Secrets of the Secret Place - Part 12

Welcome back to our Secrets of the Secret Place class. This is our final session, session 12, and for those of you watching this on DVD, we left last week right in the middle of the thing, so let's pray, Lord Jesus, help us now to catch up with where we left off last week and to finish what's on your heart for us from Zechariah chapter 4. Help us, Lord Jesus, we ask. Amen. Now, last week we were just talking about the understanding that the lampstand represents me, represents you, represents us, and all the trees are the source that set our flames on fire, and now our question is, what are the olive trees? We just finished looking at the fact that Zechariah has asked the angel three times, what are those olive trees? Because he wants to know what the source is, and the angel has given him elusive answers three times. And so now, what are the olive trees? Well, I'm going to give you my best answer. Alright, here's my best interpretation of what the two olive trees is, point G of your mind number two. My interpretation of the two trees is the Word and the Spirit. The Word and the Spirit. I'm wondering if you can see a mixing bowl effect going on right here. Whatever's coming off this tree and whatever's coming off this tree is coming into a bowl, and then it's getting sloshed and mixed together before it goes down to the lamps. I'm wondering if you can see the mixing bowl thing going on there. That's because you need the Word mixed with the Spirit to set your lamps on fire. How many have ever tried the Spirit without the Word? You try the Spirit without the Word and you'll really take off somewhere, and then we'll just all say bye-bye to you because you do the Spirit without the Word and you just get weird. Not because the Spirit's weird, you're weird. And we need the Word of God to keep us rooted in balance and in truth. You can't do the Spirit without the Word. The Word's essential. Has anybody here ever tried the Word without the Spirit? I know what you mean. It's the universally painful thing to do without the horribly painful experience of virtually every believer in Christ. You come to the sacred place and you're like, here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Come back tomorrow. But you come back the next day because you know something. All right, here we go. Yes. Help. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's try tomorrow. And you come back the next day because you know something. Cup of coffee. Weak coffee. Okay. Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's do this tomorrow. But you come back the next day because you know something. What do you know? You know that if you sow to the Spirit, you will eventually reap to the Spirit. It is impossible to sow to the secret place and not eventually reap from the secret place. That's why I don't get discouraged if it's boring for a day or three days or a week or two weeks or a month or two months or for a year. I don't really care how long the boring drought lasts because I know if I will invest into the secret place, if I will sow into the Word of God, if I will sow to the Spirit, if I will sow in fasting and prayer and abiding in the secret place, if I will sow to this, one of these days it will happen. You say, what's it? It is when the Spirit mixes with the Word. When the Spirit mixes with the Word, one word I like to use for it is Arema. It's when the Spirit and the Word mix together. It pumps down into your fires and sets your heart ablaze with the Spirit. It's when the passion for the goodness of God, for His promise, for His glory, for His assurance in your word, and once you have tasted of the Word and the Spirit mixed together, coming down into your heart, once you've encountered that kind of dynamic in God, you are ruined. It's over. You're hooked for life. You now are a secret place junkie. Living in the secret place every day, investing, sowing, pouring yourself in, because once you've had one of those encounters where the Spirit and the Word mix together and set your heart on fire, once you've had one, you know there's another one where that one came from, and you are never going to relent from giving yourself to the secret place in the Word and in prayer. Now, there are different degrees of intensity when it comes to this kind of download. Sometimes the Spirit mixes with the Word and it'll set, you know, one of your flames on fire, a couple of them, three, but let me ask you this. Have you ever gotten a seven burner? That's what I want to know. Have you ever gotten, had an encounter in the Word and in the Spirit where the Spirit mixed with the Word and downloaded something to your heart that set all seven of your fires burning in the presence of God? Once you've had a seven burner, you're gone. You've burned the bridges now. No turning back. I'm going to give myself to the secret place and to the Word of God. This is kind of what happened to the two on the road to Emmaus. You know, they said, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the Scriptures to us? Yeah, guys, you got a seven burner on that occasion. You had the living Oracle of Heaven, Jesus Christ Himself in the fullness of the anointing of the Spirit of God, revealing Himself to your heart. Little wonder you had a heartburn. Guys, you were getting a seven burner download the Word and the Spirit mixed together. You get that kind of thing coming down into your spirit. It'll set you on fire too. Now I have a confession to make. I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, but I don't go to church to get fed. I go to the secret place to get fed. I go to the secret place to get fed. When you need something, when you need a word from God, when you need something that's going to set you on fire, I don't go to church to get that kind of thing. I go to the secret place to get that. Because