Again today, you and I are going to continue
our heart -to -heart talk from the last heart
-to -heart talk that we had. I didn't finish.
It seems I just got started. And yonder behold,
I looked up and it was time for me to leave you.
And so we begin today talking about something
that I... feel is vitally important and it's
something that we need to face. We need to give
a conscientious answer to. Why are we following
Jesus? I've looked myself directly in the face.
I cannot give you more than I have experienced
myself. I never ask you to do more than I am
not willing to do myself. I have looked myself
directly in the face and have asked myself the
question, why am I following Jesus? What is the
motive in my heart? What is the motive in your
heart? Behind every action. There is a motive.
Now consider something. Do you know that the
greatest miracles of God have not necessarily
to do with the physical life? Such miracles as
the healing of the physical body and you and
I have stood in the great miracle services and
we have witnessed limbs that have loosened. We
have been in services where literally the blind
have received their sight. Those of you who are
now reading my book, God Can Do It Again, have
written and have said that book means so much
to me, a thousand times more, because I was in
some of those services. And I saw these miracles
take place. placed before my very eyes. I know.
They're marvelous. But I want you to see something.
The natural man desires to hear, to see, to feel,
and consequently, the spectacular has a wonderful
fascination for him. Because... it excites a
sense of wonder. Now, this condition is not only
common today, where we see the Lord pouring out
of His Spirit in the working of miracles, but
it was also true in the days of Jesus. The same
effect was produced. Why? Because the people
got their eyes upon the things seen. They sought
to please and gratify their sense life by the
use of miracles. And then they rejoiced in the
power and the use of the same. And that was the
reason the Lord was led to rebuke them and give
them words of correction. I reminded you in our
last heart -to -heart talk when it comes to the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. There are those who
associate just one thing with the baptism of
the Holy Spirit, and that is the speaking in
an unknown tongue. Because that is the one thing
that appeals to their senses. That's the one
thing that appeals to the natural mind. That
is the one thing of that experience that excites
their sense of wonder. and amazement. When we're
speaking in an unknown tongue, beloved, means
very little when you come to analyze that glorious
experience of the feeling of the Holy Ghost.
Ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy
Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses.
We have lost entirely that glorious vision of
using that experience to witness. We have lost
that glorious vision if we ever had it. that
the Holy Spirit gives this glorious experience
for one purpose and one purpose only, for service.
But because the speaking in an unknown tongue
appeals to our senses, we make it such an important
thing. Then may I refresh your memory regarding
something else that I said. Jesus himself knowing
how weak, how fickle the frailty of human nature.
After having fed the 5 ,000, then they continued
to follow him the next day. He knew that they
were not following him for spiritual bread. He
knew very well that they were not following him
because they were hungry for the spirit. spiritual
food. No. Christ rebuked them because he knew
that they were following him for the loaves and
the fishes. Ye seek me not because ye saw the
miracles. but because ye did eat of the loaves.
There it is. In the beginning in the Garden of
Eden, it was through the sense life that Satan
made his appeal to Eve. Of course, it was not
primarily the physical act of Eve's eating the
forbidden fruit which caused the fall. We all
know that. Eve consented in her will, and the
moment she thus consented, Satan triumphed in
the surrender of her soul. The literal act of
eating the forbidden fruit was merely the outward
expression and enactment of the moral and the
spiritual failure that was The sense life was
the approach. She saw, she heard, and she tasted.
Now I want you to see something. In the deliverance
of the cross, the victory consists in triumph.
over the sense life, so that we're no longer
moved by its reports, no matter what its messages
may convey, be they pleasing or threatening.
If we're to walk in the new creation and maintain
a spiritual life with its proper development,
we are to be blind to the things seen. deaf to
the voices of earth, and dumb as far as speaking
our words of judgment are concerned. And this
is why God seeks to make us, as it were, deaf,
dumb, and blind. What leaps and bounds God's
people would make in this glorious new life were
they to yield to God's will. wonderful will and
suffer the crucifixion of the old life. This
is one of the hardest things in the world to
get Christians to see. This life of full surrender.
This life of complete consecration. Where literally
one becomes dead to the things that appeal to
the that appeal to the flesh, that appeal to
the hearing, that appeal to the senses. We're
all so human. Sometimes I think the most spiritual
are so human. Sure, God knows our frailty. But
if there is to be spiritual growth, and if we...
are to enjoy the deep things of the spirit. If
we are to receive God's best and nothing less
than his best, then there must be the surrender
of the natural and the seeking of the spiritual.
Oh, I wouldn't tell you for a moment that this
was easy. Because, you see, we're still in an
old body of flesh. This is still corruption.
This is still mortal. One of these days, this
which is now mortal will have put on immortality.
This which is now corruption will have put on
incorruption. But that day has not yet come.
