In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of rest in the context of the Bible. He compares the rest of God to various analogies, including Joshua bringing Israel into the land. The preacher emphasizes that the devil is not afraid of large prayer meetings or assertive actions by the church, but rather fears when individuals interact with Jesus. He also highlights the importance of ceasing from our own works and entering into the vision that God has for us through faith and obedience.

Come unto you now is with praise and thanksgiving for your goodness, Lord. We do praise you, Lord. We do praise you and give thanks to you, Lord. We praise you and give thanks to you, Lord, for your goodness, for your goodness, Lord. And, Lord, we do remember Lillian. We pray you'll be with her in an outstanding way. Lord, let your peace and presence be with her, Lord, in a wonderful way with the rest of the family. Lord, for those among us who are having severe problems, Lord, we join our prayers with those and pray you will hear and answer prayer. Bring peace, Lord, and solution to problems. Help us, Lord. We need your help. We can't do it without you, Lord. We just need your help. And as we continue tonight, Lord, we ask that you will guide us. We know that every day is precious and we have this time to get ready for the things that are coming. Help us to use the time well and wisely in Jesus' name. Amen. I think we're going to start again with Hebrews 4. I had to go through this kind of hurriedly. We were winding up Sunday night, but it's much on my mind. I've been writing on it. It's really key. If there's a key to the Christian life, one of them is prayer and the other one is this thing called the rest of God. And I want to make it very clear to you what it is and very practical because the opposite of it, you won't understand this now unless I have time to get into it, the opposite of it is Babylon the Great. And you know how, what God thinks of that. I just finished one today called Babylon. Babylon, and it ties it together. I haven't, I never preached on Babylon here, but it's shaping up quickly. But the key has to do with something very basic in human nature, and that is our desire to act according to our self-will, particularly to achieve our goals by gathering together with other people rather than, rather than gathering together with God. That sounds easy and simple, but it's actually, that is probably disregarded more than any other principle of spiritual living is when God, when God wants to do something, He picks one person and He works with that person year in and year out until that person is ready to do what God wants. You can think of Moses or think of Elijah or think of Paul. I mean, this thing that God gave Paul to make the transition from Moses to Christ and tell us about Christ in you, Messiah in you, the body of Christ, that wasn't given to any of the other apostles. But when we get down to Zechariah 4, which is equivalent to Revelation 11, the two witnesses, it's not by might nor by power but by my spirit, this is violated all the time in Christianity. We hear, now if we get this plan together, if we can get this many Christians together to pray, if we can get that many Christians together to do this, do the next thing, God doesn't work that way. That's not to say there isn't a time to gather together with others to accomplish something, but the key is that the individual is hearing from God. See, because God doesn't speak to groups, He speaks to people. I don't think you'll find many exceptions to that. To him who overcomes. If any man will do his will. No man can come unto me. Not no group can come unto me. No man. But we have a tendency to try to do things with combined effort. And that's what Revelation is talking about when it says there's no more sea. There's no more massive people. You get people together, they become Babylon in a hurry. Yes? Sure. Oh, God will use groups. I'm not to say that God doesn't use them. What I'm talking about is kind of subtle. May the God give me the wisdom to portray to you what I'm saying. It's very vital. It's that God doesn't want you taking your cues from other people. He wants you to know Him. God deals with individuals. He makes witnesses. The disciples didn't do a thing by the eleven gathering together. He scattered them all over the place. God works with one person and He deals with them and He wants that person to deal with Him, not with other people. Now, I'm not talking impractically. I know that we work together and those that work with Hewlett Packard work in teams. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about our basic orientation to life. It cannot come through other people. It must come through God alone. And that is so difficult for us because we are kind of like lemmings. We run in herds. But God deals with individuals and very often the rest of God's people are against that individual. That's why Jesus said, which of the prophets have your fathers not killed? Because the prophet, singular, standing with God. The rest of Israel is always missing God because of the spirit of Babylon that's in them. They're getting together to build something. So, it's a new thought to us maybe and it's a very deep thought. It's a very critical thought and so just pray that I'll have the ability to make it clear. It has to do with the rest of God. It has to do with the rest of God. Since the promise of entering His rest still stands, Hebrews 4 once, let us be careful that none of you be found to have come short enough. See, this is very significant because these people we know from Hebrews 6 were very advanced in knowledge beyond what we are today in Pentecost. They're beyond what we are. They knew about the powers of the world to come. They knew about eternal judgment. They knew the doctrine of the resurrection. They knew these things. We're not there yet. And the writer of Hebrews regards this as kindergarten stuff. He said, let us leave the principles, meaning the elementary things. We're not even there. And so, here's these people with all the experience they had and known about the apostles you can read in the second chapter of Hebrews, the mighty works and everything. And he said, fear. You're not there. You're not there. There's something beyond all this. And this is where God wants to take us today. And our model is the Lord Jesus Christ. See, I do nothing of myself. And yet that's not passivity. It's not complacency. It's a very dynamic state which was maintained by the Lord by doing what? Praying all night. It isn't, oh well, if it happens, it happens. You have to be interacting vigorously with God to be in His rest. You have to labor constantly because of the daily assault on your mind to tear you down from your simple, pure peace and faith in God with the, quote, necessities of life. And it doesn't take but a day or two before you're out of God's peace. And be set round about with sin, doubts, fears, unbelief, and everything else. You have to really press in. You've got a lot of enemies. One of the types of the rest of God is Canaan. Your rest is filled with enemies. And you have to follow the Lord very carefully, just as Israel did. And when he says, slay the inhabitants of the land, you don't make peace with them. You slay them. You move with God and do what he says, whether you understand it or not. Because where God is bringing you is the place where you can say, I do nothing of myself. It's God who's, I'm crucified with Christ. It's Christ who's living in me. That's the rest of God. You see how intensely personal that is? It has nothing to do with a group. Not we are crucified with Christ. I am crucified with Christ. Remember how Elijah stood one man, Elisha stood one man, Moses stood one man, Paul stood one man, even against Peter? That's the way God works. He wants to know you, you and me. And then when he gets us right, when he gets two people who are really relating to Jesus Christ, they automatically are one. You can't do it