======================================================================== THE FULNESS OF GOD by Robert B. Thompson ======================================================================== Summary: The sermon explores the process of salvation, emphasizing the importance of nurturing love, obedience, and the fullness of God in believers' lives. Duration: 1:02:50 Topics: "Surrender To God", "Redemption Process" Scripture References: Matthew 6:33, Ephesians 3:14-21 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of surrendering one's life to Jesus and living according to God's will. He mentions the concept of the kingdom of God and urges listeners to evaluate how close they are to it. The preacher also discusses the idea of four dimensions, relating it to the process of redemption and the expression of God's love. He shares personal experiences of turning away from sinful behaviors and highlights the significance of living a transformed life as a Christian. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I feel the Lord saying, Athaliah, you'll recall she was a wicked queen who could not, when her son died, she couldn't let the progression of inheritance go and she killed all the royal seed so that she could be queen. Not just for a day, but queen. And her sister, the aunt of Josiah, while the royal seed was being killed, rushed in and grabbed Josiah and hid him. And eight years later, her husband, who was the priest of Israel, arranged and deposed Athaliah, caused her death, and he was placed on the throne at eight years of age. God said, even a child is known at eight years what his heart is like. And the warning that I have felt, and I'd like to say encouragement, but the encouragement is if you do well, you will receive well from the Lord, that we don't want to be like Athaliah and grab the power to ourselves. Her first thing was to kill the children so she could be dominant. The sister, her first thought was to save the child and nurture him. And I don't know how you're going to apply this, and it's been two weeks cooking on the back burner, but I feel so strongly, I looked up the name, Athaliah is violence, and Jehoshibah is worship. And if we don't seek to gather stuff to ourselves, but seek to be this nurturing that God has intended us to be, and sometimes we say, oh, why focus on the children? Well, because they're the next generation, and who else are you going to pass it on to? And does it matter in the going whether you've elevated yourself or not? I don't think we care, as long as we're doing what He assigns us. And that will be the basis of our reward. I've been so released when I realized I didn't have things I had to present to the Lord other than obedience, and to worship as I go. So I feel the Lord impressing on us, on our children, enjoy the Lord. He is worthy, and He can save you, He can save the children out of sure destruction, and He can save this young boy until, we don't know how old he was when it first happened, but at eight years old, he reigned. Lord, as we come unto You this morning, it is with praise and thanksgiving, Lord, because You are faithful to answer prayer. So many times, Lord, the answer is so natural and so quick that we forget that we prayed. And so, Lord, help us to always remember and to be thankful when You bring answers to our prayers. We appreciate it, Lord. And we pray this morning, Lord, for the little children as they've gone out with their teachers, that You bless them, Lord, and their teachers, and those of us here, Lord, and on the tape that what is said and perceived will be what the Spirit is saying right now in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We'll turn in our Bibles to Ephesians, the third chapter, and we're going to read verses 14 through 21. Ephesians 3, 14, to the end of the chapter. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do measurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. Now, since Paul is praying for the church at Ephesus, then he's praying for people who have already been saved, as we use the term, and already have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, as we use the term. And so the prayer is for us. I think in many instances we feel once we get saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, we have arrived, and the next thing to do is to wait and die to go to heaven. But being saved, that is accepting Christ, and being filled with the Spirit, is just the beginning. It's the beginning of salvation. Because salvation is not a legal something that happens when we accept Christ. Salvation is the bringing forth of a new creature. That's all the difference in the world. So we're in process, you and I, if we have accepted Christ, and have been filled with the Spirit and spoken in tongues and whatever, we are in process. And the process of salvation requires time. The goal of salvation is not to go to heaven. There is a heaven, and I hope to go there very soon. How about you? But that's not the goal of salvation, because bringing a person from the physical realm to the spirit realm doesn't change anything, doesn't save anything. The salvation, the process of salvation occurs only as we interact with Christ, and we grow, and we go through experiences of growth, and that is what salvation is. I don't know how much salvation can be accomplished in heaven, I don't know. But I do know that Christ was with the Father from eternity, and the Bible says in the fifth chapter of Hebrews, that Christ learned obedience through the things he suffered on