoulder. And, brethren, I know that this shall surely come to pass! HE is seated upon the
throne of the universe today and we, in Him, are destined to rule all things. The hour is
wonderfully nigh at hand when that great company of the manifested sons of God shall arise
to deliver creation from the long tyranny of sin, sorrow and death. This sonship is the
hope of all creation and, even now, every created thing on earth and throughout the
vastnesses of infinity is standing on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of an age and ages
governed by the holy sons of Love.
What redemption
there shall be! What reconciliation! What salvation! What peace and joy and righteousness!
What health and blessing and life more abundant! The time is coming when every evil heart
shall be made pure as the lily and clean as the driven snow. The time is coming when every
man’s life day by day shall be sweet and holy and happy. The time is coming when
lying, deceit, greed, strife, violence and shame shall be banished from the earth. The
time is coming when mental hospitals and penitentiaries shall no longer openly proclaim
our shame. The time is coming when the drunkard, the drug abuser, the fornicator, the
homosexual, the harlot and the criminal shall be no more, but the people shall be all
righteous — a branch of God’s planting, that HE may be glorified! The time is
coming when there shall be no more weeping widows nor starving orphans, nor manhood and
womanhood debased from the image of God. The time is coming when the clash of arms shall
be heard no more; when there shall be no more war of armies or tanks or battle-ships; no
more missiles streaking through the sky, or bombs bursting.
The time is
coming when business and politics and pleasure shall be carried on to the glory of God.
The time is coming when literature and art and television and movies and the media shall
be cleansed from all their impurity, vulgarity, violence and immorality, and shall speak
of God as our own hearts speak of Him today. The time is coming when the
THE JEWISH VIEW OF THE KINGDOM
The children of
THE KINGDOM WITHIN
I do not
hesitate to tell you that the sphere of the Kingdom is the individual heart. This is the
end for which man was made, the final cause of his creation, that he might be a province
and principality of God: the King eternal septering him throughout his whole nature,
spirit, soul and body. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” I do not feel that I am
praying solely for my city, my nation, the world, or the vast reaches of creation. I do
not think first or foremost about the harlots, drunkards, drug addicts, criminals,
atheists, or the masses of sinners throughout the world. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom
come,” I am not content with adding to the thought my unpleasant neighbors, the
Mafia, or Fidel Castro. No! When I utter the prayer it is with the deep conviction that I
am praying for myself. I am praying that God’s rule may come fully and powerfully in
my own heart, mind, nature and life.
Oh, yes, this
prayer has reference to ourselves. There is a problem and that is that we have our own
kingdom, the kingdom of man. My business, my enterprise, my family, my ministry, my
church, my elders, my people, my thing that I am doing, that we are concerned with. And
over against all that, Jesus sets His “Thy.” “THY Kingdom come.” When
we pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” we pray, “Father, come in Thy Lordship into my
own heart; rule there; take Thy throne there; make me completely Thine.” See what it
means. It means that we are asking that every wicked way, every cherished sin and passion,
every self-serving desire and ambition, every carnal thought, word and deed may be cast
out of our hearts. It means that neither money nor pleasure nor prestige should have any
power over us. It means that the Father’s will and not our own may dictate fully our
lives. It means that the precious mind that was in Christ Jesus so possesses us until all
death is swallowed up into HIS VICTORY. Oh, that is a great prayer!
I have known men
that loved their sins too much, their pleasures, their money, their position, their
religion, their traditions, their power, themselves too much, ever to be able to pray
sincerely, “Thy Kingdom come!” The Kingdom is, first and foremost, the reign of
God in the hearts and lives of men. Less than this it cannot be; more than this it will
not be. There is no department of human life where the Kingdom can rule unless first God
rules the heart. God cannot rule nations until first He rules in the hearts of the
citizens of those nations from the king, president or prime minister all the way down to
the garbage collector and the shoeshine boy. God cannot rule over things or institutions
until first He rules the hearts of those who form, own and control those things and
institutions. Imagine God trying to rule over an army without first winning the allegiance
of the general who commands that army and the soldiers who fight in it!
