A Bridal Relationship - Part 4

Imagine what a lot of problems will be solved in your life if you decide that you just want the Lord's presence with you wherever you go. You go to these difficult government offices, and the Lord is with you. You drive down the road, and the Lord is with you.

And wherever you go, you go to a home, and the Lord is with you. All the time. David says, that's all I'm seeking, Lord, I want to be with you all the time.

Paul was in prison, the Lord was with him. It says about Joseph, when he was in prison, the Lord was with him. When he was in the palace, the Lord was with him.

It didn't make a difference where Joseph went. If Joseph moved to the palace, the Lord was there. If Joseph moved to the jail, the Lord was there.

And then he moved again to some palace, the Lord was there. The Lord was with Joseph, because that's what he wanted. And I believe Joseph had that type of longing from the time he was 17 years old.

Imagine he had dreams about God when he was 17 years old. What are most 17-year-old young men dreaming about nowadays? Usually something filthy. But Joseph had dreams of God at the age of 17, which means that there was something within deep within his heart as a 17-year-old boy that longed after God.

Though he was not in the new covenant, he had that bridal spirit. And that's what I want to encourage you. The bridal spirit that responds to the bridegroom seeking after us.

As I've encouraged you many times, read the Song of Solomon as a picture of Christ and you. I really love that. It's the first book in the Bible that I studied.

I didn't know which of the 66 books I had to study. I was baptized in 1961, January, and I didn't take the Bible. I used to read my Bible regularly for a year and a half before that when I was born again.

But it's only after the baptism that I really took Bible study seriously. And I was in a ship out at sea. Probably see a believer once in a month or something.

And I was the only believer on that ship. And God knew what he had in mind for me 40 years later. I didn't know him.

And he, in some wonderful way, ensured that in that cabin that I lived in on my ship, I had the Bible and one thin little commentary on the Song of Solomon. That's all I had. So it's not because of some divine leading that I went to Song of Solomon.

I had nothing else to study. That was the only book I had. I didn't know how to study the Bible.

But I had this book. And so I said, OK, this is the only, I can't understand all the other books in the Bible. So let me study Song of Solomon.

And boy, if you look at my first Bible, I still have it with me. All types of notes I wrote on that Song of Solomon. I think it's the most thickly written pages of my Old Testament in there.

And I saw there that right from that time, 46 years ago, the Lord was drawing me into a bridal relationship with him and teaching me to live only for his honor, only to seek his favor, and only to be with him wherever he goes. And not to think of ministry. There's a little bit of ministry mentioned in Song of Solomon.

The bride says, let's go to the vineyards and see how they are. But it's always, let us, not let me go and check up something. No, no, no.

Let's both go together to the fields and to the vineyards and let's see how it is. Whom do you seek? What do you seek? Do you come to a church just to get a good message? Or do you come to this church because you say, Lord, I want to meet with you. I want the word of the Lord to bring me in touch with you.

I have always felt, you know, many, many, many groups have sought to have a New Testament church. The Brethren, the Brethren Assemblies, they, from the beginning when they started 150 years ago, they said we want a New Testament pattern. The Pentecostals, I mean, these are two groups particularly that really sought for a New Testament pattern.

And the Brethren have some of it and the Pentecostals have some of it. And when I was converted, God took me to the Brethren. And, see, their understanding of pattern was that the meeting must be like this.

You sing and somebody shares a word and you sing something and somebody prays and informal. They call that the leading of the Spirit. The dead is anything.

It can't be the leading of the Holy Spirit. Have you heard people say like this in a public meeting? I've heard it many times. Those who are led by the Spirit, please lead in prayer.

I never pray whenever I hear that. I mean, if they had said if anybody wants to pray, they'll pray, then I'll pray. But when they use this spiritual language, those who are led by the Spirit, pray.

It's all super spiritual self-deception. Jesus never said anything like that. And so, you know, there was this understanding that if it was all informal, it was the Holy Spirit.

It wasn't. It was dead as anything. And so the Pentecostals reacted against that and said, this is all dead.

We don't want this. You know, the early Pentecostals in India were Brethren people initially. And they, I think they had a genuine experience with the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the beginning, but then they got taken up with emotion.

That was intellect and this was emotion. Both were not Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is not in our mind, it's not in our emotion.

He's deeper than that in our spirit. Deep calls unto deep. And the deep is something far deeper than mind and emotion.

That's what makes our life solid. You know when Jesus said, the wise man and the foolish man both hear my words, but the wise man digs deep. It says in Luke chapter 6, that is the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6, it says 47 or 48, it goes deep.

He goes through the sand till he hits rock. Whereas the foolish man just doesn't dig so deep, he just lays it on the sand. What is the sand? The sand is this intellectual understanding of truths or emotional excitement about truths.

That's all sand. Intellect and emotion, it's all sand. You go deeper than that till God's Holy Spirit touches your spirit, where your will is yielded.

Then you hit rock. And that's what's got to be blasted. You know, if you build a foundation on sand, you don't need any dynamite to blast anything.

You just dig in and a spade will do. But when you hit rock, a spade is not enough. You've got to blast it.

And what's got to be blasted is our will, our seeking our own interests, our seeking eagerly for the things that the Gentiles eagerly seek for, our own will. It's got to be blasted and broken. Then the Holy Spirit comes in.

But in 1 Corinthians 14, you know, I also was seeking from those days the New Testament church. And I found the answer here in 1 Corinthians 14. To me, after 48 years of studying the Bible, let me give you in one verse what is the mark of a New Testament church.

New Testament church meeting. I'm talking about a meeting now. It says here in verse 24, it's not all speaking in tongues.

And that's in verse 23. It says the whole church assembles together and everybody speaks in tongues. You know which group that is.

And people come in. They'll say, you're mad. That's right.

But here's another church where the Word of God comes forth prophetically and a person, an unbeliever comes in or an ungifted man. Ungifted man means a man who doesn't believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He comes in there and he's convicted.

Word of God is like a hammer. Word of God is like a fire that burns him. And his secret, you know, the secret selfishness and the secret pride and the secret jealousy and the secret worldliness all gets exposed in the meetings of the church.

I mean, he came to the church and suddenly he finds and hears the word, the secret sins and the wrong attitudes and the love of the world and all that gets exposed and he falls on his face and says, boy, God is certainly here. God is certainly, verse 25, God is certainly among you, is the mark of the New Testament church.