In this sermon, the speaker highlights a sense of something being wrong behind the glowing statistics and propaganda in the Church. The problem lies in the believers' inability to do what is necessary, despite God's power. The speaker shares a personal story about a child with Down syndrome who had a purpose and acceptance within her. The sermon emphasizes the importance of having a relationship with God, knowing Him, being like Him, and doing His works, as these three aspects are interconnected and cannot operate independently.

I think in Christianity we've got to understand there's a hidden essence revealed only by the Spirit of God. We can't even understand human things, natural things. We can't even understand the world around us. It's very different to speak of a sunset and analyze the colors and the colors which are lost and the colors which are gained and the colors which are twisted as the sun falls lower and below the atmosphere of this earth. We can talk about the reflected loose and maybe the refracted and the diffracted or any other thing, but when we see it there's an impact of something beautiful which is totally lost in a scientific analysis. We can look at a painting done by one of the old masters and we can try and discover how he made his pigments and what ingredients went into those pigments, what kind of brush he used, what kind of hair, what kind of technique, how he moved his hand. But the important thing is the results. And our problem in 20th century Christianity, and believe me, behind all the wonderful reports, somebody told me that 25 years ago, according to statistics, everybody in South America had been saved at least once. Isn't that wonderful? But behind all the glowing statistics and behind all the, maybe we should use it more in English, behind all the propaganda, there is a sense of something being wronged. In going to the mission field is that once we've got there, it's not that God is not able to do what is necessary, but that we are not able to do what is necessary. We believe that God has the power but he can't somehow transmit it through us and there's a breakdown. They used to say the chain breaks at its weakest link. God's power breaks when it comes to the servant inevitably. The devil can't hinder it. The circumstances around can't hinder it. God wills it. The problem is always me. And we live in a day in which the, as all through history, the enemy is building a kingdom. And I got an argument against people that speak about statistics and mission statistics and I get literature even down there in South America from different mission groups and they're talking about evangelizing the world by the year 2000 and some of them have got, you know, cute themes on this, two tries per year multiplied by this, by that, ends up that by the year 2000 it's all finished. And there's a lot of talking, a lot of different circles, as though we were, okay, painting a room. And the more we paint, the less there is to paint, the more we, the closer we get to the end, the closer we are to our destination, but it's not that way because we're not dealing with a static world. We're not dealing with a static enemy. And in God, and maybe you've heard me say this before, in God everything that God gives has life. Everything that has life grows. We go from faith to faith, and we should. We go from revelation to revelation. We go from life to life. We go from transformation to transformation. We go from victory to victory. Everything that God gives us, every gift, every word, every indication of His ministry is something which should grow and increase. Maybe not even limited by the end of our life, but all through eternity we'll be growing in that knowledge and in that awareness and in that participation of God. And just as God works that way to build His kingdom, planting a seed, watching it flourish, so the enemy works. The difference is, in the kingdom of the enemy there is no life. So he works by a different process. He works by a building process. God's work is like a tree. It starts with a little seed and grows. The enemy's work is like a building. He starts with a building block, and he builds and he builds. And he builds in the nations. I believe there are nations today which are far worse than they were a hundred years ago or a generation ago. There is an increase. The enemy is built with every hurt and every sin and every wrong and every pain and every suffering and every injustice and every political problem and every family problem and every moral problem and every drink. There's an old poem written by one of the most famous English poets talking about salvation and the salvation of a man who is a total loss, a fighter, a poacher, a drunkard. And he speaks in one place, or has a Quaker lady come and confront this man. And she confronts him as he's drinking. She says, Think. I forget exactly how the poem goes, but something to the effect that every dirty word you say is one more flint upon his way. That every drop of drink accursed makes Christ within you die of thirst. And she goes to imply that everything you do reflects on him. Pascal, the great thinker of centuries ago, said that every pain on earth has a corresponding