the other way. You can't get two people together and then they know God. Each one knows God, goes through the whole thing, and when that is completed, they're automatically one. That's the way God does it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did, but it did the Jews no good to hear about God's word because they tried to make it operate by being faithful to extremes over small points of the law, and then of course they elaborated that in many, many volumes of do this and don't do that, but without faith. Now we who believe enter that rest. Now that rest does not rest plural, it's rest singular. It's the rest of Genesis, the first chapter. That's the rest and the only rest. You don't enter your rest, you enter God's rest, the seventh day rest, because at that time in Genesis 1, your life was completed. And your job is not to create your own heaven and earth, it's to pray and find out each day what God planned for you from the beginning. That's a very radical, revolutionary, challenging and demanding thought. And you can only cope with it with prayer, reading the word, gathering with the saints, giving, serving, coveting the gifts of the spirit. If you don't, you'll never find what God had planned for you. There's a land there planned for you. There's enemies in it. And you have, there's a mark set for you. And if you don't give your, if you don't do everything God said, turn aside from your own life, take up your cross, follow Jesus, present your body a living sacrifice, if you don't do these things, you will go through life and never enter God's rest. Any question about that? And church, a church can't go into God's rest together. Only one person can enter God's rest. Alright, now, yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. That's the key to the rest. God's work was finished. All the way through to the New Jerusalem. And in that creation, God created a specific good for you to do and to be. And that's all finished. And your job is not to create your own heaven and earth. It's to find the rest of God and enter it. You enter it. It's like you enter the land. City at a time. You enter that land. Okay? Yes? The way you're using it, it almost substitutes plan. They shall never enter by plan. Kind of the way you're using it. Yes, exactly. And it's referring back to in Psalms, where God spoke to the Jews, and they got up to the border of the land, and then they wept and cried and said, we can't go in. And God was mad and he said, you'll not enter. That's when he, on oath, he said, they shall not enter. He was very angry. And they went back until they all died in the wilderness, except Joshua and Caleb, who had believed God. And what God is saying, it's there. But if you have unbelief and disobedience, you're not going to make it. That's all. Simple as that. And Israel is our illustration. Okay? Did that clear that one up, Mark? Does that still leave a question? And then he changes the allegory to the seventh day, because that is what the Sabbath day typifies, is you're ceasing from your own works and delighting yourself in the Lord. That's the key to the Sabbath. Of course, the Jews missed that, and they got into the minutia that we've discussed about not chewing a breath mint, because on the Sabbath day, and I mean these other things, we ought to know better than that, are taking all little herbs and everything and cutting them into ten parts and giving one-tenth of it and everything. That's what Jesus said, you tithe mint and anise and cumin and omit judgment and mercy and faith, which he said, you should do the other, but you're leaving out where the action is with judgment, mercy, and faith. You're straining out gnats and swallowing camels. You know, that's quite a picture. Here's a person, you know, he's got a strainer like this, and he's going with his, pouring his milk from one thing to another, being very careful there's no gnats in it, and then he swallows a camel. The Lord had quite a sense of humor, actually. A lot of things are like that. The Lord was chuckling, but you miss it in the King James, because it's so stately. And so the Sabbath day tells us that God wants us to cease from our own works of creating our own heaven and earth. So you cease from your own works, and you enter that which God has already designed for you and sees you envision doing. You enter that vision of God by faith and patience and obeying the apostles. Any question about that? Yes? I'm just wondering what the word R-E-S-T means in the Greek and the Hebrew. I've never seen it translated anything except rest. And I think, as in most of the cases, you can get truth by seeing the source of the word and how it's used in the scripture. And it's referring to Genesis 1. And we know that God created heaven and earth, man and everything, and on the seventh day there was no evening and morning, because it signifies eternity. God says, I'm through, and then his word began to work. See, my word shall not return unto me void. His word is forming everything. You and me, our environment, his word is doing that. God is resting. I sent my word, it's done, I'm resting. But Mark's word of plan really makes that very clear. You insert plan versus rest. It's very interesting how your mind immediately lights up into that. That could be helpful. But remember, it doesn't say that on the seventh day God planned. See, on the seventh day God ceased from his works. And that's what God is asking us to do, is to cease from our works. Then we enter the plan. Yes? In the Greek, it's ceasing from your works, Tony says. He's got his Greek Bible right there. How many challenges that you've had to either solve it yourself or give it to the Lord. And when we try to solve it ourself, we get angry with people, frustrated, unbelieving, tired, sometimes sick, perplexed, because God is waiting for us to look to him what needless pain we bear, because we don't take everything to God in prayer. We take some, but then something happens that raises up our Irish, so to speak, and by gum, we're not putting up with that, and we don't stop and say, well Lord, maybe this is your work. Yes? Aren't there challenges that the Lord puts before you in which he does and is requiring you to do something, but it's whether you enter his rest and handle it his way or not, whether it actually happens properly or not. Precisely. Many of the things that we want, God wants, but our problem is instead of letting him do it, we try to do it, and the thing is ishmael. It's a mess. It is very simple to express, very profound at the root of what the world is all about. The opposite is Babylon. Confusion. See, let us get together. Let us make a city. Let us build a tower, so our name, so we don't get scattered. In other words, let's get this thing on the road. You'll hear that all the time. You hear it in ecumenicism all the time. Now the Lutherans have decided that they and the Catholics believe the same thing about salvation. See, the idea is if we could just get the Lutheran and the Catholic church together, what we could do, what you could do is nothing. All you need is one Catholic that knows God. He'll do more than the whole ash up, because God doesn't operate that way. That's Babylon. All right? And then he says, the sixth verse, scroll down so we can get some more verses exposed here. It's on computer 2 and video 1. We found that out. Then he compares the rest of God to a third analogy, which is Joshua bringing Israel into the land, which tells us what about the rest. You don't have to fight your way because it's occupied with enemies. The devil does not want you as an individual to know God. He much preferred that you band together with people, because when you band together with people, Satan can get in with self-will and preeminence and everything, and the people are trying to please each other, and the first thing you know, Satan's kingdom is safe. The danger to Satan's kingdom comes when you get down on your knees and interact with Jesus. That's the only thing he's