Now, if you'll take your Bibles
and turn with me to Genesis chapter 35. I don't have a lot of points to
the message tonight, although there's a lot of things that
I want to say, but I basically just want to talk to you about
this journey of faith. Let's read beginning with verse
11 here. Genesis 35 verse 11. God said unto him, I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation
and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come
out of thy loins. And the land which I gave Abraham
and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee
will I give the land. And God went up from him in the
place where he talked with him, And Jacob set up a pillar in
the place where he talked with him, even a pillar of stone. And he poured a drink offering
thereon and poured oil thereon. And Jacob called the name of
the place where God spake with him Bethel. And they journeyed
from Bethel. And there was but a little way
to come to Ephrath. And Rachel travailed And she
had hard labor. And it came to pass when she
was in hard labor that the midwife said unto her, fear not, thou
shalt have this son too. Now that's an answer to something
that the Lord revealed to her back several chapters before
that she would have this second child. And so the midwife, who
knew her well, was just encouraging her with those words. Verse 18,
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, for she died,
that she called his name Ben-Onai. But his father called him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and was buried
in the way to Eprath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar
upon her grave, that is, the pillar of Rachel's grave unto
this day. Now, Jacob left Bethel. That's the house of the Lord.
And he left the house of God with a full and blessed revelation
of God's sufficiency. When God says, I am God Almighty,
He's saying to you, I am God All-Sufficient. It is His all-mightiness
that makes Him all-sufficient. He's sufficient to do what He
says He'll do. because He is God Almighty. And
He is Almighty in creation. He is Almighty in providence.
He is Almighty in inspiration. He is Almighty in redemption,
calling, conversion, and even ultimate perfection. He says
God is elect. Here is what He says of them.
They are predestinated. This adoption that they have
obtained. They've been predestinated according
to Him who doeth all things after the counsel of His own will.
He works all things even in this predestination. Only God Almighty,
God All-Sufficient can make such a promise and then bring it to
pass. And those who sojourn here by
faith They looked just like Jacob looked, just like Abraham looked,
just like Isaac looked. They looked for a city that had
foundations whose builder and maker was God. They were not
looking for a piece of earth to call their home. They were
looking for this city. Now, it may have started out
that way, but that's not how it ended up. Those who sojourn here walk according
to divine revelation and instruction. And that's what I want you to
see tonight. When he left the house of God, he left there with
a full revelation. We talked about that last week.
That full revelation of God's character. When he left that
place, he left walking in the light of a full revelation of
God. God told Jacob who he was. and
who he would be according to his purpose. And he told him
his own name. He said, I am God Almighty. He declared to Jacob his own
name and then they journeyed. He took his journey from Bethel. That is, they took their direction
from the house of God. He took his direction. He planted
his steps with purpose and inspiration. Now I want you to turn with me
to Romans chapter 8. I meant this to be an introduction
to the message, and I meant to speak on the two names of the
son, the one the wife gave the son, Ben-Onai, and the name that
his father called him, Benjamin. Ben-Onai means son of sorrows. Benjamin means son of my right
hand. Two different names, and we'll
get into that next week. But as I worked on this introduction
and began to think about these things, I thought this might
be a good time and a very necessary time for you to look into these
things about this journey. We're all on a journey, every
one of us. We're all on a journey. We're
going to leave this place tonight. And by God's grace, we're going
to leave here with purpose. And we're going to leave here
with direction. That's why we come here. That's why we gather
together here. to hear word from God, to be
directed, to have revelation. In Romans chapter 8, it talks
about the spiritual walk, a walk that leaves the ways and understanding
of the flesh. It leaves them behind. It discounts
those things. It doesn't run back to those
things for its spiritual revelation. It looks to the Spirit of God
and the things of the Spirit for this inspiration. It does
not look to the flesh. And that's what Paul just keeps
going through over and over and over. Chapter 7 and chapter 8
talks about this spiritual walk. Now look here in verse 1. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Now watch this. who walk not
after the flesh, but after the spirit. Believers walk in the
light of Christ. That's what they do. There is
no other light. If we walk in the light as He
is the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all ungodliness and uncleanness
and sin. Believers walk in the light of
Christ. They walk in the light of imputed righteousness. That's
what the chapters that lead up to chapter 8 teach. Back in Romans
chapter 4, it says Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him
for righteousness. And he says there that God preserved
that statement that his prophet made and that witness that God
made concerning Abraham's faith, that he believed God and it was
counted to him for righteousness. It says that it wasn't written
for his sake alone. God preserved this thing. He
preserved it for us to see. Not written for his sake alone
that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall
be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord
from the dead. The believer walks in the light
of imputed righteousness, the righteousness of Christ by faith. And then secondly, he walks in
the light of a full, free justification from sin. He's justified. He's
as just as he's going to be. Locked down in Sodom, I know
that he strayed. I know that this man went astray.
