In this sermon, the preacher addresses the deep distress and longing of the heart that arises when one feels distant from God despite seeking Him diligently. The preacher emphasizes the role of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit in preparing believers for a victorious and triumphant life. The sermon highlights the importance of ministering in the Spirit and not seeking acceptance from others, but rather rejoicing in the fact that one is not accepted by the world. The preacher also emphasizes the need for believers to go home empty, recognizing that they don't always know what they truly need and should rely on God's provision for each day. The sermon encourages a balance between knowledge and grace, and emphasizes the need to lay down one's life and be jealous for God's glory.

...year, and it was a time of gathering together, and they expected to hear from God, and and so in later years, when the temple was established, and new songs were added to the ones that David had first put together as the Songs of David, and they sang much about all the trials and troubles and the distresses and the tribulations, as well as the triumphs of God's people, and so from Psalm 120 to 134, we have what's called the Songs of Degrees, or the Songs of Ascending, and they were said to be the songs that the weary pilgrims coming from throughout the land of Canaan would sing on their way to Jerusalem, to keep the peace of the Lord, and especially when they came in sight of the beautiful temple of God, and began to draw near and to climb up the steps, the priests of the Lord were permitted to climb the steps and to go into the holy places, and they would sing these Songs of Degrees, and in every one of them, it depicts and shows forth the trials and the triumphs and the distresses and the warfare, the victories, the defeats, the longing for God's house, but what I wanted to say in this one was, the first song started out, In My Distress, Psalm 120, In My Distress, and someone said not too long ago, and it's true, the people of God in this hour, who are knowing the dealings of God, and who are seeking to go on with the Lord, and have a vision of what God is doing, and have a great yearning and desire for the fullness of God's purpose to be wrought in their lives, one thing that is common amongst all of them is distress, and so I know we preach the cross, and we preach much on the sufferings of the cross, but what we need now for God's people is a message to them that will encourage them as they're undergoing and going through these things, and so I know many of these afflictions of God's people here, not as a prophet, I'm not a prophet, but having talked with you, and having heard of different things that are happening, I know the distress of God's people, and I believe God has brought you here that you might begin, you take courage, and comfort, and begin to understand that it's all part of God's purpose, that it's not something that some brother has done to you, and in those times of distress, well, there's something going wrong, and so there's a lashing out, well, you know, if you had been doing something different, or if the fellowship had been different, or if we'd maybe given you a little more action, and we've all got a kind of a solution in times of distress, and the human mind is working overtime, you know, something's wrong, and well, you're just not doing it quite right, and if we just recognize that in every hour of distress, God is bringing amongst people something whereby they can learn more of His ways, and that God's purpose is not leading us into distress to leave us there, but in that hour of distress, we might learn His ways a little better. You say, well, what about, I want to know God, what about His ways, I'm not too concerned about His ways. I used to ponder that a little until I realized, you won't come to know God until you learn His ways. Until you begin to follow in His ways, you're not going to come to see Him. And so Moses said, Lord, show me now a way that I might know You. Show me a way that I might know You. I want to find God, and so you look everywhere, I want to find God. What's the way? Which way do I go? And so God brings His people in distress, that they might begin to learn His ways. And so Job, we find Job sitting on the ash pile. He had walked with God, he had appropriated the goodness of God, he had appropriated riches, fame, he had words of wisdom for anyone that was in need, and in his wealth, he was by no means selfish, he distributed to the poor, he was walking in the fullness of a life of prosperity. And so I don't entirely despise the so-called doctrine of prosperity that's going about, because God wants His people to prosper and be in health. I just don't write it off as a false doctrine, because God wants us to be in health, He wants us to have sufficient for our needs, but I do want to try to explain to God's people that prosperity is not keeping unto yourselves riches. And if God prospers your business and you've got it coming in by the thousands and millions, it's not that you might heap it up, but that you might be a channel to distribute it unto others. And that's true prosperity. And so we want to keep a balance in that, but what I was going to say, that Job was a prosperous man, and a good man, a righteous man, but he was only on step one. God wanted to take him a little further. And to take him a little further, He had to take away his prosperity. He had to take away his health. He had to take away his