afraid of. He's not afraid of what you're going to do with 3,000 other people to meet in a prayer meeting. He's not concerned about that. He's concerned about you and Jesus. All that Satan fears is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He does not fear man. So the thing that causes him to tremble is when you get down saying, Father, not my will but yours be done. I love you, Lord. I delight to do righteousness. Guide me this day. Satan gets palsied with this thing, and he'll do all kinds of things to get you out of that. Everything he can think of to ruin your peace and to get you going in your own steam. Get your greek up. Just get you going, you know. That's what he wants to do, because then his kingdom is safe. But when you stop and say, Lord, there's nothing. I don't owe anything. I can't do anything. I just love you, and I'm trusting you. Boy, you're more of a threat to hell than 10 million Christians getting together on a day of prayer. It's the truth, because God just doesn't work that way. That's let us make a name that we won't be scattered. That's why God confounded their tongue. He said, I don't want them doing that. They'll be able to accomplish anything they want. We say, well, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with that is they do it without God. That's not his plan. God's plan is that he'll have fellowship with individual people. Yes, question, Sandy. Not in terms of the rest of God, but in terms of the gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit. See, I'm not preaching to you out of the rest of God. I'm preaching you out of whatever gift that God has given me, or whatever insight God has given me. But if I use my own gift correctly, I will enter the rest. If you use what is said correctly, you will enter the rest. See that? See, we're not there to act out of the rest yet. That will come, acting out of the rest will come in the next world. That's the manifestation of the sons of God. See, that's how Jesus did not act out of gifts and ministries. Jesus acted out of the fullness of God. We act out of fragmented ministries of which you have a part, and I have a part. And so that binds the body together. But in the world to come, we will have, that's what 1 Corinthians 13 says, when that which is perfect is come, then these other things will be done away. Well, that which is perfect is John 14.23, the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in us. That's taking place now, but it won't be activated during the church age. That's for the time when the Lord returns, and the effect of that activation will be the release of the world from the curse. See, that's called the scripture, the revealing of the sons of God. The sons of God will not be revealed during the church age. As God has worked, in fact, I think it's Dr. Phillips' translation that translates Romans 8 there, verses 19 and 20, the creation stands on tiptoe to see the unveiling of the sons of God. The idea is of a sculptor who never lets anybody see his work, but when he's through, he puts a veil on it, and the next day he takes the veil off, works on it, and puts a veil on it, so nobody can see it until he's finished. So that's the way Phillips sees that verse, and it's very useful because the world does not see what God is doing in you and in me. Well, they may see it in certain moral ways, but they don't see the glory or anything like it, because if you overcome and bring people to the righteousness on that day, you'll be like a star. Not like anything people, all they see here is the out-recovering of the tabernacle, the porpoise skin, the rough stuff, but where we minister is not out of Christ in us. We don't minister out of... that mistake is made frequently when you get into the latter rain and so on, then they get over into error because the Spirit speaks in a timeless vision, and so no, we don't minister out of Christ in us today. We don't pray to the Christ that is in us. We don't do that. We pray to the Christ at the right hand of the Father, and he moves through us in gifts and ministries, but in the next age it will not be by gifts and ministries. It will be as Jesus ministers, as the Spirit without measure. That's a wonderful thing to look forward to, but we won't participate in that unless we allow the Lord to form Christ in us now, and Christ is formed in us now through the travail of the ministry. Paul says, my little children of whom I travail until Christ is formed in you, and so Christ is formed in us through the travail of the ministry, but then when the Lord comes and we return with him, we will not be serving then with tongues and prophecy and all, as it says in 1 Corinthians 13, when that which is perfect, which is the fullness of God, comes, then these fragmentary things will be done away, and what will be left is God's love in us going out to the people of the world, and that's described in Isaiah the 60th chapter. Okay, but the all important goal is this rest here. Now, so we saw first it's compared to, first it's spoken of in what way? The worship finishing the foundation of the world. Then it's spoken of in what way? The eternal Shabbat, the eternal Sabbath of God. Now it's talking about what? It's comparing it to entering Canaan, so that's why you just can't flop and you're in the rest of God, any more than Israel could have flopped and gotten their farms in Canaan. They had to follow the Spirit a city at a time to enter that which God already had given them, and God already has given us everything, but the enemy occupies it, and the only way you get in there is by following the Holy Spirit. If you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live. You can't do it other than through the Spirit. You can't do it by ganging up on God with a bunch of Christians, or ganging up on the devil. It only comes through your personal interaction with Jesus. That's the only, and isn't that the best way? Because people get off and they let you down and disappoint you, but Jesus never does, so it's the most peaceful way, it's the scriptural way, and it is the way, abiding in Christ, the greatest word in the Bible and the hardest thing to do. Some will enter that rest. Now that's the way God works. When that generation didn't work, he let them die in the wilderness and he got another generation. If our generation won't enter the rest, God will bring up the kids. If they don't enter it, God will bring up another. He'll do that until he gets a generation that will quit playing Babylon and just do what God wants. What a world this would be, Lloyd, if for the last 2,000 years a Christian had only done what God wanted, but because they have the spirit of Babylon in them, Catholics and Protestants alike, right down to the smallest home prayer group meeting, you know, people say, come out of Babylon, meaning come out of your big church. That isn't how you come out of Babylon. You have to come out of Babylon in your heart. You can come out of the mega church, go to a home group with 5 people, and you've still got Babylon because it's in your heart. You can't come out of a building to come out of Babylon. You come out of Babylon by ceasing from your own works and entering the rest of God. That's the only way to get out of Babylon. It's a hard thing to do because we trust in the flesh, but the word in Zechariah 4, which applies to Revelation 11, is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit. It's talking about the capstone coming down on the temple in Zechariah 4 and the two lampstands and the two olive trees. That's why it ties in with Revelation 11. And what God is saying there, there will be delay no longer, I'm ready now to finish my church, but I'm going to do it by my spirit. But what we see all over the countryside is people are trying to do it with, they get a revival with millions of people, they think something is happening. That's an American value. Nothing is happening until some poor dude or dudette, whatever you call ladies, decides to stop trying to build