but far greater measure of pain in heaven. God feels it first. The Creator feels it before the creature. Heaven is hurt before earth is hurt. I think if there's one thing that's lacking in our 20th century generation, our 20th century society, and especially in our 20th century Christianity, it's passion. It's intensity. It's awareness. Being aware of beyond the visible is the invisible. Beyond the seen is the unseen. Beyond earthly things is God. The things of God. Once again, the enemy's building. I remember years ago in Paraguay this came to me so clearly as we come over from Argentina in a totally different situation. The same songs, the same prayer, the same people. We moved over the frontier into a different country, and all of a sudden there's an awful awareness of a tremendous fortress built up once again with every sickness, sin, pain, sorrow of families and generations through the years, and the enemy's saying, This land, we sing about America, this land is my land, this land is your land. The enemy was saying, This land is my land. He's still saying it around the world. Believe me. There are countries where the gospel is broken through. There are countries where God has planted a seed which is now growing. There are other countries where the seed of God has never really taken hold in any great dimension. Those are the needy places, or as they used to say a generation or two ago, the dark places of the earth. And so, once again, I want to talk about the how of God's moving. Jesus here is speaking of something which we usually don't think about. It starts with a declaration of reality. I and my Father have won. The Jews, that religious nation representing all religiosity of all mankind, even in the 20th century, even in our midst, even in my heart, your heart. When he made that kind of a declaration, the religious world reacted immediately. They said they took up stones to stone him. And Jesus starts to talk about how this operates and what he meant. The Jews said, We're not stoning you for a good work. We're stoning you for a bad work. We're stoning you for blasphemy because you, being a man, made yourself for the religious man. Let me say it in general. For the church, there is no connection between God and mankind. The Jews have lost the connection. The Jews have lost the essence. The church has lost it. There is no connection. God is there. The Italians have a saying, If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, some of it is going to stick. I think we minister on that same principle. We pray on that same principle. Lord, in your name, Jesus, we come against the devil. Sooner or later, two or three strands of prayer or spaghetti are going to stick to the wall. Isn't that wonderful? No, no, that's not the way it's supposed to work. That's not the way it's supposed to work. Believe me, I don't believe until we get to heaven we're going to understand the power of an atmosphere and the power of a society in which we live. We live in a world in which the enemy has ingrained this thinking. It's deeper than thinking. It's an inner attitude. It's a soul thing. Really, it won't happen. This book is fine. ...vision of God on the level that the apostles saw when we hoped for it. Before prayer, for us, another way to explain it, apart from the spaghetti, we pray for things which are outside of our experience, outside of our understanding of God, outside of our grasp. And so we're praying for a healing, and it's sitting over there in my Kleenex box. And we say, Lord, I want that healing for this brother. Lord, please, but we're too far away. Our spiritual life... I'm talking about a participation of God. Jesus answered, He said, Is it not written in your law? I said, Ye are gods. That's what I want to talk about. Ye are gods. Don't stumble over the words. You know, some people have abused it. I'm not talking about that. But unless we are gods, we are nothing. Unless the spirit of the living God inspires, enlightens, might as well forget it, why not? And to come into this experience cannot be done by theory. It cannot be done in any easy way. It's a life process. Once again, we so easily become authorities. I look around, I hear people talking about other people. I was surprised the other day. A man I thought would know more, and he said, Yes, he recommended this brother. And I thought, Lord, either he's false or he really believes it. I mean, there are only two possibilities. And either way, it's bad. How can I follow somebody who does not show that which they represent? The guy that's going to teach me singing had better be able to sing. The guy that's going to teach me how to swim had better be able to swim. Otherwise, I'm going to dive off that boat in the middle of the sea, and I'm going to swim straight down, not straight out. And the people, I don't know about y'all, but after 30 years, I discovered that the things I really needed to know about ministry and the connection between this God, who has all power. You remember, I was just thinking as we were singing a song in Spanish. We'd written about the word of the Lord to Moses. How many of you speak Spanish? I'll say it in Spanish. The song says, Dices tu al hombre derrotado, yo