God has definitely through a very supernatural means, has shed a light, a spotlight on the Word. He has made truths to come alive. And as I've given this to the congregation here and it's been taped in the public services, these tapes are the tapes they're referring to, the messages of truth that God has for our day. And it's so important. These truths are so important. You remember the first message that I gave you after this visitation was a message that God's heart was desirous of the hearts of the fathers to be again to the children, the children to the fathers and to prepare a people for the Lord. This is what He's doing. God is preparing a people for the Lord. I know hundreds of people that are now in fellowship with Jesus. Since God began circulating this message it isn't something that is stopped here. The work of God's hosts working in this world hastening men and women to God is going on and there are literally millions of people that have been turned to God. God just brought the message to us of what He was doing. Praise the name of the Lord.
In my ministry of the Philippines I was made so aware of my need of putting these messages down into print as well as in tape. So these men could take these truths and support them with scripture and use them, mix them in with their messages giving the truth to the people. While I was speaking at the Far East advanced school of theology in Manila, the president and the instructors there, all of them learned men, most of them with doctorate degrees stated that they needed this material to give to their students. And I've had telephone calls and letters from many, many pastors in this country saying would you give us some material. We have calls or letters from many foreign countries saying the same thing. And with God's help we're going to get this out to them.
In my advertisement in the paper for the services today, I asked the question "what is God doing?" Something is happening in the world today that's never happened before. What is God doing? We here statements, we hear reports of victory in all parts of the world. We here about Catholics fellowshipping with Pentecostal people. We hear about Mormons and Catholics getting together. Something very, very special is taking place. God is hastening His work. People often look at what the Lord is doing and they often wonder "what's this going to mean to me, what's this going to mean to my church? I've had a number of people ask me the question now how is this going to affect the assemblies of God, where I had my ordination. While I was in the Philippines I had a group of Baptists come and ask me how this was going to affect the Baptist people. God isn't really too concerned about these denominations. I'll tell you why, what God is doing today is so much broader than any church group. God did not say for God so loved one half of one percent of the world that He gave his only begotten Son for them. Oh no, you take these various denominations it's just a fraction of a percent. But God said He loved the world. So He's doing something very special today. He's not building his church from one denomination.
He still comes through with the message that he brought to Joshua as he stood by the river. Joshua walked up to this messenger from heaven and he said "are you with us or are you with your competitors." He didn't use that word but he did say are you with us or with our enemies. You remember what this angel said? He said I'm not too concerned about you or your enemies as groups of people but as captain of the Lord's hosts I have come. And they came with orders, they came on assignment, Joshua didn't know at the time what that assignment was but he soon found out. That Israel's job was to work from ground level and they were to obey God's orders and they marched around those walls and here there was a human army marching under orders from God, while up above was a great army from heaven and it made a great penser movement against the enemies of God. And when a shout was given as this army of earth marched around the walls, one of the most foolish orders that were ever given to an army of people, march around the walls. That was poor battle strategy. I venture to say some of the people in those days who would like to think logically could have said "well this doesn't fit human logic, marching around the walls."
There are people today that read that and they want to believe God so they try and figure out someway that those people got the walls down by marching around it. I even read in one place where they said these people were such good marchers that they marched with such good rhythm that they created a vibration that was felt in the earth crust and it caused the walls to come down. I tell you that would take quite an army to make a vibration like that wouldn't it? There are some other theories because the walls went down. But you know what really happened? When God gives us a job to do we sometimes say it can't be done, it's humanly impossible. God says "you do the human end of it, what I tell you to do, and I've got some super human forces at work that will do what you can't do." Listen folks, when God gives you something to do, you do what He's given you to do and He'll do what you can't do.
