In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of separating the precious from the vile in order to experience true life. He discusses the power of atmosphere and how it can influence our beliefs and perceptions. The preacher also highlights the need for spiritual nourishment in the church, comparing it to a dog coming in from the field and asking to be fed. He warns against being too focused on earthly matters and missing the day of visitation from God. The sermon concludes with a plea to not be cast away and to hold onto the spiritual heritage and blessings from God.

I'd like us to read in Genesis chapter 25. I'd like to get to the theme of the purpose of God. We won't be able to get there right now. I want to lay a groundwork. Talk about what God lives for in a life. Let's read this passage, Genesis 25, verse 24. Speaking about the birth of Esau and Jacob, it said, When her days were to be delivered were fulfilled, Behold, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red all over like a hairy garment, And they called his name Esau. After that came his brother out, And his hand took hold on Esau's heel, And his name was called Jacob. And Isaac was three or four years old when she birthed, And the boys grew. And Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field. And Jacob loved Esau because he did eat of his venison. But Esau came from the field, and he was faint. And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, With that same red pot, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called, and he swore unto him. And he sold his birthright unto Jacob. There was a writer many years ago who took social themes and wove them into books, both against the corruption of society of his day. We know many of his books. Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities. The name was Charles Dickens. This is not a tale of two cities. This is a tale of two lives. Two who were born together. They couldn't be any more together. They were twins. Born together, and yet they finished as far apart as the East is from the West. Brought up in the same home, exposed to the same influences, yet once again choosing very different ways, going through a very different process, ending up in a different place. We tend to complicate the things which determine our lives. We bring in too many elements. We present too many possibilities. Some of the greatest, some of the most important things, even in the natural world, are just either one thing or the other thing. Just two. Only two choices. Life or darkness. Life or death. So it is when we come to the things of God, a response in one and a rejection in the other, an appreciation in one and a lack of appreciation in the other, leading God himself to say, Jacob of I love, and Esau of I hate thee. I don't think that is the predetermined thing before they were born. Before they were born it was predetermined, it was prophesied that the elder should serve the younger. But it was not until after they were dead and buried that God spoke through the prophet and said, Jacob of I love, Esau of I hate thee. You know, I think many times we tend to say, well, that was automatically fixed before they were born. I don't think that part was fixed. The part that was fixed is that the elder should serve the younger. And the part that was determined through their response to the purpose of God was, on the one hand once again, the love of God outpoured, the tremendous magnitude of the mercy of God bringing that man from so far away into the center of God's purpose. Once again, the tremendous inflexibility of the love of God closing the door to the other one. Whenever I come back to the United States from the mission field, I get social shock. We have a Christian country. We have a Christian society. All the way from the cradle to the grave. People are born in the church, they go to Christian schools, they grow up with their Christian environment, their Christian artists, their Christian books, their Christian radio stations, their Christian television programs. Go through life with the things which are built around the periphery of Christianity. And I think very few people ever get to see what it is that God's looking for. It gets to be, if we want to please God, we add more of the external. We're looking for something else, one more thing to add that will put the icing on the cake. One more response, one more seminar, one more piece of knowledge. My God's looking for something far more basic than that. Once again, we have these two lives. As I said, Jacob is maybe the classic example in the Bible of someone who was identified with the earthly. His very name means a supplant of. He who takes that which does not belong to him. He who goes and gets the head of the person that is a legitimate heir to that thing and takes it away from him. That's the meaning of his name. Yet somehow, all Jacob's faults are external and all Esau's faults are internal. There's one thing about Jacob, that he valued the Spirit above all things. He wasn't the fool that we think he is. Here's a man who, to obtain a birthright, to obtain a blessing, is willing to lose everything he's got. He's seeking for something spiritual. He's seeking for the continuity of the grace of God. He's ready to leave his home. He's ready to go into exile. He's ready to sleep by the roadside. He's ready to go through the dangerous journey on the bridge. He's willing to face it all because he has a vision of something spiritual. And Esau, though apparently he did no wrong as Jacob did, we don't read of Esau cheating, deceiving. We don't read of Esau even committing acts of violence. Yet Esau is the one who despised the spiritual. Esau sold the spiritual to buy the natural. Jacob sold the natural to buy the spiritual. Reached out for the spiritual at the cost of the natural. Somehow, I think if we could see this, we could really see it, God could really open our minds, our spirits, our understandings to see it. Would change everything we know, everything's mixture. Flesh and blood cannot, will not, ever, inherit the kingdom of God. Not only the bad flesh, the good flesh. God doesn't want my strength. A few months ago in Paraguay, a young man came up to visit. Very intense personality. A lot of grace in his spiritual life. He wanted to come and work with us. He came, stayed with us a little while. He went back to Argentina. He said, I want to come as soon as possible. He got back there, and the Lord started dealing with him. He said, Lord, I want to give you my strength. Lord, I want to give you my youth. Lord, I want to give you the intensity of my life. Lord, I want to give you everything I got. See, all of this can mean something in the kingdom of God. And I got a letter from him sometime later. He said, God told me I don't