The Four Questions of God Part One - Two Questions From the Old Testament

I greet you again this morning in the lovely name of our Lord, and I trust that this may be true, that as

we expose our hearts to Him and open to Him, He will find the access that He wants to find. God is

seeking us. Sometimes we think we're seeking God, but God is seeking us. He has been seeking us from

the day He sought Adam and He has never been yet satisfied. The eternal attitude of God toward

humanity is that of a seeking God. At times it seems as though He were making an invasion, pushing in

from every angle to find us, to discover us. He has to do that because we don't know who we are very

well.

As I've said before, if any of you think that I should think I know who I am, you are quite deceived. We

are acquainted with this surface, immediate, manifestation of life and light through us. We become

acquainted with each other in physical form, but as far as knowing the real hidden ego of this person,

we know very little about him. Even the individual knows very little about him. As you advance in

God, as you move on in Him, isn't it wonderful how the Holy Spirit can keep projecting before us

unexplored territory in life that we have yet to move into over which He seeks dominion. We say He

reigns and rules in our heart; that is very true, but has He found the absolute and perfect control and

possession of all the territories - I call them territories yet to be possessed in Him. He wants to possess

us. He wants to take hold of us. He wants to shape us and mold us and do miracles with us and in us so

that sometime, He may see good to lift this strange mystical body of believers. A body that has

projected itself down through 2000 years and we are coming in toward the end, but we are also little

cells in that body. And someday He wants to take that out of the world, and out of time, and out of the

sense relations, and present it to the Ancient of Days, the great desire of His heart. But He desires that

He shall have something to present.

Now, I want to say it again. Don't let your heart be deceived into thinking that any experience, I don't

care how profound it may be, how very moving it may be, how very revolutionizing that experience

may be, there is no experience into which God leads you that will ever mature you. Now, that's right.

But people are deceived, you see, because they think, "Well, now I've received, now I've come into,

now I have..." That's all very fine children, but don't let it deceive you, because if you do there has to

be a day of great revelation, and I'd like to have all of our revelations of such business taken care of

here and now. Don't allow yourself to come under the power of an experience, and then live in that and

build your life around it. That won't send you to hell; you will still go to heaven. It is not a questions of

heaven and hell, it is a question of how you allow God to do in you, and through you, while we are

caught in this strange condition of time and sense, has He been able to accomplish, as far as your set up

will allow Him, the thing that He wants. Someday when we are released and taken, you can't come back

and make choices and decisions. No. What there is of spiritual value in you and in me, all that we will

carry with us into the next age, is what we acquire now.

Don't be disturbed if God is not using you to make a manifestation out here of your life, say as a

preacher, teacher, a great evangelist, or some missionary. Don't be disturbed if you can't bring forth

that manifestation, He doesn't want that from you. He's not expecting it from you. He had one Paul

and He had one Wesley. He has one of you and you are the only specific edition of who you are. So am

I, so is every one of us. Now, since that is true, He is desirous of possessing every last individual that

He can find, to accomplish in that individual the thing for which He has brought you into time and

sense for. Now don't get your works all mixed up. That is your technique. Don't get into all this

manifestation of doing things and all this business. That is very good, but it is only the technique, the

method. That is the method which He will use to do the miracle in you and me. That is why it doesn't

matter to Him. If He has called you to be a great preacher, then preach. If He has called you to be a

good farmer, then be a good farmer. The whole thing swings from this angle that "whosoever will do

the will of God that is all He's asking." If it is to plant potatoes, then plant the potatoes to the Glory of

God and sing all the while you are planting them. Why do you sing? Because you say, "Thank you

Father, that is what you've asked me to do and I'm going to do it with all the strength I have for your

glory." Then God will say thank you. At the end He will never say, "How many souls did you win?" He'

ll say, "How many potatoes did you plant." Well, He will.

You see, you don't get the right philosophy of the thing. We become entangled in the mechanism and

forget the objective. Don't lose your objective. Keep it always before you - the Glory of God, the life

surrendered. The whole being moved back again to the heart of God. Being disciplined, educated,

trained, and conformed. How? By the thousand and one things that God throws into your little

pattern. They will never divorce as people do. "This is sacred and this is secular." I dislike that very

much. To a real saint of God everything should be holy and sacred; there is no secular to it. That is

common talk among people who don't know the things of God; therefore, they have categories in which

they place certain experiences of life. We shouldn't do that. If I am called to be a good plumber, how

many know that is a sacred calling on you? What makes it sacred? Plumbing? No! What makes it

holy? It is the will of God. Not the plumbing, but the will of God. And if you can do that, then we move

on.