soy. Dices tu al pueblo esclavizado, yo soy. Dices tu al gran desierto, yo soy. Yo soy, yo soy, yo soy. Lord, you say to the defeated man, I am. Lord, you say to the people in bondage, I am. Lord, you say to the great desert, I am, I am, I am. On the basis of that revelation, Moses stepped forth on the basis of that revelation. The people were delivered. The people were led. The people were fed for 40 years. Because he saw and he heard God saying, I am. And Jesus says, He called them gods unto whom the word of God came. The purpose of God is that we might know Him, that we might be like Him, and that we might do His works. Those three things. That we might know Him, that we might be like Him, and that we might do His works. This is the how of His working. And the three things are connected. They cannot operate independently. Because if we're lacking one, the other two will not hold together. He called them gods unto whom the word of God came. The emphasis is on the word of God coming. Remember when Moses, Noah, sent out the, uh, Paloma? The dove, thank you. When Noah sent out the dove from the ark, it went around, it came back, it didn't find any place where it could stay. When he sent it out again, it went out and it stayed. It found an abiding place. I think many times the word of God comes, comes in a meeting, comes in our reading the Bible, comes in the sense of a promise being quickened to our hearts. And instead of finding a place where it can abide, it has to return to God. He said to them to whom the word of God came, ye are gods. Now let me just illustrate a little bit in the life of Peter. Remember there, Matthew 16, Jesus is talking to the disciples and he says, who do people say that I am? And some say, well, some have the opinion, you're Jeremiah, you're Isaiah, you're one of the prophets. And then he looks and he says, but who do you say that I am? Once again, God practically comes down to reality. He doesn't really care what the others say. He knows what they say, but he wants to know, who do you say that I am? I think it's a question if our ears were open, we'd hear the Holy Spirit repeating to us time after time. Who do you say that I am? Who am I to you? Peter takes the initiative. He said, you are the Christ. Take that in its simplest translation. You are the minister, the one who ministers, the Christ who bears the anointing, the Christ who transmits the power. You are the minister of the living God. A phrase which isn't used too many times in the Bible. The living God. And Jesus says, in effect, in his reply to Peter, he says, Peter, you see me as the authority sent by the living God. You see me as the son of the living God. As the son of the living God, I have the keys of the son of the living God. I have authority as the son of the living God. I have power in heaven and power on earth. Peter, what you see in me is yours. I give you power. I give you authority to permit or to disallow on earth and in heaven. Peter, I will build upon this perception. You know, the Catholic Church has taken that and they've twisted it around, right? Places like Mexico, other places. He builds upon Peter. But you know, even the early Catholics, Augustine, St. Thomas, they didn't believe that. They said it was upon the revelation that Jesus said he built. It was upon the perception that Peter had of himself that he said he built. Peter, what you see in me, that's wonderful, but where does it leave us? You know, I look at myself, where does that leave me? If I have what I see, then I don't have what I don't see. And what I do see that I have is what I've seen in him. So where am I? You follow me? Because that which I have works. I remember one time years ago when I was feeling real bad and I was in a meeting in Argentina and the people were really praising the Lord and I thought, Lord, someday, today I feel terrible, but someday in heaven I'm going to praise you. And all of a sudden I just felt in my heart the Lord saying, praise me now. Praise me now. It won't be any different there. God won't have changed. Praise me now. I remember another time I was praying about something real, burdened, I'd been praying, I don't know how long, praying and praying, all of a sudden it just like the Lord spoke to me. He didn't say, your prayers are answered. He said, they're singing in heaven tonight. Oh. Oh. You know, we lose sight of who He is. Peter, what you see in me, I give to you. You believe Peter took it? Well, he did. Because the next verse says, then Jesus started to talk about His death in Jerusalem. And Peter said, heaven forbid! Well, that's one translation. I think this King James translation is different than that one translation. Peter, I give you power to release. I give you power to, Peter, what you see in me is yours. Now I'm going to die. No, Lord, I take the power. You're not going to die. We've got a better idea here. No, heaven forbid. Then Jesus started to have to teach him how this power works. Peter, you're looking at it as a man. It doesn't work in that framework. It doesn't work. Where does that leave me? Lord, bless me. I've said many times, we pray thy kingdom come. We spell thy, M-Y. Lord, thy kingdom, you know, thy kingdom