want your strength, I don't want your youth, I don't want your intensity. It doesn't mean anything. The Lord said him bye. He'd already gotten out of his job, already left everything. The Lord said, okay, now, stay right where you are. The Lord kept him there. Later on released him to come. You know, we think we've got so much to offer God. Basically, we think we're so nice. Y'all are like, excuse me, you know. I talk about this culture shock. And really, maybe sometimes it sounds like I'm grinding an ax. You know, we come back to the States. My kids look around. They say people are so different here. You know, there's a big smile, there's a welcome. Then they go away, they totally forget about you. Life is so involved in the petty outward things. You go to church and they shove this Christianity down your throat, the external part. You go to a Christian college, you go to a Christian school. I'm not talking about this school, I don't know this school. But, you know, they shove Christianity down your throat. Two plus one is three. And that is an opportunity to present the Trinity to the kids. You know, day after day and every time the kids hear it, oh. That's Christianity and that's their concept. And that's the way they're being turned on. All those that are turned on are getting a false thing. And so we grow up with a generation where, you know, a nice meeting is a nice song. It's a nice message. It's something that tickles us, something that touches us. Yet we don't see that beyond that God is hurting us. Look at this, verse 30. Esau comes in from a field. This is his attitude. The only thing he sees is this world. Comes in from a field, he says, feed me. Feed me. You ever heard that? I mean, we're not talking about food. Feed me. We come into the house of God. We come to the place of the promise of God. Now, this house represents the church. This father represents the priest. He comes in from the field. He comes in from his own activity. He comes into his home. See somebody now says, feed me. There's a lot of feed me in the church. Feed me, feed me, feed me. But in the church, just, well, I won't tell you when, so wait. The pastor said, how many are hurting here? Well, it's all right, you know. In one sense, it's all right. But in another sense, for me, it's symptomatic of something. How many are hurting? You know, and we go on and on and on in the same thing. How many are, and God in heaven, feed me, feed me. Once again, part of my culture, Chuck, I come back and, life is so much involved in our, you know, in all the little phrases, our real value as a person, what you are as a person, how beautiful you are as a person, your personality, the harmony of your being, all you mean to me, what it is just to see your smiling face and all of this stuff, and it's all so false. It's the little catchwords and little tricky things, the little, you know, we're kind of like the old medieval bears, what Christianity's all about. Feed me, feed me. He said, feed me with that same red potty, that same red stew, that red thing which represents this earth. Feed me with the earthly. Let me get something in my stomach that'll satisfy me, take away my hunger. You know, when Jacob went out from that house, I'm sure he went hungry many times along the trail before he got to his destination. But this other man won't go hungry. You know, there's a famous preacher in Scotland a generation or two ago. He said, we read, he was talking about the book of Psalms, but we could apply it to all the Bible. He said, we read the book of Psalms. He said, we think we understand it. We don't understand it. And he says, my God, why have you forsaken me? See, at the end of the section, it wasn't just Jesus' words, it was David's words before it was ever Jesus' words. You know, once again, where is that, Psalm 22? We talk about it. We think we know it. We say it, but if we could really see the cry of anguish that's coming forth from some of these people's hearts. It's not a prophetical project. But it's something that he was going through too. And I'll tell you more, it's something that each one, each one of us is going to go through. If we're going to go on with God, we're going to go through it. He's going to cut away all this triviality, all the external, all the false. You know what Mark says? That which man calls sublime is what with God? Is abomination with God. You remember that verse? A man doesn't call sin sublime. A man doesn't call human activity sublime. What man calls sublime is the church. Church is a church activity. God says he's not looking for that. Once again, he's looking for worshippers that will worship him in spirit and in truth. He's looking for those who have life because spontaneous, natural things. My God, why have Thou forsaken me? Why have Thou so far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring, O God, I cry in the daytime, Thou hearst for seven all that see me laugh. You've been to that place? You know what he's talking about? Another place he said, I walked, I led the people of God to the house of God in the midst of jubilee. Songs of praises he said, Now, they look at me, they laugh at me. Those who might despise, they despise me. They shake their head, saying he's rested in the Lord that he will deliver him. Seeing me delighted in him. They gape upon me with their mouths. He said, I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint, my heart is like water. My strength is dried up. Once again, it's hypothetical. He's talking about Jesus. He's talking about the cross. It was David's experience too. And Paul, we look back at people like Martin Luther that fought for years in soul agony to find God and find salvation. You look at them and say, poor people. They didn't know that. They saw it simple. All you've got to do is come and say, dear Jesus. This friend again that was telling me that the Lord's people are not so many as what we think they are. He told me of his own experience. A pastor's son, his dad was greatly used of God. His father passed away and he went into rebellion. And as a teenager, decided to come back to God. When an altar call was given in the church, he went up front. He tried to pray. And the heavens were closed and the door was closed. And he couldn't find salvation. And the pastor tried to help and he couldn't help. And he went to another church. And the same thing happened. He went to another church. And the same thing happened. He went to another church. The same thing happened. And time after time. He said at one time there in these months that he was speaking, he said, I had four pastors trying to tell me, son, it's all right. You know what he said to me? He said, God, I knew that it wasn't all right. Times in the mission field, God will cut it off. Once again, going back to Esau. He