Don't forget some of these little ideas that I drop with you. They are only things which I've

discovered. I've lived a little longer than some of the rest and I feel I have the right to give advice and

counsel. It is only what God would give through me. None of us have arrived. We're in the process of

becoming, and we'll be in that process till the Lord takes us home. We will still be in a process, a

releasing, reshaping, recasting, casting down, pushing aside. "Why I had all that taken care of when I

got saved." No dear, you are still in a deception. God dealt with your sin. He can do that in very short

order, but it takes a life time to deal with you and with me.

Didn't I tell you how in the Body when He placed all these gifts of prophets, pastors, preachers,

teachers, and all, just one evangelist to catch a fish. One evangelist to bring in a soul, and God says

after you get that soul saved, filled with the spirit, and in the body, it takes about five instruments to

work on him. Do you see that or don't you? That is after you are saved and filled with the spirit and

had 6 visions and almost translated. . .after that is all settled, He says, "I'd like to deal with you a little."

Why? Well, He says, "I haven't gotten hold of you. I've been dealing with your sins dear. I've been

dealing with all that externality. Now I want to come in here and get a hold of you." That is what

makes it difficult. That is why people don't like my teaching. I know of assemblies that would not have

me any more than the anti-Christ, and don't I know it. That doesn't bother me. Why? Because they

are disturbed. Truth will always disturb you. But it has a two-fold way of disturbing and moving. If

you allow it, truth will actually slay you. But it will be the truth that will resurrect you. Do you get

your two opposing forces? How we vibrate between them, don't we. What a strange effect it has upon

life. He talks about death, but He talks about life. He talks about the slaying, the crucifying, but He

talks about the resurrection and the life. Keep them together, don't divorce them.

I told you the other day, never divorce Mary and Martha. They both had their vocations; they are

sisters in the same family. Let them remain. Whenever Martha gets up in you and hurries around, you

know you are agitated. You know you don't get anything in God in all that racket. He waits sometimes

years for people to get stopped. He really does. He says, "You poor dear agitated spirit. I can't get

anywhere near you. But go on until you're exhausted and your tongue hangs out, and maybe I can

reach you, possibly." He does that. I have met people who have had to go through it. That's all right.

Martha has a place in you, Mary has a place too, they are sisters. Mary represents the aspiration of the

spirit, the ascent, the moving toward God, sense of vision and light. But listen, all that has to have a

field of demonstration. Otherwise you become unbalanced. Never be caught into the most

magnificent spiritual revelation of life and truth and deeper probing into that field. Never do that

unless you remember what? A descent into plain reality where you live. And as far as God is able, by

the spirit, make a demonstration, a tangible result of the thing caught. So we accept in life all those

strange phases.

Now this morning I thought for a little while I would like to share something else that I have found. I

don't read these things in books. I've had training. It is good; I don't depreciate education at all. I

think it is a very wholesome thing, if you can keep it in balance. I've had training; I'm a college man, a

seminary man. I've had all of that before God ever baptized me, but He has helped me, by the grace of

God, to keep it in balance where it belongs. I can never use that as a substitute for what the Holy Spirit

wants to do. They are just as far as night is to day, they are two levels. So, what I bring you morning by

morning, are truths which I have discovered in this field of spiritual reality. I like that term better. It

is a realm.

I said the other day, so much of our teaching is so faulty and we don't get fed and our body is weak.

Our dear precious Pentecostal people are starved to death, whether you know it or not. Starved for

food; not milk, but some meat and some strong meat. They need it. God can't take a body that is just a

whimpering baby and say, "Sit on the throne with me and share." He can't do that. I imagine heaven

will have a tremendously large nursery. I really think it will. You laugh, but I feel more like weeping. I

am burdened and I do cry out to the Lord. I am conscious of that very thing. Babes in Christ, 50, 60,

70 years old. Baptized in the spirit 20, 30 and 40 years, and the sweetest loveliest babes you ever

looked at. Absolutely. Well that shouldn't be.