reputation. He had to take out of his lips words of wisdom and knowledge and understanding. So the people used to come and sit before him and shut their mouths, because he was a man of great wisdom. I dare not open my mouth here. Here's a man of wisdom. Now they mock at him. He doesn't have words of wisdom now. It's all gone. He finds himself sitting in the ash pile, bemoaning his condition, and wondering why God has deserted him and left him. I'm not saying that Job's experience is supposed to be the perpetual thing for God's people. I'm saying if you want to go all the way with God and come to know God in greater fullness, you've got to forget your doctrines of prosperity and health and abundance and everything else and be prepared to lay it on the altar if you want to come to know God in greater fullness. So he couldn't understand it. So as comforters came, you sinned, Job. You let fear come in. I mean, they're teaching the people that in the churches, Job made way for Satan because fear came into his heart. They say, simply because Job sinned, the thing that I feared came upon me. So they condemned Job along with Job's comforters. When it was all over, God condemned Job's comforters. Now they're rising up all over the church, taking sides with Job's comforters. God says, you're wrong. He says, before you're going to get right, you're going to go with Job and get Job to pray for you. But furthermore, before Job got delivered, he had to pray for them too. So God was working in both sides, making of Job a more powerful man than he ever was, giving him more wisdom than he ever had, greater prosperity, but above all things, bringing him into the knowledge of God such as he had never known before. For until all these things had happened, it was all the knowledge and the wisdom and the understanding that Job, head of God, was on a low plane. On a low plane, which Job described as being that which he knew about God from the hearing of the ear. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear. And so we appreciate that God's people have thought within their hearts. After the, you know, the great wave of healings and miracles have subsided, after the great and mighty works have subsided, after the earthquake and the fire and the tempest has subsided, there's a people who are prepared to hear God's voice. I want you to know that's not the end. There's something greater than the hearing of God's voice, and that's seeing Him. Joseph, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye seeth thee, and therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes. I abhor myself. When we come to that place and we have a revelation of the Christ breaking forth into our midst, there's not going to be this thought, well, if you would have done it different, if you would have just done it different, if you would have done it different. But there'll be a crying unto God and a falling into space and saying, I am no more unclean when I dwell in the midst of a people that are unclean. And when that kind of a spirit grips God's people, God can't hold Himself back any longer, but He sends a light cold from out the altar and touches the lips of His people and says, Lo, that iniquity is purged, pass from me. And then He has a word that's pure, a word that comes out of His lips, from the heart of God, unmixed by His own theology, unmixed by His own ideas and His own opinions, a clear, pure word from the mouth of God, because the light cold from out the altar has touched His lips and His heart is clean, and out of the abundance of the heart, man speaketh a pure word. And God's purifying His people, that there might go forth from the sons of Levi, from the priesthood of God, a pure word to His people in this hour. Well, they're just burdened down with the words of man, burdened down with what people say all over the land. People seem to feel, well, all they can do is dig through the trash and get a little good here, a little good there, a little good here, a little good there, and try and piece it together. Whereas God is bringing forth the Urim and Thummim and the Brestplate of a priesthood, who shall, when they stand to speak, speak forth the infallible word of God, such that there is neither questioning nor gainsaying what God is doing or saying. It will not be a case of, I've got a question, can you answer this? But they shall speak as the oracle of God, and that divine oracle will answer the question of every human need, and the questions that do not pertain to your development in Christ, to your growth in Christ, are irrelevant and do not need to be answered. Nor should you ask them. But God sees the deep longings of people's hearts and the questionings that are there and the turmoil and the perplexity and the distress that they've gone through. God hears that questioning. God sees it. It has reached His ears. And therefore in this hour, God is bringing forth the oil of joy for gladness and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that God's people might become trees of righteousness, the planning of the Lord, that He might be glorified. And they shall build the old waste places. And God's heritage will once again bloom as the garden of the Lord, the garden that is purged and cleansed of all the weeds and the thistles, every plant in that garden different, nevertheless every plant fulfilling the purpose for which God planted it and bringing forth fruit for His honoring glory. For ye are the planting of the Lord, and God has planted you in His garden to be fruit