earth. Now, that's a little rich for my blood, I'm not sure I understand what I understand about that, because that's heavy. And in the second chapter of Hebrews, it says that Christ was made perfect, which in simple terms means that he went back to the Father a better man than when he left, which is rather something to think about. And if Christ was made perfect, according to Hebrews 2, while he was on earth, and if he learned obedience to the Father while on earth, and if we have the certain knowledge that Christ was with the Father from the beginning, as it says in John 1, and we put that all together, then what we come up with is that you're not made perfect, and you do not learn obedience by merely being in the spirit realm. I don't know how you can avoid that, I mean, that's ipso facto, it's prima facie, it's evident in terms of simple philosophical reasoning. If Christ became perfect on earth, the captain of our salvation was made perfect, and if he learned obedience through the things he suffered on earth, and at the same time he had been with the Father back in the eons of eternity, and through him were all things created, including the angels, Satan, and everything else, everything was created through the Lord Jesus Christ, all things were made by him, without him was not anything made that was made. We put all that together, and it tells us that there's things that can happen on earth, that cannot for some reason happen in the spirit realm. Therefore, whatever obedience you're going to learn, and whatever perfection you're going to receive, must be done through the process of salvation, while you're alive on the earth. Now, if someone can see some way out of that, I'd be glad to hear it, because I don't want to teach something wrong, but I can't see any other thing. Another thing thrown into the pot, one might say, but look at the people living, look at the people dying, some hear the gospel, some don't, some die when they're 5, and some when they're 25, etc. I understand all that, but I also have been noticing as I have been reading the New Testament, and contemplating it in my dotage. When you're young and full of vinegar, you overlook some things in the New Testament, because there's a lot of things you've been taught, and it influences your perception, and you can't perceive what it says. And other things come in. I really shied away from the concept of predestination. I don't emphasize that, because there can be death in the pot if it's taken wrong. And I don't push scriptures like as many are ordained to life believe. I will mention that, but because of the excesses of Calvinism on predestination, which is in my mind, this bias against predestination, I sometimes can't see what is in front of my face. In point of fact, in my devotions, I'm somewhere around, I just started Revelation, but I think what I noticed was in Peter. Well, it happens in both 1 and 2 Peter, but this was something that hit me. I'm finally slowed down enough to see something I've read for many years. 1 Peter 1, Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect, strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Boo! Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Well, this idea of foreknowledge and predestination and election, many are called, but few are chosen. You see, you're calling brothers, not many mighty, not many noble are called. There's an awful lot of that in the New Testament, and I don't want to overemphasize it to the detriment of the congregation. But it answers, it plugs into my mind when I'm considering that if you're going to be made perfect and you're going to learn obedience, you do it here. Then it's important for us to know that God knows what He's doing and that people are alive long enough to accomplish God's purpose and we don't have to because it's all under control. But the point is this, it isn't an ironclad thing. It seems like God has set things up in such a way that the great things of God are always an opportunity. That's why it says in Peter, 2nd Peter, to add to your faith, virtue, and temperance, you have to add all these things, it says, to make your calling certain. If you do these things, you shall never fall. Which shows us that these things are not carved in steel, they're an opportunity. Do these things and you shall never fall, it says in 2nd Peter. Make your election sure. Another place in the scripture speaks of vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor. And then it says if a man shall purge himself from these, talking about the works of the flesh, he shall be a vessel unto honor. So it seems there's a great tapestry here, a great plan ordained by God, foreknown by God, in which the program is set up and then you can respond or not. And there's always room for that person who decides to serve God like a madman and surprises God and everybody else and finds a place. So we're not talking about a rigid predestination. On the other hand, we're recognizing that it isn't a freewheeling probability randomization operating out here. There is an election according to the foreknowledge of God. And at the same time, we have to respond. Now, the fact that we're here this morning has to do with God's election. Or you wouldn't be here. There's a lot more people not in this church than there are in this church. And the Bible says God knows what he's doing. And so the prophets speak by the Spirit as Tony did and Andrew did and they tell us, and Lindley also, and they tell us what God is saying to us and it is not a whipping down