sought the natural. Look at his expression there, verse 32. He said, I'm at the point to die. He said, what profit is this birth like? What good is it? You know, there are many things we say without saying them. Many times we come to God with our lips and our hearts far from him. Many times we pray and something inside is saying, what to you? What to you? Many times we say to God, God, I give you all, and there's something inside that says, not all, not all, not all. I'm hurting. What good are spiritual things? You've heard people say that. The church is fine. God, it's great. But we've got to live in the church. We've got to feed ourselves. We've got to take care of the family. Look at Jacob, verse 31. He knows he's getting into trouble. He knows the character of Esau. He's lived with him since he was born. Since before he was born, he's lived with him. He knows who Esau is. He knows what he's getting into, and he says, sell me. He's getting out on a limb. He's getting more than out on a limb. He's getting himself in a kettle of hot water. He's cutting himself off from any future relationship with his brother. They've grown up together to this point, and there comes a point, and here it is. Sell me the promise. Esau saw the natural. Jacob saw the promise. I don't know how to express that. We talk about it, and it's just words unless you've seen it. See the promise of almighty God. See that heaven is above the earth. See that all power and all dominion belongs there and is not given over to any earthly power. That the throne which is above us. I think I've said before here one thing about the men of God of olden years. The same people that walked with God, they were conscious of walking between heaven and hell. Of walking with heaven opening up on their decision. With a reaffirmation of the direction of their lives. What shall this birthright be for me? Even there. What shall it be for me? You know it made an impact on me when I started reading. Over in the gospels, Jesus talking about. Let me just look over there a minute. Put something in here to mark this. When Jesus was telling the reasons of judgment to the pharisees. Trying to get those people once again to react out of their religious structure. They got it all perfectly divided. What to do when and how to do it. In every detail of life from the cradle to the grave. They start asking Jesus about the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus starts to talk to them. He tries to open their eyes and he tries to shock them. He changes the phrase. Instead of talking about the kingdom of heaven he talks about the day of the son of man. And it's the same thing. The kingdom of heaven is only. Get this now, it's not the experience. The kingdom of heaven is only the manifestation of the son of God. If there's not a divine element in a meeting, in a church, in a life. The kingdom of heaven is not manifested. We're imitating it. And all through this passage. Starting up at the top there it says. They asked him when the kingdom of God should come. He said the kingdom of God comes not with observation. The kingdom of God is within you. Then he starts talking about. He which is on the housetop, let him not come down to take his stuff out of the house. And he says remember Lot's wife. Let me get this here, where are we at now. Verse 27 he said. He said as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also. You know that's something I got to face up to day after day. God really. What am I looking for? These are all legitimate things. But they put them first. They married. There's nothing wrong with marrying. There is sometimes. Could get into a lot on that. I've seen people on the mission field. They could never get through to God. Think of one girl, never could get through to God. Then one day a young man. This little thing that seemed like she was born without any feelings. All of a sudden was transformed. You know, Wonder Woman. Boom. And God couldn't do that. Or there was something that she was holding back in spite of all her beautiful life. Her exemplary life. There was an emotion. She'd give her service. You could tell her to do anything. I'm sure you could tell her to fast 40 days. Whatever. But there was something in her. That little part. My emotion. Lord, come to me. Come to me. You see what I mean? I mean, we've got to get down to the reality. Like I said, these are questions I've got to face up to. We've got to face up to. Everyone's got to face up to. Because someday we're going to face up to before God. If not in this life, in that life, he's going to have to face up to. And he says, I knew it. You see what I mean? You know, we read it. Oh, how cute. How neat. We've got to see what he's really after. Go and bring the thing that you most love. If you're going to come to me, try and look for something for themselves. Then he says, they ate. They ate. They did eat. You know, for us it's, you know, we believe it because it's in the Bible. If it was in any other book, we'd say, this guy, what's he talking about? You know, if this was in the Christian book, we'd say, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. God wants us to eat. God wants us to eat. They sought to satisfy their hunger once again as Esau. They ate. You can't do that. You can't put your love first. You can't love earthly things first, is what I mean. You can't satisfy even the basic necessities of life first. They ate to maintain life. He says, you can't do that. You ought to lose your life if you're going to find your life. He says they drank. The drink in the Bible is joy, satisfaction, fulfillment. There's a lot of that nowadays. There's a lot of that in this 20th century. You know, I go and I drink my full of emotion at some Christian show or something. I get involved in some Christian activity and they, oh, you know, it makes me feel so good. And I sing because I like to, you know, I like, they drank. They sought their joy, their satisfaction. They bought. They bought. I've seen people even on the mission trailer do this. People like to have a lot of things. Remember one old man. And he had an ocean going trunk. One of these big old ocean going, you know, that you used to use on the ship 80 years ago when it crossed the Atlantic, these great big things that get opened up, you know. He had a sewing machine. He and his wife, they were an older couple. Cutting yourself off from all of it. They bought. They sold. What do you sell for? You sell when you, to increase, right? You know, I buy at 10 and I sell at 15. They're trying to increase what? This earth. The things of this earth for themselves. They planted. They planted to kind of get something to come up and develop. Give fruit. Something earthly. And they built. They built. It's not just bricks. Happens in a lot of