her own heaven and earth and come before Jesus and listen to him and wait until you know what you're doing. The church hasn't known what it's doing for 2,000 years, and that's why it tortures and murders heretics. I mean, Jesus wouldn't do that. And you know, Emily has a Catholic background, the Virgin Mary wouldn't do that. She would have never tortured and murdered heretics, let alone Christ. So they're on their own then with their Babylonish spirit, trying to do it by an organization of people. It's like the Holy Spirit said in Acts 7, you can never get the message, you always err in your heart. We're still doing it today. I mean, we haven't changed. Back in Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel, we're still there. In fact, that was the problem with Cain and Abel. Abel was doing it unto God and Cain was doing it in strife. That's why he was filled with envy and murdered his brother. What you always do when you're doing your own religious thing, the first thing you know, you're slandering your neighbor. That's why they crucified Christ. Even Pilate saw that they were moved in envy because they were trying to do it themselves. So simple and yet so hard for us. Okay, God again set a certain day, calling it today. God calls every day today. There is no tomorrow and there's no yesterday. You have to do it now. What was it the Lord told me? All there is is now. The Lord told me that one time. He's trying to keep me from having a heart attack, but I went ahead and had one anyway. But all there is is now. Now. But we live in the future and we live in the past and that's 80% of our problem. For if Joshua had given them rest, speaking of Israel and Canaan, God would not have spoken about another day. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God, which is simply quitting your own thing and listening to Jesus. And that's all it is. It ain't no more. But it's so hard to do. For anyone who enters God's rest ceases from his own works. What are our own works? Everything we're trying to do. Well, should I stop and do nothing? No, it isn't that simple. You keep on doing what you're doing, but in the meanwhile, you keep praying and presenting yourself before God until you're hearing from the Lord. Get into the stream of God's will and you have to stay there by praying like 60. That's why Jesus prayed all night. He kept fleeing from them. They were trying to make him a king. Oh, if you were our king, we'd have free food. You've got all this power. You can summon the angels. We could defeat the Roman Empire. We could really glorify God. We can make everybody on earth study Torah. We could do the whole thing. That was what was in their mind to make him a king. Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom so we can make everybody study Torah? Why else would you have a kingdom to make everybody study Torah? They didn't know the Lord. It was the same thing today. We had our way. We'd gather together, what, a hundred million Christians and take over the United States and restore the law of Moses. It's people trying to do that. You believe that? They want to stone witches and everything else. All right. Anyone who enters God's rest does what? He rests from his own works. So that's how you know the definition of the word. Usually you can define any word without a lexicon if you just look at how it's being used. All right. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. See, it's paradoxical. Let us therefore flop and do nothing. Let us therefore get passive and complacent and do nothing. You have to work like crazy to enter the rest because Satan is bombarding you all the time. Just the time that you really get peace with the Lord, he gets out his pots and pans and begins to bang on them. Look down. Look at this. Look what that one's doing. Look what Clinton's doing. Now look what Clinton's doing now. Do you see? Make sure you know what Clinton's doing now and discuss it for about an hour with your wife and tell her how rotten Clinton is. He loves this. He loves this. If he can't get you to sin, he'll get you to fret about somebody else's sin, which is sin. Fretting is sin. Psalm 37. Fret not yourself. All he wants you to do is fret, fret, fret. Fret about the right wing. Fret about the left wing. Fret about everything. Well, you will if you immerse yourself in the TV and the paper. You have to get where the action is on your knees with God and then you'll hear the 11 o'clock news as it really is. Get on your knees with God and listen and he'll take you on a romance and you'll walk on the waters at midnight. It's with God is where it is. People can't do anything. They're nothing and less than nothing. The flesh profits nothing. And all we are is dust, if you want to know the truth. And God can make that dust anything he wants to. He can make anything on it. He can make one dust to glory and another dust to dishonor. You say, well, who has resisted his will? Shut your mouth and quit being sassy. Just worship the potter. Just worship the potter. Enter into his rest. He planned your life from the beginning of the world and then he rested. Just enter that rest. That's all he's asking you to do. Nothing else. But surely there must be more to that. No, there isn't any more than that. That's all there is. But you'll find it all that you can manage. All you can manage. Because we have our agendas, we can't believe it's that simple. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. Because the opposite is disobedience. In other words, well, Lord, can't I just do this little bit for my own? Someone said not too long ago, the weakest prayer you can pray is, I will be done. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? It's enough to make you go crazy to hear what the things that people say. And these are people that ought to know better. Oh, don't pray over anybody and say that I will be done. Don't do that because it shows a lack of faith. You know, here's old Stan. He's got more problems than Carter has liver pills. Okay. So why do I pray over him? Father, thy will be done. Or, Father, don't do your will. Which one do you pray? But we know what God's will is, do you? I doubt it. If you do, you're much further ahead than I am. I get up in the morning and I say, Lord, if you're looking at me to do something, forget it. You're out of business. Because I don't know whether I'm a foot or horseback. Then the Lord has to tell me the day's going to be okay. Otherwise, I'd be afraid to get out of bed. I'd crawl under the electric blanket and that'd be the last you'd see of me. So God has to tell me it's going to be okay. The day's going to be micromanaged. Okay, Lord, if you say so, I'm your man. And then I get up. I wouldn't dare to get out from under the electric blanket if the Lord didn't give me some kind of assurance. Well, I'm not kidding you. I do not trust myself. You know, you'll learn after a while. Not when you're young, like you're 40 or 50. But after a while, you gradually get the idea. You don't really know what you're doing, or what is best, or what will be joyous, or what will fulfill you. But you see, we can't believe it. We just can't believe it. So we say, well, don't pray God's will be done. What if I pray God's will be done? What in the world? That means I don't have faith. Well, that means Jesus didn't have faith, doesn't it? Because that's what he prayed. Not my will, but yours be done. It's the strongest prayer there is. Oh, does it? Well, my son broke his back, and he was dying in the hospital. I went down to the parking lot at Kaiser, and he was going. I mean, he was going. I mean, I went down there. I didn't say, oh, God, I'm going to take you to Texas to get him to be prayed for. I said, Lord, if you see that it's your will to take him, and you know that's your wisdom, then have at it. But boy, that was a hard prayer. Oh, God, I'm telling you. I went back up there to the room where he was, and he was in tremendous pain. They had misdiagnosed him. He rolled his car and broke