In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of having a genuine relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. He challenges the audience to examine whether they truly have the Spirit of God dwelling within them. The speaker also discusses the cost of following God's revelations and how it may require sacrificing worldly achievements and prestige. He shares his personal journey of learning to trust God's word and growing in faith. The sermon highlights the need to surrender our minds and academic interpretations to fully experience God's power and wisdom.

Ben Israel with Art Katz and Paul Gordon. Shalom. Welcome again to Ben Israel. My name is Art Katz. And I'm Paul Gordon. You know, this morning we had the opportunity of speaking to a very fine Jewish man who is a leader in the Jewish community. And of course he looks upon Art and myself as being out of the mainstream of Judaism. In fact, he believes that our position that Jesus is Messiah is untenable in traditional Jewish belief. And we were discussing this morning a number of topics with him, and we got on the subject of Revelation. Remember? And this presented some very lively discussion because he didn't believe that Revelation, the supernatural transaction of God imparting information to his people subjectively, was a possibility today. How would you answer that, Art? That's a tremendous question. You've heard me speak about this before, but I have a view of things which, to simplify matters, sees the spiritual issue as divided between the choice of two Judaisms. Yeah. The Judaism of men and the Judaism of God. And the Judaisms of men have many things in common. They may employ religious vocabulary, they may quote from the Scriptures, but essentially they're nominal faiths, or faith essentially in name rather than in practice. There's no real cleaving or dependency upon God. There's no radical knowledge of Him in a life-transforming way. They're really ceremonial things and cultural things. And as in the case of our own Judaism, hallowed with age, rich with tradition, beautiful in its Hebrew liturgy and all that. But there are very fundamental differences between those Judaisms and the Judaism of God. And one of the most fundamental and indeed key differences is the question by which we perceive even the knowledge and the reality and come to an understanding of God, let alone that we should be able to walk with Him. And the question this morning raised two alternatives. One, which our very cordial host expressed, was that by Talmudic study, by the exercise of human intellect, does one come to the knowledge of God. Our own point of view in opposition to that is the knowledge of God by revelation. This is supernatural, which is another thing which differentiates the Messianic Biblical Judaism with which we believe with the Judaism which other men observe. And that is the belief in a supernatural God, a God of power who can reveal to the hearts of men by His Spirit an understanding which transcends and goes beyond mere mind alone. And we don't want to suggest by that that God has called us to be numbskulls or noncompassmentists or to be devoid of intellect or celebration. Quite the contrary. There's a role and a very significant place for the active human mind, but it does not establish the contact or the initial relationship with God which is done by the Spirit. It does not obtain that knowledge of God by which the relationship is undertaken. And I think that Paul speaks so beautifully on this point in the book of 1 Corinthians in the second chapter. And I'm so grateful to God that it's Paul who speaks of it above other men because I don't believe that there was an intellectual of greater renown or acuity of mind than Paul himself. Sharp! In the Jewish community. Yes. And one who has come deeply out of that tradition that celebrates human intellect and scholarship and was the prized student of the Rabbi Gamaliel. But when God revealed himself supernaturally on the road to Damascus when he was smitten, when in a blinding flash of light a voice spoke out to him powerfully, Saul, Saul, why for persecutest thou me? And so I can imagine, who is this who speaks? Stunned! He had never had such experience as this. This is Jesus of Nazareth. You know, before you read there, something just came to mind. This was no wildlife fanatic, this Paul of Tarsus. This was a very intellectual, scholarly, respected man, wasn't he? I've heard him described as a wild-eyed fanatic who is running around trying to steal Jews from their particular belief and enter them into something alien. He's not that at all. This is really rich, Paul, because it's the same man who has given us at least half the New Testament which is really the basic body of document that we do study to show ourselves approved of God, workmen needing not to be ashamed. And yet he is the one who has spoken most exactingly about the role of revelation. And look at the way the second chapter begins. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God. And who is more equipped to come in such a way than Paul himself? For I determined not to know anything among you except Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I want to emphasize the words, I determined not to know. Act of will. Because it really is an act of will. And I have to admit myself as a Jewish man and one who loves the ruminations of mind and the exercise, the scintillating power of exercising one's own mind that I have to myself determine often to shut this cotton-picking thing off. And I just want to ask our viewers today, have you experienced the difficulty that we've experienced? Especially in the early years as a believer where time against time my mind has been an obstacle in my knowledge of God. It has opposed the revelations of God. And I've brought to the Scriptures the academic habits of interpretation which were many years in the shaping. And it got me nowhere. Oh, I spun many lofty esoteric things, but my spiritual life advanced to nothing. But the day came when I resolved just to take God at His word and see what would happen and do it. And from that point on I began to grow in God. I think that there's something required of us if we're to enjoy the revelations of God by His Spirit. And that is to determine not to know. Not to allow the intrusion of our mind to usurp and to seek to give understanding where only God can give it by His Spirit. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling that your faith, in the fifth verse, should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. That's a potent statement. Tremendous. Because if we try to reveal God to men by the exercise of intellect, it's not going to stand. Right. But the revelation which comes by the power of God alone can stand every onslaught that shall come against it. However, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world nor the principles of this world that comes to nothing but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Even the hidden wisdom which was ordained by God before the world unto our glory. The hidden wisdom of God which none of the princes of the world know and I tell you people which none of the princes of this world now know either. None of those who exalt intellect and who receive the honors and plaudits of the world and who have established these things above the things which are of God have yet to understand his mysteries. For many this is yet a closed book, an enigma, and a paradox which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God but God hath revealed. People, our Judaism is a Judaism which has a complete and total trust in a God who has made unto us wisdom, knowledge, sanctification, redemption, power. The scripture says that of Jesus that in him was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily that we are complete in him and that he's made also unto us the revelation of the knowledge of God. He revealed the Father as we spoke in a previous telecast for God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit and there's no other way for such knowledge to be made available unto men. Now, Paul, is this a new chapter in the doctrine? Is this a new wrinkle, is this a novel alteration of God's way that has taken men by surprise and especially our Jewish kinsmen who lean more to the older way, to the Talmudic way, to the way of scholarship or is this the way that God has ever and always chosen for his revelation? You know, it's interesting that question because this particular way right here is returning us to the original pattern. Now, on what basis do you make such a statement as that? I think we can go right back to the book of beginnings, Genesis and we can look at the account of a Jewish man by the name of Joseph and some of the problems that he went through when his brothers who were jealous of the love that Jacob showed unto Joseph sold him into slavery, he was taken down into Egypt and I would say some very remarkable things happened. I think we have to pause here and maybe we'll spend more time on this in a future telecast. Yeah. Joseph is a remarkable story. Oh, yeah. And what an enormous symbolic suggestion of another brother who was despised of his brethren, a dreamer whose words the brothers would not receive who was the envy of him because he was beloved especially of the father and he had a special coat and was cast into a pit and sent forth in a sense rejected to die but who by his great faithfulness in submitting to this treatment and yet loving his brethren was able in a day when great famine came to succor them and to provide for them that they might survive and have plenty. It's a wonderful story. I think in the 39th chapter of Genesis God gives us a rich representation of the things which we're suggesting is really a fundamental aspect of his original and true Judaism. I think the first line of that first verse in the 39th chapter is a key line and Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Right. People, there's a bringing down before there's a lifting up. There's a God who will exalt those that are abased and looks with anger upon those that exalt themselves. He says he'll humble the proud. That's right. He'll knock the proud right down to the knees. And I think we should mention this. And he'll exalt the humble. This is what I'm talking about. What is a requirement from God, a condition by which alone his revelations can be tended to men? I think God's interested in us opening our hearts to him completely and to be willing to give up the lordship of our own lives. Remember what we said to this man with whom we had this conversation today, precious, well-meaning, and sincere fellow, but so highly placed in the Jewish community, in so prestigious a place, that I said to him, if what we're representing to you is true, would you receive it? In other words, would you show forth a heart to God? Would you cry unto him and say, Lord, I am willing to receive the truth and pay what cost shall be required of me, if you but make it known. And I tell you that except that God foresees a heart like that, he shall not reveal his truth. That really is an important question, because he, like many others, really are forced to count the cost. And it's not an easy thing to take a revelation that might mean everything that you've worked for, everything that you've stood for, everything that you've believed in, and all of the prestigious looks, covetous looks others give you because of your high placing in the community might all go down the drain because of this revelation. Look at the misunderstanding. We ourselves suffer, but we're not whining about it. Often we're prepared to pay such a price and more, and we know that shall be required of us. But there is a trembling. There is a fearful price. The revelations of God are not cheap. They require commitment, and they require the obeying and the doing of them. And God says, To this man I shall look in Isaiah. He is of a contrite and broken spirit who trembles at my word. We've got to be abased before God will exalt us. We've got to come to a place of true humility and humbling. What happened to Job also? Job was a self-righteous man, and God dealt with him completely through the particular book of Job until he finally came to that place where he caught a vision of the holiness of God, and he said, I abhor myself, and I repent. It seems to be the classic pattern of God dealing with men as my own book accounts, that when I came to a place of brokenness and contrition, a place in the sense of repentance for the failure of my life and my stupid and grandiose notions of saving the world when I was incapable of saving myself, that then in that trembling I was in a position to hear the full, small voice of God. Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and then God brought him up. And we read in the second verse, The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man in the house of the master, the Egyptian, when the master saw that the Lord was with him, that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hands. Here was obviously one blessed of God, lifted up by God. And then we come to this enormous encounter in the seventh verse of that 39th chapter. It came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and she said, Lie with me. But he refused. And he said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master knows not what is with me in the house, and has committed all that he has to my hand. There is none greater in this house than I, neither has he kept back anything from me. Because thou art his wife, how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? How did he know that? What a mensch! What a mensch! What a moral constitution! In fact, I'm not doing him justice. This is more than mere moral predilection. There was a shudder expressed here, an innate horror against sin. And what is it that you just asked? Well, how did he know it was even sinning against God? This is at least a couple of hundred years before the law came down from Sinai. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? That's really a question, Paul. How did Joseph know, centuries before the giving of the law at Sinai, that thou shalt not commit adultery? How do men obtain this knowledge of God is really the question which we're discussing today. It seems as if the law, when it came, was a, what can I say, a substitute for a more primary way of the knowledge of the way of God, which we suggest comes by revelation by the Spirit to those who know him. Even before this, we've talked about this on a previous show, so we don't have to go over it completely, but even when Jacob was confronted by the angel, it was revealed to him that he was at a crossroads of his life, and lest he be blessed, he would perish forever, I think, and that's why he held on so tenuously. The integrity of this man gives evidence of one who has gone far beyond anything that's moral and ethical. When we consider the treatment which he had been suffering, rejected of his brothers, unjustly accused, called a dreamer, cast into pits, sold into slavery, in servile service in Egypt in an Egyptian's home, and now being accosted by his wife, and we're going to learn what is the consequence of his right standing before God, his unwillingness to condescend to these blandishments and these temptations, that even at a point where she dragged his garment, he left and fled and got out, and holding this garment as indictment, she accused him before the others in the house and her husband as having sought to lie with her, and so what happened? His master heard the words of his wife which he spoke unto him, saying, After this man did thy servant to me that his wrath was kindled, and Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisons were bound, and he was there in prison. He suffered persecution in his obedience to God, in resisting the temptations daily, come lie with me. Those that live godly lives in Christ shall suffer persecution. That call of Potiphar's wife to Joseph, come lie with me, is no different from the call of the world today to the believers. Exactly. So here's a man a second time, in a sense, sent down into a pit, humbled, abased, and all the more for his diligence in serving God and trying to walk in God's way, even before the law had expressly been given. Now, God brings such a man again and again up from the dungeon and brings him to a place of blessing. Right. And we read that God was with him and again made him to prosper. And we know, what was the device that God used to bring Joseph again out of that dungeon? I'd say it had to be absolutely revelation and nothing short of that. Now, how do you mean that? Well, when the Pharaoh dreamed his two dreams concerning the lean cows and the fat cows and concerning the famine coming to the land, God absolutely revealed to Joseph the meaning of these dreams. It was an absolute supernatural revelation by God. How well did the counselors at the court of Pharaoh do in being able to give Pharaoh answer? Well, of course, they couldn't give Pharaoh any satisfying answers at all. You know what this suggests to me, and I hope that scholars will not think me insulting, but it suggests that human ability reached the limit. Men, no matter how well meaning and well intending, in fact, their very lives were hanging in the balance in their ability to answer Pharaoh. Yet, by their own devices, they were unable to give Pharaoh answer. They were unable even to describe to him his own dream. And here was this lowly Hebrew despised of the Egyptians, despised even of his own brother, but one who walked in an immaculate way with God, brought forth out of dungeon to give Pharaoh answer. And the Pharaoh thought, well, maybe this is some kind of a freaky guy who's got this strange way of rubbing the sticks together. And I love the answer that Joseph gives him in the 41st chapter, where Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I've dreamed a dream, and there's none that can interpret it. And I've heard say of thee that thou canst understand the dream to interpret it. Do you have some kind of magic greater than my own