churches. A lot of people build things. Build a position for themselves. Build something, you know, where, folks, I want you to know, you know, down there in Paraguay, we got a radio program. And we got this. We got, you know, I mean, the Lord has given it to us. We're, you know, it's all the Lord. You know, what are we doing? What are we doing? It's easy to do that. Somebody said once, there are two ways to do the work of the Lord. One is a natural way. It'll spring up real fast and build real fast. But it won't endure in the other spiritual way where you plant a seed and it takes time. And here's the list. And there are seven things in the list. And there are seven aspects. Seven is the biblical number for completion. Seven aspects. Their love, their security, their joy, their sustenance, their treasure. The increase of their riches all came from this earth. And he said, remember that. You're asking me about the kingdom of heaven? You know, that's where it's at for us. Maybe we don't say, Lord, what is the kingdom of heaven? But we're saying, Lord, you know, where is it at? Because if you're going to find the manifestation of the Son of God, it's only going to be on the condition that you lose all of that. But you lay it all down. Once again, I repeat. Jacob left everything natural for the spiritual. Everything. He had no home. He had no mother. He had no father. He had no brother. He had no possessions. He had no cattle. He didn't take anything with him except the clothes on his back. He said he'd seen a promise. A few days ago, he was celebrating the death of Martin Luther King. And I saw on the news there he was passing again some of the highlights of his life. There was a moment he was giving a speech about a dream. And standing up there and shouting into the microphone, I have a dream. Very few people have a dream. Well, let's change the word. That's sort of difficult. A vision. Not if black and white join together, when the black be taken away. When the earthly things be taken out of my life. I have a vision of being conformed to something spiritual. I have a vision of possessing. We got a gleam of that which is out there. This earth. They can have it. I mean, you can have it. You can have my car, my house. You can have the whole thing. God help us. Yet those silly, stupid, insignificant things, a washing machine, a linoleum for a piece of carpet, separates me from the kingdom of God. You know, this Jacob was not a good person. He was so bad that when he went into exile, even exile wouldn't keep him and he had to return. Even exile kicked him out. There came a time when he met God. There's a verse over there in Hosea. Talks about his encounter with the angel. He said, Jacob came and he wept. You know, Esau never wept. Feed me. I don't want to weep. I don't want to hurt. Feed me. Jacob came to that place. You know, it was death for him. Man, he thought the angel had attacked me. And then wanted to get away. I mean, go, man, go. And then I sit down. I saved my life. I don't know what scared the angel, but when he wanted to go, man, you should have seen me let go. You know, but he... You know what it is to hold on to an angel. This is worse than holding the tiger by the tail. You know, and he wouldn't let the angel go. And the angel was trying to kill him. He wouldn't call it quits while he was a little bit ahead. He had a vision. He had a vision. I don't know how he must have said it. I'm sure the words were heard in heaven. Bless me. Bless me. You know, this thing's all through the Bible. Look at the two thieves there on the cross. The one's crying out, Lord, save our lives. Why? So that we might go and rob and get for ourselves. Take with violence out which doesn't belong to us. Just anything goes just so we can satisfy ourselves. Lord, spare us and let us continue in this abomination. The other says, Lord, didn't even ask for life. Lord, don't forget me. Lord, don't forget me. You know, all these things, all these things are written for our example. Not what he went through. It's what I got to go through. What I got to go through if I'm going to reach God. Come to a place and say, Lord, you can take my life. You know, I know what Brother Bill was talking about to a degree when he said when his wife was sick, how he started out crying to God. But you know you do that and you cry and you come to the end of your cry and you don't always get the answer. And then what do you do? Then you know that if you pray for a thousand years you still won't get there because you've given it all you've got and you've come to the end. And what do you do? You either turn back or you say, Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit. Lord, as David said, my heart is fixed. Lord, my prayer is before you. I leave it there. I don't know how to express surrender. Remember a person there in South America had an accident with a welding rig. Burnt his eye on the inside. It's a very rare thing, but just the angle of the light and the angle of the light. And the treatment they gave him down there, the only treatment that could help him before that scar set up, he had to go through a series of, I think it was 15, 9 or 15, 15 I think it was, 15 injections. In the back of his eye. They had to stick the needle through his eye and put that vitamin or healing substance, whatever it was, right on the wounded part at the back. You know, when you go make that kind of a decision, you're lying there on the table. The guy's with the syringe in his hand. You're surrendered. I mean, you've fought, you've cried, you've done everything, but when you go there and lie, there's nothing more you can do. They strap you down so you don't move. You know, and you're as a dead man. Somehow God wants to bring us to this place. Okay, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to touch the most precious thing I have. It's going to maybe take it away from me. Maybe I'll never get it back. I want the, I want the, I want the spiritual. Maybe I got to leave my home. Maybe I got to leave everything. I, I, I, maybe I'll never, ever come back. I'll go out into exile. I'll go with the clothes on my back. But somehow there's a promise. There's an eternal reality. There's a life which has no ending. I want to possess it. I don't care if I lose everything that this poor earth can offer. He fought with the angel. And he hung on even, even if it meant his life. Look at the end of these two lives. Genesis 6. When the earth had become corrupt before God, it said God said, My spirit shall not always strive with man. You know that's true of mankind in general. Think somehow it's true of a nation. It's true of an individual. My spirit shall not always strive. What does the scripture say? Today if you hear his voice. Today if you hear his voice. He might not be speaking