The Kingdom of
God!
Chapter 8
Last week I talked with you about the glory of the Lord. I quoted
Matthew 17:1-2, (NIV),
"After six days Jesus took
with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high
mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and
his clothes became as white as the light."
I also told you about the face of Moses when he came
down from the Mountain. Jesus transfiguration on the Mountain was what a person
totally consumed with the glory of God looks like. This is a foretaste of the
Greater Glory, which is about to be revealed soon! Multitudes of believers will
walk like the artist paintings of the first church. Have you seen the pictures
of these early leaders with halos of light over their heads? I have had members
of my congregation see halos of light over the men and women of God when the
anointing of the Holy Spirit was upon them. This glory that is coming will, at
times, be not only above our heads but our entire body when the anointing of
the Lord is upon us!
It is so important for us to repent from all sins
known and unknown because this anointing of the glory of the Lord will not come
on someone that has unconfessed sin in their lives. We must understand what
Jesus was doing on the night before His crucifixion when He washed the
disciples' feet! John 13:5-10, (NIV)
"After
that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciple's feet,
drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter,
who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus replied, "You do
not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." "No," said Peter, "You shall never wash my
feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me." "Then,
Lord," Simon Peter replied, "Not just my feet but my hands and my head as
well!" Jesus answered, "Those
who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean."
We are righteous in God's sight because of our faith
in what Jesus did for us on the cross, however, as we walk in this sin filled
world, we get our spiritual feet dirty. Thus, the need to repent and He has
promised to forgive us! This is why we need to repent. I am not a sinner! I am
a son of God and I am righteous because He is righteous and He dwells within
me! I am within the spiritual body of Christ and there is no sin in Him. 1 Cor.
12:17. Paul said in 2 Cor. 5:17-19, (NIV)
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation
has come: The old has
gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to
himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was
reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them."
Our old man of sin was crucified with Jesus! Paul said
in Romans 6:6-7, (NIV)
"For
we know that our old self
was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,
that we should no longer be slaves to sin"because anyone who has died has been
set free from sin."
The Apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 3:8,
"But, beloved, be not
ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day."
According to the Lord's way of
looking at time it has been Six Days since Adam and Two days since Jesus
ascended. Therefore, we have entered the Third Day since the ascension of Jesus
and the Seventh Day since Adam. The importance of this is seen in the fact that both the Third Day and
the Seventh Day were Sabbath days. The Sabbath Day is a spiritual
principle that God wants every believer to enter into. God created for six
days and on the seventh day, the Sabbath Day, He
rested. In Hebrews chapters three and four we see that Jesus also entered into
that rest and there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. God's people
in this age are going to cease from their own labors and enter into His rest.
The Third Day of God's grace is
the Third Dimension, the Seventh Day from Adam. The Third Dimension of God is
the Day of rest. The shadow of the Third Dimension is the Feast of Tabernacles
and this Feast is happing right now as I write this. When we enter this
spiritual Third Feast it is all God. Adam cannot enter into the presence of God
and live. All that is not
of God in us will be put to death.
When Jesus died on the cross,
what caused the veil in the temple to be torn from the top to the bottom? Jesus
died! He died to all of Himself. To all of His living works. When He was alive,
He healed the sick, He raised the dead, and He set the captive free and then He
died. He walked on water, He fed the multitudes, He opened the blind eyes and
then He died.
You may have been in a glorious
place, and you may have seen God work in various ways, and God may have worked
miracles through you, but now you are going to die! Rev 14:13 says,
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and
their works do follow them.""
We are coming into a place where
the limited power that happen only in a small geographical area where Jesus was
present, becomes magnified by the glory and power of His resurrection in us.
The death of yourself will bring you into the resurrection power of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Paul said in Phil 3:3-15;
""For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of
God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--though
I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons
to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of
the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard
to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic
righteousness, faultless."
"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the
sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the
surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I
have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be
found in Him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is
through faith in Christ--the
righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and
the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have
already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to
take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."
"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold
of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting
what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the
goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
"All of us who are
mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think
differently, that too God will make clear to you."
This is a passage of scripture
that you need to mediate on and ask God to give you revelation of its powerful
contents. Jesus said in John 12:24-25;
"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls
to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it
produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in
this world will keep it for eternal life."
Unless a kernel of wheat is
planted in the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. This is why
churches work out of a single portion all of their lives. They are working out
of what they were before they die! But if we ever fall into the ground and die
and are willing to come to a place where we will just learn to create glory
(praise and worship) and come into the alignment of God, He will sovereignly
pour out, all by Himself, powerful happenings in the Spirit which will affect
this entire valley. He will accomplish more than we can accomplish and do, more
than our newsletter can accomplish, more than our radio program can reach, and
more than any effort of all the ministries in this valley put together.
Once again, I need to remind you
that glory is the only atmosphere in which God will manifest His power. I have
a teaching on, "HOLY! HOLY! HOLY! that you may request from this ministry.
We have been given the power to create the glory for God to dwell in. David
said in Psa 22:3;
"
"But thou art holy, O thou that inhabits the praises
of Israel."
The Hebrew word for `inhabits' is
No. 3427. yashab, yaw-shab';
a prim. root; prop. to sit down (spec. as judge. in ambush, in quiet); by impl. to dwell, to remain: to settle, to marry:--
(make to) abide (-ing), continue, (cause to, make to)
dwell (-ing) Psa 50:23
says;
"Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordered his conversation
aright will I show the salvation of God.""
