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Part
18 OUR
DAILY BREAD (continued)
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...Give us this day our daily bread” (Mat.
There are strange circumstances surrounding this word “daily.”
What is “daily bread”? The Greek word translated “daily” is a
coined word. It is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. It is not
found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is not found in
Greek literature, either in the works of classical writers or in the
common speech of the uneducated. Scholars suggest various shades of
meaning for the word. The four primary ones are: (1) daily bread (2)
necessary bread (3) dependable bread (4) bread for the morrow. While
different scholars give different theories or evidence for their
particular interpretation of the term, the fact is, there is merit in them
all! As we meditate upon these significant words of our Lord it will, I
believe, become clear that each of these meanings is in one way or another
contained within the idea of “daily bread”. Whether it means “daily
bread” or “necessary bread”, or “dependable bread” or
“tomorrow’s bread”, the fundamental principle is the same —
everything comes from Father’s gracious hand as needed and we receive it
humbly and thankfully out of a heart of absolute trust! YESTERDAY’S MANNA
When Moses was leading the children of
As in the natural, so in the spiritual. The supply of yesterday
will not do for today, anymore than yesterday’s dinner will suffice us
for today’s work. You cannot live on yesterday’s revelation, for it
was strength only for that day. You cannot live on the memory of past
spiritual experiences. You cannot live on the lingering aroma of blessed
fellowship you had with the Lord in days gone by. You cannot live on the
recollection of mercies and miracles received in previous moves of God.
For every day you need fresh grace and a new dimension of glory. The manna
of old only held good for one day. It had to be gathered fresh every
morning. The manna of one day grew corrupt and worthless before the next.
And we wonder why the glory of yesterday’s visitation has faded! We are
disturbed because the move of God of yesterday has been polluted in the
hands of men! Yesterday’s visitation of the Spirit is a stench in our
nostrils today. The glory has departed. The memory is sweet, but the body
is dead, lifeless, empty, a cesspool of corruption. All the great moves of
God of bygone generations are become the swaggering harlot. All the
filthiness of the Babylonian church system is but the worm-ridden manna
given by God for another time.
Well did brother Carl Schwing write: “Allow me to write freely
and I would speak gently and lovingly...my brethren, if your soul still
feeds upon the ‘wilderness manna’...finding nourishment in the past
message...you fall short of your calling and cannot see afar off. You are
pressing backward rather than pressing on...and you are still following
man rather than the Lamb. All that we hope for, hunger for, and moan for
is found in sonship, and sonship comes forth from the Father...sonship is
the very image of the Father...and who but He has the words of life? I do
not write of tomorrow or someday...I write of today...for it is today that
the Father walks among us...sonship is part of God’s Now...we are being
born by Him, from Him and for Him...this marvelous delivery is in the
process. He is offering us ‘eternal life’...alas, some shall be
offended...others will turn and walk no more...but there are the
‘faithful few’ who will know that He alone speaks life-giving
words.”
Jesus came into the world in the time of the
And what glorious days those were! How God blessed His people!
Mighty signs and wonders were performed as God confirmed His Word with
signs following. The Word of God, anointed by the Holy Spirit, swept the
world like a prairie fire. It encircled the mountains and crossed the
oceans. It made kings to tremble and tyrants to fear. It was said of those
early Christians that they had turned the world upside down! — so
powerful was their message and spirit. In spite of persecution, in spite
of untold thousands of saints impaled upon crosses, burnt at the stake,
and fed to hungry lions to the thunderous applause of wild spectators, it
grew and multiplied, for God dwelt mightily in the midst of His people.