Is it not a
right thing and a possible thing, that all men should in their hearts yield allegiance to
God? And were this allegiance yielded, would it not necessarily result that all our
relations with one another would be transformed and hallowed by the law of His life
within? Would it not necessarily result that the whole constitution of the world, in all
its domestic, political, social and economic arrangements, would be guided by the Spirit
of God and would show in every situation and circumstance that God was ruling? You see, to
bring the
As brother Paul
Mueller has aptly written: “The Psalmist continued this Psalm, by saying, ‘The
king is not saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse
(or any of man’s weapons of warfare) is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver
anyone by its strength’ (Ps. 33:16-17, N.A.S.). Indeed, God does not change the world
by man’s armies, or by any of man’s carnal systems of government. The Lord is
beginning to change the world by first changing the hearts, souls and minds of mankind.
People shall be changed, not by human agreements or by war, but by the operation of the
Spirit of God in their lives. The Lord also is beginning to dispel the darkness in the
world by imparting the greater Light of His presence into the hearts of His elect. This is
the method by which the just and righteous rule of the
This door into
the Kingdom is open to every man on a personal and individual level. I wonder if you can
get that. You cannot enter the Kingdom by multitudes, even if six billion people were
brought into it in one hour. You have to enter the Kingdom individually, and enter in at
the gate one by one. You came into this world one by one, no matter how many other babies
were born the day you entered. Men pass out of this life one by one, and you must pass
from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of Life, Light and Love one by one, giving up
your self till it is no more “I” but “Christ” that lives. We must
clear our minds of fantastic and carnal notions about the Kingdom. We must refuse to think
of the Kingdom in terms of the overturning of human rule by the descent of legions of
angels and the establishment of such military might, judicial authority and legislative
coercion as never existed in any empire in history.
We are to clear
our minds of the idea that the
The Kingdom
comes not by observation or outward show, as our Lord Himself has taught us. The Pharisees
came to Jesus one day with their crafty question demanding of Him when the
It is called the
Two positive and
incontrovertible facts are written of the Kingdom. It is said that the
There comes the
time in the life of every son of God when he claims the Kingdom as a present tense reality
in his life. The
It is a great
folly to conclude that we can pray the prayer, “Thy Kingdom come,” by rote, in
cool detachment. The Kingdom is not an antiquated Jewish dream, dusty with the history of
centuries. It touches us at all vital points — if we are sons of God. It is an
immediate and personal concern. It is God’s plan of the ages, His time-abiding
strategy for redeeming us from ourselves and the vanity of the flesh and the world. It is
God’s way of conforming us into the image of His Son and making us one in Him. We are
faced then with the solemn truth that when we pray for the coming of the Kingdom we are
not praying for the advent of some great world-wide political or economic program. We are
not praying for the end of the world, or for the rapture, or for the millennium, or
blessing upon the state of
THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM
Let me close
this Study with the question: “How is this Kingdom to be administered?” Let me
first say how it cannot be administered. It cannot be administered by force. As a preacher
of yesteryear ably wrote: “Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and many others built up their
empires with the sword, and cemented them with blood, but not so is the
“Force may
increase the numbers of a sect, it cannot add one to the membership of the Kingdom. The
sword may compel a man to change his name; it can never compel him to change his heart!
Oh, no; it is not by the sword that God’s Kingdom will come. To all ecclesiastical
persecutors Christ says, ‘Put the sword up into its sheath.’ Not by the sword is
the Kingdom to come, but by the Cross.
The Captain of
our salvation is not General Joshua, but Jesus the Lamb of God. Therefore He made His
triumphal entry into
There are
different kinds of government but of one thing we may be very certain — the
God is love; and
love does not impose its will upon us, or enforce it against ours. Love woos and wins by a
principle far higher than brute force. Should Jesus return to earth to enforce the laws of
His Kingdom with carnal weapons all that could be accomplished would be the erection of
larger and more secure prisons overflowing with ever-increasing masses of rebellious
humanity. Force does not transform — it merely breeds contempt. Love transforms. Love
changes the nature. Love wins the allegiance of the heart. Love forms an indissoluble
bond. Love makes one. Love captivates the will. Love, though omnipotent, is very gentle.