As long as we're still in the old flesh life,
as long as we're still a part of humanity, there'll
be temptations, the lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eye, the pride of life. You know exactly
what I'm talking about. But I want you to see
something that is one of the most precious portions
of God's Word. And perhaps this is a different
picture of Christ than you've ever seen before.
It's in Isaiah. Oh, of course, we all know the
53rd chapter of Isaiah, the picture that was
given of Christ, wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquities. You know it well.
But there is another picture of him as given
in the 42nd chapter, the 19th, the 20th verse.
This type of the Lord is so suggestive in connection
with this which I am giving you in the heart
-to -heart talk. I shall read it to you. Who
is blind but to my servant? Or deaf as my messenger
that I send? Who is blind as he that is perfect?
And blind as the Lord's servant? Seeing many
things. but thou observest not. Opening the ears,
but he heareth not. I hear the Lord is presented
to us in a most unusual character. The perfection
of the servant lies in the fact that he has suffered
the stroke of God and no longer sees or hears
from the human side of life, never would the
Lord Jesus Christ have lived the life of victory
and of faith. Filled with its pressures, its
pain, its disappointments, its burdens, and its
tragedies, had he not been blind to the many
things seen by the natural eye. Remember, When
Jesus walked this old earth in the flesh, he
was as much man as though he were not God. Please
never weary me reminding you that if Jesus could
not have yielded to temptation, then those temptations
were a farce. God in the flesh. as much man as
though he were not God, know that he could have
yielded to temptation. That is the reason one
day he's going to be our great judge. It is not
God the Father who's going to judge man. Jesus
is going to be our judge because... You cannot
judge another unless you've had the same feelings,
unless you have gone through the same thing as
the one whom you're judging. You cannot be touched
by the sorrow of another unless you have gone
through great sorrow. Jesus had every temptation
that any human being has ever known. That is
the reason he can be a righteous judge, the perfect
judge. And time is too short to rehearse the
different incidents in his life when he saw many
things but observed them not. Think of him in
the wilderness, in those hours of stress and
temptation, when the enemy showed him all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.
He could have yielded. But there was victory.
He was blind to the appeal of the flesh. And
with the eyes of devotion, consecration and faith,
he looked beyond. Way beyond. Where his vision
was filled with the glories of the kingdom to...
He was not living for just that hour or just
that day. He saw the ultimate purpose of his
earthly life. He looked beyond that moment of
temptation. Struck blind that he might see beyond
time into the heavenlies. gazing continually
at eternal values. Oh, if somehow the Holy Spirit
could only make that real to your heart. You
and I are not living for just this hour. Sometimes
I think this generation knows nothing about what
I'm talking about. Every man lives just for today.
We live today for tomorrow we die. That's the
common thinking of this generation. We live for
this hour, so what? Let tomorrow take care of
itself. We live just for the moment. It seems
a very atmosphere is filled with this kind of
thinking. Beloved, the things of today are so
temporal, so fleeting. Out there. Out there beyond
today or the tomorrow after that day. Out there,
there's eternity. We live not just for the temporal,
we live for the eternal. I will mention another
time when I am sure that Jesus was blind to the
things seen. It was at the hour of his departure
from the little group of disciples and followers.
He had finished his work, poured out his life,
and now the only means left to carry on the tremendous
work of evangelizing the world was just a little
group of helpless, uneducated, and fainting disciples.
from the political world. No one with money or
material schemes. But there they were, a little
group of outcasts, despised, rejected, scorned.
Already they had shown signs of failure and That's
all that he had. That's all that he had, and
he knew he was going to leave. But again, there's
victory. Blind to any material hopes, Christ
lifts up his eyes. Blind indeed, but most powerful
in penetration and vision, he was. able to leave
them in faith because he saw God in the power
of the Holy Spirit coming with heavenly life.
That supernatural power. He saw the coming of
the Holy Spirit, the one who had been his strengthener,
the one who had been the power in his life. And
he knew that through the Holy Spirit. there would
be power and victory he saw not the weaknesses
of that little group that he was about to leave
he looked beyond the natural his vision was what
they would be through the power and the person
of the Holy Ghost. The one through whom he offered
himself to God the Father to be given before
he ever came to this earth. He saw that supernatural
power of the Holy Spirit possessing his followers.
He saw them no longer as weak creatures of flesh,
but now transformed by the grace and the power
of God. They were the torchbearers of the light
of heaven. He saw them scattered, persecuted,
but as flames burning their way down through
the centuries. He saw the material nations rising,
falling, perishing, but the light and the life
which he had wrought continued. continued to
burn and blaze and triumph in unspeakable glory.
Blind indeed, but piercing the darkness of centuries.
Christ, the true and faithful servant, was deaf
indeed. Day, beloved. Be deaf. Be blind. To the
natural. But keep an ear attuned to the spirit
and eyes open to the supernatural. God bless
you.