trees, to bring forth fruit for the purpose that the husbandman, the gardener, might walk into his garden and partake of his pleasant fruits. So God would speak words of comfort to His people. He says, Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. Say unto your God, speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem, and say unto her that her sin is pardoned, her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Perhaps your afflictions have been greater than you could bear. God says, That time is at hand. I'm going to comfort and I'm going to heal my people. I'm going to give them words from the throne of God. They're not going to know it's God speaking. They're not going to run here and there and try to dig out a little word here out of all the mess of false doctrine and say, well, He's got some truth. There's truth here anyway. There's a lot that's false, but there's some truth here. I get an apple that's half rotten and I throw it out. People are digging into this literature, digging into this literature, digging into this, hoping that they say, I know there's a lot of wrong there. I know there's a lot of false things there, but there's some good things. Throw it out. Amen. God wants to bring forth a cure worm into His people. You don't have to dig into the trash cans to find something to eat. God wants you to know that He speaks from the throne these days. And there's only one word that constitutes true doctrine in this offering. And it's that living word that comes forth out of the mouth of the Holy Spirit, because God's representative in the earth is the figure of Christ on earth, the Holy Spirit of God. That He's taken up His habitation in a temple not made in heaven, and that His ministers in this hour, if they do not submit to the indwelling Spirit of God and allow the words of God to come forth from His Spirit and not from their own heart, it is not going to be a ministry that is acceptable in the sight of God. That the Holy Spirit is in the earth instead of Jesus. That when Jesus was here, He spoke from the heart of God. Every word He said was from the heart of God. He did not have His opinions. He did not have His ideas. He did not say, this is the way I see it, but I'm not sure. He spoke what the Father told Him to speak. He did what the Father told Him to do. And then when He went away, He said, I'm not going to leave you without this kind of administration. But when I depart to the Heavenly Father, I am going to send forth that same Spirit that's in me, the Spirit of truth, that He will abide in the earth and He shall lead you into all the truth. It is not true that the body of Christ until the time of the end is going to be mixed with false doctrine, but if we just forget the doctrines and the ideas and the opinions and love one another, everything will be well. God is sending forth the clear word. He's going to purify that word. He's going to purify it in His ministry. He's going to purify it in His people that when the ministry speaks forth the word of God, God's people who are pure in heart will receive that word and they'll know it's the infallible word of God. Because the Spirit of God is abiding in His temple today to do in His temple what He did in the body of the Lord Jesus when Jesus walked this earth. And that's why He went away. If that was not possible, Jesus would have remained here on earth these 2,000 years and continued to do the work which He started when He was here. And you and I, as we see the mess that the church is in and the false doctrine and all the heresy that abounds in the midst of God's people would say, oh Lord, if you'd only stayed here these 2,000 years and carried on the work that you began so beautifully, it would have been better. But God knew that He had a better plan. He says, I'm taking my son, I'm going to exalt him in the highest heavens, he's going to be a priest out of the order of Melchizedek, he's going to sit at my right hand, he's going to rule and arrange all enemies under his feet, but I'm not going to leave you people as orphans, I'm not going to leave you desolate, I will send forth unto you my Spirit, the same Spirit that was in Jesus, and He will take up His habitation in hearts of human flesh, so that they shall be in the earth the very manifestation, the very expression of what I was when I was here. And this Holy Spirit who has been given a mandate from the Heavenly Father to speak the words of truth to His people, abides in a temple nothing less than the corporate members of the body of Christ bound together with a union that is effected by the joining together of God's Holy Spirit and the knitting together of trials and tribulations and testings and troubles, and as that body is firmly knit and joined together there is going to arise that Spirit of Life that will speak forth with the same ministration and the same length and the same power and the same authority that Jesus spoke when He was here. Because we are the temple in which the Spirit of Truth dwells. And once we know those things we suddenly are gripped with this solemn realization it's not just a wonderful blessing to have God's Spirit it's a tremendous responsibility because God laid upon the Holy Spirit a responsibility that when you come to abide in my temple in the earth that you are only to speak what you hear being spoken from the throne room. That's the responsibility that was placed upon the Holy Spirit when He came to abide in your heart. When you speak you will speak the words that I speak from the throne