I know that he went down there and his conversation was affected
day by day. And he began to think on lower
standards. and live on a lower standard
than what Abraham did up on the mountain. He had less communion
with God than Abraham had up on the mountain. He was down
there among those heathens. But I'll tell you this, when
God delivered him, he said, just lot. That's what he called him. Just lot. Every believer, whether
he's straight or whether he's not, is a just man. And it's not because of something
he did. It's because of that sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He justified him. And he walks
that way. We walk that way. There's no
other way for a believer to walk. You can't walk based on your
own righteousness. You can't walk around here. When
the believer comes to Christ, this is what he's wrestling over.
How can a man be just with God? Isn't that what Job had a problem
with? Sure he did. He said, man is
of a few days and full of trouble. He drinks iniquity like water. How can a man be just with God?
Well, that's what's revealed to that man through the gospel.
And he receives that justification of life, that justification of
Christ. He is in the fullest sense of
the word just before God. He is not justified by anything
He did or anything God foresaw that He would do, but by the
life and death of His substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And listen
to this. Here is Romans 4 verse 25. It
says that this Christ, who was delivered for our offenses and
raised again for our justification, In the resurrection of Christ,
God declares all His elect just. Just. That's why He raised Him. That's why His resurrection was
seen and witnessed of men. And then Romans chapter 8, verse
2. No condemnation to them now.
who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh. Now the law cannot communicate
to you the righteousness of God because of your sinful nature.
You can't sit down and read the law and understand to what extent
the law judges. It just says, thou shalt not
or thou shalt. But it doesn't say. That's what
our Lord told those Pharisees. He said, you say that thou shalt
not commit adultery in the outward sense. He said, I tell you this. Here's what that law says. Thou
shalt not look on a woman and lust after her because you've
committed adultery already in your heart. There's no way you
can read that law and understand that. Know what? The law cannot
communicate to you the righteousness of God because of your sinful
nature. Man in a sinful state imagines
God to overlook things. He talks about God overlooking
faults. God must overlook our faults.
God lowers the standard of His law. He lessens the extent of
the law. He limits the law to outward
acts and duties. But back in Romans chapter 7,
Paul said, the law is spiritual, and we are carnal, sold under
sin, so that we cannot do the things that we would. Now, that's
the problem. That's the problem. And the reality
of how God sees our fleshly attempts of righteousness is revealed
in Christ's suffering and death on the cross. That's what he's
saying here in Romans 8. What the law could not do because
the weakness of the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh and for sin, condemns sin on the cross. You
want to know what sin is, the sins of your righteousness and
the open rebellious sins? You want to know what they are?
You want to know how God reacts to these things? You want to
know how God will judge these things? There it is. There it
is. You see any clemency there at all? You see God compromising
anything at all? No. He spared not his own son. The reality of God's love is
revealed on the cross. The reality of His justice, His
righteousness, His holiness is revealed on the cross. The mercy
of God is revealed on the cross. The sufficiency of God to accomplish
all He has promised is revealed on the cross. And all those who
see it, Paul said, walk according to it. That's how they walk.
