We're talking this morning about a divine breakthrough. Something that took place that was the result of tremendous planning. For long before this earth was ever made, God had you in mind. God planned a beautiful redemption, a way, a means of making Himself real to us, a means of restoration, in bringing us back to Himself. I think of the purpose of God and God's intention for us. You know one of the reasons people get into trouble in studying the Bible and often times go down a blind ally for awhile and wonder just where they are and often times they are confused and often times there may be so many, many different interpretations for the same scripture is because people fail to realize God's intention is for them. They fail to realize what God is wanting to do and what He plans to do. And their interpretation and explanation may be alright in a technical sense of the word. But when it comes to the actual purpose behind it all it takes on a different meaning when you see Him in action and Him actually moving.
God's great plan for his people was that of reconciling His people unto Himself. You see man had many barriers between him and God. God's plan was the removal of all of the barriers. That first big barrier was the barrier of sin that stood as a mountain or a wall; Regardless of whether man found a key of taking away the other things, there were still mounds that stood between him and God. He still couldn't get there because there was one big barrier left. And even today people are trying somehow or other to make themselves good and move in that direction without accepting this one facet of God's plan, reconciliation. God said, "I must move that big mountain of sin so that I can have fellowship with man, so that man could come, and so that my wrath can turn away." And this God did. He reconciled the world by the death of Jesus to Himself.
Then another barrier after the mound of sin was removed was the records of sin written on the hearts of people and written in heaven. So God in his beautiful plan said I'm destroying those records. And He did. This was His plan, a part of his beautiful plan. This He called justification. He said I'm going to count that person just as though it had never happened. My dear sister told me that she had fallen flat on her face ten times in the last couple of weeks trying to serve God. She said, "I hate to come back to God again, what will God think of me? He might tell me when are you ever going to quit failing. Well I've had to forgive you nine times already in the last two weeks." She was really concerned so I was glad I could tell her, "God doesn't know He forgave you 9 times in the past two weeks." All He remembers is right now when you come; he said, "Here's someone who needs help." When God forgives you, God forgets that He forgave you. I want you to think about that for a minute. Forgiveness wouldn't be complete if God still remembered that He forgave. But He forgets that He forgave you. He said, "I take it off my records; I pull it out of my memory so you're free, clean."
Then the third great barrier was the barrier of pollution and so God in His great plan devised a scheme by the constant cleansing of His blood to rid the human life of pollution so that we could face Him. Then He said, "Those poor people down there are carrying around in their lives the curse of sin and death. The weaknesses that have come about through the fall of sin, and that curse is a tremendous barrier to them, the seeds of death within them. So God's great plan and purpose all the way through was to remove from us this curse. Then He said, "I want man close to Me now." And so He removed the distance and the separating barrier of distance. And so God's plan in our lives is to bring us to Himself. This is it. To bring us to Himself.
Ephesians 2. He tells us how this great plan is in operation and what's happening to it and what it means to you because it's in operation. "And you has He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we've had our conversation in times past in the lust of the 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 and for His great love by which He loved us even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together (which means "made alive"), with Christ. By grace you are saved and has 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 towards us. See his plan was for us and unfolding down through those centuries. It is in operation right now as we are part of His plan. But it keeps on going way down there a million years from now. He's going to be showing all of the other people and the angels and everyone that's there in the ages to come. He might keep showing you the beautiful storehouse of riches of things He's prepared for those who love Him. He let Paul take a little walk into one of them and Paul said you'll never believe it. He said it hasn't entered into the heart of man and your eyes have never seen anything like that and in the wildest stories you've never heard of anything like that. But God has prepared it for you. Once in a while He said you could stand a little bit and by the flow of His Spirit He'll peel back a little bit of the curtain of it and say hey take a look. God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. Oh, what a wonderful plan that the Lord had for us. This plan as it unfolds, God intends for us to know about it, He intends in this great breakthrough that He had to actually experience His divine life and touch.
There are many, many different faiths; different philosophies where people say you must take it by faith. People who are glory seekers are looking the wrong direction and you're looking for the wrong thing if you're just looking for experience. In fact there are people right here in town that talk about you when you're not there and say those people, they are just to lazy or don't have enough faith to take it by faith they have to ask God for some kind of experience. Well why not? If God's plan for you included a beautiful experience of His love and of His presence, why not ask Him for that experience. Jesus' mission in coming to this earth was to come and bring life to us even when we were dead in sin.
