Wanting Jesus

I don't blame the Apostle Paul for saying that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. He had gotten a sight of Jesus Christ and now he didn't want to see anything else anymore. He was filled with the wonder of Jesus Christ and now he didn't want to think of anything else anymore.

I don't blame him for following after that I may know him. Oh, what a call, what a marvelous call. I know we can preach holiness until our heads drop off and accomplish absolutely nothing, but when God can do for us what he did for Paul, something will happen to our hearers.

He was able somehow to picture Jesus as so desirable, so desirable was Jesus to him that he counted everything else but refuse, himself included. Talk about flesh, he says we rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We're the circumcision, we're the real Jews, we're a new creation, we've got nothing to do anymore with the old creation, it's crucified.

He says I've been crucified with Christ. How did it happen? Why? Because he put on the Lord Jesus Christ, because he loved Jesus so much that he opened his life to receive him and from then on nothing else had any interest for him anymore at all, nothing, even the things that were gained to him. And what was it that was gained to him? Why, his religious attainments.

That's where we get stuck. We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. All you need to do is to hear our testimonies and you'll hear it somewhere along the way.

You'll hear where we are better than others, where we have more than others, how greatly we're blessed, how wonderfully we've been used of God. Oh, we'd like people to know that we've got something. Paul wanted them to know that he had absolutely nothing and if there was anything at all that he ever boasted of, he says, put it in the garbage can.

I don't want to know anything about it. Let my soul be filled with the resurrection power of the Son of God. Let me know him and the power of his resurrection in every moment of his life and all the activity of his life.

Everything was swallowed up in this one hunger, oh, to know Jesus, to rejoice in the Lord. And here you've got that lesson in Greek, samos, samiros, and samonatos. Also, he saved us and he's saving us and he's going to finish it gloriously, but it's all Jesus.

Nothing takes me away from Jesus. When I came to him, weary and helpless and lost and defiled, he washed me in his own precious blood. Glory to his name.

Jesus paid it all, hallelujah. And now I belong to Jesus and Jesus belongs to me. Praise the Lord.

And now he is my boast. Now my soul shall make her boast in the Lord. Glory to God.

We are complete in him. We're not finished yet, but we are complete in him. We're a completely new creation, thank God.

And if I begin to admire myself, I'm going to be a dwarf after a while and a misfit. But let me have my joy in the Lord. Let me delight myself also in the Lord and he shall give me the desires of my heart and he shall see to my growth, my high healthy growth.

He will subdue all things unto himself. Isn't it wonderful that in a little epistle like this, God packs the unsearchable riches of Christ and then he commands us now, delight yourself in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord, all we. And again I say rejoice and to write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

Show me a person that has their delight in the Lord. I always think of Sister Spatial. That woman knew nothing about justification or sanctification or Greek or Hebrew or theology or exegesis or any of those things, but she did know Jesus Christ moment by moment.

And Jesus Christ worked in her mightily, subduing all things unto himself. When she was saved, she was healed of rheumatism. And after a while the devil came back and tried to put that back on her.

And what did she do? Oh go moping around and saying, oh heavens I, I thought I was healed and now I got a kink in the back. No, she laughed. She came to me next day and she said, you know I had to do my exercise.

And she walked up and down in the kitchen and she just praised the Lord and that rheumatism was gone again. She said, Brother Waltful, I can't help it. It just burns in here all the time.

Jesus did something for her. He did something within her. He tells us here that he works in you to will and to do.

Thank God. And if he does it, he must be doing a very good job. And when he says to all things without murmurings and disputings, the reason we murmur and we dispute is because we haven't allowed him to be the beginning in us.

Let this mind be in you. Don't be conformed to this world. When you get a kink in the back, the first thing you do is to go to a clinic or to a doctor to find out what's the matter with you.

And then the trouble begins. Then you've gone into the devil's territory and the devil has the leverage. And don't blame him if he makes things worse.