and it is not I'm okay and you're okay. It's a daily exhortation to remind us of what we're doing and what the issues are. What's the consequence of not giving it your best shot? What's the consequence of giving it your best shot? And that's the way the game seems to go. Is that very clear on what I'm trying to say? I mean, it's not, you know, ABC, but on the other hand, it's not some inscrutable thing like the square root of minus one. It's something that you can kind of, yeah, I'm here by election and foreknowledge of God and he called me, I didn't choose him, he chose me and now I've got to respond and if I do, God will, if I grasp that for which I've been grasped, I'm going to end up in exceedingly great glory and if I don't, I'm going to catch it. Simple as that. Well, that's good old stuff there. Alright, so this is what Paul prays for those who are saved. I don't know how people today pray for people who are saved, vis-a-vis the process of salvation, but this is the Bible way. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives his name. And by the way, that particular expression there is the best I've seen. It's in the NIV. It must be some abstruse Greek construction or something because you'll find this different in every translation, but this is the one that rings with me. All it is saying is that God has a family and we're called by his name, the family of God. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you. And by the way, he's not broke. He has enough for you. You may feel lower than a snake's belly today, but he has enough for you. In fact, you could live on the interest. No, he's not broke. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you. Can anybody use any strength today? Yeah, quite a few, including me. All right. I pray he may strengthen you with power. Now, that's the thing, Tony. I would guess that word is dunaman and not exosia. It's not authority. It's power. We need power. Through his spirit, in your inner being, inside of you, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I am always preaching about, to Christians, to let Christ dwell in your heart, and I've been taken to task for that by a minister who said, what you're saying is we don't have Christ in our heart. I've been preaching this since 1948, when the Lord impressed it on my mind. And people said, what do you mean? I'm a Christian. I have Christ in my heart. But if you look at this, he says, I'm praying so that Christ may dwell in your heart. And there's so much of that in the New Testament. I mean, you can't see it. It's that eternal life, while we have a little bit of it now, is something that we get in the future by behaving. It's not a legal state that we get full-blown when we accept Christ. Rather, it's a kind of life, as distinct from blood life, and we get a little bit when we're saved. But if you'll be alert and sensitive to that, when you're reading the New Testament, you'll see how many times it tells us that eternal life is out there in the future. Which is good to keep in mind. Nothing like going by the Bible. How many agree with that? Nothing like going with the Bible. I mean, you can't beat it. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love... Now, there's a lot of talk today about love. And there's only one commandment, and that's love. And you can get that from 1 John. And I've been loved to death. I don't know how about you. The problem is, it's a humanistic love. And it doesn't go past the foyer. You can talk about it until a person can write a doctoral dissertation on it. But it doesn't go past the foyer. Because it's human love. But the love that comes from Christ in us is of an altogether different quality. I mean, it isn't a case of quantity. It's a case of quality. It's different in kind. And when 1 Corinthians 13 talks about the greatest is love, it's not talking about human love. I haven't been around liberal people in school work long enough to hear love, love, love, love. And find that they had about as much love as nothing. I mean... You'll see a school teacher shaking his head. It's all blather. It's all blather. When the chips are down, it is. Does not come together. I know that God... But that... I mean, it's a different kind of thing. And it comes from within. So, yes, 1 John says, love is perfection. But that doesn't mean you say, Oh, I love everybody, so I don't have to keep God's commandments. That's how it's reduced down in our day. And that's nothing. That's like saying, I want to be a PhD, but I don't want to go to kindergarten. Alright. Through faith. And that's the way it is. It's something that you have to pursue and believe that it's true. Because many times you feel in yourself, I don't have any love. Furthermore, I don't feel. Furthermore, I don't want any. I've never been there. So you have to have faith that this is the way you're going and that God will do it. And He certainly will. He hasn't put things in the Bible because He's getting a nickel of words, you know. Everything in here is important. And I pray that you be rooted and established in love. Now, that is an answer to prayer. That's something that God has to do for us. Has to root us and establish us in divine love. That's something that God has to do. Because this kind of love is the love that is of God Himself. It's not human love. It's the love that is of God Himself. And so it endures forever and is greater than faith and hope. Alright. May have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. To grasp the love of Christ. Now, that's a love