when the Word and the Spirit mixed together come down into your pipes and set your flames on fire, when you get something in the secret place at the feet of Jesus, it comes tailor made, custom made with your name on it. When you hear the pastor on Sunday morning, and I love the preaching of the Word and the importance of the pastoral preaching ministry, it's essential, but when you come to the house and you hear what the pastor preached and you go, well, you know, if I take the pastor's illustration and if I make a hard right and then another left, it kind of applies to my life, I guess. When you get it in the secret place, you don't have to labor at application. It comes with your address on it. It comes direct into your spirit and it's BAM! Sets you on fire with the fiery zeal of the Lord Jesus Christ. I feel a little bit sorry for believers that go to church to get fed. I'll be honest with you. The poor things, they come in and they're emaciated and skinny and starving and they've got a spiritual oxygen tank on their back and they kind of make it to the back row and they're like, oh Lord, please let something drip from the preacher's mouth that will sustain me for one more week. You poor, emaciated, starving Christian, I feel sorry for you. Jesus didn't die for you to live off one meal a week. He died for you to find an abundant source in God, a living, breathing, dynamic love relationship of sitting at his feet, hearing his voice, hearing his word, the word and the spirit mixing together, flowing into your heart and setting you on fire with a passion for the face of Jesus Christ. I don't come to church to get on fire. I come to church because I am on fire. I've been sitting at his feet all week. I've got the word of Christ dwelling in me richly and I have come to the house with seven fires burning, ready to give my heart. When you come to the house of God with seven fires, you don't even really care what song they sing. Fast song, slow song, medium song, I know it, I don't know it, major key, minor key, guitar driven, keyboard driven, old song, new song, I like it, I don't like it, I don't really care if I like the song or like the words. It doesn't matter to me because I don't worship. If you've got the right song playing, I have come with something burning in my heart, just give me a note and I'm going to be at 36,000 feet worshiping God because I'm living and abiding in the word of God and I come to the house with my heart already set on fire. Now here's my next question. Excuse me, I've got notes flying here. Here's the next question. If the two trees are the word and the spirit and I'm supposed to be on fire before God, like this, my next question is, what are the seven fires? Because if I know what the seven fires of the Holy Spirit are, maybe I can cooperate a little bit with this thing and press into those realities in the Holy Spirit. How many would like to know what the seven spirits of God are? Me too. Now I've been looking at this for a number of years and I'm still not settled on this. I've got seven theories. Anybody interested in hearing my best shot at it? I don't think I've got all seven of them right, but there are some things in the kingdom that are glorious enough that you just kind of poke at them and peer into them and meditate on them and just the exercise itself is glorious. So I'm not sure I'm right, but here's my best shot. What are those seven fires? Here's my first one. I think the central one just might be the fire of God's love. There is a fire song of Solomon in the Old Testament. 8 verse 6 says that the love of God is like a fire that burns. There is a flame in the heart of God that when it comes into your heart, when God empowers you to love Him with His power, now the fire of God into my spirit empowers me to burn with the holy flame in the presence of God and this love that for all eternity was reserved for three is now opened up to a fourth. There's now a fourth in this inferno of fire and we love God with an everlasting flame of love in the presence of God burning before the throne. My second guess at this, if you will, my best shot at trying to understand this, let me suggest it could be number two, the fire of God's jealousy. Song of Solomon 8 verse 6 says, set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave. Its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. There is a vehement flame in the heart of God called His jealousy. When you get love, true love has along with it, on the flip side, true love has a jealousy about it. I'm not talking about a paranoid suspicion that's like, where were you last night? Who did you talk to? I'm talking about a pure kind of jealousy that says, I give my life to you, I will love you all my days, but I require, yea, I demand that you reserve your love for me and me only. That's the true jealousy of marital love. It's a demand of love that's of exclusivity, and there's a jealousy in the heart of God. He requires the fullness of your heart, and He will not share you with another. That's why it says in James 4, 5 that the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously, and that jealous fire that's in the heart of the Holy Spirit will kindle your heart too. He wants to give you a fiery jealousy so that like Paul who said, I am jealous for you with godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Paul had a jealousy that burned in his heart that the bride of Christ be prepared, that she be made ready for her wedding day, and now the Lord, the Holy Spirit wants to put that same jealousy in your heart and cause you to burn before the throne with a fiery jealousy that the bride of Christ, that her love be pure, that her attentions, her distractions be burned away until the bride of Christ has only one love that fills her heart, a passion for the face of Jesus Christ. Here's my third shot at what the third