God reigns by infinite wisdom, power and love and the greatest of these is love. Love
conquers all! And King Jesus came to earth to reveal that love and the Father’s
Kingdom.
“For God so
loved the world, that He gave...” From childhood most of us have heard these blessed
words, yet they are so freighted with heaven’s riches that one instinctively shrinks
from talking about them. Who presumes to be able to measure the magnitude of God’s
love? “God so loved the world.” Charles Spurgeon once struck off a bold figure
when he exclaimed, “Come, ye surveyors, bring your chains, and try to make a survey
of this word so. Nay, that is not enough. Come hither, ye that make our national surveys
and lay down charts for all nations. Come ye, who map the sea and land and make a chart of
this word so. Nay, I must go further. Come hither, ye astronomers, that with your optic
glasses spy out spaces before which your imagination staggers, come hither and calculate
imaginations worthy of all your powers. When you have measured between the horns of space,
here is a task that will defy you: “God so loved the world!’” Although we
may completely despair of calculating the love of God, there are nevertheless in these
classic words of Jesus some very clear statements that help us compute, to some extent,
the greatness of the heart of God.
This little word
so finds its definition, I think, in the object and gift of God’s love. God loved
“THE WORLD” — the world that then was and now is. That means His love
sweeps around the whole earth and flows out to men of every race and tongue and nation;
but it means more. It means He loves the men and women of the world who by their own evil
have wrenched themselves away from Him. It means that He loves the blaspheming atheist,
the scornful skeptic, the lecherous outcast, the criminal behind bars, the grafter who
swaggers about as a good citizen and the unscrupulous leeches who drain the very lifeblood
of widows and orphans. God so loved THE WORLD. ALL of it! And He loves it still. He loves
the men living now upon the earth, and He loves those who have lived and died in dim and
distant ages past. He loves them on earth and He loves them in hell. God so loved! Herein
is manifested the love of God; He loves the unlovely, the unloving, and the humanly
unlovable! Let holy and powerful angels from the extended galleries of heaven sing it! Let
the redeemed in rapturous wonder take up the song and let sinners fall prostrate in
penitence before the almighty Creator and Redeemer! “God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son.” It was in Jesus Christ that the love of God’s great
heart embraced us. But God still loves the world. As we move from the Church age into the
age of blessing upon all nations, God so loves the world that He will now give His sons,
the many brethren of the first-begotten.
The sons of God
must be preeminently the Sons of Love. “God so loved the world...” And so will
all who are called to sonship! Small wonder, then, that the glorious message of the
reconciliation of all things is sweeping like a tidal wave through the ranks of those who
treasure the beautiful hope of sonship to God. It could not be otherwise! Only those who
are possessed with the spirit of Infinite and Omnipotent Love shall be able to minister on
the level that will persevere through all obstacles and all ages until ALL CREATION is
reconciled unto God and delivered from the realm of death. I do not hesitate to tell you
that those who fight against the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ, those who wage war
against the salvation of all men for whom Christ died, those who set themselves up as
Prosecutor and plead before us and God and His Word for the eternal damnation of the
billions of helpless souls who have lived and died like beasts upon this darkened planet
are not the sons of God at all — they are the DEVIL’S ADVOCATE! They plead not
for the
Part 15
THY WILL BE DONE IN EARTH
“After this
manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...Thy will be done in earth, as
it is in heaven” (Mat. 6:9).
There are three petitions in the Lord’s prayer that are inter-related. These are: (1) Hallowed be Thy name (2) Thy Kingdom come (3) Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. The three petitions are to one another as root, stem, and fruit; as beginning, middle, and end. In the hallowing of God’s name the foundation is laid for the establishment of His Kingdom; it is the unveiling within the heart of the nature and majesty of God. Thus the Kingdom is established as the heart of man prostrates itself before the King, renouncing all of self, and rejoicing in its new allegiance. But this is not all — there can be no stopping here. It is not enough to know the rule of God, that the Kingdom be established within and rejoiced in. There is an end, a goal, a great purpose for w