He will. Glory to God. Be renewed by the renewing of your mind.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Our thoughts are unrighteous. Our thoughts are the handles by which the devil handles us.

But oh to have the thoughts of Christ. Let this mind be in you. And what does that mean? It means that Christ works my thoughts in me.

He thinks for me. We don't give him enough time. We don't present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God.

I ought to accept his sacrifice for me and become a sacrifice for him. He died for all for one purpose, that he might possess us all together. Thank God.

None of us live unto himself. No man dies to himself. Jesus Christ has made me his charge, makes me his responsibility.

Thank God. He is my salvation. My salvation doesn't consist in my doing it myself, but God himself giving himself to me in the person of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost.

God the Lord is my light and my salvation. I fear no evil. Thank God for thou art with me.

Beloved these things are in the Bible, but unless we forsake our own thoughts, unless we are transformed by the renewing of our mind and the Bible would do that. Jesus Christ would take that two-edged sword and make it a discerner of the thoughts and of the intents of our hearts. And we don't allow him to do that.

We don't forsake our own thoughts. We build them up like the children build up their toy. I tell you we do.

I tell you we need this Bible. I tell you folks, we need Jesus Christ and we need him himself. He says you're wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked with all your propaganda unless you have me and the question in every meeting and in every season of prayer is, do you want me? Do you want me? When you pray, shut the door.

Your father's there. Your father is waiting for his child. Don't pray like the scribes and pharisees.

Go to your father. He is waiting for you. Jesus Christ authorizes me to go to God and to possess him as my reward.

Oh my Lord and my God, what an ocean of salvation surrounds me. It is true. We are not yet saved until our vile bodies are transformed.

But he's working moment by moment. If I let him, if I cease from my own words, I enter into rest. I enter into rest because the word of God opens the door for me.

And here the apostle Paul says, one thing I do. Listen, do as I do. Do as I do.

The crying my soul has been now for a long, long time. Oh God, make us hungry for Jesus Christ. Take away every other desire from us.

Every other pursuit and make our hearts to be so hungry to know Jesus Christ. All my occupation ought to be that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. And it isn't done only by praying.

I've known people that would walk up and down like a tiger in his cage and say, oh, that I might know him, that I might know him, but I'm telling you, that isn't the way to do it. Count things for refuse that are in your way. Forsake the things of earth.

Forsake yourself. Forget yourself. Open your heart to the glory of the present indwelling son of God.

This almighty power that raised him from the dead is waiting for a chance to raise you from the dead. To lift you into heavenly places and to keep you there. God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's his desire. It's his proposition that I should have him for my salvation and that I should live together with him. And as brother Ernest said a while ago, how is it that we still cling to things of self? Paul said refuse.

He's not talking about his cigarette smoking and his longing for circuses. Some of our people go to the circus. Listen, you're a circus yourself.

Just take yourself in front of a mirror and take a good look at yourself. You're a Barnum and Bailey in person. No, that isn't what God's talking about.

That's not what Paul's talking about. He's talking about his doctor title. He's talking about his own righteousness.

The thing we hang on to. How we hang on to it. How we hang on to it.

And even when we seek the Lord, we seek some righteousness that we can cloak ourselves with. We don't know how deceitful our hearts are until we fall in love with Jesus. Until we realize that he alone is our righteousness.

Cain had something to offer to God, but God did not accept his sacrifice. But when Abel offered a slain lamb, that blood, that bleeding animal, God counted into him for righteousness. And when you and I, when you and I love the cross so much that we want to be crucified with Christ, it'll happen.

That's his power. That's what he means when he says thou has given him power over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. What kind of a power is it? The power to die on the cross.

The power to lay down his life and to pick it up again. God gave him power to take my sin and to take my earthly life and put it out of the way. And then to be my resurrection life.

Hallelujah. Oh Jesus is wonderful. Jesus is so wonderful.