fire might be. Number three, could it be the fire of God's holiness? Oh, there is a holy fire that burns in God. There's a holiness that's so powerful that it's even a fire in the presence of God. Number four, here's my fourth guess, could one of the fires be the fire of God's wrath and His judgment? Ezekiel 21, 31 talks about the fire of God's wrath. Isaiah 4, verse 4 speaks of the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, and there is a fire that burns in the heart of God. It's a wrathful fire that brings judgment to the earth, and when that fire kindles your heart, it puts inside of you a passion for justice and judgment to come to the earth. Lord, let justice come to this planet, and Lord, may you release your judgments in the earth in order to come against anything that hinders your love. Let your judgments come and burn every resistance to love that the bride of Christ might be prepared, and when you get this fire in your heart, it's come, Lord Jesus, establish your throne, and do whatever you have to, Revelation 16, judgments included, do whatever you have to to get this planet back into your heart. Number five here, could it be that one of the fires is the fire of the fear of the Lord? The fear of the Lord, oh, that's a fire. When this fire touches your life, and the fear and terror of God grips you, Job said in Job 23, 16, the Almighty terrifies me. He had a fire burn in his life, and it set him on fire with the fear of the Lord. There is a fear of God that needs to burn in our lives, the terror of the Lord. It's glorious. Number six theory, could it be one of them is the fire of understanding and wisdom and discernment? I don't know if I've got it right. I'm not sure, but Isaiah 11, verse 2, there seems to be some kind of a connection to Zechariah 4, the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. Number seven, could one of the fires represent the fire of a burning tongue? The scripture says that the very breath of God is a fire, and every word of God is a fire. When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, he came with divided tongues of fire that sat upon, rested upon each of the believers, and they all spoke in tongues. It's like the Holy Spirit was saying, I want to take that tongue that's set on fire from hell, James 3, 6, and I want to set it on fire from heaven. God wants our tongue to burn with the holy fire, not from hell, but from heaven. So, those are some of my best guesses. I don't think I've got it all right. Maybe some of you can help me. Send me an email and help me understand this. I'm not sure I've got the seven fires right, but I assure you of this, whatever they are, I want to burn with all seven of them. Holy Spirit, whatever burns in your heart, I'm not sure I've got it all nicely labeled, but I want everything that you are burning inside of me. Sometimes I feel like this flame is at 25%, this one is at 15%, that one is about 50%, this one is doing 75%, that one is at 50%, here's one, that one is close to 100%. Sometimes I just feel like, Lord, you just need to come to my pipes and do some kind of divine angioplasty or something on my pipes. Get these pipes open, because I want all seven of my fires to burn at 100% torches of zeal and fire as I stand before the throne of God. Beloved, I don't know a better place to get your pipes cleaned out than in the secret place abiding in the Word and in the Spirit of God. There's a lot of people, a lot of leaders in this hour focusing on how do we get 90 minutes on Sunday morning a little bit hotter. I'm going to be honest with you, beloved. My vision is not for our churches to get a little bit hotter for 90 minutes on Sunday morning. My vision is for the Bride of Christ to be awakened to the secret place, living in the Word, getting that mixed with the Spirit, getting that flowing down into their spirits until the Bride of Christ is burning with seven fires in the presence of God. And now when we gather together, your seven fires next to her seven fires next to his seven fires, and we've got us a bonfire as the saints of God gather together because we've been living in the Word and in the Spirit. That's the vision of my life. Now as we bring this to a close, I want to come to the context of Zechariah 4, and I'm going to handle the Word of God with integrity. So here's the context that I see in Zechariah 4. Zechariah has a challenge before him. He's got to build the temple, and he has depressingly meager resources. Anybody here ever had to build something with a lot of money? I've got depressing resources. Have you ever had to build a home group and you're like, I have to build a home group with this? So here's Zerubbabel. He's coming to Jerusalem, and he's got this immense thing in front of him. How is he going to do it? And here's what I believe the Spirit of God is saying to Zerubbabel in this vision. He's saying, Zerubbabel, has the captivity accomplished its purpose in your life? You see, what God does in captivity is he shuts you up, he sequesters you, he gets you in solitude, shuts your life down so that now you have to go deep in God, pressing into the Word, into the Spirit, in order to make sense of the trouble in your life. And God uses captivity strategically in order to teach us this. This is what captivity is all about. God wants you to find a source, and you can't find it on the run. So he shuts you down, puts you in prison, sends you into exile in order to help you find a source. And now the question is, Zerubbabel, has captivity done its work in your life? Have you found a source in God where you're going to do what he puts in front of you, not by might, not by power, not by your natural strength, not based on your resource base, but based upon the power of God working through your life, based upon the Word and the Spirit mixing together, setting you on fire? Are you going to do