They quit walking. The way we walk identifies what
we believe. If I have not received sovereign
grace, I'm not going to be gracious. I'm not going to walk in that
grace. I'm not going to walk in. You can't walk in humility
until God brings you down. The natural man's proud. And
he's going to walk in that pride. That pride will show itself even
in poverty. Even a poor man will be proud.
There's nothing to be proud of. And he's proud. All those who
see this grace walk according to it. Verse 5. For they that
are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. I'm back
in Romans 8 now. Verse 5. They that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. What are the things
of the flesh? Huh? I hear all kinds of things
being preached, but what are those things? Well, let me just
give you a few. Over in Galatians, I think it's
chapter 5, he talks about the works of the flesh. Now here's
what they are. I'm going to show you these things
that affect your walk. There's a lot of things here.
He talks about adultery. He talks about fornication, lasciviousness,
and all kinds of things. But these are things that affect
the believer's walk. What are these things of the
flesh by which men walk? Well, the very first one, the
one at the top of the list is idolatry. Idolatry. Natural man worships, but he
don't worship God. Our Lord said to those Pharisees
who they went to church every Sabbath day, they read the Scriptures,
they prayed three times a day, they fasted twice a week, they
wore their robes, they wouldn't eat certain meats, they wouldn't
drink certain things, they wouldn't eat certain types of animals.
They were righteous men. In their eyes, they worship God.
But our Lord said, you neither know Me nor My Father. That's
what He told them. You don't know Me and you don't
know My Father. On another occasion, they said, now wait a minute.
Who do you think has been transcribing this book? He said, well, you
search the Scriptures. I know that. And you do it because
in them, you think in that searching, you think you have eternal life.
And they are they which testified me, but you won't come to me
that you might have life. Huh? You won't come to me. Why? Because they don't know
who he is. They don't know who he is. They talk about God, but
not the God of Scripture. And I challenge you to go through
this book and write down The plain definitions of the character
of God. And what am I talking about?
I'm talking about when He said, I am God Almighty. Now, does
that mean Almighty or almost Almighty? It means Almighty,
don't it? Almighty means Almighty. There
ain't no getting around it. He said, I'm unchangeable. I
am the Lord. I change not. Just go through
the Scripture. There are many occasions where
He tells you point blank gives you a three or four line definition
of one part of His character. Take that character and compare
it to the God of this generation. It's as different as night and
day. They talk about God, but not the God of Scripture. God
is immutable. That means unchangeable. He said,
I am the Lord, I change not. But the God of this world is
glorified in the very things that God says He cannot do. God
says, I will not change. What do they glory in? They glory
in the fact that He does change. I see it on bumper stickers.
My dad had one before his conversion on the front fender of his car.
And my heathen brother loved it, my oldest brother. He loved
it. It says, prayer changes things.
Prayer doesn't change anything. We're never instructed in the
Word of God to pray for anything to change. Show it to me. It ain't in here. He tells us
to pray, Thy will be done. That's what He said. They said,
teach us to pray. Our Father which is in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name. So, Thy will be done. Where? On earth as it is in heaven.
God's not going to change. God's not going to change. And
He doesn't tell you to... Why would He tell us to pray for
something contrary to His nature? You'd just be wasting your time. James says this. He said, you
do evil when you talk about what you're going to do tomorrow.
Tomorrow we're going to go over here and we're going to work
eight hours. And then we're going to come back and we're going
to have supper. James said, don't say that. Because you don't know
what God is going to order for tomorrow when he's in charge.
Say, if the Lord will, we're going to go work eight hours
tomorrow. And if the Lord will, we'll have supper. Because it's
his will that's going to be done. God's sovereign. That's the second
thing. God's immutable. And then secondly,
God is sovereign. This world limits God's sovereignty
to only certain areas. He cannot be sovereign over providence,
because that'd take away chance and circumstance. He cannot be
sovereign over man's will, because they say that'll take away man's
responsibility. He cannot be sovereign over creation,
because that goes against evolution. And he cannot be sovereign over
salvation because that'd make things unfair. But God says,
I'm sovereign. And on occasion, he tells us
and demonstrates to us his sovereignty over all of these things. God
of this generation only has as much authority as man is willing
to give him. And therefore, he's no God at
all. And then thirdly, God's just. The soul that sinneth shall
surely die. That's what he said. That's exactly
what he said. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. And I'll be gracious to whom
I will be gracious. But he said, Moses, you better
learn this. I will by no means clear the
guilty. I'm just. I'm just. Cursed is everyone who continues
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.