The knowledge of the glory of the Lord covered the earth as the waters
cover the sea. Paganism fell. The mighty
But there was another spirit at work too. A spirit and system set
in among the saints of the Lord and the manna of yesterday began to breed
worms and stink. Refusing to follow on to know the Lord they began
instituting rules and regulations, laying down laws, formulating creeds,
observing days, ordaining sacraments and ordinances, elevating human
government, becoming disciples of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and many
others. Before too many years had passed men began to set themselves up as
“bishops” and “lords” over God’s heritage in place of the
leadership of the Spirit. Instead of conquering by the power of the Spirit
and Truth, men began to substitute their ideas and their methods. Soon the
glory and power, the presence and word of God in the morning time Church
began to be eclipsed, and the power of carnal-minded men gradually took
the place of the awesome presence of God. Consequently man’s carnal
understanding was put upon the scriptures and as the Spirit of Christ fled
from their midst, men established a vast and elaborate system of
substitutes (worms) to take their place. The festivals of the Church were
created, along the lines of pagan celebrations. Costly and ornate edifices
were constructed for worship. The services became ceremonialized and
elaborate. Relics of saints and martyrs were cherished as sacred
possessions. The Church, with its array of gaudily bedecked clergy and of
imposing ceremonies, assumed much of the stateliness and visible splendor
that belonged to the HEATHEN SYSTEM that it had supplanted. Christianity
was now a pageant, a ritualism, a vain philosophy, a superstition, a
social club, indeed, an antichrist, a pot full of manna infested with the
worms of carnality and death, a putrefying stench in the nostrils of God!
The great moves of God in our own generation fared no better.
Already (in such a short time!) they have become an abomination. They have
been taken over by the flesh and it pains me to say it, but one and all
have settled into stagnation and death. None has pressed on to GO ALL THE
WAY WITH GOD. Oh, they still go through the motions of yesterday’s
visitation, but the so-called gifts of the Spirit they tout are a pitiful
sham. People are “slain in the Spirit” through psychological
inducement and mass hypnosis, and sometimes even pushed. Worship has
become soulish and mechanical, people having “learned” to sing the
song of the Lord after the song has ended. The prophesyings bear the
distinctive sound of a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Numerous groups
have been brought under the domination of false apostles, while others
have fallen victim to a sectarian spirit — “We, and we alone, are the
body of Christ; we are the sons of God; we are the manchild company; we
are the kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek; our movement is
the select of the elect that will bring in the Kingdom and rule the
nations with a rod of iron.” There was a great move of the Spirit
beginning in 1948 called “Latter Rain”. Its days were like heaven on
earth, its glory unspeakable, its power earth-shattering. Within a few
years the rain ended, yet to this day there are people out there still
“dancing in the rain,” not having noticed that the clouds have
dispersed, the sun is burning, and the rain is over. They go through the
motions, but there is death and emptiness in the midst — the worms are
obvious to all who can see by the Spirit.
I do not hesitate to tell you that one and all are pots of
putrefying manna left over from yesterday’s outpouring. You see, my
beloved, every day you need a new gift of grace, a deeper dealing of God,
a fresh word from the throne, a further revelation of the Spirit, a
greater dimension of Life. The manna is only good for one day — for one
step in your forward journey into God. You must get it fresh every day!
This is the prayer for you and me, for all who treasure the beautiful hope
of sonship — “Give us this day our daily bread.” GIVE! Yes, this is
a gift. You cannot buy the bread of life. Its price has never been quoted
in the markets. No money can purchase reality. God never sells. God is a
King, He gives. Buy? No, you cannot buy. You may buy books and sermons and
papers and tapes from preachers who haven’t learned the ways of the
Kingdom. You may even buy a “prophecy” or a “blessing” from the
false prophets who peddle them in return for your offering. But you cannot
buy the Word of Life!
Can you buy pardon? Can you buy peace? Can you buy righteousness?
Can you buy sonship? Can you buy the mind of Christ? Can you buy the image
of God? Can you buy the Kingdom? No, you cannot buy; but what you cannot
buy God will give. Listen, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give
you the Kingdom.” Listen again, “Everyone that thirsteth, let him come
and take of the water of life freely.” Listen yet again, “The gift of
God is eternal life.” Giving! This is royal giving. There is in the
Father’s house enough and to spare. He is only waiting to hear you say,
“Evermore give us this bread.” TOMORROW’S BREAD
One of the alternate renderings of the Greek word EPIOUSION is
“bread for the morrow” or “tomorrow’s bread”. The inference is
that we should ask for tomorrow’s bread today. This principle does not
involve asking for a fortune, or for accumulated wealth. We are not asking
God to let us corner the food market. And what is the bread of tomorrow?