for us and it's a love for the creation. It's a love for people. It's a love for God. And it's an agent of the Godhead. It just comes from God. And you notice there are four dimensions here. There's a reason for that. In our world, we are in a three-dimensional world. How high things are, how wide and how deep they are. There's four dimensions here. And there's a reason for that. It has to do with that fourth dunking over in Ezekiel. We may get into that this morning. It has to do with the fact that after we go through the three deaths and resurrections of redemption, so that we finally have overcome the world and the lust of the flesh and self-will, then the fourth dimension there is to dwell in God's love. We're not in a process of redemption, but in a process of the expression of God to His creation. More about that later. It's on the tape. It has a little swift. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge. It's just an overwhelming thing. I know when I was in Iceland, I was burning up. I was burning up and weeping. I couldn't stop. I was still weeping when I came home. I could not cope with it emotionally. It passes knowledge. That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now, I said a couple of weeks ago, I don't know if you remember, how you approach a promise in the Bible. First of all, you have to know if God said it. And this is Apostle Paul speaking by the Spirit of God. God said it. It's in God's Word. And God will stand behind it. The second thing you have to do is to choose whether you want to believe it or not. You make a choice. I'll believe that. Or you can sit in the seat of the scornful and say it's not possible. And yeah, we know. And that's nice in church. And it makes a good Sunday school lesson, etc. and so on. You can take that attitude where you don't really believe it's possible. And there's some staggering things in the Bible. And this is one of them. Greater works shall you do. Sit on my throne. You know, as I overcame the sin of my father's throne. There's some staggering things in the Bible. And if you've got a grain of scornfulness in your spirit, you come up against something like this. You know, you face God someday and you say, Do you know what was in the Bible? Yeah. Well, how come you didn't believe it? Well, I thought, you know, maybe you were being cute. Or religious. God isn't cute or religious. He means exactly what he says. Huh? And if God says greater works, he doesn't mean almost greater works. And he doesn't mean more works. The Greek word is meizona, greater works than these shall you do. In John 14. I found that one in Bible school. I was supposed to be paying attention in a Sunday school methods class. Instead, I was thinking about meizona. I said, Lord, I believe that. I believe that. I believe that. I saw a picture once in a church magazine. And it showed a great new hospital that had been built. Underneath it said, greater works than these shall you do. We can't. Men can't. They see it's there. It means building hospitals. It means greater works. When it says sit on the throne with Christ, that's the greatest throne in the universe, it means exactly what it says. When it says fill with all the fullness of God, it's exactly what it means. So we make sure it's in the Bible, not in the book of Hezekiah. And then we choose to believe or not to believe. And be scornful for our, quote, practical, whatever, approach to the Bible. I'll believe as much as my puny brain can grasp or think possible. And then we have to patiently wait for it to be fulfilled. That's how you approach promises in the Bible. Make sure they're there. And you choose whether or not you want to believe. And if you do want to believe, then you pray and just patiently wait for God to bring it to pass. Period. God said it. We believe it. How's that sat with you? That'll work. That'll fly. Alright. Now, the measure of all the fullness of God. Now the difference between Jesus Christ ministry and our ministry is that we minister through a glass darkly. The prophets are never perfect in what they say. And if they've got anything cooking in their mind, whether it's hatred or unforgiveness or bitterness or fear or jealousy or whatever, it'll come out in the prophecy. And when we have people in who judge the prophets, they can always find something wrong. And so when they tell me that this prophet said this was wrong, I say, I'll tell you what, I agree. Now you prophesy so we can find out what's wrong with you. But those kind of people never prophesy. I've noted that. It's a phenomenon. It really is. The very critical people. Why? They can't prophesy because their hearts are... Because when you prophesy, you give yourself away. But that's alright. You know, you can't start off like... But you're not going to start off like Isaiah. Oh. You may get up and say, you know, Cain killed his brother. And he hadn't ought to have done it. And sit down. You've made a move toward God. See, you've made a move toward God. Which is more than the rest of them. Pretty soon you'll have a very well organized church and then you can print a bulletin so that everybody will know what's going to happen. Alright, now. Jesus did not prophesy through a glass darkly. He had the Spirit of God without measure. That's what you call the fullness of God. In Him dwell all the fullness of the Godhead. In bodily form. That's where we're headed. We'll never take the place of Jesus Christ. He's the Lord. Okay? But we're sons of God and God has called us. I don't stagger. I say, bring it on Lord. Hallelujah. I'm not going to consider myself. But I mean, this is going to strain God. How many know that this will strain God? I mean, He'll be really just about exhausted. He'll have to have another day of rest. He goes filling a few people with all His fullness. But! The next verse says, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably. That doesn't mean God can't measure it. It means we can't measure it. God can measure anything He wants to. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us. Talking about the fullness of God. You say it won't fit because I'm too small. Well, it fit in Jesus. How can that be? Maybe you're bigger than you think you are. I know God isn't smaller than we think He is. We must be bigger than we think we are. And I rather believe that's true. We're just a future son of God all bound up in a little animal body. Thank you. To Him, that is to the Father, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Now, let's turn over where we were Tuesday night. And if you weren't here, you missed it. There's nothing I can do about it. But we're in Ezekiel 47. We're talking about the fourth dimension which is beyond redemption. Don't bite your fingernails. You're going to be fine. The man brought me back. You know, this temple. A lot of scholars have talked about that. And I put out my two cents. I think it's talking about the inward development of the believer, which is kind of heavy, but I won't build a new church on that one. The Lord brought me back to the entrance of the temple. How could it be describing people? Well, people are the only temple of God. We are the temple of God. And I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. And now, whenever you see in Ezekiel the east, it's talking about the coming of the Lord. It's talking. And I was studying a diagram of the temple of Herod. And if I got my directions right, even though it was in the northeast corner of Jerusalem, it was facing the east. And of course, the beautiful gate there is right there. When you stand on the Mount of Olives and look down, there's the beautiful gate. So, people who don't believe and don't want Jesus to come back have installed a cemetery there. So, if you go from the Mount of Olives and you hit that eastern wall, there where the beautiful gate of the temple was, you have to cross over a cemetery. And I think our guide said, because they're hoping that this will prevent Jesus from coming back and entering through the beautiful gate. I think that's what our guide told us. Remember that, Audrey? That's why they put a cemetery there to prevent that. They don't know Jesus. One word from Him and pow! Those graves will be open. There'll be a highway. That depends on what He wants to do. He never shows off, but He can if He wants to. Alright. Toward the east, that is, this is looking toward the coming of the Lord. The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple. Now, what that's telling you is that when God begins to speak through you, it will be in a time of blessing. The south wind. Blow on my garden. That's the time of the warm fuzzies of your life as far as God is working and you can feel His love and wonderful time. And there comes those times. Now, in the 19th Psalm, it says, day unto day utter speech. So, in the daytime is when God speaks. Then it says, night unto night shows knowledge. What that means is that it's when you're suffering that you learn. It's a time to just learn. Day unto day utter speech. Night unto night shows forth knowledge. And it's when you're going through hard places. You may not have an opportunity to minister. You may feel, man, I am at the bottom of nothing. But that's when you learn about the Lord. You'll respond with a good heart. You'll learn from your pain. And that's why you have it. He learned obedience to the things that He suffered. Alright. South of the altar, He then brought me out through the north gate. And what that's telling you is God brings you forth through suffering. Boy, you can't have it all your own way and expect to be a witness of God. It doesn't work that way. You have to learn of God on His terms to be a witness. God makes fishers of men. He doesn't ask you to be a fisher. He didn't say, come after me and fish. He said, I will make you fishers. Because He's got all kinds of fish. And He has to make you the kind that will catch the kind of fish He wants. We all can't catch the same kind of fish. Stan can tell you that. Alright. He led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east and now we're ready to move. The water was flowing from the south side. The water was coming from the place of blessing. It was coming from the place of blessing. And the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand. He had measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle deep. Which is speaking, now, the water represents God's Spirit. And this little allegory here is referring to your increasing in the Spirit of God. Pressing toward the fullness of God. Pressing toward the fourth dimension. This is the beginning. And the water to the ankles means that you have a portion of God's Holy Spirit that is basically affecting your walk, your way. When you get saved, hopefully, you don't continue as the same type of person that you were. Yet, you have very little of God's Spirit. Your life is mostly still Adamic. But you have learned something that is true. You have been born again by the Spirit of God. And the measuring line means that God has judged you to a point. Now, if