So these people walked around the walls, they did what the Lord said, they shouted. And I supposed some of them were about ready to say I told you so nothing happened by just walking around the walls and shouting. But when they shouted that was this captain's signal. He had sealed orders that God had given him and he looked at them. And so he sent those angels out and they got on that wall and they pushed it right down into the ground. Have you found yourself into tough spots? Can't do it God, don't worry. God has the captain of the Lord's hosts and heavenly forces out there working for you. Did you ever wonder why he was called the Lord of Hosts? It's because God commands another army too. So the question is "God are you with us or are you against us?" It's a classic question that is still being asked. We need to take a little closer look at our attitudes. There are some denominations that are saying we are it, if you're going to go to heaven you have to be what we are. You have to learn and accept our truths, and then you can go to heaven. And heaven is prepared for a little tiny fraction of the people. Just a small place. Next time you hear somebody say you have to accept this particular teaching to go to heaven. I want you to mark down right off that they're wrong because God isn't going to support that. But there are people who say, "Oh I would never say a thing like that. I would never say that people have to come our way." But there are people who are saying if it's really of God it has to come through us.
Do you know that I had a minister telling me that? If God was going to bring some truths and highlight the truths that He's put in His Word we have some well educated PhD's, well God will use them. And if God doesn't use them it must not be of God. If God's going to do something why isn't He doing it through us? When God does something let's not care who it comes through. We've prayed for God to do it, and when God moves let's be thankful. Let's praise God for it when God moves. Then there are some in practice by provincial attitudes they're excluding people from God. I was telling some people what God is doing in the Catholic faiths. God is waking up a great sleeping giant in the Catholics today. And I was mentioning some people that God had so beautifully moved upon, blessed. And these two men looked at me and they said, "Have they taken the statues out of their church. Have you asked them whether they quit praying to Mary? Have they thrown away the beads that they had around their neck?" Listen, God did not make us the authority.
God can take things that have been written clear off by man and can use them. He said He can even take a worm and thresh a mountain with it. People may stand by and say "hey what's that worm doing, he doesn't have authority. Worm put the mountain back in shape." But I tell you, when God moves God has His reasons for the way He moves. So this is one of the things that God isn't doing, He isn't building his church from the inside of one denomination. Another thing that He's not doing is glorifying super churches. Though there are massive congregations that are coming together as a result of what He's doing. But the fact that they may have a super organization does not mean that that's what God is going to use. He is not glorifying super personalities. One of the dangers today of the Christian world is if God does start to use an individual people want to take that individual and practically mount him on the wall and light some candles in front of him. If there happens to be a move of God through healing or though salvation. There are people that would venerate that individual when God Himself wants to have the glory. What God is doing is not glorifying man. This great move of God is not to glorify churches or man.
What is God's plan for the world? There are people who say well if God is in it God wants to make the world a democracy. You don't know how wrong you are. God never planned democracies. Democracy is better than the other governments compared with it. A lot more liberty and a lot more freedom and I want you to thank God for where you live. But this isn't what God wants to do with the church today. His plans for the world is not to take democracy and spread it around the world. Though God does honor and has promised to bless men and women where He is honored whether it be a democracy or a monarchy or whatever it is, when God is honored he has promised to bless because of what He is doing. God has plans for this world. And the bottom line of what God has planned for this world is that it's going to be a great kingdom with Jesus as the King, a great theocracy. Jesus Christ in charge. Oh, Hallelujah.
God gave me a living panorama of this picture just last Sunday morning. It's something that is going to be happening. God allowed me to see the greatness of what's going to be taking place. I could hear voices in heaven. I heard Michael and Gabriel and other great angels of heaven shouting the words "the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. And He shall reign forever and ever and ever." And while they were shouting, it was literally reverberating from one side of heaven to the other. I saw the 24 elders that were there and they fell down in the presence of God. And as they were lying on their faces before God the Lord allowed me to see the veil being drawn back from the temple in heaven. And as I saw that temple He focused my attention on the Ark of the Covenant that was there. And there in the ark was the bloodstained mercy seat. And he said his covenant would never be broken. That those whose sins were under the blood Covenant, those who had put their faith in what Jesus has done, those who have met God at this mercy seat, their sins were covered.