Last year was my 50th anniversary, my Jubilee year. The Lord brought me in 51 years ago. In these

years, I have been moving in what I call the realm of the Spirit. He said that we were born, birthed, and

we come into a consciousness of our birth. Many have not yet come into an inner consciousness of the

birth. They don't realize it. It is a potential matter with them. Purely a potential matter. But if you

have come into an inner consciousness of that birth, that you have been released into a new - you call it

a kingdom, but you should call it realm. That is a better word. We are birthed into a vast realm. When

you say kingdom, then right away you are thinking of horses and chariots and thrones, etc. Well, He's

not talking about a kingdom like that at all. He's talking about a realm. You have the vegetable

kingdom, animal kingdom, mineral kingdom - how many of you know what I mean? It is a field, a great

realm in which certain things are found.

When Jesus spoke about us coming into His kingdom, He was not talking about heaven. He didn't call

it heaven. He talks about paradise, now that is something else. Don't get that all mixed up with the

kingdom and kingdom living. You get confused with it. He called it a vast realm. Now by the power of

the Spirit, He will probably bring you gradually into an inner consciousness of that. Maybe not the

first day or the first year. I have had to deal with souls who have been filled with the Spirit 10 or 20

years who have not yet come into the consciousness of that. Now, what is this realm? All spiritual

reality. The same as we have all natural phenomenon in what we call the real of our natural. We have

natural laws which govern - the law of gravitation, the law of light, heat, vibration. All of these are

natural laws which God has established and placed here for our well being so that we could live a

comfortable life. It would be a great aid to us if we would discover them and come under the power of

the laws which God has placed here. He doesn't want us so spiritual that we don't know beans from

buttons. He wants us perfectly practical to discern and yet at the same time say, "This is not my realm.

Here is my realm; I live with Him in Spirit."

In the realm of the spirit (I've been pushing around in there for a longtime), I have been making

discoveries of truths, principles, laws, methods and facts which are just as real in that realm, but they

are abstract and spiritual. Therefore, most people never mess around with them at all. Now in that

field I made little discoveries. I find how God works; I watch Him work here, then I watch Him work

there. God gives me a little scent and sometimes I am six months to a year and sometimes two years

chasing that thing down. I'm reading in the Old Testament and it pops up in one of the Psalms, and I

say, "Oh, I know you. I caught you in Matthew and one of these days I'm going to catch you and put

you together." And then you do. So you make discoveries. That is all I hope to share with people.

Maybe I'll talk a little bit to you about prayer some morning. I want to show you how prayer is

governed by a law, it is a spiritual law. Now don't think we're in psychology or some crazy stuff; we're

not. We're in the Word of God. There has never been a psychologist or a psychiatrist as clever and as

wonderful as our Lord. He is the greatest one that ever walked the earth. But you see, He keeps it

veiled for fear that people will stumble and fall down. But to those that He can trust, He will unveil it to

you, if you are able to be trusted with it. Often times He will say, "Do you see how this works, do you

get the drift of that, do you see the psychology back in here?" That's wonderful, it has always in there.

I told you the other day, there are a few Christian psychiatrists and they do a very wonderful work. I

have a friend who is a real Christian and he is a psychiatrist. He just loves to come to listen to these

things that I talk about. The last time he contacted me, he's a doctor of course, a great man, he put his

arm around me and he said, "Follette, I have driven 150 miles today to get in on one talk." You know,

some places you can't get them a block away. I said, "I appreciate that because you know, it isn't I. I

am a very simple creature. But, God has opened truth and I am able to see and discern, and if you are

helped by it, Amen." He said, "I'm helped. I come 150 miles to get in this one service. I thought then;

think of all the people sitting. What are they getting? Well, dear, you get according to your capacity.

In this field, I've made a few little discoveries and I find how things go. I watch the Word of God and

then I watch it in life. I like to be a Guinea pig too that He experiments on. Have you ever let yourself

be exposed enough for that? To watch how He does things in you. How did He make the last

approach? What was the last real contact He had with you in Spirit, not in religion? Oh, I wish I could

dump about 500 tons of religion out of our work. I really do. They are so religious, I can't help them.