It is THE LIFE OF THE AGE TO COME. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that
already we have “tasted of the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:4).
Even in this present life we are to seek “the life of the ages,” as
the Greek expresses it. The work and power and glory of the ages to come
may not be evident in the lives of ordinary believers, but the sons of God
are to ask for that life NOW, for that is the life that will carry us over
the grave into the age and the ages to come. We can have a clear
revelation and understanding of God’s purpose of the ages that will lift
us out of the natural realm and above the time-worn traditions of the
church systems, birthing within our hearts the larger vision of God’s
great and glorious plan. Out of God’s wonderful tomorrow comes the
manifestation of life in our today! Our daily bread, then, should exceed
the portion of past generations. There is no excuse for us to be in a
spiritual famine — for abundance of bread is ours for the taking. The
feast is prepared, the table is spread, and the call has come from the
Spirit, “Come and dine!”
Jesus was telling the disciples that what this present arrangement
has for today is not sufficient for God’s chosen ones. The elect of God
must have their food and their life and their activity from THE AGE TO
COME. For two thousand years we have had the bread of this age, the gospel
that has been preached in the church realm. Multitudes have been saved,
changed, blessed, cleansed, baptized, endowed with gifts, healed, and used
of God. Yet, the world is more wicked, violent and godless today than in
any previous generation! Though men have received blessings and healings
and miracles galore, they have continued to live carnally, they still get
sick, they are unceasingly beset by problems and troubles, pain and
heartaches, they keep on aging and finally go to the grave. This explains
why, after two millenniums of our “daily bread,” all creation is still
groaning and travailing in pain together with earnest expectation, waiting
for the MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD. Only the manifestation of
God’s sons will finally deliver the creation from the bondage that
brings corruption and death, delivering mankind into the glorious liberty
that belongs to the sons of God (Rom. 8:19-22).
The gospel preached by the nominal church will never get the job
done, it will never bring the
Because the average Christian today has been brought up with a
center other than Christ he is totally unable to think except in terms of
established orders, sects, denominations, credentials, creeds, assemblies,
church buildings, doctrines, meetings, communions, baptisms, programs,
campaigns, crusades, choirs, pastors, rituals, ceremonies, vestments,
offerings, drives, conferences, board meetings, committees, elections,
Sunday Schools, theological seminaries, fellowship halls, stained glass
windows, platforms, special numbers and a thousand other items. Take all
these things away from them and they would be spiritually destitute,
totally incapable of “doing the work of the Lord.” But after they have
spent a whole lifetime of this feverish church activity, how many people
are there who have ever taken time to wait on God long enough to
In order to minister “tomorrow’s bread” to the apprehended of
God, we must go beyond this world, and this age, and the present
arrangement, and draw living words from the age to come. We are even now
tasting of the powers of the age to come. It is out of that age that we
draw the firstfruits of the Spirit which we have received. Christ is
indeed complete and perfect; yet we have known Christ in a limited
measure. So far as the Lord Himself is concerned, He is not limited at
all, but as far as our experience of Him is concerned, there is
limitation. Christ is no less today than He will be in that glorious age
of the ages when the Kingdom is delivered up to the Father and God is
All-in-all, but our present measure of Him is less than All-in-all. But
the measure we have is out of His fullness — the fullness reserved for a
future time. I hate to say it friends, but none of us is FULL GOSPEL —
yet!
From the time we first experienced Christ, we have always been
progressing and advancing; we have continually made progress in our
experience of Christ and received of Him more and more. This does not mean
that Christ has become greater and greater. No, Christ is the same
yesterday, today, and for the ages, He changes not! But as we grow in our
appropriation of Him He becomes greater and greater TO US, IN US, AND
THROUGH US. There is a realm, blessed realm! where Christ is known as the
inexhaustible and immeasurable, where all fullness dwells.
Oh, what a grand and glorious realm lies before us in the fullness
of God! The day of the full fruit of the Spirit! The day of Perfection!