come. That's the way it comes out. Inside it's, and the louder voice which reaches heaven is, Lord, my kingdom come. Because there are things that I won't surrender and there are things that I won't do and there are things that I simply disallow. I close my eyes to them. Lord, thy kingdom come, but nothing beyond this. It's a total commitment. You know, we've probably heard about total commitments and depths of giving, depths of consecration, but I think there are certain things we're going to be seeing all through life. When we get to heaven, we won't be surprised of the whole percentage of the certain truths that we didn't see on earth. When God says commitment, what does he understand? Down there on the mission field when we talk about baptism, we talk about baptism in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit, and I emphasize the fact that it's a separation. It's a separation to God in heaven and the laws of heaven, the principles of heaven, the eternal world. It's a separation to the Son and the life that the Son of God came to live upon this earth, walking through this earth without anything of this earth ever sticking to his hands, walking through this earth with an eternal light and an eternal purpose. It's a separation to the power and the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. I don't know. Dave Wilkerson told me a number of years ago, he said when he reached 50, he said all of a sudden the Bible just opened up, boom. He said I'd read it and it would just about knock him over. Something like that's happening to me. Of course, I'm only 30, but... Maybe I got there early, right? But the Bible starts opening up and you think, Lord, where have I been the last 30 years? All of a sudden I look at it and I say, in a little bit, I'm starting to see what ministry is all about. That I cannot minister anything which I have not seen in him. I cannot minister any word which has not come and taken full possession of myself. You remember John there at the end of the book of Revelation. He'd seen everything. He'd seen heaven, he'd seen judgment, he'd seen the nations, he'd seen demons, he'd seen beasts, he'd seen apostasy, he'd seen judgment, he'd seen everything. When it's all finished, the angel comes, tells him to worship God, he starts to worship God. The Spanish Bible says, I'm then. Then. Entonces. Then I saw. Then I saw the heavens open. A threefold revelation. First his name was Faithful and True. Let's skip that one. I don't want to take time. But we need it. It's the first step. It always is. We think we know it. I don't know to what extent we really know it. He is Faithful and True. His faithfulness and truth is everlasting around about us. That is the undergirding of everything. But then his name is the Word of God. When he gave us the revelation of himself as the Word of God, when he gave himself to us as the Word of God, he gives us the greatest thing he could ever give us. He gives to us his own creative power. His name is the Word of God. He says, and behind him came all the heavenly hosts. Behind him. Behind not words. And the armies which were in heaven. What a majestic panorama that John saw. I saw him Faithful and True. I saw him as the Word of God. Life can never be the same. Church can never be the same. Prayer, praise, worship, Bible reading. Our missions, commitment can never be the same. I saw him as the Word of the Living God. I saw the heavenly armies. Whoo! Pretty marching behind that one. But that was his revelation to John. He's saying to John, This is what I am. First, Faithful and True, this is what I am to you. The Word of the Living God, this is what I am through you. That there is no limit. You know, Jesus talks about a limitless gospel. If you can believe, all things are possible. Well, then, if they're not, and if they're not happening, I'm not believing. I've got to come into this awareness of God. This is what I'm trying to advocate tonight. Not a teaching, but a vision. A vision of God as he is. You know, someday when we see him as he is, trembling in his presence, when we see the multitude, when we see the glory, when the impact of eternity breaks upon our soul, that there'll be an enlarging, so instantaneous, so tremendous, it'll be like an explosion within us, and we say, God, this is the revelation he's given. I remember years and years and years ago, I was translating for somebody in the north of Argentina, and this person started and the church was full, and there were about 300 large churches in Argentina at that time. And this person couldn't quite find the way to get going, and finally did, and took off, and the meeting took off, and the whole thing took off. Finished, and the atmosphere was electric. Then the preacher turned to me and said, well, you've got the language, you finish it up. Kind of like, you know, somebody has somehow raised you up and made you sit on a comet. Then the other person said, I'm going to jump off. You drive this thing. You ride this thing. 