Do you know I can't? They are too cluttered. Would you dare to expose yourself like that to Him?

Don't do it unless you are willing, because God may do some very drastic things. But, the Holy Spirit

has possession of it and He will hold us and He won't let any harm come to us. He loves us too dearly.

He wouldn't wreck us. But, the self-creature in there would wreck you, and the devil too. But don't say

everything is the devil. Don't you know there are three working continually? Here is God working

from that side. Here is the enemy working from his side. How many know there is something in here

that works too? Don't you know that? Why sure. Some come to me with problems like that and I say,

"The devil isn't within 500 miles of you. The disturbing element is a little closer than that." Well that's

right, but they aren't honest enough to see that thing.

This little line of teaching came to me, God showed it to me. I was a student and I like to read. After a

while you know how to read, but some people can't. It is like eating fish. You know, they choke on

every bone that there is in the fish and they can't seem to get the fish because they are choking on a

bone. By and by you have to read and skip a lot of things and yet you'll get some real meat too. So

much of our reading today has real meat in it. But sometimes there are so many bones, that people say,

"Is that orthodox?" I said, "I'm not talking about orthodox. I'm talking about this." How many get it

or don't you. Learn how to read.

I was reading the word of God and this is what I discovered. It seemed a little strange to me at first, but

after I took it to the Lord and said, "Now Lord, you please tell me how this thing goes. I see this, but tell

me why it is this way. What's back of this thing?" I was reading in the word and I found Him asking a

question in His conversation dealing with some people, and He asked a question. I knew all the time

that He knew the answer and yet He persisted in asking the question. He knows it very well, then why

should He ask the person the question that He knows? Well I want to tell you about that. There has to

be a reason why He does that. He asks the question and He knows all the time the answer and it is a

better answer than even they could give. He asks them, they answer, and you will see all the results

that come following along. This is a little principle that He works on in the word and in your life. I

have selected here four and this is my message this morning. I could take 3 days on it, but I'm going to

take one morning. I have found four occasions in this word where God asks a question with which he is

very familiar in order to provoke an answer. Then from the answer, He works His way out.

Now, this first one is the question He asked Adam after he had sinned and failed the Lord. Do you

remember God had said to Adam, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The story

is of the testings on the part of God, but the temptation is on the part of the enemy. I'll deal with that

question a little later. Never confuse it. The occasion may be one, the incident may be one, but it is

your approach. The tree was a single item, without any special moral value at all. How many know the

tree is an impersonal thing? But it is the medium that He is going to use and the whole thing will depend

upon the approach to the tree and how you interpret it. God planted the tree, not the devil. God

planted it, for a specific reason - for His testing and His proving. The enemy takes advantage of

exactly the same setup, for what? The occasion to defeat and kill and destroy. When God plants it, it is

for an objective point of development, growth and releasing, bringing His personality into being. The

enemy says, "I can use that same thing too and I will use it to destroy and kill." So we find in the New

Testament, this program; the enemy has come to kill, to destroy and to rob. Of course, that is all he

can do. "But I have come to give you life, and that more abundantly." Your negatives and your

positives continually clashing over some media here in the center here.

So He says, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." He doesn't say, "You will fall

from grace." It is much easier to teach religion where they have something left in the poor old wreck -

that he has sort of tumbled over under some terrible condition. But if we breathe on him and shake

him, we might sustain him, resuscitate him. You can't. He's dead! He said, "That in the day thou eatest

thou shalt surely die." He didn't say you shall fall from grace. That is why in theology today they don't

like the word "sin" and "die." Very unpopular. But they are scriptural words, they are words God uses.

"Thou shalt die." Did he fall over dead when he partook of the fruit? No, he lived hundreds of years

later. Then what died? Didn't judgment fall upon him? Yes. He died spiritually. That is, all spiritual

contact with God had been severed through his disobedience and he was left a sub-normal being.

We are made spirit, soul and body. A trinity. In the upper spiritual department of our being is where

the Holy Spirit would like to come to rest, and there is where He dwells. "And in the day that thou

eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," - for this life principle, the spirit of life, the spirit of God, will be

canceled and you will remain a sub-normal person. It is a horrible thing to think that when we are

dealing with intelligent people, beautiful lovely intelligent specimens of humanity, if they have not the

Spirit of Christ in them to restore again unto God your trinity, they are under the normal set-up.