The time of full and complete Redemption — spirit, soul, and body! The
full and complete experiencing of HIMSELF! The fullness of Strength and
Power and Glory! The Feast of Feasts! The strange part of the whole thing
is this, that the whole purpose and plan of God for this day and hour is
completely obscured and lost amidst the shout and euphoria over the “firstfruits,”
and most of the Pentecostals and Charismatics do not know what it is all
about. They can see the healings, deliverances, miracles, prophecies,
worship...and so forth; and they understand not that it is God in His
great mercy inviting His people to enter on in to their full inheritance.
They do not realize that all this is but the foretaste and earnest of
their heritage, and that God bids them arise and come away with Him to the
Great Feast that lies before! How deeply we are exercised to pray, “Our
Father...give us tomorrow’s bread TODAY!” Blessed are they that are
called to this great Feast, that which supersedes Pentecost, that which is
the BALANCE OF THE MEAL of which Passover and Pentecost were merely the
first courses! And the balance must therefore come, the remainder of the
meal that will enable the sons of God to deliver creation from the tyranny
of corruption and death. But only those will enter in to lay hold upon the
prize who are moved mightily by the Spirit of God to earnestly and
sincerely pray, “Give us tomorrow’s bread TODAY!”
There are three levels at which this prayer may be understood and
experienced. The completely natural-minded believer can get the lesson
from the prayer Jesus taught that he is just to ask for those outward,
physical blessings that he needs today. The vast majority of Christians
live out their lives in this realm. Childishness in prayer is chiefly
evidenced in an over desire or a desire only to beg things from God rather
than desiring above all else the LORD HIMSELF. The same growth must take
place in the life of every son and daughter of God that occurs in a normal
relationship between a child and his parents. At first the child wants the
parents’ gifts, and thinks of the parents primarily in terms of the
things that they do and provide for his pleasure and comfort. He is not
able yet to appreciate the parents’ personalities. A sure sign of a
wholesome maturity is found in the child’s deepening understanding of
the parents themselves — his increasing delight in their fellowship,
thankfulness for their care, acceptance of their ideals, reliance on their
counsel, and joy in their approval. The child grows from desiring things
from his parents into love of his parents for their own sakes. He is then
able to enter into a partnership with them in their business with all the
respect and responsibility called for.
The man with a little more spiritual perception can get the lesson
from the prayer Jesus taught that he is to ask God for His living bread,
His living word. This man discovers the value of spiritual life above and
beyond material blessing. He sets his affection on things above, not on
things on the earth; he seeks God Himself, not the things of God.
Those who have been apprehended of God for His purposes in this
hour now see an even greater truth. In this glorious transition from realm
to realm we hear a Voice saying, “Come up hither! and I will show you
the things that follow all this.” Here in the son realm we realize that
we must have the LIFE OF THE COMING AGE if we are to lay hold upon the
fullness of our sonship and the power of the
We have heard many so-called Gospels. The world is full of poor
deluded souls who are trying to establish their own particular creed of
imaginings and mistakes. We try to go to the world, we try to tell them
the message, by using all the world’s own methods, to advertise, to
appeal to their emotions, to entertain them with music, to put on a good
show. It only proves our impotence, that we have not left the world very
far behind if we can return and employ the world’s ways so easily.
Today, everyone with a little bit of preacher’s “itch” is attempting
to get themselves a little congregation, a little following, to build a
little kingdom. These all imagine that somehow they are going to go out
and storm the world and “take the world” for Christ. But a new day has
dawned, a day when the pure and powerful Gospel of the Kingdom must go
forth to the whole world. Religionists have tried in vain to lift the
world out of its shame by their ambitious programs and preaching their own
ideas and the doctrines of the antichrist. It simply would not work. The
world has grown steadily worse. Their lofty phrases, and text-book
prayers, and apologetic platitudes, and time-honored traditions, and
soulish manipulations have utterly failed. Now a new company is to go
forth with a burning message of truth direct from the throne, and in the
fullness of power reserved for this day.
The anointing of the sons of God shall be an anointing WITHOUT
MEASURE, and the message of these sons shall be a message stripped of all
the ineffectual absurdities that have been preached throughout the years.