that, build in the conventional way, or has captivity accomplished its purpose? Have you found a source in God? Zerubbabel, are you on fire, and will you build the thing with the fire and the zeal of the Lord, or will you do it on your strengths and your resources? Zerubbabel has this mountain in front of him. Let's just read the verse. Verse 6. He answered and said to me, This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain, and he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. There's a mountain in front of Zerubbabel. There's a mountain in front of many of you in this room. There's a mountain in front of many of you watching this by DVD and on the Internet. A mountain that stands in front of your life, that resists the will of God, an obstacle that needs to be overcome. And the scripture says, Who are you, O great mountain? It doesn't say, What are you? It says, Who are you? Because the mountain in your life, actually it looms so large, it takes on a persona all its own. You can attach a name to your mountain. Sometimes it even has a demonic energy. You can put a demonic name on that thing. Who are you, O great mountain, that resists the will of God in the life of one of his sermons? You shall become a plain. God wants to turn the mountain in your life into a plain that will feed a generation from the goodness of God in your life. Has there anybody here ever been to Denver, Colorado? Ok, now I know that this is all over the world. Some of you have never even been to America. But let me tell you a little bit about Denver. There's many cities in here that have this quality about them. Denver is just classic. If you ever go to Denver, Colorado, you see this city built on a plain. This vast plain. There's highways, there's houses, there's buildings, there's industry, there's agriculture, there's banks and restaurants and schools. And the whole thing is exploding with activity and people and stuff is happening because you got a plain to work with. And then, in the case of Denver, you go from plain immediately to mountain. It's just right plain, then there goes the mountain just like that. And when you hit that mountain, the highways stop, the businesses stop, the banks stop, the schools stop. Everything comes to a grinding halt. Why? Because on the mountain, you can't do anything on a mountain. You can't build on a mountain. You got that one mountain guy that has a cabin up there, he's got a rifle in his pickup truck and a fishing rod. But I'm not a mountain man. Give me a plain. Give me something you can build on. The mountain represents the barrenness, the wilderness, the darkness, the discouragement of that thing in your life that resists the will of God for you. And the Spirit of God says, God's agenda for your life is to enter into something in God so that that mountain would be leveled into a plain that will now feed a generation from the goodness of God in your life. Beloved, there was a mountain. It was the most bleak, morbid, miserable, depressing, horrible mountain of history. I'm speaking right now of Mount Golgotha. If ever there was a horrible mountain that stood in its blackness and bleakness and loneliness, it was Mount Golgotha. But that mountain came down and has been turned into a plain that is feeding an entire planet on the goodness of God. How do you bring a mountain like Golgotha down and turn it into a plain? I will tell you how. Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. How are you going to get the mountain in your life down? How is that mountain going to come down and be turned into a plain? Not by might, not by your strengths, not by your mental abilities, not by your talents, not by your resource base, not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. This is what we have got to find. We've got to find the source in God that will set our hearts on fire. The Word and the Spirit mixing together and the power of the Spirit, you will face that mountain. And we declare to that mountain today, in the name of Jesus Mountain, you shall come down. You cannot, you must not resist the will of God and the life of His saint. Let me close. It's time to close. Matthew 5, 15, our final verse. Jesus said, Nor do they light a lamp, and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Jesus says, If God will set you on fire and make you a lamp that burns in His presence, if you will become a lamp that burns before the throne of God, Jesus says, we're not going to put that under a basket. We're going to put that on a lampstand and it's going to give a light to the whole house. There are times that I see leaders in the body of Christ and I look at them and it's like they've got a basket over their life. And I look at their life and you can draw a circle on the orb of their influence. It's like the Lord has, and I say, man, they're so talented, they've got, they're so smart, they're so gifted, but there's a basket over their life and the Lord says, this far your light will shine and no further because the light that's in their flame is not a pure fire, but if you will get in the secret place that the Word and the Spirit makes and get a pure fire in your flames, a pure fire of love for Jesus Christ, when your flames burn clean and blue with a jealousy for the face of Jesus, he says, you get on fire with that kind of a flame, we're taking the basket off and you will give light to the whole household of faith. Lord Jesus, I pray as this class comes to a conclusion that you would put a resolve in the heart of every student that has taken this course to live in the Word, live in the secret place, abide in you. Give us this secret, oh God, we pray, set us on fire with a pure flame that we might give a light to the body of Christ, let the mountain come down, may it be turned into a plain, not by might, not by power, give it to us, teach us, show us, give us the secret secret