tomorrow. You know we say, well, I don't want to yield. I don't want to yield. We grit our teeth and we hang on. We resist God. Who's to say he'll come back? What does he owe us? And Esau was left. God turned away from Esau. And he lost it. Lost it forever. He knew he'd lost it. He realized when it was gone. He came to his father later on. He said, this is my brother that took my birthright. He didn't take it. He sold it. But he knew it was gone. He knew he couldn't get it back. He tried to get back. Says he wept with bitter tears and a loud cry. He didn't avail for anything. But you look at Jacob. There came a time when he'd, he'd lost his home. He'd found another home in exile. But at the moment of truth, he'd even lost his home in exile. His cattle had gone before him. He didn't know if he was ever going to see them again. His children were, there's a big time of Bible Christianity here on earth. You can't get nothing in the world you don't know about. I've got some that are British and speaks this world's language in a different accent. You know, it's from another country. Look at that. And maybe they live, I remember up in middle of the Alaskan. You know, we have the little children that were brought up there and grew up in a Swedish community. They came up to me and said, you know, I'd like to make money out of it. And so I do. Come on, friend of mine, you can go to a theater. I'll take care of it. You know, but when, when, when we get hold of, of the reality of God, it's different. This, this, this is what God is seeking for. This is the only thing that God is seeking for. It doesn't matter if we're as bad as Jacob. But basically in Jacob, there was an honesty there in the bottom, which was never in Esau. He knew what he wanted. Corrupt as he was, he was ready to cheat all he could cheat. But when it came to the end, he'd yielded up his cheating. He yielded up his life. The angels touched him. He wasn't as strong ever again as he had been. His life symbolically was taken away. You know, this wasn't Jacob who, you know, this was a different kind of Jacob. And he said he worshipped, what is it, in Hebrews? Jacob worshipped, leaning upon his staff. You know, we want to offer the Lord something that's entire, something that's nice. Maybe he doesn't want that. You know, I know a lot of people that have had to be hurt to get anywhere spiritually. A lot of families that have been touched. A lot of things that had to be yielded up. Lots of deeply loved ambitions. A lot of pastors that God called from the work right at the moment when it was flourishing. He said you leave that and don't look back. You know, we think of Lot's wife looking back at that which was bad. When God separates to us and us to himself, he separates us from that which is good too. You know, I know pastors that leave a church and they keep in touch with the people and the people say, you know, Pastor Joe, the new pastor doesn't understand me like you. It was so sweet, so different when you were here. But he's a good man and he's a precious brother. But oh, brother, you know, you know, I know what for each of you it'll be a different aspect to call out churches. But there comes a time when you say, God, I've done all of this. I've built it all up. This is my life's work. And the Lord says, leave it. You say, Lord, but this is what I'm going to bring into heaven with me. And the Lord says, child, you're following me. I called you without anything. You're going to enter in by my grace without anything. And if there is anything, someday you're going to meet an eternity transformed. But I'm going to leave it. When Jacob came back to the land, even then he was independent. He didn't come back into Isaac's home ever again. Ever again. He left the natural forever. We could only, only, only see it. I believe 90, 99% of all we do is, is, is earthbound. Let's enlarge it. Let's, you know, we go on and on. Once again, I see with, with my kids as we come back to the States, they look at Christianity. They don't want to go to church. They come and they say a few things, you know, they don't say too many things. But, you know, kind of like, what are they doing? You know, what's this fung service all about? What, what, what's this about? What, what, what, where are we going with this Christian endeavor? What, what are, what are these young people living for? What, what, what, what are these church people, what makes them tick? You know, they don't tick their quark. At least a lot of them. Well, let's say it another way. You know, we got Christianity so, so categorized and so perfected and so separated from all, all the, the gut level stuff that it's sterile. It's sterile. It's like those cattle that are being fattened out there. They're sterile. You know what I mean? Now Christianity, it's nice. It looks nice. It looks nice like those cattle but it cannot produce, cannot produce. And if there's one thing that gets me time and after time on the mission field, there's a need. There's somebody with a tremendous need. They need a miracle. It might be sickness or it might be something else. They need a miracle. Can I do it? And you say, no, it's not me. It's the Lord. But you know, in the Bible, it isn't the Lord. I've noticed many times reading, it says, Moses did this. Paul, Moses delivered them. Doesn't it say that in Psalm? Perfectly seen, become the meekest. Who's the meek? You know, it's not that weak person. The meek person is the person who will not reach out his hands and take anything for himself. What was Adam's sin? Just that, that he reached out and he said, I want this for me. And meekness is saying, I won't take it. I won't take it. Look at Jesus. He walked through this earth and not an earthly thing ever stuck to his hands. Ever, ever, ever, ever. Even the position, when they wanted to make him king, when they came after him, when the Greeks came after him, when the Greeks came, we would see Jesus, you know, and you never read about him saying, here I am. You know, he walked through it doing the Father's will. Maybe the Father wants me over here and there's a multitude saying, you know, we want to meet this Jesus. No, no, no. And yet, when it happens to us, oh brother, you know, the Lord opened to me a door. I got an invitation. Well, somebody did invite me down to Panama. Isn't that wonderful, brother? You know, no, I don't have time to go to Panama. I got something else God wants me to do. You know, what are we doing? Where are we at? Who calls the, the theme? You know, there's tremendous possibility when the life is given over to God. This is what God wants to give us a vision of. In a sense, it's a two-fold vision. If we could see the other darkness, the other futility, the other emptiness, at the end, the tears, and the, the heartache, when life has been