400 people, 350, 400 people in an electric atmosphere, and he said, you take the meeting. I didn't know what to do. The Lord came, and I know it wasn't anything that I could do. But after the meeting, the word that came to my heart, this is a new and living way. Walk in it. So the Lord was saying, this is what I mean by ministry. Nothing else. Nothing else. There is a place for Bible teaching. There is a place for studies about different aspects. There is a place for looking at the needs of the mission field. But beyond all else, I have to find my place as a part of, not the will of God, but as part of God. You know, take this in a mystical sense. I'm trying to make it a practical sense. Jesus said, say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest because I said I'm the Son of God. This is a process. Let's go back a little bit. There's a part that Jesus did, more essential for us than it was for him. When he came into the world, he said, Father, I go to come to do your will. There was a presenting of himself. There must be a presenting of ourselves to God. Then the following two steps are God's. God sanctifies and God sends. God sanctifies and God sends. There is no minister in the biblical sense of the word without this. If there is no minister, there is no ministering without this. This is the crux, the crucial point of the whole thing. The Father hath sanctified. The word means made holy. I remember years ago in Paraguay, we had a lady came to the church, an American, married with a high official in Paraguayan Land Management Bureau. He was a wonderful fellow except when he got drunk. There's no telling when he got drunk. When he got drunk, he'd start beating up on her, on the kids. Finally, the situation got impossible. He'd become one of the little boy, I forget the age, six, seven maybe. He'd beat him up really bad. The kid was there, his head all swollen. The lady left. She was living with some of the young people and some of the girls from our church. She had three children and right just before she came, she'd had a fourth. The fourth child was mongoloid, had Down syndrome. She didn't understand anything about God. Yet somehow there was something within her that said there's a place and there's a purpose for this child. There was such an acceptance of that child, such a love, such a desire for that child that I remember talking to our young people, our girls and saying, listen, although she needs God, although she needs salvation, don't you try and minister to her if you have a bitterness and you have a problem which she's already passed. I think many times as Christians, we've had an experience. We've had some kind of transaction with God, but we don't have a relationship. There's nothing harder than maintaining the freshness, than maintaining, as I said before, the passion, maintaining the impulse of life, the flow. Remember God speaking about His people walking through the desert. He said, I led them and I fed them. I gave them to drink of waters from the great depths. Waters from the great depths. I've thought of those waters different times. Fresh, in the midst of the heat of the desert. They weren't stagnant. Pure, abundant, a richness, an intensity, a newness. God is like that. Everything that God does is like that. Jesus speaks those that believe on Him from His innermost being. They'll flow a river. He shall, as it flows, out of the ground. The same waters gathered up, even if we take them and we pick them up one second ago, it's the same, but it's totally different. Remember God speaking to His people there in Jeremiah. He said, My people have committed two sins. They've left Me the fountain of living waters and they've hewn out for themselves broken cisterns which cannot hold waters. They've left Me the fountain, that which is continually... I don't know if I can transmit or if you can follow what I'm trying to say. God wants to be the being born God in our lives. God wants His life to be something which is continually borning. You follow me? It's new. It didn't exist a moment ago. The inspiration, the authority, the quickening, the compassion, the love, the passion, the burden. It's constantly flowing forth. Everything which comes from God partakes of this nature, the nature of the fountain, the nature of the spring. This hit me when I read it. Ye are God's. Ye are God's God speaking and saying, You are what I am. But there's a tremendous process. Tremendous process there in the knowing Him. Tremendous process in the being transformed to be like Him. The pagans, and He said only three places in the scripture does He present the gospel to the pagans. Two are accounts of His sermons. One's in Athens when it's interrupted. The other sermon, I think it was in Ephesus, also interrupted. But in Romans, He develops the theme. And Paul says there, Romans 1, 17, The just shall live by faith. And then He speaks of the position of those who don't know God. And He said, But the wrath of God is upon those who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now realize it's, as I'm going to say, more easier to do that within the church than outside the church almost. To hold the truth in unrighteousness. To hold the truth without that truth having touched me, without that truth having consumed me, without that truth having brought my life into harmony with itself. I read the Word of God and somehow my life is not fully in tune with it. And this tone which comes from God is in dissonance with the tone which is projected from my life. I'm holding the truth. I say I know it. I say I believe it. I say I'm going to minister. I'm going to minister the truth. What? I heard the truth and I heard a message and I read the Bible and I studied the Bible and I'm going to minister. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No! I hold that in unrighteousness. I'm under judgment. I'm under the wrath of God. I think when we get to heaven we're going to understand what purity is. We're going to understand what holiness is. We're going to understand what it is to be lost to this earth. Be found in God. Paul says that I might be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness and he could have added to that not having my own faith. Have you ever thought that maybe after years you know you're always seeking for faith or seeking for authority as though it were something that you could latch hold on something tangible and say no, no, no. It's in God. It's in God. It's when you stop seeing it that you get it. It's when it doesn't matter. Remember on the mission field talking to people about money. It's a problem sometimes in third world countries. And I say God will give you all the money you want but when it doesn't matter. Because as long as it matters He's not going to give you something that's got power over you. Well the same thing goes for us. Maybe money, maybe something else. He won't give us something which would destroy us. God will destroy the work to save the minister. Because the minister is more important than the work. The reason He doesn't give us tremendous power and tremendous authority is because we've never seen God and that holiness has never consumed us so that we can go and minister that safely. That's why you have people like all these people who have made shipwreck. Somebody said that God will take a minister and He'll use him because of a need. But unless that minister finds in God the foundation to undergird that ministry it will fall. If He doesn't get it before He moves into the ministry in God because of the need He gives Him the grace then He has to come back to God and find the grace to undergird that work which He is doing. That's the reason why so many names that you all know and people that you've all read about in church history they've made shipwreck because there was no weight, there was no ballast in the boat. The boat turned over. When the storms came the first little breeze the whole thing turned turtle as they used to say in England. Turned over, disappeared under the waves. Another verse. The weapons of our warfare. What are they? Mighty? Through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Somebody continue. Continue the quote please. Help me out. Bring every thought into the obedience of Christ. Thank you. The next verse. And having a readiness to avenge all disobedience. Isn't that wonderful? The weapons of our warfare are powerful through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having a readiness to avenge all disobedience. Sick people whose sickness is an affront to the grace and power and love of God. All those circumstances, all those situations, all those impossibilities, all those things which are the enemy's work and not God's work. Having a readiness to avenge all which is not in harmony. Having a readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is settled or when your obedience is fulfilled. So it comes back to me. He's literally saying God will do anything if you're in the place where He can use you. You go to a difficult situation, you go to Mexico City, you go to Reynosa, you go to Paraguay, you go... God will do it when you're obedient, when your life's brought into harmony. May I just say a little bit clearer. God wants to convert the world. You know when He's going to convert it? When we're converted. When I'm converted. God wants to touch those people's hearts. God wants to bring those believers into maturity. God wants to bring an awareness of His presence. When will He do it? When He's quickened my heart, when He's touched my heart, when He's circumcised my heart, when He's brought me into an awareness of His presence, then that same thing which is in me I'll be able to transmit. Ye are God! In the measure in which I've come into God, in that same measure God will use. You know I've heard people say, I remember somebody down there on the mission field saying, well God will either move wide or He'll move deep. But you can't have both things. That's not what the Bible says. I never heard Paul saying that. I never heard Peter saying that. God wants to do a deep work. When God comes He always comes absolutely as He is. He's never going to come and say, brother I would like to give you a revelation but I just gave the last revelation I had for today to a China man over there who was desperate. Child I'd like to heal you but I just got through healing a terrible case over there in England. No, He comes in the fullness. God is an inexhaustible fountain. The living God, the living God Peter said. You are the one who ministers all that the living God is. Everything He is. Jesus taught us