Religionists have side-stepped, and mollycoddled, and back-slapped too
long. Their day is done. The sun is sinking in the western sky of this age
of the “in part” realm. A new day is dawning for those who have been
quickened from above. A new army is being prepared for this new day, an
army of the sons of God perfected in His image, filled with the precious
mind that was in Christ Jesus, radiating the effulgence of His glory,
demonstrating the omnipotence of His power and the invincibility of His
life. And there shall be an exultant victory! For now the day is dawning
when “ALL nations shall come and worship before Thee” (Rev. 15:4).
“And...all nations...shall even go up from year to year to worship the
King, the Lord of hosts, and to KEEP THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES” (Zech.
I believe I speak the truth when I say that many of us have reached
the point of no return — there is nothing to go back to, not in the
flesh, not in the world, not in the church systems; there is nothing out
of which we have been drawn by the Spirit of God to which we would return;
it is all so empty, so meaningless, lifeless, worthless. Now we must
FOLLOW ON TO K
We do not desire the throne for what we can get out of it, for our
own fame and fortune, but for the infinite potential it holds for blessing
and restoring creation. Today the world is full of broken hearts, the
hospitals are crowded, the cemeteries are being filled, even nature itself
is groaning. You go down to the seaside and you can hear the sob of the
waves, you go to the mountains and you can hear the low sigh of the wind
in the tree tops, you walk through the forest and you can hear the
anguished shrieks of the animal kingdom. Creation is groaning, waiting for
the manifestation of the sons of God.
It is not more preachers we need. It is not more radio broadcasts
or television programs. It is not more missions and missionaries. It is
not more tracts or even Bibles. It is not more programs and crusades. It
is not another revival. All we need is the cry of the groaning creation
and the prayer of the travailing saint to be joined with the unutterable
longings of the Holy Spirit, all crying in unison and harmony for the
manifestation of the sons of God. There is an elect people who, even as I
pen these words, are being made participators in this grandest of all
dramas of history. Their prayer, praise God, is soon to be answered! The
long-awaited revelation is at hand. The glorious Lord is soon to be
revealed from heaven in flaming fire to be exhibited in great glory and
power and admired IN HIS
Ah, my brother, my sister, do not sell creation short! Do not
settle for less than God’s best. Our prayer is, “Give us this day our
daily bread!” This day requires tomorrow’s bread TODAY! All creation
is standing on tiptoe, waiting and counting on you. If you love Israel; if
you love the peoples and kindreds of the earth who know nothing of the
Saviour; if you love the sad, the tormented, the sick and dying; if you
love the multitudes held captive in the blindness and stupidity of
religious systems; if you love the burdened brute creation; if you love
the mountains, the trees, the rivers and the oceans so mindlessly being
destroyed under the hand of greed — you will joyfully welcome the hope
of the manifestation of God in His sons; for it is the hope that shall
bring to the groaning creation emancipation from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the children of God; to Israel her Messiah; to the
heathen idolater, the knowledge of God; to the rebellious, correction; to
the sick and dying, health and life incorruptible; to the bride, the
presence of the Bridegroom; to mute nature, blessed release from the
cruelty of man and the blight of the curse. THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES
One cannot pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” without
being reminded of the Feasts of the Lord. What do you do at a feast? Why,
of course, you eat! God has a great and wonderful plan for feeding His
people, and ultimately all mankind, the bread of heaven through the
progressive unfolding of His grace and glory in the Feasts He spreads
before us and unto which He calls us, each in his own order.
God has been giving much revelation concerning the three great
spiritual feasts, of which the three annual feasts of
We are then called to the second feast of the Lord when we are
called to the spiritual feast of Pentecost in the Baptism in the Holy
Spirit. So, following the death of Jesus on the Passover, fifty days later
we find that “...when the day of Pentecost was fully come...suddenly
there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled
all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. And they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4). In
There is a mystery about the feast of Tabernacles. It is the only
one of the three major feasts of
The grand truth of this has been wonderfully quickened by the
Spirit of God to multiplied thousands of saints around the world in these
last days. All over the world in this particular moment in history, the
Spirit of God is speaking to the elect about an imminent manifestation of
Christ. The trumpet has sounded — the appointed time has come.