Now the coming of this life has been made very real to me in the past 2 years. I have watched people as they have come to me and this church, many of them with deep lines on the forehead because of fear and worry. Their eyes dulled or filled with fear and I have watched them as Jesus moved away one of the barriers even many of God's people still allow to stand in the way. I've watched as something happened and in the place of the coldness and the fear and the death, life began to show. I've seen those lined foreheads become absolutely smooth. This isn't just a figure of speech. This actually happens. I've seen others who were troubled by things that they couldn't change. The circumstances were unbearable. They said they couldn't take another day or minute. But as God activated or shared with them something very special from His own heart, the circumstances didn't change but they changed. They were lifted up above them where the weight of the thing was not upon them. They were able to see the direction to go and they left still facing the problem but stepping high with a real victorious note in their voice, words of praise on their lips defeating the enemy. People have come in absolutely defeated and bound by enemy power but because of what Jesus is doing they have left that office completely free. Free from alcoholism, free from tobacco poisoning, free from drug addiction, free from bitterness and hate from the years.
I wondered just what is God doing? I know that God wants to do this for people. It seems as though for so many years we have given other means and other areas in tapping what God has. But today I wanted to give you a little picture that is so special. I've wondered about this because I've sat back and I've told others. We're just watching, God's given us a front row. I can't say it's because we're doing something different or something right that we haven't done before but God has let us see Him at work in a very beautiful way. I've tried to relate it to things we have already claimed. There's salvation, there's the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there's times of renewal. But it's not any of those. What is it God? And it wasn't until a few months ago that I pulled out some pieces of paper where I had written down some truths that God gave me by inspiration.
God ministered one entire night and talked to me about the power of the blood and what the blood has done. And He talked about the forgiveness by the blood, the justification by blood, reconciliation by blood, cleansing blood, sanctification by blood, the assurance of heaven by blood. That by his own blood He opened up heaven, he went into the very presence of God and he opened the very heart of God. 200 verses God gave me. As I was reading these pages God let me see something that I had read. God was letting me see something there that He was going to start doing in a very special way now. I didn't realize really what sanctification was. I have heard one group say, "Sanctification is the eradication of the old nature." Another group says, "It's the putting to death of the old man." Another group says without a whole lot of explanation, "sanctification means set apart." Someone else says it means cleansing. Someone else said it means victory over sin. And I have a theory and it was good and this hasn't changed it at all except it's given it a whole lot more light. That sanctification was the freedom from sin and cleansing from sin because were tied into the bloodstream of Jesus. But as I read these notes that God definitely put in my heart. On these pages God ministered to me and asked me questions about sanctification but it didn't sink through good at that time. Many beautiful verses on sanctification and then the conclusion that came right out of God's heart that I wrote down is that sanctification is God's great breakthrough in adapting His life to the human body. I wish I would have dug those papers out before. As I watch people as God ministers to them and there's that tingle and that surge. And this act of sanctification takes place many times. It isn't just a one shot definite work of grace or a single cleansing. It's something that happens every time you move into that presence and God through His divine pipeline pours into your life of His life. It happens without us really knowing about it but when we know about it, it somehow puts some spring in your step because it really means so much.
How does this relate to these other teachings? These things that you've heard are tied in. But they are the results of sanctification. They are the results of Jesus' life within you. That power to live above sin that people who may have felt that sanctification had something to do with their own efforts or their arrival and the only way they could have a life of victory was for themselves to be dead, are discovering and have discovered that though they thought they were dead there were failures and problems cropping up all the time. Many of you are experiencing victories in your life that you struggled with day after day to overcome, but as that dynamic surge of the life of Jesus goes through you, you've found that you can tread on these things, that you can climb those mountains as though you have eagle's wings because it's the life of Jesus within you. The problem we have so often, if we know God's intention, God's whole intention and His plans before He ever made this world. God's intention is summed up in this, that those people will share My life. That's His intention.