to pray that way. Our Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God help us. As it is in heaven. You know I've asked myself many times there in my church, how would this church be if instead of me maybe the Apostle Paul was the pastor. Maybe there'd be more people. Maybe. Probably not but maybe. Maybe there'd be more miracles. Maybe there'd be more sense of God's presence. How would this church be if John Wesley came? How would this church be if, I don't know, somebody Dave Wilkerson came? And then I say, well God's the same. What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? And God will do His work through us when He's done His work in us. And His yearning, once again every hurt, every sin, finds first, I think Pascal said it in a poetic way, every arrow first finds its target in God. Okay then, what I see God is seeing, all that I feel God is seeing, now I've got to get to Him so that He can transmit it. The need of the mission field is not more missionaries but it is more missionaries. We probably could do with less missionaries if we only have more missionaries. You know, John Wesley was one person. Martin Luther was one person. He used to go out in the country in the north of Argentina, about 100 miles out of the church we go to. And as I'd come back there came a point where I'd turn the road and maybe, oh, I don't know, 50 miles down the road I'd see the lights of a little bridge that was outside the city. A light can shine an awful long way on a dark night. There was a book years ago whose title was Your God is Too Small. Your God. God is not too small but my God. How big is my God? What can He do for me? Who is He here? Our part, once again, is a surrender, an identification, and a participation of Him. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. We can talk about methods. We can talk about strategy. We can talk about cross-cultural communications. All these things. But I think almost maybe I have a course on cross-cultural communications or some of these things. That's all right. But by and large, in the 20th century, we've educated ourselves into ignorance of reality. We've educated ourselves way out beyond anything that's practical into realms of abstract metaphysics or some such thing where we don't even know where we're at. We're just starting to say, well, yeah, why? Well, I don't know. I feel this. In India, they're working on this level. Somebody's got this idea and they're evangelizing with this framework over there in Asia. No, no. It doesn't matter. Look what Jesus ends up here. Believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me. Can we say that? I'm sure none of us can say it as we want to say it. But you know what I'm trying to say? Can I say, you don't believe in God, but look, don't you see God? Don't you see God? It doesn't have to do with our natural ability. That verse has been a blessing to me there. Oh, Song of Psalms. It says, Thou makest the lips of the... The Spanish Bible says it one way. The English Bible says it the other way and I'm not sure which is which. One says the lips of the ancients. I think the English says the lips of the ancients. In Spanish it says the lips of the sleeping. It doesn't mean either one or the other. What it means, that ancient person whose mind is no longer functioning or that person who in sleep is removed from reality, it says even if that person who is totally oblivious to what's going on, if he sees you, you'll open his lips. He'll be transformed. Maybe he's not an artist. Maybe he doesn't have that kind of mental ability to analyze scripture. It doesn't matter. If he sees you, his lips will be opened. In relation to John, I am the Word of God. Not an oratorical form of the Word. Not that we move people with our oratory. Not that we lead them along with our beautiful exegesis. But that there be an awareness, it's God, it's God, it's God. This is what God's all about. This is who God is. Look at it again. I and my father are one. They took stones to stone him. Jesus said, For what are the works? Which of the works are you stoning me? They said, Because you're being a man, you're saying you're God. He said, God said that to whom the Word of God came, they are God. He said, And if you don't believe, believe me because I'm doing the works of God. It's God you're seeing. This is what missions is about. Because once again that fortress which the enemy has built up through the generations is impregnable. There's no human psychology, there's no human ability which is going to make the slightest difference to that. It is built at a price of blood. That's the blood of the suffering nations. The blood of the suffering families of their generations. The sin, the hurt, the wrong, bleeding. Flesh and blood, human personality can do nothing about it. Nothing against it. Now this is a promise. He said, Ye are! Not will be. Talks about we will be like him. Yeah, but you are in the measure that you've received him. That power belongs to you. That grace belongs to you. That revelation, that transformation belongs to you. When our obedience, when our life, we can't do it ourselves. You know I'm not talking about that sanctification which I think one of the Arab