you read the book of Acts, how people were saved, it's a little different from today. Today, we may preach, let Jesus into your heart, which is not preached in the book of Acts. We may say, come up at the altar and accept Christ in your Savior. Do the four steps of salvation and follow me through my personal worker's New Testament. Do you know what they preached? Repentance. When you read the book of Acts, you'll find that forgiveness and repentance go together. There's one verse in the book of Acts that says, do works. Do works suitable for repentance. See, we're off balance today. We're saying that salvation is entirely by a statement, you believe that's it. That is not true. If it is not accompanied by repentance, you haven't approached God in the right way. He didn't give His Son as an alternative to righteousness. He gave His Son so we who are sinners would have an opportunity to be saved and to get a fresh start with God. And in order to do that, we have to show that we are sincere about this. That we regret our past life in the world of malice and bitterness. We regret that. We repent of it. And we're going to turn. We're going to be baptized in water showing that we are taking our Adamic nature putting it on the cross with Christ and that life is over. Now we come up out of the water meaning we have not only been resurrected with Christ but have also ascended with Him to the right hand of the Father and we're ready now to walk in newness of life. That's basic salvation. And it's accompanied by a basic judgment. That's why the man has the line in his hand, the measuring line. And that basic judgment is that you have turned. I remember when I was saved, not the right thing to do to go up to the slopshoot and drink beer. I knew that. And I quit smoking, quit swearing. That's about as far as it went. And so what I would do is just turn my back on the movies. I knew that was wrong and I just turned my back and memorized scripture. Which I was really in a better position to hold off the enemy in any case. Oh glory. I knew. I knew that to be a Christian meant something and it meant more than talk. It meant a genuine turning from the world. Okay? That's waters to the ankles. That's waters to the ankles. Well you all seem to have survived so we will go forward. The next thing is another measurement, another judgment and you come to waters that was knee deep. Now you can think of that as Pentecost. Because there's more of the Holy Spirit. They used to teach in Pentecost that if you didn't speak in tongues you didn't have the Holy Spirit. Well, I knew that was wrong because in Rome there's not the Spirit of Christ. There's none of this. I don't want to argue about the difference between the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Christ. I'd rather not do that. Thank you very much. So I don't teach that if you don't speak in tongues you don't have the Holy Spirit. I don't teach that. But I do say that we're to move forward to the point where we're yielded enough to the Spirit of God that we can speak in tongues and that is a fantastic blessing. Now I've been speaking in tongues now for a long, long time and I don't know what I'd do without it. Which, smell the coffee. I'm not going to beat you about it. Just smell the coffee. It's a wonderful thing. And you can have it if that's what you want. But you've got to want it and you've got to go after it and if you do, you get it. Waters to the knees. But you see, in the typology of the Bible Pentecost is equivalent to Mount Sinai. And the reason God's... The reason... See, in Christ we deal with righteousness and justification. In Christ we deal with righteousness and justification. I'm saying it again. In Christ... I'll get your minds back. In Christ we deal with righteousness and justification. In the Holy Spirit we deal with holiness. Holiness. Galatians 5.16 Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. And so if we... Living in the Spirit is more than speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is an inference into the rest of God. This is the rest where you cause the weary to rest. But the point of it is that through the Holy Spirit you have the power to overcome sin. And the Holy Spirit reveals to you the imperfections of your nature, the sin, the uncleanness, and the other stuff that's in there. And it's eternal life to the knees. It's more life. And it affects your walk more than when you're just in the waters to your ankles. So, I say to people who have spoken in tongues, don't stop. Which is a tendency at every denominational level. Now we got it, I'm one of them, and now I'm going to go to heaven. No, you haven't got it, and you're not one of them. It's waters to the knees. Okay? And that's not great. I was going to say cool, but in Maine it can be very cool. When you go swimming, I was thinking that's no way to go swimming in Maine in June. I'm going to tell you right now. The way you do it is you charge off the beach like a madman. Go as far as you can and under the water before you feel the cold. If you go in ankle deep, you're going to be all day going in, coming out, going in, coming out, going in. My mother, this is cold! And even to your knees, you're going to be running back out. Boy, when that water comes down from the North Atlantic, you're going to wish you were doing something else. But if you just go crazy like a berserker and just run and dive into the water, by the time you come through and you have a couple of spasms, then you look out and everybody says, Oh, it's great