When you know what God's intending to do then all the things that go along with it can fit and it has new and wonderful meaning to you. When we take a word and we say now I'm going to find out what this teaching really means here by analyzing the word. You have a correct analysis of the word. For example, I've been thinking about football. I haven't seen a football game in so long and I don't get to watch very much of anything on T.V. because there's too many things to do for God. But I watched these guys and I saw the execution of some beautiful plays. I saw about 60000 people go crazy. They about lost their minds, and the reason they about lost their minds was because somebody made a touchdown. Now if you were to take somebody from a foreign country that wasn't interested in sports and didn't know anything about football. And they were to look at the paper and get out their dictionaries and analyze this foreign language of America, and say what is this? Football, what's happened here, they scored. What did they do to score, well we read here that they had a touchdown and we've got to find out what there is about this touchdown that would make 60000 people almost turn wild. And so they get out their dictionaries, touch=make light contact. Down, that means make light contact somewhere down. So we know the purpose now of football. To take a little leather ball and make light contact with the earth. And so folks come out and hear our explanation of football. But the thing that we can't figure out is why a little thing like that would make 60000 people get so excited. Light contact with earth. But you know, those guys out there doing battle knew there was something more. That was the end, the goal, the result of a lifetime of discipline and practice, of physical conditioning, of bruises, of miles of tape and frustration. We think of all the struggles that go into it with one thing in mind, to win. To those 60000 fans, to the people that are in there that are grinding it out and working so hard, there's something that they're aiming toward. It's that little chalk line, 6 points, to get more if they want to win. But that person that doesn't know anything about football would ask, "what on earth, football, why get excited?" Do you know the meaning could be right, the ball was touched down and there's a score. But the same thing is true when I think of the word sanctification. I take out the dictionary and I find set apart. Set apart sounds like touchdown to me, without the rest of it. Set apart from sin, set apart.
But when I go back and see the plan of God that He made before the earth, His great game plan and I ask God what is your purpose in all of this that your doing? And He said touchdown, I have a plan. I think of the other people that are parts of the plan. The prophets of old and the different parts of the team as the work went forward. And then finally on that day when Jesus carried the cross instead of a ball and He broke the last tackle and He went across the line, I could hear the angels in heaven shouting and cheering, touchdown, Jesus scored. We're number one, the enemy's defeated. What was your purpose Jesus in breaking down the barrier so that you could shake hands with man, what was the purpose of destroying the records, what was the purpose of this cleansing? He said, "My purpose was that I might score, and what was my score? To take my life and inject it into you that you might be partakers of the divine life."
When you think of sanctification think more than set apart. That injection of His divine life doesn't mean that you're not set apart it means that you can be set apart. It means that because you have that divine life in you, you have power over sin. Hallelujah. And it gives you something to cheer about. Sanctification is not death, its life; His life. Don't you love Him? Jesus did it for you and all the angels in heaven are rejoicing when you open yourself up and you let His life begin to move through you. When you feel that joy and that lift, when you feel cool breezes from heaven there's a lot of different sensations that people get but in this life there are definitely some physical sensations. Do you know that I think the idea that we're not to be emotional as believers is a cop out for a bunch of people that don't know how to spell touchdown. They go down to the football field and they get emotional and the greatest win in the world is nothing compared with the win that God has given us.
I believe there may be some here this morning, you've had an experience with God; you've accepted Him and your sins are forgiven but some how or another you've shied away from making yourself available for this flow of divine life. There are ways that the Lord does this. In first Corinthians 6:11 he tells us that we are sanctified by the name of Jesus, we share His life. The name of Jesus becomes this pipeline through which God pours his divine life. And as you really mean it and call out Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, surging into you comes that divine life because the Lord has already won the battle and the enemy is defeated. Another means of bringing this life is the blood of Jesus Christ. And then in Exodus 29:43, this is one of the verses that God had me put down at that time, that when the tabernacle was completed the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. What it says is the glory of the Lord sanctified the tabernacle. It made the tabernacle come alive because God was there. But do you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost and the glory of God from heaven, that mighty move, that charismatic power that causes you to sing and to laugh and to be free and have victory over the devil, that's the glory of God? You share His divine life when you live in that glory. This was God's plan; this was His intention for you. All the way through his dealings with the children of Israel. He said, "Israel when you camp I want you to camp in my glory where the cloud stops, when you move, I want you to move with the glory because it's your life. And the glory of God still brings our life to us and that rich glory that you feel this morning is bringing you life.
There is life in Jesus' name. What happens then, as we've said, this is the culmination, the capstone of what God has done. And the amazing thing, as the life of Jesus flows through people, He takes care of many, many other things. Most of the healings that take place in my office and even in this church where they're seated, we do not know about it. I haven't asked God to heal them, they didn't ask God but they just called the name of Jesus and the life flowing down through them as it circulated as it lifted the load as it broke the chains going down through them. That life finds things that may not be right and it rights them. It destroys the seeds of death within us. This life of Jesus even though you still may have plenty of problems, you're not in heaven yet but as far as God is concerned you read it in Hebrews 10:10-14 that this sacrifice of Jesus, this great accomplishment that He had that made all of the angels of heaven stand in awe as He completed the work. He said this great accomplishment has perfected forever those who share His life. Hope you say I'm not perfect, His blood, His life is perfect. And God is looking at the life of Jesus in you. And we're accepted in Him.
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