his back. He's got two steel rods in his back to this day. And when I looked at him, I went up there, and what happened was our family doctor had driven down from Escondido to Kaiser to check out my son. And he looked at him, and my son went, you know, I can't stand the pain. And the nurses were saying, ah, you're a big baby and everything. Get up and get out of here. I can't stand the pain. The family doctor said, you better take another x-ray. And see, they had x-rayed him from the front, just from the front of his spinal column, perfectly straight. He says, x-ray it from the side. It's like the letter S. Boy, then there was some action around there. They strapped him down on a board and screwed bolts into his head and hung weights from him and everything else before he was paralyzed. But I had to make that decision. Not my will, but your will to take him. You got it, Lord. Just as soon he hung around for a while, but you're the one. Not my will, but thine be done. It's the strongest prayer in the creation. It was prayed in Gethsemane. And the result of that prayer is, I have given you all authority in heaven. Christ learned obedience. Don't ever be afraid to pray, thy will be done, unless you want to step out of the rest of God and create your own Babylon. You don't know what's good for you. No one in here knows what's good for you any more than I do. So why not pray to the man who's seeking your good and trust him. Trust him. What if, what if, what if? What if nothing? Trust him. He knows what's best for you and those who depend on you. Any questions? Yes. I just wanted to make a comment. I believe, because of my own experience, and I hear this from people like myself, that every elect of God will go... You'll have your Gethsemane. Because God has to get at your guts to see whether you're going to obey him when you've lost everything or not. But if you're not called to rule with God, you won't be tested like that. Everybody isn't tested like Abraham, but that's why when the mother of James and John wanted her son at the right hand and elected Jesus, he said, can you drink the cup? It'll be given to them for whom it's been prepared and they'll drink the cup. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest. Every effort. It's a dynamic thing. It is not complacency. It is not passivity. And the opposite is disobedience. The opposite is idolatry. The opposite is Babylon. For the word of God is living and active, and it's been moving since Genesis 1, when God said, it's finished. I'm resting. No more evening and morning. I'm resting. Labor to enter that rest. Because my word is living and active. And it gets right down until it divides your soul and your spirit. And you see, that's where the issue comes. It's the things we hide from God. We don't realize we're hiding them from God. We don't realize that. And that's why God has to bring us through these horrendous things and get down. And it doesn't happen every Sunday morning at 11. You only have a crisis like this once or twice in your life, but there has to come a time when God gets down there into where it is, where your soul is joined to your spirit and he separates it. You can find out what you're doing that's in the soul and what you're doing that's in the spirit. And don't look to the average church person to tell you because they don't have the foggiest. They can't tell whether something's anointed or the pastor's enthusiastic. No, I've seen that. That's why some of these evangelists that are money makers are so popular because people think it's the anointing and it's excitement. You have to work with God with considerable experience before you can detect the difference between the soul and the spirit. We have beautiful music in churches, lovely everything. People think, oh, so spiritual. It's not spiritual. It's of your soul. That's why God said to Ezekiel, you're like a lovely song to these people because they hear your words but they don't do them. They just sing them. But if music is used correctly and dancing is used correctly and the other soulish art forms are used correctly, they bring us up to another level, the spirit level. See, in the gifts of the spirit, there is no gift of music. There's no gift of dancing. There's no gift of banners. The gifts are spiritual things like tongues and wisdom and knowledge. What these other things do is they take us in our soulish state and they lift us up where we're able to enter the spirit realm. And God's intention is for us to live there. But that's a lifetime of seeking God. It's for the older prophets that learned to live. You don't see many. Old Brother Fullerton was that way. Smith Wigglesworth was that way. There's not too many. And the rest of us just have to make do with what we got. All right. Well, I know you appreciate that. All right. Now, that's the rest of God. Does anyone have any questions about that? Can you put it in simple terms? Yes. Simply put, this would be that the rest of God is obeying Him. Yes. And to not do the rest in sin. Yes. Yes. But the enemy seeks to distract us. And that's just to get you to get your eyes off God and start trying to do it yourself. That's his whole trick. Let's go to Genesis 11. Yes, sir. Yes. Is serving God our way? Well, it's all right in a wash. It's practical. But in Babylon, we're not really serving God. We're serving ourselves. We're serving humanity. You're serving God our way. You're not serving God. You like to put things in simple one-liners. And that one will wash. It's okay. It's okay. Nothing wrong with it. Yes? Here in chapter 11, it seems like there is the Father. To the spirit heaven or just to the... They're just saying we want to build things that reaches into the clouds. Because there's no separate word in the Hebrew. The Hebrew word is shamayim. And it means the spirit heaven. And it means the space. Read it just like the Greek. There's no separate word for heaven. And the spirit heaven and the physical heaven. So, all right. The whole world had one language and a common speech. And men moved eastward. They found a plain in Shinar and settled there. Which is present-day Iraq. Another word for Shinar is Babylonia. Okay. The plain of Shinar is in today Iraq. Modern-day Iraq. And these people were journeying from Eden eastward. They're at the head of the Persian Gulf. Moving toward what today would be Europe. All right. They said, come let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. Now, for some reason, the Bible emphasized they used brick instead of stone. I don't know the point of that. Other than it was pointing out that they didn't just use something that was natural. They used formed bricks. Now, you could make an altar to God if you just used stone. But if you put a tool on it, you defiled it. Yes? Doesn't it also mean that it was completely of their making? Yes. Yes. As I said, you could make an altar to God if you took uncut stones. You could make an altar before the tabernacle of the congregation was built. But you could not. But God said if you put a tool on it, you defiled it. And see, so instead of just using that which was natural, maybe that's the emphasis. And they just used tar for mortar, which makes excellent mortar because when you set it in, it's soft and it eventually bakes hard. And so it makes good mortar. Then they said, now notice this because this is the heart of the problem of the human being. This is the opposite of the rest of God. Because you see, from the standpoint of the world, there's nothing wrong with what they were doing. In fact, it was very desirable. They were all in love with one another. They all had one language. Over in modern day Iraq, you can see minarets. There's still minarets standing over there, which are, they look kind of like an upside down ice cream cone. And around the perimeter, there's a spiral staircase that you can go all the way up and stand on the top. They're still there in Iraq. And there's one huge one they think was the Tower of Babel, but I don't know what's