built up by man, for man, to be seen as man, if we could only see the total futility of all of this, I tell you, we'd flee from it. We'd flee from it. You know, I hear so many young people in the churches, they want a ministry. You know, it's kind of laughable on the one hand. You know, these young people are talking about my ministry, my talents, my God-given talents. You know, they're talking about my talents. You want to hear me sing? My talents. Or, or, my ministry. The Lord has given me a ministry of, of, uh, you know, teaching on, as somebody said, the left toe of Daniel's image. The significance of the left toe on Daniel's image. That's my corner of truth, and I know what it means. Nobody else knows. You know, my ministry. You know what the end of those poor people is? God help them. Remember, God telling about a man years ago how to, tremendous ministry. Tremendous anointing. And somehow, in the midst of it all, he lost God, and he was sick, and they expected him to die. And I don't know if it was a vision or what he had, but respected, loved, admired, envied by all around. Tremendous spiritual authority. He cried out, God, give me one more year. Give me one more year to live as I ought to live. And God gave him another year. God gave him another year. Maybe in that year he didn't see, didn't do things that people thought were to be admired. But he started building with a different substance. You know, you can build an awful lot with a thousand dollars worth of hay, right? You can't build much with a thousand dollars worth of precious stones. Maybe just have enough for a ring. They're building ice palaces and all kinds of things up north. You know. The intrinsic value of, what was it, 70 feet high, one of those towers? 70 feet of ice. You know, it's 70 feet of water. It's going to melt as soon as the heat gets on it. You need to apply that. It's going to melt when the heat gets on it. And he saw despised. You notice that word in there? You got it in your Bible? He despised. He despised his birthright. We got a birthright. Every child of God has got a purpose written from eternity. All the forces of hell cannot gain say to the slightest degree that purpose of God. Hell must quiver. The doors must open. There are things which are written in heaven. I remember moving of the Spirit of God in Argentina where it was proclaimed over a church as it were a prophetic voice, that which God has said for this church. And I believe that's true of each individual. Not only our names are written from eternity, His works were finished from the beginning of eternity and His works in my life and your life. That potential, that which He desires to be, were written for eternity. It's the shame of the church that today, 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, there are nations which as yet are totally locked up in darkness. There's a pastor in the north of Argentina who prayed through to revival. And the Spirit of God came on that air. He brought a tremendous revival. A friend of mine was saved as a young boy, a young adolescent in that revival. He told me as he started seeking God, he started seeing things within himself and the temptations and the wickedness and the corruption. He started crying out to God How come I can't I can't get the victory over these things? You know what the Lord told me? He said, Child, you're fighting against 300 years of darkness. You're fighting against yourself, your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, His father, and His father. You're fighting against the heritage. Just as light is built up, we go from faith to faith, from glory to glory, from victory to victory. So darkness becomes oppression upon oppression, confusion upon confusion, darkness and bondage upon bondage. We've got nations whose bondage today is worse than it was a generation ago. Worse than it was 2000 years ago. Because the enemy has made sure and he's dug his trenches and he's built his fortresses. I believe I've told you here before when I first went to Paraguay and I didn't know anything about this. One day as we were singing all of a sudden it hit me it wasn't a vision but it was just as certain, just as sure as the Lord speaking. He said, show me the enemy standing up there over a fortress built out of every sin, every sickness, every hurt, every sorrow, every broken home, every orphan child, every act of violence of that nation throughout its generations and in the invisible world each immaterial thing had become material and the enemy had used them as building blocks. He built one of those tremendous fortresses like they used to have in medieval times. He was standing up on the top looking down, way down in the distance to a little group of people coming in the name of the Lord saying, you shall not enter in. We've got nations, many nations, many nations like that today. I believe somehow to a degree we've got nations that once knew the light and have turned into darkness. We've got nations like Germany, nations like France. I talked to a missionary years ago for a man of God in France. He said, it seems like there's a curse on the people There's a curse extended over the land. You know, this is very, very different from feed me. Lord, I feel bad. Jesus, your love, your compassion, you know, come out. What are we doing? There's a war going on. There's hell that's enlarging its mouth. There's a God that's weeping. There's a spirit that's groaning. With groanings we can't even begin to conceive. Right now, cry of anguish in heaven. Right now, there's people of God that are choosing their own way. We look at the Old Testament, we look at the Israelites, we say, how could they be so blind? We look at the disciples, how could they be so, so earthbound? How could they be so short of vision? Look at them. Look at Peter, look at John, look at them squabbling, look at them fighting, look at them looking for an earthly kingdom. Look at them. And they didn't know. We look at Jerusalem, didn't know the day of our visitation. When to God we could hear the voice of the angels. You know what the Apostle said, after having preached to others, I myself, you know, if he said it, I gotta say it. I gotta say it honestly, not because it's a thing to say. You know, we say it once again, we say so much because it's a thing to say. Gotta say it before God. God, don't let me get cast away. Lord, don't let me go on in my blindness, thinking I'm on the way until I step over the edge and I'm lost. Lord, I think I'm doing your will. And God, I tell you, the Spirit of God did not come back to Esau. He'd lost it forever. He'd lost the measure of the spiritual heritage which was his. He'd lost the blessing of Almighty God. He could never get it back. He who finds his life, he'll lose it. You know, we almost boast about how we