So, I find out then that natural men are idolaters. That's how
they walk. They walk according to idolatry
and idolatrous thoughts. Their walk is idolatry. And then
here's another. Here's the second work of the
flesh. It's variance. Variance. Variance means a state of varying. He varies about everything. He's
not solid on anything. A fellow told me one day, he
said, man, he said, I can't talk to you because you don't leave
me any room. I said, I'm not up here to discuss
things. If I didn't know what I was saying,
I wouldn't get up here at all. I'd just sit down there. These
things are not up to discussion. These things are not up to debate.
These things are soul. If they're not soulless, don't
preach them. Let's just leave them alone. But if they're so,
then let's declare them. Let's don't have sharing sessions.
We're just going to declare them and wait on God to reveal them.
But man, he's at variance. That's that plague. And it means
a state of varying, blown about by every wind of doctrine, constantly
changing his mind. But it also is used in this sense. It means he's at variance. He's
in a constant state of opposite opinion. I don't care what you
tell. If you tell him black, he'll
say white. You tell him gray, he'll go some other way. He never agrees with the revelation
of God in Christ. You say grace, he says works.
A fellow asked me one time, he said, what do y'all believe?
I said, just take everything you believe and we believe the
opposite. I said, that saved you and I a lot of time. He can never be satisfied. This
man, this variance, this state of variance is what I'm talking
about. We're talking about walking according to the flesh. And this
flesh, it causes men to walk in idolatry with a wrong idea
and a wrong imagination of who God is, and he's in a state of
variance. He's at an opposite opinion.
He can never be satisfied with the Word of God. I don't care
how many scriptures you give him, he's not satisfied. He'll
still stand there and say, yeah, but. Yeah, but. And with every
declaration you give him, he has a question mark to put at
the end of the sentence. Every time. It don't matter how
many you give him. He has a butt for everything. There's one word in the Bible
that a natural man cannot form his lips to say, and that is
amen. But when these apostles preached,
you read every so often, one of them will say amen. That scripture
that I read to you Sunday and preached to you Sunday from over
in Romans 16, when he got done with those three scriptures,
the last word in it was amen. Amen. Believers believe. That's what I'm saying. They
believe. They're not at variance. They believe. And then here's
the third thing. This work of the flesh is hatred.
To be carnally minded is death because the carnal mind is enmity,
hatred against God. For it's not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be. You cannot take a man who hates
and reason with him. You can't do it. He's full of
hatred. You can't reason with the man.
He hates God. He's not subject to God's authority. He's not subject to this book.
He's not subject to anybody or anything except himself. He hates God. And I tell you
this, you can pasture sheep, but you can't pasture a wolf
that looks like one. You can't do it. And I'm not
even going to try to do it. I'm going to declare to you the
things of God, and then I'm going to stand back and watch God do
the separating. I'm not going to separate anybody
or anything. But I'm going to tell you what
God gives me to tell you, and I'm going to wait on Him to do
the separating. And He'll pastor. He'll do the pastoring. He'll
do the counseling. Pastor, can you come counsel
me with my wife? No. No. I'm going to tell you
what this relationship stands for. And if that don't counsel
you, you've got no hope. You ain't going to make it. You
ain't going to make it. And then here's another thing,
strife. The natural man loves strife. He likes to argue and
debate. I listened to a message coming
back from Wichita Falls with Walter, a message by Henry Mahan. And here's one of the statements
he made in that message. He said, if any man were it possible
to win this man, By argument and debate, Christ would have
converted every man he talked to because he was pure wisdom. But he didn't. He didn't. And then here's the fifth thing,
seditions. Sedition is a language. I'm taking
this right out of the dictionary. It's what the dictionary says
these words mean. And what they mean in this age that this book
was written. Sedition is a language that incites
rebellion. That's what sedition is. The
Lord said, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, for in the day you eat of it, thou shalt surely die.