Why? Because their spiritual life has been canceled. They have mental life, a psychic life, and they can

move out into the realm of our religion, you see.

Man is by nature a religious creature. We don't go to the foreign fields to try to make people religious.

How many know they are cursed with it. We don't go there to create in them something that will take a

hold of religion. They have it and they are taking hold of everything on God's earth from snakes on

up. Why? Because of that inner hidden urge for God and life; and light is pushing through all the trash

and darkness and nonsense within them saying, "Where is light?" I worked in the field some. Had a

wonderful time in Africa with those natives and God gave me some precious ripe, raw, heathen souls.

It was terrific. Some of them had never seen a white man, and God turned me into an Evangelist. How

would you like to see an Evangelist? I become an Evangelist every once in awhile. It is very delightful

because you have such a lovely access and you see some results. But you see, when you are a teacher

you don't see anything. You just plot it out and say, "God bless it." And you go on. You don't have a

report, "So many hundreds saved," or "Seventy two baptized," and "Sixty miracles," and dear Lord I

don't know what else. You know how they do it all up. Well, I never get that, I don't want it and I am

not out for it. I tell you, it is quite vulgar.

So He says, "That in the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die." What is it that dies? It is that lovely

spirit of life, light, truth and reality that actuated Him. I like Augustine's old saying, "The heart was

made for God, neither shall it find rest until it rests in Him." Isn't that so? That is the philosophy of

our whole Christian thought. If we could only remember that. We were not designed by God to be all

cluttered up in this mess of earth. "Man shall not live by bread alone." That is the same philosophy.

No, so He said, "Thou shalt die."

Now we need not go too far in there, but we need to see the natural response. It would be beautiful if

there could have been a lovely, noble response on the part of Adam, when he had discovered this

terrible condition to which he had found himself in. Wouldn't it have been noble and beautiful of them

if they could have returned and said, "Oh God, we did what you told us not to do and we're in an awful

condition. Oh, God help us." That would have been so beautiful, but you see, human nature, when it is

down in that crash, has nothing in there to do that. What does it do? It always substitutes a natural

fling instead of anything else. What was it? "Let us make a covering of leaves." That is only a human

substitute from an earth that has a curse upon it. And so you are going to take from the earth, which is

already a cursed thing, the materials and make a covering to come before God. Quite impossible. And

so He has to clothe them.

Oh, that wonderful heart of God, the Father Heart. The heart that had created this strange and

wonderful being. He had made all creation all about Him in all of its fields and ramifications. The

created move of God had been breathing and moving until in the God head there was the counsel and it

said, "Let us make a new creation that is something different. Let us make what we will call man.' We

will make him in our own image and likeness." Not a physical body. He didn't look at His hands and

say, "Now stick hands on him." He is talking about a moral and spiritual likeness. The imprint, the

impact of a personality which is lined up with God, so that there shall be an intelligent communion and

fellowship with Him. And the Spirit of God dwelling in there can take hold of our little, immature,

limited aspects of God and do what? Commune with Him. God is Love. Well, are we all pure love?

No. How many of you know we have a love capacity. Yes. God knows He is infinite and He is infinite

in all of His knowledge. How many know we have a knowledge capacity too? Yes we do. All of the

characteristics there are in us in a very limited fashion. They were made limited in His thought.

Well, now you see that after sin and failure there is a mess. Just a broken down chaotic mess. Don't try

to restore it. It can't be restored. There has to be a new birth and a new life and a new being. If you

sitting here are the same being that was born a few years ago, there is something radically wrong. God

sees you and He sees me, but not as the creature that we were born. He knows that. But He is all the

time by faith penetrating through, to see us as new creatures in Christ. Little new creatures with a little

life in us, a little vision, a little hope. That is what He sees.