found our life, how the Lord's blessed me in this and the Lord's blessed me in that, the Lord's given me. You know, and I don't hear many, many people talking about all that I've had to give up. You know, and the Lord took me away from this place. And the pastor says, and the Lord took me away from the beautiful, flourishing church. I remember one church that Dad was at up there in Hudson Bay in Canada. Out there where the ice in the winter time. A friend was telling me, it gets 11 feet thick out on the, out on the bay. This is the sea that's frozen. The salt water. Not, not, not, what do you call it? Not pure water. Salt water that doesn't freeze that easy. Eleven feet thick. The cold, the howling wind. And this man had given his life and he built a church. Somehow, somewhere along the way he contracted polio. He was lame. He built this church up. Even in his weakness. In his lameness. He kept on going and he kept on going and he built it up. You know what they did? They said, we want some more educated pastor. Would you please leave? You know what he said? He said, they didn't take anything away from me. They released me. They released me. I, I, I, I'm free from that church now to go on after God. Don't praise the Lord so much. I had a friend, he said, you know, he couldn't give commissions and he just bought an $11,000 pickup and a kid came over with a hump on an interstate and plowed right into him. And the $11,000 wasn't even insured yet. You know, we can. But when it's taken away, some people are looking, maybe their cars aren't insured either. You know, there are things we can't do but when God, you know, I don't have time We got a sick baby in our family. We get up every night to make sure she's alright because she, she has diabetes and can go into a, a coma. We get up every night. We have to get up early in the morning. She has to be fed. She has to have her injection at 7 o'clock in the morning. Every day. 365 days a year. We have to be attentive to her needs all through the day. You know, I don't have time. Well, when something like that happens, you've got time. You, you've got time. You know, there are things I can't do. You can't do. Like Brother Bill said, let the Lord touch, touch somebody in your family. Let the Lord touch something that you love. I can't pray. You know, if you, you hear a squeal of brakes and look out there and a three-year-old child, your child is under the car. It doesn't take you long to let go of every earthly thing. You're not thinking about the curtains anymore that you're going to buy. You're, you're not thinking about where you're going to go or where you're going to dress or the new pair of shoes you need. You're crying out, God, God. You know, I don't want to knock a lot, but we can easily get involved in, in a lot. We can get oriented to the crises around us and, you know, to an extent, I suppose it's all right. I'm the wrong in the government and the abortion church. Is there life there? The abortion is a terrible thing, but how about the church? How about God that, that's aborting day after day? You know what I mean? The Spirit of God. What is it that man aborts? That's, I don't want to be bothered. Maybe, maybe it's better that he dies and he suffers for five, for ten or half an hour or what? It's physical. Physical suffering is terrible. Okay, great, but how about an eternity in hell? How about if I miss God? How about if God weeps tears? How about if I'm called Esau when I get to heaven? Think the Lord's going to say come on in Israel. He says, Esau, I'll make it in by the skin of my teeth. You ever thought you get to heaven and you're going to look for a little place to just curl up? Just curl up and let everybody go by and nobody look at you. You know what the glory is going to be in that place? You know what the light is going to be in that place? You know how fancy earth is going to be in the presence of Almighty God? You know how valueless it's all going to be? The things you married, the things you bought, the things you sold, the things you ate, the things that got you pleasure? You know how it's going to turn to bitterness within? You're going to say, God, I lived on earth and I never heard this scripture there. We passed through and it was as though we'd never been. We wrought no deliverance. God wants to give us. Once it's all yielded, He wants to bring us into a place where He can talk with us and walk with us. Teach us somehow to be a part of the creative process. The purposes of God. Teach us that there is no life like eternal life. There is no fulfillment like being with Him. So easy to be caught up. So easy to be mesmerized. Only that light. Send forth thy light. Send forth thy light and thy truth. Only that light can show me the way. I'm going to end up deceived. I'm going to end up having wasted that spiritual coin which God has given me to buy earthly things just as He saw it. God has given me something spiritual. You know, it applies in a lot of areas. God has given me an authority. You see pastors that God has given spiritual authority, they can use it how they want. And a lot of them do. They use it to buy something for themselves. That knowledge of the word or whatever it is they use it to reach people to build something earthly. I don't know how they're going to face God. When all of ours is given to God we can start to reclaim that which is His. Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name. I think I spoke on that once here. Separated be your name. From every earthly thing from every earthly ambition. Every earthly point of view. Every earthly ability or inability. Be your name there in heaven and Lord your kingdom come. When His name I'm not trying to mix it with the earthly. I'm not trying to use it for myself. I'm not seeking for myself. When I'm reaching forth and saying God bring me where you are. I don't want you to come to where I am. There's so much of that. God come here. Bless me and my activities me and my family. Lord even if it's exile even if it's leaving everything Lord I want to be the person that you can choose. We can't get into the purpose of God tonight but there's a purpose of God there's a calling of God. This is the first step. God will not choose under any other condition. Any other way. Look at this man he ate, he drank, he got up and he went his way. He went his way. To the end of his life he went his way. Jacob took that he didn't go the way he wanted to go anymore. God took him out he went God's way. He was a way of stripping for years till he came to the encounter which once again symbolically was death. But when he came through it he was more than Abram was. He had a spiritual authority he had a spiritual knowledge. You look at the end of his life God spoke to him. Abram went down into Egypt on his own. Jacob