And when the woman told Satan what the Lord said, Satan said,
hath God surely said? That's sedition. That's sedition. Sedition is the voice that's
quick to voice an opinion. It's the voice that will not
submit or follow direction. You give them direction, but
they won't follow it. Sedition is in the very nature
of every natural man and determines every step he takes. And it will
always leave him in opposition to God, always. And then he uses
this word to describe the flesh, the word heresies. This is another
work of the flesh. A heresy is any doctrine contrary
to the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ. I don't care what
it is. It's heresy. It's heresy. All natural men
walk in heresy. He loves heresy because he loves
darkness. That's what John said in John
chapter 3. He loves darkness rather than
light. That's the sign and seal of his condemnation, is what
he loves. Look at his affection. Where
does he go? What does he tend to? What's
the tenor of his life all about? Here it is. Heresy. Heresy. And then there's environs. Every
natural man thinks he's better qualified to walk, talk, and
lead than the spiritual man. I don't care how long you...
Henry's been preaching 50 some years. Talk to a woman who probably
only read her Bible five times in her life. And she was standing
and telling him how these things are. Envy. Envy. Envy always sees
itself more qualified to walk and talk and lead than the spiritual
man that walks, talks, and leads before. Satan heard what God
intended to do. Here's the first envy. I don't
know how he heard it. I don't know how the revelation
come to be. I don't know if they were actually
talking about it in words or I have no idea about these things
in heaven or how these things went. But it's obvious to me
that he heard them. And here's what he said, he heard
what God intended to do in Christ and immediately Satan said in
his heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of
the congregation. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High.
All of those things were given to Christ, were they not? At
some point, Satan heard this revelation. He knew what God
intended to do. And upon knowing it, he said,
oh no, I'm better qualified for this than a man. An angel, the prince of angels,
the sun of the morning, he's the one going to do that to envy. That's envy. And then he uses
this. Here's the eighth thing. He calls
it revelings. Revelings are celebrations of
the flesh. And you can use this term in
either a worldly sense, when you talk about their parties
and their drunkenness and all this type of thing, in a worldly
sense, satisfying the lust of their flesh, or in a religious
sense, rejoicing and celebrating false hopes and false ends. Now, I want you to listen to
this. You might even want to turn over there to the book of
Colossians. I want you to listen to how Paul speaks about these
things to the church at Colossians. Now, He's already told us in
this chapter in Colossians that we are complete in Christ. Don't
leave. As you receive Christ Jesus,
so walk ye in Him. As you received Him, walk in
Him. He said you're complete in Him. No need to go anywhere
else. Everything there is is right here in Him. Now look over
here in Colossians chapter 2. And the illusion here in Colossians
is that of a race. There's a race being wrong. And
as it was well known in the days of Paul, those judges had corrupt,
they were corrupt judges. These were judges who had their
own prejudices. These are judges who had already
sold out. These were judges that the high
uppity ups in the in Rome had already contracted and paid off
so that they could bet and wager and win their bets. These were
corrupt judges. And as believers, we do run this
race, but we don't look to those wicked judges. That's what Paul's
telling them. Don't let these men steal your
reward. That's what he's telling them. Don't let these crooked
judges, don't look, don't fashion your eyes on them and try to
follow them and try to win their favor and try to go their direction.
Because that race is already fixed. Put your eyes on Him. That's what He tells us over
in Hebrews. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, we run that race. But here in Colossians 2, verse
16, He said, Now let no man therefore judge you in meat and drink,
or in respect of a holy day, or of a new moon or Sabbath day,
which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. It's His shadow. Let no man beguile
you. Don't let him trick you out of
the prize. Don't let him beguile you in a voluntary humility and
worshiping of angels. Well, now wait a minute, preachers.