If my conversation is ordered
rightly my lips will continually give Him the praise for all things. The writer
of Hebrews said in Heb 13:15;
"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.""
Glory is in the Third Dimension
because this is where God dwells. Glory is the only atmosphere in which God
will manifest His power and this is the reason why the angels are not released
to help us. They have been assigned to help us but have been bound in heaven
giving glory to God by praising Him to each other. They won't be released until the Lord receives
glory in the earth. When we will give Him the glory by praising Him continually
to each other, earth to earth, the angels will be released to work for us.
This is beginning to happen now
as churches and individuals are coming into the High Praises of worship to our
Lord! Many who are seeking the face of the Lord are giving testimony of seeing
angels.
If we will only begin to praise
Him for what He has done in our lives we will create the glory for Him to dwell
in and it will flow out of us and touch every man, woman and child in this
valley. What is done in the heavenlies is not done on earth until you create
the atmosphere in which God manifest power in the earth.
Jesus said in Mat 6:10;
""Thy will be
done in earth, as it is in heaven.""
This will release the Lord, and
give Him the legal right to do His will on earth and especially in the United
States of America!
If we will create the glory for
His presence to dwell in, then His will shall be done in the earth. God would
rather hear one of His redeemed ones give Him praise than ten thousand angels.
One of you can release a thousand of these angels. Two of you can release ten
thousand. Three of you can release 100,000. And if four of you will praise Him
you can release one million of His angels. Is it any wonder Satan doesn't want us to praise the
Lord?
Jesus also said in Mat 18:19-20;
"Again, I say unto you, That
if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it
shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
"There will I be in between them
even as I appeared between the cherubim on the ark. You may ask, "Well,
David, we have praised God in the past which created glory for Him and we have
seen very little happen. Yes, I agree and this bothered me also when I received
the revelation of this truth until I begin to see the answer. The reason that
the praise we came into when we were baptized in the Holy Spirit has produced
so little results is that it was done in the Second Dimension where it is man
and God."
We have been laboring, struggling, and trying to make it happen. In the Third Dimension, we will
come into a place where we will die to our works. We will die to our ingenuity.
We will also die to our way of getting it done. When we finally come to the
realization that God has a way of doing it greater and more powerful than we
have ever been able to do it; and if we ever come to the place where we realize
that we are not smart enough, not talented enough and that we are not powerful
enough. If we will ever come into a place where we simply get into order and
give Him the Praise and atmosphere that flows from the throne of God, He will
manifest His power. He will do it through us all by Himself.
As we are coming into this Third
Day, which is a Sabbath Day, we need to learn to rest from our labors to
develop The Kingdom of God and allow His Holy Spirit to establish His Kingdom
through us! A friend of mine was the Pastor of an Apostolic Church in Dallas,
Texas, several years ago when a storm hit Dallas and the roof on a Church of Christ
caved in and it made national news. My friends church was two stories high and
had a flat roof with block walls around it. They inspected the roof and found
that it was full of water and if they didn't do something quickly, it too would
cave in.
The Lord told him to cut the
bottom out of a barrel and place it on the inside of each of the walls that was
holding the water and to suction the water out of the barrels and then to cut a
hole in the roof and in the side of the wall and put a pipe out the block wall.
They did this and when the crane lifted the barrels one by one the water gushed
out and in a few minutes all the water was off the roof. As he stood there
relieved that the water was off the roof, the Lord said to him, "Did the pipes
work? He said yes, they worked! The Lord asked him again, "Did the pipes work?"
and again he said yes, they worked. Then Lord asked him for the third time, "Did
The Pipes Work!" It then dawned on him and he told the Lord, "No the pipes didn't work!"
They were just being pipes without any effort!
If, we as a church, ever come
into the Third Dimension, The Feast of the Tabernacles, we will rest from all
our labors to build The Kingdom of God! In the outer court it was all man; in
the inner court, it was man and God; however, in the Most Holy Place, it is all
God.
Yes, we will be doing the greater
works that Jesus talked about in John 14:12, however, it will not be by our own
efforts! The Lord said in Zech. 4:6,
"It's not by might, nor by power,
but by My Spirit, saith
the LORD of hosts."
Again, this is another example of
the three dimensions of the Lord; might, power, and Spirit! In the Tabernacle
there was a thick curtain that separated the presence of the Lord in the Most
Holy Place. No one except the High Priest was allowed to go in there once a
year and they tied a rope around his ankle just in case he didn't enter
properly they could pull him out. Matt. 27:51 says, (NIV)
"And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud
voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn
in two from top to bottom!"
Paul said in 2 Cor. 3:16-18,
"Nevertheless, when Israel
shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now
the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord."
Heb. 10:19-22,
"Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter
the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a
great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere
heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our
hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies
washed with pure water."
The temple in the New Testament is our body where the
Lord lives. Paul said in 1 Cor. 6:19,
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the
Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?"
Your body is made up of three departments also. Paul
said in 1 Thes. 5:33,
"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly;
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Jesus said in John 6:63, (NIV)
"The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.
The words I have spoken to you
'they are full of the Spirit and life."
This is the meat of the Word and you must meditate on
it in order to allow it to change your life.