went down when God sent him down. God said go, fear not. Abram came before Pharaoh and feared and trembled. Jacob came before Pharaoh and blessed Pharaoh. The less is blessed of the greater. This man in his weakness this man who was nothing at the end of his life he starts to glow with the radiance from within. God is with him he walks into the presence of Pharaoh and God is with him. He goes into Egypt a place of bondage. Once again he doesn't even have the land at the last of his days. But he has God. He has God. We don't hear anymore about Esau but he has God. This man has God. God wants to bring us to himself. Once again it's the tale of two lives one saw the world and the other saw eternity. One saw the earthly and his end was emptiness and bitterness. The other turned it all over. And he was weak. You know everything has to be correct if we're going to find God. It's not that way in the Bible. Look at a woman who came and touched his his garment and was healed instantly. Where did she come? She came behind it. The wrong way to come the wrong moment the wrong she didn't understand the thing all she knew I've got to get to him. You know we talk about how to pray and how to do this. Forget it. Forget it. What we need is him we've got to press through. You can't regiment it you can't say it's through fastening it's through this or through that. The only thing I know it's through intensity. You get intense enough once again like that mother or that father sees their child under the car. You know right there there's only one thing they're living for. God don't let my child die. It's a matter of vision. God will give it. God will give it. The message of the New Testament is not salvation not justification not sanctification not even the baptism of the Spirit except to the degree that that is identification. God wants us to be identified he wants us to participate. The message in the New Testament is participation. What did the apostle say the life that I now live I live by the power or by the faith of the Son of God. I now live how? Through him. Through him. Doesn't matter what people think it doesn't matter if I even come into the church and speak the church's language with a foreign accent because believe me if we're going to walk with God we're going to do that. Jesus did in the church of his day Wesley did in the church of his day Luther did in the church of his day. All the moves of God did. Cary did when when God was talking about missions and nobody understood it. And every man of God that's moved out in the will of God he's found the churches on a different wavelength. They told Cary listen if God wants to save the heathen brother he'll save them without you. They told Luther Brother Martin you think you're the only one in this earth that knows the will of God. Brother Martin who do you think you are? In our language. You know they say that to us. Brother why do you have to be so extreme? Everybody's doing it different. Why do you have to be different? Why don't you want to join us in our city wide campaigns? Why don't you want to help us in this? Why don't... When Saint Francis died from among his followers the leaders came into being that directed the Franciscan movement. They started channeling it into through earthly concepts earthly ideas. There was a monk called Brother John and he had a vision of that same vision that was given to Saint Francis. I'm not talking about the vision you know I'm talking about the spiritual aim spiritual goal. There was something that burned within him to keep to keep the spiritual essence of the movement. And his superior called him and he said Brother John you're up on a mountain come down from your mountain. You know what he said? He said but I've heard another voice. I've heard another voice. Job when he came to the end he said I had heard of you with the hearing of my ears. But he said now now my eye sees you. We've heard an awful lot with the hearing of our ears. You know I believe only God can separate and show us what is real and what is false. That tells about a man that used to come to his church and he used to pray every every time he prayed the same prayer. Lord teach us what is flesh and what is spirit. It's a good prayer. Jeremiah talks about dividing the precious from the vial of God. Speaking through Jeremiah says you divide the precious from the vial and then what does he say? And then you will be as my mouth. The mouth of God. The words of God are creative words. Then that pastor is going to go in a place of death and he's going to say as Ezekiel said let there be life. There's going to be life. Because of the separation of the precious and the vial. I said to our people many times several times down there in South America we cannot know we cannot understand we cannot measure the power of an atmosphere. You know they say about people watching television that you know if we turn it off and say is that true that this man just shot the other man of course we're all going to say no. But he said at the moment we're looking at it it somehow goes into our mind in such a way that we believe even as we step back objectively and say of course I don't. But he said we do. He said children believe it totally you say adults just about the same. You know we can't begin and the people that study the human personality said nobody really believes that they'll die. And then we say of course I do. No but nobody's going to believe that it's right you know before the second hand covers those last five seconds between now and the twelfth. Anybody believe they're going to die before five more seconds pass? Nobody. You know and what I mean is we can never we can never somehow accept or get hold of or take certain things. Our mind does but our spiritually speaking believe me it's a painful process but God's got to show us how involved and how how convinced we are by the things that we've surrounded ourselves with. You know and many times God's not in any of it. God's not in any of it. And we're going on and on. You know the Lord's blessing me. You know sometimes it's I don't know it's pathetic on the one hand it's laughable on the other. You got somebody that's involved in some Mickey Mouse activity and all that. I'm really praying brother to find out what the will of the Lord is if the Lord wants me to continue doing this or do that. And the two things are so totally Mickey Mouse you say listen toss a coin because it doesn't matter. That's your prayer battle. Come on. Come on. I said before we live in a in a Lilliputian world you heard the story of Lilliput where Gulliver went and those little people three inches high. You know the little things cause us joy and the little things cause us pain. All our battles are little and all our triumphs are little. God wants to get out beyond.