in here! Come in, the water's fine! That's the problem with Pentecost. We're not in far enough. And when the preacher talks about holiness, there's too much squawking from the barnyard. Mixed metaphors. Too much squawking. At Pentecost, you're halfway in and halfway out. Mother, are we there yet? No. We're halfway there. The water to the knees. And then we hear people that are farther out, they're calling to us, and the damning man says, Never on your cotton- picking life! Let's be reasonable! Talk in tongues if you want to, but have some fun. Which means go back in the flesh. I'm not against fun to relieve all the young people. So, there's a voice calling to us today. Saying, don't look back. Come on. And your damning nature knows he's facing death. He knows that. And he cringes. So you have to take him in hand. And say, buddy, you're going forward. You may not like it, but that's where you're going. Because you want God. And because the fullness of eternal life is more fun than just about anything you can think of. Yeah. It really is. More fun than going out and doing some fleshly thing and getting a disease or disgracing yourself or bringing your parents down to the grave with worry or something else. Alright, so we're at Pentecost today and Paul is praying for us. So he measured out another thousand. First we were judged because of our relationship to the world. They talk about being judged because of the uncleanness of it, but there's another judgment and another level. And it's waters to the loins or to the thighs or to the waist. But you see, when you get that deep in the water, the buoyancy of the water is approximated. You know, and you go to take a step and you kind of hop up. You're down. But that's fullness of life that we have not experienced in Pentecost. But the judgment has to do not with the world or with the sins of our nature, but with our self-will. Now here, let me explain that carefully so the young people understand exactly what I'm talking about. Coming out of the world is one thing. That means you don't go down to some gruesome concert where they're biting the heads off puppies and doing their other things that they do which they should be doing them within the walls of an institution so they don't influence anyone else. But unfortunately, they involve a lot of people and people look at these sick, sick, sick things which our common sense tells us are nuts. You come out of that. Come on, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. It's sick. And the penalty for that kind of life is heavy. Sometimes an early death. Sometimes AIDS. Sometimes a mind that's blown. That final trip that you can't come down from. We have them walking around up in our vicinity looking around vacantly. Some of them on medication. There's some kind of a home near where we are and they walk up the street. They're on Thors and other stuff. Their hands shaking like this. I'm not talking about old people. I'm talking about young people. Nothing up here. Blown. Gone. That's stupid. Well, God says come out of that. It's not good for you. And you've got your body's a temple of the Holy Ghost and the Bible says if you defile it, God's going to destroy you. It's a hard word. But it's what it says. Him shall God destroy. And that includes drinking. It includes smoking. It includes drugs. It includes anything that we do to hurt our body. Is it defiling of the temple of God? No, you're not. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He calls us out of the world and then he calls us out from the lusts of our flesh. Rage, jealousy, bitterness, drunkenness. The things that are within us that crave animal satisfaction. God calls us out from that. But we're dealing now with waters to the waste. And that's a different thing. That's not the world and it's not the lusts of our flesh. It's a little more subtle than that. It runs deeper. It's our desire to be what we want to be. It's our desire to go where we want to go when we want to go. It's our desire to be our own God. And that runs very deep. Because when we were born, thanks to our ancestors in Eden, they made themselves their own God. You'll be as God, knowing good and evil. Cool, we'll be as God. Check it out. So they did. So that desire to be God is passed down to us from our mother and father. And we're born thinking we have a right to be a God. We have a right to determine our destiny. We have a right to decide where we'll go, what we will be. And we weren't created that way. We were created to be a part of God. And in order to be a part of God, you have to forsake your own God being your own God. You have to forsake it. It's as difficult as you make it. You can say, I don't want to be my own God. I don't know anything. I don't even know what would make me happy. The truth is, I don't know what I was created for. I don't even know my real name. I don't even know anything. So me being my own God is stupid. That's a sure way to destroy myself. That's rational thinking. But if God is my God, then He knows what my real name is. He knows what He created me for. He knows what the future holds. He knows what I really want. He knows the path to joy. He knows the path to life. He knows everything. So it makes sense. But you've got to believe in God's goodness. You've got to believe He loves you. You've got to believe He cares. And you've got to believe He knows. And you've got to believe He has the power to do it. God is calling for something deeper today. We say it in evangelical circles. We always say that. I accept the Lord