Adam doesn't have the courage. He doesn't have the courage to come to God, so He makes these

dresses and he hides away behind the trees. It says, "Because he was naked." Now do you mean he got

naked and he was scared to see how he was made? Don't be silly! He's not talking about a physical

nakedness at all. That is purely the picture lesson. He is talking about a discovery in Adam of what? A

terrible failure, a terrible loss, a NAKEDNESS as far as any access to God. Isn't that right? He was

conscious, "Oh, my access to God has been ruined. How can I come to Him? How?" Oh no, he says

and he goes hiding. It wasn't because he was ashamed of himself. Mercy. These people with this

artificial prudish sense of decency, they wreck me. How many know we're all made alike? Now they

hide, you see. Who is hiding? That lovely wonderful thing that God had created for His glory. A thing

which He had hoped would sometime evolve and develop, not only carrying the nature of the human

being, but the character qualities hidden away would come up under the pressure of trial, testing and

proving, and blossom before Him and then finally into glory. But he doesn't see that. Adam, not

knowing the objective of God, thoroughly crashes, and so he hides himself away.

Now this is the question - Who takes the initiative to make any discovery? It has to be God. Man

would never come back. Some have a different interpretation of that idea. Some think that it is God, in

the sense of righteousness and judgment, coming down to meet the first aspect of sin. I don't see it that

way at all. "In the day that thou eatest thereof; thou shalt surely die." How many think Adam had

attended several funerals and he knew all about dying? No, he hadn't. Death wasn't even in his

vocabulary. He didn't know death, but he just knew it was some terrible thing, which would come as a

result of his disobedience and so he hides. Who is it that has to take the initiative? It is always God, the

Eternal seeking God. I think it was God broken-hearted. It seems as if it must have been God saying,

"Oh Adam, where art thou? Oh Adam, what have you done?" I can't imagine God coming out and

sternly saying, "Now Adam, where are you. Stand out here and I'm going to judge you and hell will

hold you as the first victim." No, let's not get into that stuff. He couldn't do that. I think it is the

broken heart of God loving, seeking, hoping. It is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world

finding its first place. Isn't it? I think so. He says, "Adam? Where art thou?" Now, don't leave it in the

physical. He got behind a tree and God couldn't see which tree it was and so He said, "Now Adam which

tree is you behind?" How many see that terrible stuff? It is horrible to me. I am a realist in all things

that I see; deep, lovely, rich spiritual value hidden away all the time behind the scene. "Where art

thou?" Now, God knows where he was. He knew which tree he'd been behind. "I was afraid and so I

hid away." "Where art thou?" That to me represents this first question that He is asking. He asks it of

every one of us in our experience in God.

This first one I call "position where." "Where art thou?" That's in Genesis 3:9. It is the question which

will bring the confession of your position. God can't do very much with us if we are not straightened

out on our position. The question is always asked to provoke an answer. Your answer will be a

confession and, on the basis of your confession, a blessing will move. How many get the philosophy of

that? That is the way it goes. I will show you that all the way through the word in all the different fields

into which we are going to progress and move in God. This very first one of finding our identification,

our relation, and our position in life, when God first approaches us, His first question is, "Where art

thou?" Well, what do we answer? We have to answer as Adam. Make the confession of the thing which

has brought us to the level, the plane, or the position in which we find ourselves before Him. And so he

answers and makes a confession of it. Upon the basis of that confession, how many of you see, God is

able to bring a blessing? What is it? His answer. "All these leaves will never cover you Adam. You

own where you are?" "Yes." "And you own how you would try to cover?" "Yes." "Do you see how it is

of no avail." "Yes." How many see it, a deep lovely confession of the whole situation? Then after that

He says, "Well come here. I'll show you." And that loving God slays a little animal and takes its skin

and covers Adam. How many see that is the first picture of Jesus? That is the first picture of the Lamb

slain, the first shedding of blood for the redemption of this man; they form his new position now having

answered the question. Question? That is of God. Why? To provoke an answer. What is the answer?

A confession. Why? Because your confession will become the platform upon which God may move

once more, restore and bless and do a thousand things for us. How many can see that this morning?

You see, God works from a good solid foundation. He starts with "position" and we have to own up to

our position. It is quite difficult sometimes to do that isn't it? We could make all other kinds of

confessions, but sometimes just to say, "I'm wrong," that's the hardest one. Do you know there are

people willing to be martyrs and hung up by their thumbs, rather than say, "I was wrong." Yes, that's

right. This silly, crazy ego in here, watch out for him. How many know he has a lot of religion too?

How many know the devil has religion too? Understands it very well, quotes scripture and everything.