room. God's Spirit dwells in me and I think I've got the right to get up and give my ideas and my opinions and tell you things the way I see it. God lay upon His people this consciousness of the responsibility that is theirs when they partake of the fullness of God's Spirit that I am in bondage to the Spirit of God. You say I like the liberty of the Spirit. Let me tell you you're not going to know or enjoy or appreciate any liberty of the Spirit of God until your heart comes under bondage to the Spirit of God and He becomes Lord in your life. The Spirit of God is gentle, neat, easy to treat. But when I tell you the Spirit of God becomes greed and His heart becomes heavy because He's holy, pure, harmless as the dove, yet powerful and strong, mighty as the eagle. Because He is meek and lowly as the dove, He does not force His way in. Check yourself out. Do you feel that you're ministering in the Spirit? You're not accepted. Rejoice in the fact you're not accepted. Rather, rather, rejoice that you're not accepted. Rejoice. They said, came to Jesus. They said, Jesus, please go away. We don't want You here. He didn't barge in. He said, I got a word from the throne. I'm going to give it. Walked away. Just walked away and left them alone. But we thank You, Lord Jesus, in this hour. Your land of honors and people, the Spirit of the dove, the Spirit of the lamb, as well as the Spirit of the eagle, the Spirit of the lion. Lord, we know that Your Spirit grieves over Your people in this hour, even as You grieved over Your people in another generation who lamented that they had not learned My ways. Lord, may we learn Your ways in this hour. May we know, Lord, that You're leading us in Your ways, not just for some kind of an exercise, but that at the end of the way we may come to see God in His glory revealed in His town. Cause us to know, Lord, in all the distress and the trials and the tribulations that Your people have gone through or are going through, as not just without intent and purpose, but that You are leading them. Not because You want to cause them to suffer, but that You want to cause them to come to know You. You want to reveal them to them in the mystery and the glory of Your purpose and of Your way. Out of suffering there comes forth joy. Out of persecution there comes forth an exultation of the fact that we are following the steps of Him who went all the way even to the cross. These opposites in our lives, these conflicting opinions, these things that come our way we didn't understand. We don't know what they're all about when they distress us. Cause us to know, Lord, that You're working it all on Your humble purposes. So that in the end having found the people who are humble, meek, quieted before You. David said he had quieted himself as one that is weaned from the mountain. So may we be of people weaned, Lord. Weaned from our much crying and fretting. That we might begin to learn Your ways. Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You have called people together and we just pray earnestly once again, this has already been prayed, that You will not permit, Lord, this day to end in failure. Lord Jesus, but that there will be a weaning upon God from the hearts of Your people here assembled. I desire, Lord, for answers from You that are pertinent to their spiritual walk in You. Not answers that will satisfy some of the inquisitive things they have in their mind. But an answer to the deep distress and longing of their heart. Why, having sought God so much, they find themselves in a place where they seem further off than they ever were before. Cause them to know, Lord, by the administration of Your Word and of Your Spirit this day, that You have led them this way. Not to leave them in the wilderness, but to prepare them for that land in Canaan. A prepared land. A land that flows with milk and honey. A land of victory. A land of triumph. A land of victory over the enemy and all its hosts. For the seven and honorable nations of that heavenly realm of war are ceasing warfare against the Church of God. We seem unable to stand up against them. Cause them to know, Lord, that as we go in our way, we will stand there on the doorstep of Canaan and submit to the dealings of God and to the ordinance of God and to a new circumcision that we shall go in weak and helpless, but an army mighty in God because of the anointing of the Amen. We appreciate the Lord and Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Thank you, Lord. Under his wings, who from his love can sever? Under his wings, I am safe evermore. Safely I'll go. Under his wings, who from his love can sever? Under his wings, I am safe evermore. Safe to abiding forever. And there's one other. In love with Nazarene. The beautiful Nazarene. His face was lit with a holy light, the fairest these eyes have seen. By His side I shall live with never a veil between. Since I fell so deep in love with Jesus, the misery is done. By His side I shall live with never a veil between. Since I fell so deep in love with Jesus, the misery is done. By His side I shall live with never a veil between. Since I fell so deep in love with Jesus, the misery is done. That's all I'm going to say right at this time. And just trust everyone will pray that God will just give clear direction to this closing night of the meeting. That we do not waste God's time and that the purposes of God will be fully fulfilled this evening. That's the end for us. If you have something you'd like to share at this point. I'm pressing on the awkward way.