evangelistically speaking and what is actual fact. All right, let us build ourselves a city. Build ourselves a city, nothing of God in there, with a tower that reaches to the heavens. I don't think they're talking about... It was, I've read, there was worship that was conducted in terms of these minarets. They were religious. There was a religious aspect to them. So maybe, as Chief said, it's talking about trying to reach God with human effort. Because they were used for religious purposes, worship. Now notice, so that we may make a name for ourselves. See, that's at the heart of denominationalism. This is the heart of it. The word denomination means name. And every denomination will strive to excel with their name. And so that's why every once in a while, somebody will come along and say, come out of Babylon, come out of the denomination. Well, God put me in this denomination. And if you remember, God said something very significant to the Jews when they were in Babylon. Do you know what it is? Huh? Yes, he said, build and pray for the peace where you are. And that's what God wants us to do. So I pray for the foursquare. That's what God, if I put you there, then you don't be all the time crabbing about getting out of it. Just stay where I put you and pray for it and build there and do what God's time comes to go, you go. I wouldn't be in the foursquare if I didn't believe it was right. But I know that it's just an example of Babylon. Antichrist is the spirit of Babylon in government. A religious organization is the spirit of Babylon. In religion. Because God doesn't use organizations in that sense. He only uses individuals. They feel it necessary so they won't be scattered and because they want a name to combine. And so God permits it, but it's not the best. Everybody will tell you that. I mean, 10,000 competing denominations is not exactly the body of Christ. So we know it's not the best. But the problem is not that we're in the denomination. The problem is in our heart until we cease from our own works. We're just as much a part of Babylon as the Catholic Church. Absolutely. Because within the Catholic Church, there have been throughout history, the most notable of saints who knew God. You can't condemn an organization. You can find the same thing in the Methodist or Pentecost or anything else. You'll find people seeking their pre-eminent. I mean, abusive people that do neurotic things. Well, some of the things I've heard. But you'll find wonderful saints who love God. It's an individual matter. You can't incorporate sainthood. To put it mildly. All right. So the heart of this thing is build something for ourselves. Build a city. And we want a tower that will serve, that will give us a name. People can come and they say, there's that tower these people built. And not be scattered. So it's a desire to pull together. Now, every organization, I don't care whether it's the army or a labor union or a denomination wants you to get together, to pull together. Let's get our shoulder behind the wheel and let's put this program over. And as I say, there's a time in life when that's the thing to do. I'm not saying that that's sin. There does come a time when God wants you to be part of a group that is putting something over. But while you are, he wants you in your heart to be separate from it and worshiping him so that you don't fall into the trap of thinking that people by numbers can build the kingdom. They cannot build the kingdom. All they will ever come up with is Babylon. Babylon is the opposite of the rest of God. When you are trying to force your agenda and not yielding yourself to Jesus, you have within you the spirit of Babylon because you're trying to build your own kingdom. That may seem a little subtle, but think about it. Let it percolate. Put it in the French press. Pretty soon the coffee will come out. All right. Is that right, Bill? I know, that's where I get my coffee. Bill, I don't want to antagonize him. All right, no. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. Now, in terms of the UN, all the pundits of today, the social scholars, that was up, and that's where we're trying to go with the UN. That's where we're trying to go. If we could quit fighting each other and get everybody together, what could we do? And God knew that you can. And so he keeps wars and everything else going. He doesn't start them. He just lets people do their thing. All right. But the Lord came out. The Lord says, if as one people speaking the same language, they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Why, in the first thousand years, they'd have had a station on Mars. Because what hinders everything is war. And what causes war is language problems. We don't trust people that don't speak the language. And that's the basis of nationalism, is language. It's what separates us. And you can imagine those people when they're up there and trying to lather on the mortar and bring up the bricks. And all of a sudden, the guy shouted down, they couldn't understand it. What? What did you say? And of course, the guy up there couldn't hear him. They say, you're getting smart with me, dude. Okay. And that's the beginning of wars. So God scattered them. Now, the only way that can be reversed is by the Holy Spirit. And we see that in the book of Acts. Where everybody could hear them speaking. See, everybody understood. And God was showing that it's through the Holy Spirit that I will reconcile man. And I don't want them reconciled. I don't want them pooling their abilities. I don't want this. I'll frustrate it. I'll cause them to fight with each other until I'm ready to bring them together in Christ. Now, we see that there's strong tendencies. And I don't want to preach politics here. But there are strong tendencies in our nation now. Toward the control of money. The ability to enter into your private business. That's far more advanced than we have any idea. And plus the fact that there is belief that these, the unrest in Albania and Kosovo and Bosnia and Indonesia. And all of these are staged. Because what it does, it keeps increasing the ability of the UN to intervene. This started with Desert Storm. That was when the UN really got some teeth in it. And if you'll notice in a paper today or yesterday, the European Court of Human Affairs, I think it's called, decided that England was wrong in barring homosexuals from the military. So, this European Court put England on the carpet and Tony Blair says, we must obey this court. Doesn't matter what England thinks. We must obey this international court and permit homosexuals in the military. That's yesterday. So, it's moving this one world thing. It's moving very quickly. And what's behind it is apparently is very wealthy men, they're in about their third or fourth generation now, who have decided that the basis of human misery occurs because of nationalism. So, until we can destroy nationalism, we're always going to have wars and famines and problems with the distribution of goods and everything. So, their motive is not sinister. And these are people that are so rich that they couldn't spend the interest on their money if they spent all day buying yachts. I mean, how many know the United States is in debt over a trillion dollars? Did you know that? Let me ask you another question. Who do you think we owe the money to? Did you ever ask yourself that question? Everybody says, oh, the debt, the debt, the debt. They're not stopping to think. We're in debt to whom? We owe somebody trillions of dollars. And boy, they could call in their notes anytime they want to. And our politicians know it and dance to their tune. We have no idea what's going on. Our press is sanitized. If you don't believe it, watch the BBC at 6.30. And you don't need to be on cable. We don't have cable. BBC comes on the public television. You can get it off your rabbit ears if you want to hear news. And then you realize how sanitized Tom Brokaw is. I mean, our news is pap, pap, meant to appease consumers. And to