Christians in every nation have heard the voice of the prophets,
foretelling of this most awesome intervention of God’s power that is
about to sweep the earth.
The prophetic word of the Lord gives promise of a time to come when
the Lord will move mightily by His Spirit. At that time the Lord will
restore that which was lost all through the ages past and the long night
of man’s selfhood and rebellion. There is an event soon to take place
that shall overshadow and eclipse all former, lesser, manifestations of
God’s glory and power in the earth. The glories of this great event will
inspire, initiate, and bring to fulfillment the times of the restitution
of all things. The grandeur, the splendor, the glory and the great power
of God to be manifest at the time of this great event is impossible for us
to comprehend presently, for we are still living and moving, for the most
part, under the economy of the “firstfruits” of God’s Spirit. The
grand and glorious event to which we refer is the coming of Christ in the
feast of Tabernacles! Therefore we continue to pray, “Give us this day
our daily bread!”
What sets the feast of Tabernacles apart from all others is the
abundance enjoyed during the feast. It’s the fall harvest. At the
celebration of Tabernacles, not only had the barley and wheat been
harvested, but also all other grains, the fruit of trees, the olives, the
grapes, all that could possibly serve as food or drink. The harvest was
complete. On the spiritual plane this points to the fact that God has been
using His people everywhere to whatever degree He has prepared the vessel
for that revelation of the Christ. There has come a beautiful unfolding of
His purpose, the outflow of His life and the manifestation of Himself
throughout this church age, right up to the present time. But there shall
yet come the ultimate, the total, and complete revelation of Jesus Christ
— not a narrow, limited thing, not to get a number of people saved and
filled with the Spirit, and healed and blessed and used — but the
Kingdom of God coming with power and with glory, as an expression and a
manifestation of God in His total capacity with no limitations, with all
the power, with all the glory, all the might, all the majesty, all the
authority, so that nations shall be swept into the Kingdom of God,
creation delivered, and the last enemy, even death, destroyed from off the
face of the earth for evermore. What bright and glorious prospects loom
before the vision of all who press on to the feast of Tabernacles!
Since the church’s birth almost every generation has experienced
something of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Most of these moves would
have to be characterized as something less than worldwide. They swept
communities, cities, states, provinces, even nations at times, but few, if
any, were global. But now, beyond the strength and influence of the feasts
of Passover and Pentecost, there has been released from heaven in the last
several years an intense sense of expectancy. It is the expectancy that
ALL HEAVEN is about to break loose in the midst of the Lord’s elect on a
worldwide basis. Do you identify with that expectancy? God is raising up
voices in every hamlet and metropolis to say, “The earth is about to see
the glory of God in a most remarkable way.” I am convinced that a host
of heavenly messengers has recently been released to every corner of the
earth bearing the message: “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken
it” (Isa. 40:5, NIV). What I am proclaiming, announcing and declaring is
that there is a third experience in God. There is a visitation, an
appearing and coming of the Lord called Tabernacles that is going to come
to pass in the body of Christ today, right here upon this earth, and the
implications of this feast go far beyond anything you or I could possibly
imagine.