You know in the ark that was on earth, the broken commandments that Moses had were kept in that ark and covered with this mercy seat. The mercy seat was a picture on earth of Jesus Himself. Hallelujah. Throughout the eternal ages in heaven the cost of our salvation is going to be in prominence. The temple was opened and exposed, was the ark and the blood. Praise God forever. Some of you might wonder is that scriptural? It is scriptural. He did make reference to the fact that in the 11th chapter verse 15 through 19 it's just referred to in brief. But that living panorama was so beautiful. Just to see what's actually happening. God's plan for this earth is that Jesus is going to be the King. Hallelujah. Following that, the earth will be purified by fire and there will be a new heavens and a new earth. But Jesus is going to be the King. That's what God's plans are for the world. I'll tell you what God is doing. God is unfolding His plans for His people. God's plans for His people are included in these divine acts.
One, His plan is for reconciliation. He wants to reach out and draw men and women back to Himself. He wants to tell them "come, you can shake hands now, the wrath is turned away. You can come." That's his message of reconciliation, that He wants to restore and bring you back into a place of fellowship with Himself. Second, He wants to give you life. These are the plans that God has for His people. The Lord so emphasized this to me and I'm going to mention it again. I feel that if this is so important to God that He would by divine messenger bring these truths and this message and say get it out. I feel it has greater importance than we could possible place on it ourselves. It is important to God. God wants the world to know that He wants them. He wants them to know it.
There's a beautiful truth that He made so real to me last Sunday morning, early in the morning as Gabriel met with me in that office and spoke to me about what God is doing, God's methods today. He spoke to me about the seeds that have been sown in the hearts and lives of people around the world. That the gospel message, though it may not have been received, it may not have been germinated. The seed has gone forth and it has been sown in many, many, many lives. And that God's plan for believers is that you take on and become the light of God to these people. That you actually have the nature and partake of the nature of Jesus, this is His plan for you. 1 Peter 1, this is God's plan for you. He isn't necessary wanting you to become the greatest Bible teacher in the earth. He's not intending for you just to grow in great stature as far as moving people is concerned. He wants you to be like Jesus.
God's highest plan for you is that you be like Jesus in this world. I'm going to read from verse two. "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, who according to His divine power has given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us unto glory and virtue. All things that pertain to this life, which pertains to godliness, have been given to us when we learn to know Him, see Him as He is. Whereby given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature." God wants you to be like Jesus. Partakers of that divine nature. "Having escaped the pollution or the corruption that is in the world through lust." God has a beautiful escape as you get to know God. Those things that you have been battling will fall away and you'll have victory over them in the beauty of Jesus. God wants literally millions of representatives each of them representing the beauty of Jesus in this world. Then he goes on and tells us the things about the nature of Jesus. "Give all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity, all of these things are the characteristics of the nature of Jesus." He said add these things to your life. If these things be in you and abound they make you that you should be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. "He that lacks these things is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he is purged from his old sins." God's desire for you is for you to be like Jesus and not to slip back into an old way. "Therefore brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure for if you do these things you will never fall for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore I will not be negligent to put you into remembrance of these things though you know them and you be established in the truth. God wants us to be like the Lord.
Now let me draw you back to this world as a great field that's been planted. Seeds have been sown. Often in many places they've been watered by the tears of people. God's great work that He's doing today in drawing people close to Himself and allowing them and leading them into a place where His life is being seen in them that the life of Jesus is being seen, Jesus' life is light. The Word tells us that in Him was life and that life was the light of men that lights people in the world. So look at it this way, God has set you in the world as a light and now He says "it's time for you to arise and shine for your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." The looks, the nature of Jesus has risen from you, the glory of the Lord is streaming from you. What is the purpose of this? To give you a place of beauty and of prominence? No. That likeness of Jesus that's streaming from your life becomes the warm rays of God's love, of His gentleness, of His nature that goes forth.