Jesus. But we don't. We don't accept Him. Because we're Americans and we're just against calling anybody Lord. The Greek word that's used in the King James and in the NIV for servant is actually doulos. It's actually bond slave. But, see, that goes against Western sense. It means that Christ in those days to have a slave, you had to buy him. Well, Christ bought us with His blood. Bought us from the devil with His blood. And therefore, we're not our own. We belong to Jesus Christ. And whatever He says, we do. But, see, that goes against the American crane. We don't like that. We don't like anybody's bond servant. I have no problem with it myself. I delight to be the Lord's slave, bond servant, doulos. Call it whatever you want to that makes you happy. But I want you to get the feel for it. I don't like the word servant because a servant today in our culture, you have to go, you run across them, you're going to be talking to the shop steward. Because they have rights I'll have you know. I'm not talking anything about their rights. What I'm telling you is that is not what we are to Jesus Christ. He is our Lord in the ancient... See, we're not used to that because of the thousands of years as the spirit of humanism has developed. But if you have a... You'll find that this... We're never going to be what God wants us to be until we accept Jesus as the Lord of our life without any thought that he has to do anything that he doesn't want to do. I mean, he is Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. And there was an English preacher and the Lord spoke to him and he said, you've given me the keys to some of the rooms in your heart. I want this key. And he pointed to a certain thing in the man's life and the man says, I can't give you that key, Lord. He says, I don't want any keys because he is God. I am the Lord your God. You will have no other gods before me. And the nature of Antichrist is not some Jewish person or some great thing. There will be a man in whom the Antichrist spirit is personified. But 1 John says, of Antichrist in his own day. And I'll tell you what Antichrist is so you can see if you're an Antichrist. An Antichrist is a person who is his own God. That's Antichrist. Well, are you Antichrist or not? I'm going to go on a serious look. Everybody's going to say, of course I wouldn't dream of doing anything without Him. No, we're not Antichrist. Forget that. You didn't even have to bring it up. It's a decision that you make like being saved. You say, I choose not to save myself, but I choose to be saved by the blood of Jesus. That's a choice you make. And then you come to the Holy Spirit and you say, I choose to be filled with the Spirit and go the way of the Spirit. I make that choice. I want more of God in my life. That's what I want. You choose that. Until you do, you won't get it. Now we've come to a third choice, which we should have made long ago, but it wasn't always made clear. Maybe we wouldn't have heard it if it were. We have to choose to make Jesus unqualified Lord. And many of the problems that we have in the Christian walk arise from the fact that we have not as yet made Jesus total Lord of all that we are. Now you might say, is that possible? Not only is it possible, but it is absolutely essential to being a son of God. He will have no disobedient children. There's only one legitimate will in the universe, and that's God's. And the kingdom is the doing of God's will in the earth as it is in heaven. How close are you to the kingdom? How close are you to the point that, and now I say this to save people, that you're ready to surrender your life to Jesus? Are you ready to surrender your life to Jesus? Are you going to hold back some? My time has fugitive, and I'm going to allude to the fourth dimension so it will be on the tape, but I cannot pursue it at this time. He mentioned four dimensions in Ephesians, and here we find, even after we've been through waters to the ankles, to the knees, and to the waist, there's a fourth area. And that fourth area is not an area of redemption. The first three are. The first three are areas of salvation. Salvation over the world, salvation over sin, or salvation over self-will. But the fourth is not an area of redemption. It's an area of becoming life, waters to swim in, where you're no longer being redeemed, but you are fulfilling God's will for you in what you are, and that will is that you'll be placed somewhere in His creation, either next to His throne or on the farthest perimeters of His kingdom. You'll be stationed there somewhere, and do you know what you'll be? Can you guess? You'll be a tree of life. Because all of this has been to create trees of life. You can read it if you read on further in Ezekiel. The trees of life. God wants trees of life so the nations can come and eat the fruit of it, and live, and be healed by the leaves. God is making. You'll find in 1 Corinthians 15, the first Adam was made a living soul, the second Adam was made a life-giving spirit. That is where your mind is off how wonderfully you're being redeemed, and you become lost in God's purposes, in God's love, and in the people whom God brings to you so that you can bring water with joy from the wells of salvation. Shall we stand? ======================================================================== Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11124.mp3 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/robert-b-thompson/the-fulness-of-god/ ========================================================================