God is speaking to His people today and saying to us as He said to
Though we find deep satisfaction in the sweet communion we have
with Christ, and the secret converse we have together as He journeys with
us through the wilderness, how oft our hearts long for a closer touch with
our precious Lord! No words can express the rapture that is ours when we
walk and talk with Him by the way; but we yearn for HIS FULLNESS, when all
veils and limitations of earth shall forever pass away. There are times
when He makes Himself so real that our small capacity can hardly stand the
strain of such revelations. It is as though we were bringing a pint cup to
receive the waters of
The manchild company, the sons of God, will be born, literally and
dramatically birthed upon the stage of this world, in a blaze of
earth-shaking supernatural power and glory. They will be the total,
corporate incarnation of God upon earth. When the Lord comes in a mighty
way at the feast of Tabernacles, all flesh shall see the salvation and
glory of the Lord as never before. The manifestation of the sons of God
will take place when the feast of Tabernacles is “fully come.” That
will be the greatest of all “spectaculars” the world has ever
witnessed, when He erupts from within His many-membered body in the
fullness of which Pentecost has been only a foretaste. The inhabitants of
the world will be terrified, yes, even paralyzed! Instantly they will know
this is no natural phenomenon, no traditional religious service; while
deep within the voice shall witness: TRULY, THIS IS THE SON OF GOD! The
effulgence of His Person shall appear upon His chosen ones, the intensity
of His brilliance, equating to that of seven suns, shining through the
undulating “garment” composed of tens of thousands of glorified
saints, a star-studded super-spectacular, seven times the power of
Pentecost, the likes of which has never been witnessed by any man since
the dawn of creation. MEAT YE K
At this significant junction of the ages our prayer rises with
increasing intensity, “Give us this day our daily bread.” This bread
for the sons of God is the same that sustained and strengthened the
firstborn Son when He walked this planet. It is this: “My meat (food) IS
TO DO THE WILL of Him that sent me” (Jn.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding
out of the mouth of God” (Mat. 4:4). Nothing can satisfy the son’s
appetite but this — he hungers to do God’s will. Nothing else will
fill him. Everyone knows the world is hungry. But the hungry world is
starving. Even those who have abundance of food are suffering from
malnutrition, the quality of their food is so poor and depleted. The world
has many meats and many drinks, but there is no nourishment in them. It
has pleasures, and gaiety, and hobbies, and projects, and efforts of all
kinds; but there is no food there for the immortal craving of the spirit.
It has worldly society, and worldly books, and worldly knowledge, and
worldly wisdom, and worldly government, and worldly lusts. But these
things merely intoxicate.
The church world is hungry too. Starving, in fact. Oh, it has many
meats and many drinks, but there is no nourishment for the spirit in them.
Their meats are fleshly and their drinks are soulish. It has rituals, and
stirring programs, and impressive ceremonies, and external ordinances, and
worked-up praise and worship, and pomp, and show, and candles, and
incense, and temples and cathedrals, and priests and preachers, and
organization and abundance of activity. Its people get all involved “in
the work,” and committed “to the work,” and “giving to the
work.” They do and do but in all this something other than Christ has
become the central factor. The center becomes the movement, or the
message, or the organization, or the ministry, or the gifts, or the
experience, or the method, or the personality or some other thing.
I declare to you that all these religious things and activities
merely intoxicate and millions of Christians are drunk with them and in
their distorted hilarity think they know the living Christ. But there is
no substance in them! So our spirit turns its eye from them all with
unutterable loathing. “MY meat is to do the Father’s will!” To do
God’s will! No possibility of starving or suffering malnutrition on this
fare. God’s will is eternal. God’s will is omnipotent. It is eternal
and omnipotent food the sons of God live upon. In spring-time it is not
sown, and in summer drought it cannot fail. In harvest it is not reaped,
yet the storehouse is ever full. Oh, what possibilities of life and
purpose and power and victory it opens up!
The truth of these words is simply this: the strength of life for a
son of God is to do God’s will. Now that is a great and surprising
revelation to many. No man ever found that out. It has been before the
world these two thousand years, yet few have even found it out today. One
will tell you that life is in keeping the commandments, another that life
is in being joined to a “New Testament Church,” another that life is
in knowing and using the Sacred (Hebrew) Names of God, another that life
is in taking communion, another that life is in being baptized the right
way, another that life is in winning souls, another that life is in
speaking in tongues, another that life is in the laughter of the
“Toronto Blessing,” another that life is in the gifts of the Spirit,
another that life is in submission to the elders. But life is none of
these things. It is more than all. Life is not to have an experience, or
do this, or that, or the other — just to do what God wills, whether that
be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or suffering or rejoicing, or
living or dying.
In last month’s message I wrote about Christ as our environment,
the food we take into ourselves that nourishes and quickens the inner man.
There is a remarkable scientific fact about the correspondence between an
organism and its environment that holds the key to life and immortality.
There is now a scientific definition of eternal life. This scientific
definition of eternal life is set forth in the book PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY,
pp. 88 (out of print). The author says, “Perfect correspondence would be
perfect life. Were there no changes in the environment but such as the
organism had adapted changes to meet, and were it never to fail in the
efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence.”