Nobody worships angels. They don't? They don't? I saw a bunch of them hanging
on houses coming over here tonight. I dare say if you go up and knock
on their door, you'll find them on top of their Christmas tree.
Angels. Angels. You can't get a book
from the... Go up here to any religious bookstore
in town, get any kind of a book for your children, there's an
angel on every page. Men don't worship angels. And why are they etched in their
cathedral windows? Why, when you go in there in
them stained glass windows, why is there big angels up there
in them? Why is them angels all around on the overhangs of them
big cathedrals? Go look at them. There's angels
on every corner. Angels down there. Why are the
front yards of the churches decorated with statues of angels if they
don't worship angels? They tell me that the Pool of
Bethesda, when they dug it out, when the archaeologists dug it
out, that there was colored on the wall paintings of angels.
Now whether that was a real place, Brother Don, and I'll take him,
I know that his studies are sincere and I believe what he's saying
so, and he says that that was a real pool and that pool was
put there by God and God He did that. He troubled those waters
and so on and so forth. But God didn't tell them to paint
no angels on the wall. I can guarantee you that. Somebody
took that thing just like they did that old brazen serpent and
began to worship. Our Lord said, you worship, you
know not what. That's what He said. And here's
what He says about these angels. He says, into things which he
hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." He somehow
imagines that putting these things around on the wall of angels,
and he's never seen one. He don't have any idea what he's
painting. Angels might look like woolly worms for all I know.
I don't know what they look like. But He's got them all fixed up
here, and He's got faces on them. And I guarantee you, when I say
angel to you, that first thing that pops into your mind is what
you've seen around here, that man concocted and called an angel. Here's what our Lord said through
His Apostle. He said, you're intruding into
things you don't know nothing about. You've never seen an angel.
Why are you worshipping one? Why are you worshipping one?
They're just images out of His wicked, vain imagination. And
images he superstitiously believes helps him to work. And so he
paints them on his ceiling, and he puts them on the wall, and
he etches them in his glass, and he puts them all over the
place. And here's what he don't do,
verse 19, not holding the head from which all the body by joints
and bands having nourishment ministered to him, and knit together
increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore, if ye be dead
with Christ from the rudiments, the basic principles of the world,
why, as though living in the world, are ye still subject to
these ordinances, touch not, taste not, and handle not, which all are to perish with
the using? And they're after the commandments
and doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom
and will worship and humility. That's these revelings. That's
the celebration of the flesh. They all get together and talk
about how good they've been and they've not had any pork to eat.
We ate fish on Good Friday. They celebrate the flesh. They
celebrate it in circumcision, and they celebrate it in walking
the aisles, and they celebrate it in making decisions, and they
celebrate it every time they come in and have stand-up testimonies. It's revelings. He said that's
of the flesh. That's what Paul said. It's all
flesh. All it does is revel in the flesh and celebrates the
flesh and rejoices in the flesh. Are you with me so far? The things
of the flesh are idolatry," now go back to Romans 8, "...are
idolatry, variance, hatred, strife, sedition, heresy, envying, and
revelry." Now listen to what Paul says again back here in
Romans 8. They that are after the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh. That's how they walk. That's
how they walk. But they that are after the spirit,
the things of the Spirit. Verse 8. So then, they that are
in the flesh, unchanged, uninterrupted, unaltered, left to themselves,
cannot please God. But you're not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so be the Spirit of God dwell
in you. Now if any man had not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of His. And if Christ be in you, the
body's dead because of sin, but the Spirit's life because of
righteousness. And here's the summation of that. Therefore,
brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the
flesh. For if you live after the flesh,
you're going to die. But if you through the Spirit...
All right, now let's just stop for a minute. What's that talk
about? If you through the Spirit. What's
he talking about? Is he talking about this, what
young people, they've got a word they call rush, that shiver that
goes up your back? Is that what he's talking about?
You get a rush? Is that what he's talking about?
Is he talking about good feeling? Is he talking about dreams in
the middle of the night? What in the world is he talking
about here? If you through the Spirit... Who inspired the Word of God?