And the Holy Ghost has come down from heaven for one purpose. To make Jesus Christ lovable to you. To make him desirable until you count everything else but refuse.

Talk about forsaking the things of earth and denying self. Why it'll be your your joy, your desire. You'll count it all but refuse.

I don't blame Paul for saying, oh that I might know him. That I might know him I count everything but refuse. That I might know him I forget the things that are behind.

That I might know him I press forth to mark. One thing I do. Just one thing.

It's been that one thing that I've been trying to do now for 40 years or more. And it's paid off wonderfully. And I certainly cannot claim perfection.

Oh my God and my Lord I've got much to be ashamed of. But much to boast of when I boast of my Lord. And when I boast of his grace.

And I boast of the fact that he makes himself to be my life. My life, my salvation, my righteousness, my holiness, my all and in all. When he laid down his life he laid it down that he might pick it up in me.

His holiness, his righteousness, his sweetness, his redemption. And all that is in this wonderful epistle. Packed into this marvelous epistle.

Just go through this chapter once more. Finally brethren rejoice in the Lord. Sometimes when I look over the meeting and I see the sour faces and the careless faces.

The careless. The I know you don't rejoice in the Lord. I know you don't live in the Lord.

That's what's the matter with us. If you lived in the Lord we wouldn't need that sign out there has never been lit up again because it's no good at all. Please before speaking to anyone talk to God upon your knees.

You wouldn't have to be admonished to do that. You wouldn't come to meeting and look around as if you were in a zoo. You'd come and you bring God with you.

You'd bring the power of God with you. We are called to live together with him. What a call.

We're called to be married to him who is risen from the dead. That we might bring forth truth unto God. But we're too slow.

Jesus isn't slow. He has power to begin this good work in us. Oh God did you begin.

Everywhere the testimony is how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and the true God. And here in our work, in our Pentecostal assemblies, we're constantly running around in a circle. When I came from Germany I was co-pilot to the chief pilot of the Lufthansa.

I was strapped in his co-pilot seat. But I couldn't land that plane because we were in a fog and there were about a dozen planes waiting to be to be landed before we. And so we had to circle and circle and circle and circle and circle until our gas was almost gone.

We heard another pilot from another airline uh radioing, please let me land. I haven't got enough gas. If you don't I'll have to run over to Philadelphia.

And here we've been circling and circling and our oil is going is lacking. And what are you going to do? Oh beloved if Jesus Christ is your pilot he'll take you right through on a beeline. Glory to God he'll take you to that landing strip perfectly.

And he'll land you in time and he'll land you in the new Jerusalem. One thing I do I press toward the mark. That mark must be before me if ye are grounded and settled in love and in faith and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven.

That means the communists and that means the Nazis and that means the Democrats and that means you and me. The opportunity is there. The call is there to be crucified with Christ and there's positively no other way.

Jesus I need you. I need the power of your resurrection and I need you now and everything else will mislead me and misdirect me. But oh what a call.

Rejoice in the Lord we are the circumcision to God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus the apostle Peter says whom having not seen ye love in whom though now you see him not yet rejoicing. Ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. I've been to meetings Pentecostal meetings unfortunately we don't see much of that.

Where people were so drunk that the preacher couldn't preach. They were so drunk with the love of Jesus Christ. We don't see much of that anymore.

We become churchy. We don't know that we're dying. This is multiple sclerosis.

I don't know what that is but that's what it is. Your limbs begin dying. Your big toe starts and then your limbs begin dying slowly until it reaches your heart.

That's what happens to us spiritually beloved. Unless we live in the bible, unless our conversation is in heaven, that's where we belong. Whether you're in the kitchen or whether you're in the pulpit or whether you're on the street or whether you're in the ten cent store.

No matter where you are you're called to live together with him. Oh to have my mind stayed on Jesus Christ all the time. To pray without ceasing.

To rejoice evermore. Oh to make him my portion. That's my privilege.