keep things going so the people that the United States owes these trillions to can keep the money which they couldn't spend in any case. But I guess it becomes kind of addictive. I mean, you get 100 billion, well, you kind of get addicted. Another 100 billion and I'll be safe, you know, in case something happens. Then you get that, well, you know, 200 billion doesn't go very far these days. I'll go for another. So there's no end to it. There's no end to it. And the United States is in debt to these bankers. I'll tell you another thing you may not understand. How many have heard the term the Federal Reserve? How many know that's the Bank of the United States? It isn't. It's a private bank. It isn't even a government bank. It's a private bank and it's called that to deceive the populace. I'm not making it up. It came in at the time of Woodrow Wilson. I know the whole story of the Federal Reserve and everything. So it's all baloney. The power is with the money brokers. And there's reason to believe they're staging all this stuff that's going on because the UN has got more power than ever now. Now they're in Indonesia controlling Indonesia. They're in Kosovo controlling Kosovo. So the interesting thing will be where they're going is after Israel. They're going to finally step in and say, forget about this. We're splitting Jerusalem. And so you both can have a capital there. And there'll be an independent Palestinian state. And if the Jews, the Jews are not going to let go of Jerusalem in a hurry. There's going to be bloodshed. So guess who's going to step in and guess why all of this that's going on. And then the next thing they'll be doing is telling us in the United States what we can say to our children and what we can't. That's probably not more than three years away. Now I want to get off of that because that's, that's, I don't want you fretting about it. It's inevitable. It's just moving like that. And you can rage and scream and everything. You're not going to do anything about it because God isn't doing anything about it. That's why we can't do anything about it. Because God can stop it in a second. So you're wasting your good breath fretting about it. God is in control. And he's saying you just take this because this whole cotton-picking thing is expendable in terms of my brothers of Christ that I'm bringing up in this dunghill. Larry? So the bankers are basically trying to take us back to Babylon. Of course. This is their ideal. In fact, I read somewhere, but I, again, I don't know whether it was evangelistically speaking or factual that they are, and I think where I read it, it probably is true that they are rebuilding the city of Babylon. And they've already put a lot of money into it. It's slowed down, I guess, because we've got sanctions against Iraq now. Yes? Wasn't the motivation of the people here to unify the fear? Because fear was behind us. Oh, we have to do this today. Of course. Price of gas, just cut it off for two months, and nobody will ever holler about the price of gas again. They know how to do all this stuff. This is all money. Money and power. Money and power. And our newspaper doesn't tell us anything except who won the World Series. They keep us sanitized. Keep everybody happy. Don't rock the boat, okay? You know, they're shooting down planes with missiles now, but it's all covered up. No, it was an accident. We think something happened in the wing and all this stuff. But experts have shown it could not have happened that way. And they've proven it. It's all hush, hush, hush, hush, hush, hush. Well, anyway, God says it doesn't matter. I sit as king of the flood. Don't fret yourself. This is all working for good. Because if he ever gave the world peace, this world is going to have peace for a period symbolized by the numbers three and a half years. We're going to have peace, peace and safety. And when that happens, then these people that have learned to live in God's rest will appear with Jesus, who is the master of God's rest. And the end of Babylon will be here. And it will never appear again. And you can read about it in Revelation chapters 17 and 18. That's the end of Babylon. God says, that's it. I'm not putting up with that. Antichrist is finished. Self-centered government's over. Self-centered religion is over. And everybody's going to stand before God and pull out your marbles. Because if you're not in this book, you go into the lake of fire. Yes, sir. All right. All right. Has everybody got that? I don't. Let me introduce you. Yes, question. Why does it seem that the fault of the moon was happening in the 80s? Great revival meetings going on today. We just don't hear about it. There's one going on in Washington right now. The meek will inherit the earth. Yes, they will. And the Babylon is the opposite of meekness. See, meekness and the rest of God go hand in hand. Because a meek person is a teachable person. The opposite of meekness is to be assertive. Say, this is what I'm going to do. We honor that in America. We honor the guy. You get up and go and do something. See, we honor that. But God's way is the way of meekness and the way of prayer, the way of self-effacing, the way of humility. Now you say, by that, God wants you to be a wimp. No, Jesus was hardly a wimp. Hardly a wimp. But you see, in his day, there were people called zealots, Jews, who were determined to overthrow the Roman Empire. See, but Jesus never touched that. It is believed that Judas Iscariot had been a member of the zealots. But they were very vicious fighters. And they were determined. And see, that's why the Pharisees came to Jesus and handed him and said, should we pay tribute to Caesar or not? Because they wanted to get him hooked up with a revolutionary group. Figuring if he said we should pay tax, then these rebellious Jews would be against him. And if he said we shouldn't, then they had him for the Romans. So Jesus, with God's wisdom, meek Jesus, never fretting himself, just waiting. And the Lord said, get a coin from him. Okay, he says, give me a coin. And the Father said to him, ask him whose picture is on here. See, that's the rest. That's meekness. Now if anybody could have asserted himself, it was Jesus. Remember when Peter happened to lop off somebody's ear there with his sword when they were trying to arrest Jesus? And Jesus said, put it away. I can summon the legions here. And one of those angels, and a legion is what? Twelve hundred men or something like that? Twelve thousand men? Something like that. One of them knocked out the whole camp of the Assyrians. And Jesus said, I can summon the legions. Put your sword away. See, because that's symbolic. That when you begin to try to establish the kingdom by force, you prevent people from hearing God. This is symbolized by cutting off the ear. See, and that's why the church has not had the testimony to the world and why people, more people don't get saved. And because the church is trying to do it by assertive, you know, get up out of your pew, get out there. What's the term that's used? The king's business requires haste, which is a bad term to use because it was talking about David when he was lying to the high priest there to get some showbread. I got to get out of here. The king's business requires haste. They use that. And they use go out into the highways and byways and others. You're sitting there. You're just getting fat on the pews. Get out there in the highways and the byways. Bring them in. He's babbling. Whereas if you'll just sit and listen to God, when he wants you to do something, you'll do it. And people can hear. You won't cut off their ears. Sandra. I understand what you're saying on the maintenance, but I ask you, if they had to go into Israel, that there was a certain assistance. Okay, what is the difference between... Okay, the right way to take Jericho would have been to try to get a Trojan horse in there, some way to get inside, get the gate open, all kinds of things they could have planned. So God does this thing, which is