Let me just ask you that. Spirit of God, didn't He? Who
reveals it? Spirit of God. Who accompanies the preaching
of the Gospel? He said, I know your election of God, because
when I preached to you, this Word didn't come to you in Word
only. It came to you in power and in the Holy Ghost. Conviction
of the Spirit. When He's come, He'll convict.
He'll convince. I can't convince anybody of anything.
He can. The hearing of truth. Coming
a day when they that hear the voice of the Son of God should
live. They that hear should live. How are they going to hear without
that spirit? The assembling of ourselves together
to worship. He said we are the circumcision
which worship God in spirit and in truth. Prayer. But we don't know what to pray
for. Well, what do we do about that? Well, the Spirit of God
makes an intercession for you with groanings and utterings
which cannot be uttered. Huh? He helpeth our infirmities. We pray through the Spirit. He
helps our infirmities. And if you through the Spirit
do mortify, you through these means, through these means of
the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, through the assembling
of yourselves together, through prayer, through preaching, Being
taught of God, he put some in the church, pastor-teachers.
Why? To teach you! What for? Well, I think we'll just all
go out in the woods. You won't learn nothing out there. No,
you won't. If you, through the Spirit, through
these spiritual means, do mortify the flesh, the deeds of the body,
you'll live. Now, old Jacob, when he went
up from the house of the Lord, this is why I'm trying to The
Lord just blessed my heart with it this afternoon. When he left
the house of the Lord, he left there with a full revelation
and inspiration of God. He had purpose and he had direction. He didn't just flop around and
just circumstances happened and accidents happened and this happened.
Well, what if this? There ain't no what ifs. God
does things on purpose. That's what he told him. I'm
God Almighty. Now go to Bethlehem. I've got
a purpose in there. And he went to Bethlehem. But
he didn't go down there blind. He went down there with the full
revelation of God. And he went there with direction
and inspiration. Oh, he met with him there. He
revealed to him his fallen, depraved self. And then he gave him a
divine revelation of God's own sufficiency, God Almighty. And
Jacob began his journey. from the house of God and it
walked in the light of divine revelation. That's how we walk
as believers. I'm telling you right now, if
you're just walking, you're going to fall in the ditch. But if
you're walking by divine revelation, you're not going to fall in the
ditch. Our Lord said two things about His sheep. He said, my
sheep hear my voice and they follow me. And that revelation of God took
Jacob to Ephrath. Ephrath, we learn in just a few
more verses there in Genesis 35, is Bethlehem. Took him to Bethlehem. Oh, I
tell you, you may God be pleased as we leave this place tonight
and go into the coming holiday, where Bethlehem, Bethlehem, Bethlehem,
that's all you're going to hear, Bethlehem, Bethlehem. You'll
hear it, and hear it, and hear it, and hear it. Oh, may God
take us into this season and into that hearing with full revelation
of what Bethlehem's all about. And see, born out of the dead
womb of the daughter of Adam, the son whose name means son
of my right hand. The dying mama looked at that
child, and she was dying, and she said his name, call him Ben-Omah,
son of my sorrow. Dear daddy said, uh-uh. I'm going
to call him Benjamin. He's the son of my right hand.
You see Christ in that? Huh? We're all dying. We're all dying.
But there's life coming in Bethlehem in that manger. And if you've
got that full revelation of God, you can see it where other men
don't. He's just another man. Blessed? Yes. A prophet? Yes. One of a
kind, yes, but not the God-man. They don't see the God-man. They
just don't see it. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing
by the Word of God. And that's why He warns us not
to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. This is where
divine inspiration begins and ends, and it's the place that
ought to set our feet in the direction of God's sovereign
purpose. We ought to come here and see
it, be mindful of it, and walk out of here in the full revelation
of God's purpose of grace. And that ought to conduct our
life until we have to come back to Bethel. And over and over
and over, old Jacob had to go back to Bethel. Back to Bethel. Oh, may God give us that purpose
of life.