counselors? And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me. God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. People, the Judaism, which is the Judaism of God, is a Judaism which recognizes that every good and perfect gift cometh from above, from the Father of light, in whom is no shadow, no variableness of turning, and that we cannot, out of our own human strength, give the answers that the world so desperately needs. It's not in us. God shall give an answer of peace. And perhaps the question for you today is, are you willing to receive such an answer? It's a costly answer that will require much of you, but also give you much, eternally much, that the world itself cannot give. And we know, of course, that God did give Pharaoh an answer, and Joseph was perfectly able both to recount the dream and to interpret the dream. And then we come toward the end of the 41st chapter where Pharaoh is stunned at what this lowly Hebrew is able to reveal, because God chooses the lowly things, doesn't he, Paul? Yes, he does. Isn't that his pattern, to choose the things which are foolish, to confound the things which are wise and the things which are mighty? Why don't you read that 38th and 39th verses for us? Let's start at 37. And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. He saw something, Joseph. And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this, in whom the Spirit of God is? Isn't that phenomenal? Pharaoh, who is representative and symbolic of all the evil in the world, recognized in Joseph that he was a man in whom the Spirit of God dwelt. That's high compliment. It really is. Because I tell you that only too often those who call themselves God's people are incapable or maybe perhaps unwilling to recognize who the man of God is. You remember that in the book of Acts when the apostle Paul was brought to Philippi by the revelations of the Spirit of God, where he saw a vision at night of a Macedonian beseeching him, Come, help us, that they were trailed, these two Jewish men, by this demoniacal woman shrieking in its hysterical voice, These men be the servants of the Most High God who show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But the Jewish people of the community and others who thought themselves religious looked upon these men as radicals who were worthy of being only publicly whipped and being cast into prison. I tell you, people, there's pause for thought. That when a demoniacal woman can recognize who the servants of God are, and when a pharaoh, who is the very symbol and the type of Satan himself, must recognize that in this lowly Hebrew, such high compliment as this, can we find such a one as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God is. People, that was not just a rhetorical flourish, but a description of a real relationship with God by the Spirit, of a Spirit that dwelled in this one cast into prison that enabled him to give answer to Pharaoh. Can the pharaohs of this world say that to you today? Can they say to you, and I don't know who you are who are watching us today, you may well be a minister of a church. You may play the organ. You may be a Sunday school teacher. You may consider yourself very religious, very Jewish, very proud, but here's the real ultimate test. Can the world look at you and say, can we find such a one as this in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, For as much as God hath shewed these things, shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art. Oh, those words just warm the cockles of my heart. And people, it's not because we covet being wise, or we covet the admiration of men, or the plaudits of men, or the awards of men. But I would just ask, has there ever been a generation, Paul, when men have more desperately needed the counsel and the wisdom of a living God? I don't think so. I think that we're seeing things in this day and age today that we never dreamed would have been possible even 20, 25 years ago. What kinds of things? A world in absolute rebellion. Children corrupting the world. Parents in absolute rebellion against each other. Drugs running rampant. Every filthy type of... Satanism, witchcraft, occult practices, pornography. You name it, it's there. Now, you're a bright fellow, Paul. And didn't you belong at one time to some kind of a club, an association for intellectuals? Yeah, right. But I want to ask you, at the same time, how were you living your life? Well, what I was referring to, I was a member of Mensa for a couple of years until I got very disillusioned. I went to a couple of meetings and I found that highly intelligent people can many times be absolutely pseudo-intellectual with no real foundation in their lives whatsoever. And during the time that I was flaunting in this seat of intellectuality, I was living a very unsatisfied and almost a morose life. I think that's a wonderful expression of the condition of most men. In fact, God tells us that the children of this world are wiser than the children of God. But in our wisdom, we're still unhappy, broken, and distressed. And I want to end today with this. It's interesting that when God touches a man, his name is changed. Pharaoh himself had to give Joseph a new name. Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-pa-aneah. And we read that that name means the man to whom secrets are revealed. There's a precious secret that God would reveal to you, ladies and gentlemen, you and Gentile who are watching us. It's the secret of who Jesus is that you might know him, love him, serve him, and worship him. Come to that revelation which is the foundation of all truth and knowledge and that wisdom alone by which a life may be truly lived. We pray that you'll show God a heart that is willing to receive it and that he'll give you, even this day, a revelation by his Spirit that will be unto life eternal. Let's sing, Paul, shall we? Yeah. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Yeah. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Bless the Lord, O my soul. And all that is within me, bless his holy name.