But it costs something. Beloved we don't make the beginning. I've been in that wonderful faith home in Zion where God Almighty came and stood in the midst.

Elder Brooks said to me one day, I never believed that God could manifest himself like that. And on that Sunday morning God gave a message that came directly from the heart of the Father. And it came directly to one young person in that place that had a wonderful call.

I have a type of written message which was given to that person. Where Jesus Christ says, listen, calling her by name was a woman. I will live out my own life within you if you will let me.

And then an old scalawag came along and made love to her. A man that had already buried three wives and wasn't satisfied. He wanted to marry her and he married her.

Buried her one year later. She fell in love with him and heaven or hell couldn't change that girl's mind. Talk about the weakness of a woman.

Talk about the weaker sex. All hell couldn't do anything. And all heaven couldn't do anything.

That's how hard, how deceitful our hearts are. But we don't believe it. We don't believe that we need the cross.

We don't believe that there's no cure but the bleeding cross of the Son of God. No cure. Oh my God, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.

That I might be made conformable unto his death if by any means I might attain to the resurrection from the dead. Beloved, this is a big call. A greater call than any angel in heaven has ever had.

And it comes to you and to me. And it comes from Jesus Christ who suffered and who gave himself an offering and a sweet swelling savor to God for you and for me. And he stands before the door of my heart every day and he says, do you want me? Do you want me? Never mind your boastfulness.

Never mind the things that you're proud of. Count them but refuse. Here am I. Here am I. I will come in.

I'll sup with you. Oh Jesus, come in. What does that mean? I was telling last night in Yorkville how a man here in York in the morning at breakfast table said, dear Jesus, bless this food.

Come, Herr Jesus, I unser Gast und Segne wast unds Bescher und hast ausgenaden. Come and stay with us all day. And presently when he opened his eyes, Jesus stood there.

He was shocked for a moment. But then he smiled and said, by Jesus, why this is a pleasant surprise. Why this is wonderful, Lord.

And his wife and children greeted the Lord and they gathered around him and they were so glad that Jesus had honored them with a visible manifestation of his presence. But he looked at the watch nervously and finally he got up and he apologized to Jesus. I'm sorry, dear Lord, but I have a very special business engagement to fill today.

And so I'll have to ask you now to allow me to go. I'm sorry. I wish that I didn't have to go to the office today.

Well, Jesus went and got his coat and hat and he says, why, you asked me to stay with you all day. I'm coming with you. Oh, he began to be jittery about that.

What? Well, but he couldn't stop him because he had prayed the Lord should come with him. And so out they went out of the house and the man felt weak in the knees because the first thing that happened when he came to the subway station was a kid coming along with the paper. Hey there, Mr. Smith.

Hey, Mr. Smith, here you can't miss Barney Google and Spark Plug today. Very, very funny today. He got red in the face.

He said, I don't want the paper today. The kid said, what? What in the world has happened? But they went down into the subway and they sat down. They both had seats, it was kind of crowded.

And across the aisle there was a young lady and she says, hi, they're pretty. She knew him. Again, he got red in the face.

And then the crooked business deals and Jesus was there all day long and watched everything and understood everything. And oh, what a day. My, he never wanted to live a day like that again in all his life.

My Lord and my God, how about yourself? We're called to live together with him. Not only that, but oh, to have him for my life. The question is, do I want him to be my life? Oh, transform by the renewing of your mind.

He says, let every one of you consider everyone else better than himself. My, what a church we're going to be. What a church.

There won't be any lack for laborers, for Sunday school teachers. No, there won't be any lack anywhere. Everyone will be thinking of somebody else and everybody will strive to please the other for his edification.

And everyone will be sure to be so filled with the Holy Ghost that when he comes to meeting, rivers of living water will flow from him. The preacher won't have to beg for testimonies. He'll have to put on the brakes.

Just think what what will happen when we live like the Bible says. Just think what will happen when really Jesus Christ has begun a good work in us, is also permitted to work in us to will and to do. Not only to will, but to do.