rulers said to one of the US presidents I guess it was. He said, You Americans are always plugging up holes. He said, But we got too many rats and too many holes. You know and sanctification is like that unless we see God in it. You know I got this defect and I got that defect and I don't know if I'm pure in this and my motives and my this and my that and my feelings and no, no, no. See God and it will all be taken care of. Give yourself to God and the fire of the altar will consume everything else. And that which rises again will rise again in the image of him to whom the sacrifice was made. And the ministry will be in the power of a new life. And you're quick and you think going forsake. I come to Reynosa. I come to Mexico City. I come to wherever it is. I come Remember the prophets in the Old Testament. In the name of the living God David said. There it is again once again the phrase not too many times it's used but it's used at those critical points. I come in the name of the living God. Not your dead God. Not your paganism. Not your darkness. Not your death. I come in the name of the almighty creator God. Look at Elijah before Ahab. Ahab the king. Representing the rulership of God over a nation. And yet he apostatized to such a point that he became not the representative of God ruling over the nation. The representative of the devil enthralling a nation. The representative of sin and darkness and every evil thing. And the nation was turned from God to something totally opposed to God. Elijah comes in whose presence I am. What does that mean to you devil? Ahab. Thank God you represent the devil but know this I represent God. This situation must bow. This king must bow. This kingdom must bow. And they did. They did. They did. Revelation. There's nothing more necessary. There's nothing more beautiful. Revelation. The living God. He called them gods. He called them gods. Father. Lord you're beyond all our minds capacity to understand. Lord you're beyond all our minds capacity to study. You're beyond everything that can be written in books. Everything that can be written on a chalkboard. You are the living the living the living God. Lord in this place tonight we're gathered together many who are serving you desiring longing or maybe beyond all that we see there are months and years of tears that you've seen. The frustration of something which breaks down between the theory and the practice which can't carry over into the land of the living which is true in heaven but is a vision afar off. Lord I pray somehow Lord give us the awareness of reality. Lord let us know the closeness. Lord may we see the Christ. May we see that beyond the blood of the nations the blood of the Son of the living God was shed. Not only for their sins but for our life. Not only for their release Lord but for our release. For our empowering. For our transformation. Lord I pray. Lord take take your own Lord. Be to each one their own God. You might be able to say this is my God. As the Psalmist said we've waited for Him. This is our God for whom we've waited. This is our God that our eyes now see. This is our God who has come in the barren land caused the desert to blossom as the rose. In beauty and glory in the victory of life. Lord you are the living God who creates life. Lord let your mighty river flow within enlarge enlarge us all Father. Lord someday we'll reach heaven we'll see the vast limitless vistas of eternity. But Lord even now Lord as you did with Paul as you did with the prophets cause us to see beyond the scene. Cause us to know that which for mankind is unknowable. May we walk on this earth as those who have seen another world. May we live in this earth as those who have seen a greater brighter more glorious reality. Lord flow. Flow as you are. Lord flow. Speak your words. Show your character through our character Lord. Show your life through our life. Lord open up realms of faith that we might believe the eternal powerful beautiful wonderful glorious simplicity of the gospel. Because he is. Because he lives. Oh Jesus. Lord more and more. Open our eyes. Call us to thy kingdom. Call us to pray Lord. Not anything earthly not anything fabricated by our imagination. Thy kingdom. Thy kingdom come thy will be done Lord. Thy will be done. Lord let there not be any break now. Any separation. Any barrier. Thy will be done on earth. Lord maybe never been a generation like this generation. Never been the the multiplication of darkness. Never been the transmission as there is today with the modern communication system. So much darkness from land to land. From continent to continent. So much despair transmitted around the world day after day. So much hopelessness. Lord the man in the street knows that it's not all well with this generation. Lord the philosophers know that it's not all well. The cry of the learned is a cry of despair. Lord let us not live in a false world. Let us know that there is still one eternal everlasting all powerful answer. The Lord. Creator God. Creator God. The author. The consumer. The beginning and the end. The one who was. The one who is. The one who will ever be. Lord enlarge. Enlarge we pray. In your grace and your beauty and in your power.