And as this mighty angel was speaking to me he said that the seed has been sown and as we partake of the nature of Jesus and we shine, the warm rays from our life will cause a germinating of the seed that is sown all over the country and there's going to be life springing forth because the seed of the gospel is there. He doesn't say to stop sowing but he does say that as we move about in this world as we are living and ministering among people that something in their heart is going to come to life. Hallelujah. The seed is going to spring to life. And they're going to come to know Him. People that are dead in sins are going to come to life because the seeds are going to spring forth. Hallelujah. There are some of you here today that may not know Christ. But I want you to think of times that seed has been sown. You've been probably in a home and seen a mother or a father that has loved God. Or you've been out working and you've looked up into the sky and your mind seemed to drift to the things of God, there must be a God out there somewhere. Or you've been spared some grievous accident by God's help. Or you were listening to the radio and you heard a song that told about God and there was a softness in your heart. You may have even had to dab a tear away from your eye as a seed was sown and your heart was touched. You may have heard a message sometime along time ago, a seed was sown.
I think of this telephone call that we've received from up in river country. And this man called weeping, they had listened to that tape in a saloon. And he told me that 16 years ago he heard a sermon and that his heart felt that he should surrender to the Lord that some seed was sown. But he said that as he was listening to this tape it all came back to him. And he came to the phone and called and asked how he could find Jesus. I was able to pray for him over the phone, he slipped his hand into the Lord's. And then he said; "now I'm going back and I'm going to tell these other 16 men who were weeping as they were listening to that tape how to find Jesus." Praise God. God is warming by His life, by His presence, by his work through believers, by divine visitations, by all that He's doing. God is causing and readying a people for the Lord.
And while Gabriel was telling me this I feel that I have not been able to communicate it the way it was communicated to my own heart. That the world is ready and the seeds are ready to spring forth as the light shines upon them. As he was speaking to me about this something happened that I will never forget and I felt so awed by it I couldn't even talk about it here in the church but while he was speaking to me suddenly a shaft of light about 18 inches across came into that room over at the house, my office there. It did not diffuse and go out into the room; it stayed together like a blue white pipe. It was a shaft of light. I looked at it but it was so dazzling I couldn't keep my eyes upon it. And I felt so absolutely consumed by the brightness of that light. Gabriel who was standing by me stopped, and this other great angel that was there stopped. It lasted about five minutes. They begin telling me about the Light, the warmth of that Light that was going to be germinating the seeds of life. Oh God have I taken this, has this been important enough to me? How important this must be to God that by supernatural means let me know that He wants His believers to be shafts of light beaming warmth, love, and kindness into the world. That the seeds that are sown in lives everywhere will suddenly germinate and they'll say "oh I need God, I want Him, I must have Him."
What is God trying to do? God loves people. God is not seeking to condemn people. He's seeking to bring them to Himself. And Jesus, when he stated what He came to do, He said, "I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." Praise God. I was reluctant to mention this, there's so many things that people may hear that they may have to sort out in their minds. I don't know yet what this light was but I can't help but feel that God Himself moved into that room to emphasize the importance of this message. Light. The Light of heaven. I felt that the light had risen on my own life. I felt that it had to be important for these mighty angels to stop in total awe of Him. I feel that when I'm speaking this morning God is here. I wouldn't even be surprised if some of you here would even catch a glimpse of that light that was so dazzling. That your lives would never be the same.
I have to tell you this morning I cannot take what God's doing lightly. It's the most important thing right now in my whole life because God is carrying the message out to the world, He's saying, "I want you, I love you." He wants the world to be loved through you, through the beauty of Jesus. Oh, Jesus. I can't continue this message; there are some other things that are of tremendous importance. I feel that God is here in such a powerful way. I feel that He's putting His hand on lives. I feel that seed that has been sown, not only gospel seed but seeds of hope, seeds of desire for service for God, seeds of real faith and belief that have been sown in your heart because of the warmth of what God is doing are springing to life. Do you feel this morning that there is a quickening in your own spirit? Oh, the quickening of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah.
Some of you may never had the courage to place your hands on someone and pray that life would go through them that they may be healed. But today God's presence and the light of the gospel that's shining in your heart, that light that's risen on you is causing a growth of that faith. And God wants you to pray. You've never had the faith to talk to someone, you didn't know whether they would listen to you but all of a sudden there's a confidence coming and you're able to share the beauty of Jesus and the beauty of this message. God loves them; God wants them, that He has room for them. God is telling you today that He is not angry with you anymore. That His wrath is turned away and the seeds that have been sown in your life, that knowledge that you have about God are springing to life.
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