God, do it in me. My Lord and my God, we read these things in the Bible, but we have not yet become living epistles of Christ, rested not within, but with the spirit of the living God. And it'll never happen until we fall in love with Jesus, until we want him so badly that he who has gripped us, Paul says, he has apprehended me.

Now that's the question. Has he apprehended you? Has he made a proposal of marriage to you? Has he said to you, do you want to be mine? Did he do that? He did that to Paul. Oh yes, he came and he shone round about him with a above the brightness of the sun.

And Paul understood. He said, Lord, I will be thine. I will be thine.

What do you want me to do? And from that moment forth, he was crucified with Christ. It was settled. It was absolutely settled.

And here he says, not that as if I had already attained this thing. This thing ain't finished yet. It's very, very, very wonderful, but it ain't finished yet.

We're still pressing toward the mark. We're not going to be finished. Don't you think you're perfect? Do like I do.

Be followers of me. Walk like I walk. And what does he mean? Philippians 4, 7. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true.

Oh, now Jesus is becoming pretty personal. Pretty personal. Glory to God.

Not only in the kitchen to watch how I wash my dishes, whether I spit on them or whether I really wash them. But my thoughts. Whatsoever things are true.

Oh, wait a minute. Gold tried in the fire. Relates to my thoughts.

Whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely.

Whatsoever things are of good report. If there be any virtue. If there be any praise.

Think on these things. What things, Paul? The things which you have learned and seen and heard and received in me. Oh, what a preacher.

What a pastor. Oh, God, raise up pastors like that. Raise up ministers like that.

By the thousands. Oh, my God. Look into the church history and see where do revivals come from? Invariably from men that discovered Jesus Christ himself.

Spoke about George Fox. Talk about John Wesley. Saint John of the Cross.

And in these later days, A.B. Simpson. What a revival has spread over the world through him. Bosworth.

What a revival has come. Mrs. McPherson. What revival.

They discovered Jesus and the power of his resurrection. Dr. Dowie and while some of them failed utterly because the devil didn't like it. And yet revivals have come from men and women who discovered Jesus Christ anew.

Paul discovered him. And the revival through Paul is still going on. There isn't a church in the world that doesn't draw life from the fountain that broke open when the apostle Paul found Jesus Christ.

And he said, I made up my mind not to know anything among you. Nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

And my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man's wisdom. Well, didn't Paul know Greek? Sure. He could say Samos, Samirus, and Samatos.

Glory to God. A woman came to me in Germany when I had quoted, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? She says, you don't know what you're talking about. That, that was a Greek sentence and it, it meant something entirely different.

I said, woman, that wasn't Greek at all. That was Hebrew. That was a quotation from the 22nd Psalm.

But the Bible says they lie in wait to deceive with cunning craft. And Paul said, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. Hallelujah.

But words which the Holy Ghost teaches. Oh, those words that cut like a two-edged sword. We need it.

I need it. I need that x-ray of heaven every day. I need more of it.

I want it. I thank God because he doesn't leave me in this slough and in this deep pit, this horrible pit. What is David talking about? Why his self-life? He discovered in the depth of his soul, the lust of the flesh still operating until he fell.

And then he cried, oh God, deliver me. Deliver me, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Beloved, God saw my need and that's why he provided Jesus Christ for me.

Jesus Christ himself. Hallelujah. And when he becomes your own, you don't talk about anything else anymore.

You don't know anything. I made up my mind not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Beloved, that's been the light that's been shining in this work for 40 years now, almost 40 years.

And it is still working. And it's still working wonders. Thank God.

Oh, let your soul be lit up with that light that lit up the Apostle Paul when he had a vision of Jesus Christ himself. And he sold out spirit, soul and body. He says we have been crucified to the world and the flesh and the devil, that we might be married to him that is risen from the dead.

Jesus, do I want you? Heavens, yes.