To put this definition in language we all can understand, it says
that if you could find an absolutely perfect environment, and, if you
could find a perfect organism which could respond and adapt 100% to that
perfect environment, that organism would then live forever. The only
conditions are that the environment be absolutely perfect and that the
organism be able to perfectly and fully respond and adapt to that perfect
environment. If the environment is not perfect, if it is not the highest,
if it contains any element of change, or imperfection, or pollution, or
weakness, there can be no guarantee that the life of the organism would be
eternal. On the other hand, if there is any single thing within the
organism which cannot, or does not respond and adapt to that perfect
environment then there would arise a dis-harmony and the organism would
die.
It is obvious that science knows of no such perfect environment,
neither can it produce one, nor does it know of any such organism which
could meet the necessary conditions of a 100% adaptation to such an
environment. But I have no hesitation in saying that SUCH AN ENVIRONMENT
EXISTS! Yes, there really is a perfect environment, and, furthermore,
there has already been at least one living organism that has met all the
conditions, has responded and adapted 100% to that perfect environment,
and has already been raised up into the realm of incorruptible life
spirit, soul and body! The perfect environment is the incorruptible
spiritual realm of God’s divine life. It is the realm of the
There has been one. His name is Jesus! He is the One who said,
“For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him
that sent me” (Jn.
Long before science came along with a scientific definition for
eternal life, Jesus had already laid down this definition. With Him it was
not theory, for He lived it, tested it, demonstrated and proved it! Let us
place Christ’s definition alongside the definition of science, and mark
the points of contrast. Perfect and complete correspondence with a perfect
environment is eternal life, according to science. “THIS is eternal
life,” said Jesus, “that they may KNOW THEE, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (Jn. 17:3). Life eternal is to know
God. To know God is to “correspond” with God. To correspond with God
is to correspond with a perfect environment. And the person who attains to
this, in the nature of things must live forever. The whole purpose of God
in redemption is to bring man into that perfect correspondence with Him.
To bring men to this perfect correspondence involves a process — from
glory to glory. Already, in our spirit, this perfect correspondence has
been accomplished by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy
Ghost. In spirit we are now ONE WITH GOD. The reconciliation is an
accomplished fact. Now it is soul and body that must be dealt with,
brought into submission, to that perfect correspondence with the Father.
Jesus is the pattern. Overcoming is the process. Eternal life in spirit,
soul and body is the result.
Life is in correspondence with the spiritual environment of the
spiritual world of God, the
Therefore, when Paul says, “If ye live after the flesh ye shall
die,” the reason for this death is most obvious. There simply is no life
in the flesh or in any of its manifestations, neither is there life in
anything it can do, or design. If you are living after a realm that has no
life in it you will surely die. To get life out of the fleshly realm is
like getting blood out of a turnip. You cannot get what isn’t there! You
are trying to find life where there is only death. Therefore, if a man
sees God with the eyes of his spirit, he will live. But if he looks upon
the man-made images of God, the externals of religion, he will die. If he
drinks the water of life with his spirit, he will live forever; if he
drinks water from a well, or drinks wine and eats wafers, he will die.
There is no external ordinance, ritual or ceremony that can give man life;
if is only in walking after the spirit that life can be found. If a man
hears the voice of God with his spirit, he will live; if he only hears the
voices of earth, even of creed and doctrine, he will die. If his spirit
touches God, he will live; if his flesh touches the things of earth, both
he and they will die.
Little wonder, then, that the beloved apostle John penned these
significant words: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the
world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but HE THAT DOETH
THE WILL OF GOD ABIDETH FOR EVER” (I Jn.
Death is the necessary result of imperfection, the necessary end of
it. Science has shown that a perfect organism in a perfect environment
would necessarily live forever. To abolish death, therefore, all that
would be necessary would be to abolish imperfection. Thank God! He is
changing us. Each and every change and transformation, each and every
victory and triumph brings our being more and more into correspondence
with the realm of His divine life. Like Him! blessed hope, this. More like
Him today than yesterday. More like Him tomorrow. More weaned away from
earth’s polluting environment of self-centeredness and fleshiness.
Better able to breathe the atmosphere of the pure and perfect realm of the
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