totally un-military. He says, just march around, blow the horn. Just march around, blow the horn. And I'm not saying we shouldn't work hard. I'm not implying that. My goodness, when you're serving the Lord, he'll have you down here preaching when you're sick. I mean, when you pray the Lord, serve the Lord, like Paul said, I spend and I'm spent. I'm all worn out. And God says, keep going. Then you just get the hang of that. Oh, I feel pretty good. And then God says, sit down. He has to get the inertia out of us. We do too much on momentum. We holler, praise the Lord. One Sunday, the power comes down. For the rest of the year, every Sunday we holler, praise the Lord. Some people say, I wish he would shut up. He's always hollering, praise the Lord. Well, God just wanted for that. If you want to see the Spirit, there's a wind that blows here and there. You can see it in Ezekiel, the first chapter. You know, they run wherever the Spirit sent them to go. I mean, shoo, like this. And that's the way God is. And here, God finally gets you to do so. Oh, is that what you want, Lord? Then you go on like this. And after, you know, it's like a denomination. God will start the thing with fervent praying people. And then the thing goes on for 200 years until all the churches are mausoleums filled with relics. You go over and you can see the relics in the mausoleums in Israel. And at one time, those were living, fervent saints serving God. And now they're frescoes on the wall. Every denomination is like that. It starts in fire. And then every denomination should stop everything once a year. Just stop and bring it to a screeching halt, everything, and say, Lord, do you want us to go on for another year? But by this time, you're so involved with your, you've got your schools, you've got investment in curricula, you've got your missionaries, you've got your, so you can't stop. So you just have to keep grinding around. Yes? That's my last question. Then how do you recognize the leadership? The only way you can separate between the ego and God is by experience and a lot of prayer. There's, there may be some outward signs, but you have to be careful of that. You really can get fooled on that because a pastor may learn through experience, he's much more acceptable if he's loving and humble and everything. And the truth is, it's just another device to ingratiate himself with people. A true prophet of God, a true person that is walking in the Lord, well, it's kind of a mixed thing. You have to learn manners. You can't go be having your private devotions in front of people. And you can't come out to a church because God tells you something and say, listen to me, you don't know anything. This is what God told me. How come you don't know it? I mean, you're not going to get far with that. I know, I've tried it. I've learned a lot of things by experience. You have to, you can't take, you can't get cheap, take a pan of food. You may have everything that's nutritious and throw it at them because they're not going to eat it. They're temperamental and it's got to be cooked just right and they've got to feel that everybody loves them and everything and then they'll eat. But on the other hand, you could use that as a device, see? And that's why I say you can't always tell by the way the man acts. He may sound like he's stuck on himself. I this and I that and I the next thing. And yet in his heart, he's not even thinking that at all. He just hasn't learned manners. You can't tell. There's no formula. But when you get, I don't know how old you have to be. I know a lot more about people now than I did when I was 40. I'm here to tell you. Audrey knew all about them when I was 40. She still knows all about them and I'm learning. But if Audrey and I meet someone within five minutes, we know just about where they are. I come in from one direction and she comes in from another. And I don't say we can't be fooled. But when somebody is trying to do something that's not right and they're trying to fool us, we know what driving home. I felt uncomfortable about that. How about you? And I'll say, yeah, something that's not quite right. Let's pray about it. But see, you can't do that as a novice. And there's no book you can read. Now look for this and look for that and look for the next thing. It's much more subtle than that. And Satan gets in and wolves get in among the sheep like that. And that's why there are elders in churches. That's why they're elders. It's because by virtue of age, if you have served God, you begin to understand things that don't come any other way than by experience. But don't you agree that the elders have to take it in prayer before they speak? Always. An elder that doesn't pray is worse than nothing because people are supposing he has wisdom. That's my question because the elders are the first people that I would ask Yeah, sure. If they have a problem with ego, boy, I gotta be on their case. The fact that the person is an elder presumes that they've been walking with the Lord for years and the Lord has taught them. Has taught them, taught them, taught them. I know that I myself have suffered many things and I think some of them have been so it would give me understanding of people. I myself have been deceived a couple of times. And if that hadn't happened, I would never have believed that a sincere person could be deceived. But I know now you can be. I know that. And so I'm very wary of prophecy, my own or anybody else's. I listen and I ask the Lord. And as far as personal words are concerned, boy, they really go through the screen with me. I don't believe something just because somebody says, Let's say it to the Lord. I listen. I've been fooled too often. Fooled too often. Of course, nobody else in here has been fooled, but I've been fooled. And I think things that have happened to me, like a heart attack, you know, I think, yeah, and then somebody says they've got chest pain. I say, yeah, buddy, I know. I couldn't put that third nitrous stat in my mouth. It hurts so bad. I mean, it gives you a feeling of what people endure. And I thank God, Audrey and I were quite poor when we were married. Quite poor. And before that, before we were married, I was so poor at one time I couldn't send a letter because I couldn't raise three cents to buy a stamp. Literally. Literally. And I was at the Bible school and I wasn't eating anything. I didn't have any money. And finally, the principal noticed it and he made up some, he got some made up job because he knew I wouldn't take money. So he did some make work and I did that. But it gives you a feeling for people, you know, that can't make the rent. The panic that you get. My goodness, if I had a flat tire, I'd panic. One time I was driving downtown San Diego and I ran out of gas. I just had to leave my car parked there and walk all the way to the Bible school to National City. No money for gas. And I mean, to have a flat tire, you panic inside. I'll never get the money to have that fixed. Well, you've got to experience that to know what it's like. And when people say they're out of bucks. I mean, so the making of an elder isn't just that he went around the sun a few times. I mean, in the meanwhile, God's been dealing with him and teaching him and everything. Otherwise, you're not much use as an elder because you can't understand where people are coming from. So that's it. And that's why they're elders is because when you're younger, you can get taken right down the primrose path very easily by Satan because he's very cunning. And so can an elder. So in this church, we've got several strong people here. If I get off, they'll tell me about it. They'll be on the phone tomorrow. You know what you said there? You know, quite right. Have you prayed about it? So yeah, they'll do that. They're not afraid of me. They'll tell me right to my teeth. And I listen. Oh, it's all up and get proud and say, who do you think you are? Don't you know you're talking to the pastor? God deliver us. Shall we stand? Oh, Lord.