He is very pious. It says that at times he comes as an "angel of light." Well, people don't know that,

aren't we funny? I deal with people and I say, "Oh my goodness. You don't seem to know the Lord

from the devil." They wonder if the Lord would really do that and I tell them, sure, go to the Bible.

Didn't He do a lot of funny things? When He wanted to get hold of Job, what did He do? Let the devil

loose on him didn't He? He didn't come down to Job and say, "Now dear brother Job, there is

something I have to say unto thee, thou art a perfect man, a lovely specimen. A great potential is in

you and I want to help you." No, He says, I can only get at you through this means. And He let the

devil loose on him. "Oh, the devil, caste the devil out." And everybody wants to have a deliverance

meeting of some kind to kill the devil. Well they haven't got a deliverance meeting yet that is up to

that. I'm waiting for one when they really could kill him, wouldn't that be something. I wouldn't go

near the meeting. I can't take up with all that stuff, but I kind of like to peep in a knot hole to see what

would go over. You can't play with God like that. Well He says in the word, "Ask what you will." Yes,

it does. It says a lot of other things too. So we won't play around in that field. It isn't good. Your

reaction in that isn't good. You'll have to take weeks and month sand some people even years to get

over it.

Name your position, go on and out of that, on that platform, God will come. He'll come on that

platform. Not one of you are fixing up. "Oh, let's build a lovely platform now. You pray, I'll pray, we'll

all pray." You'll never get Him to come on a platform like that. He is way off in the heavens and we

say, "Well where is God? We got a platform all fixed for Him. Now Lord." You've tried to regulate

God in the Spirit long enough. Please stop. I said the other day, people are praying for a super moving

of the spirit of God, and I say, "Well keep it up there Lord. You know how." I do. You know why?

Because flesh doesn't know anything yet and religious flesh especially. God will pour out His spirit in

some lovely new beautiful moving, and in six months from now that would be all channeled, named,

and labeled. That's the truth, that is the way flesh is. Now you know why I don't get in a lot of things. I

can't take it, I'm not geared to it. I don't want to be mixed up with it. Flesh is like that. They can't let

God move as He wants to. It has to be cataloged, fixed, programmed, lodged, labeled, fuddled with,

and by that time the Holy Ghost is out, and everybody says, "Where is the Lord?" If you live long

enough, God is going to get in there, if you are really honest, and He will upset a lot of things. Yes, He

will. Some have already found it in their experience and He's not done with any of us.

I remember when I was in seminary, S.D. Gordon used to come over and give us a Sunday school

lesson. We were young folks then. They called him the "soft peddle Evangelist" because he was more

or less of the Quaker stock and he never raised his voice above a conversational talk. He was as good

as those who have raised the roof. We're all built different. Well, I remember one time he came over

and they had one of these Sunday school lessons all fixed for him. It disturbed him and he said, "Oh,

these Sunday school lessons. I can't get anywhere with this. Let's lay it aside and let me talk." I'll

never forget one thing he said. He said, "Always remember boys, when you walk with Jesus, as I want

you to walk with Him in your daily walking, He is a divine fellow companion, but He is also a divine

disturber." How many get it? He is a divine disturber.

How many know the difference between disturbed through flesh, disturbed through the enemy, and

being disturbed by God? Don't get that all confused. There is a disturbance which is purely of the

enemy. There is a disturbance as a reaction and result of your own self-life. Then there is the

disturbance which God, by His own desire and thoughts, will work in your heart and how many of you

know you can't fix it any way you try? You just can't. Why? Because the divine disturber is in there

working. Now pray all the prayers you want to and claim all the promises you want to and upset all the

promise boxes right there and just claim them. How many know you'll never get anywhere in the wide

world. Because the divine disturber is working and you can't buy Him up with any such baloney as that

you see. He doesn't work that way.

Now, I'd like to come to another question where the Lord also asks a question and I'm very sure He

knows the answer. This person has moved from this position of failure and death, and through his

confession he has been lifted up into another level. He is now what we would say, "A saved man."

Maybe he's filled with the spirit and has all the gifts. Maybe he's had six or seven miracles, anyway, he'

s quite plump. Well now, he's moving off here on a new level, rejoicing in the Lord, and the Lord

blesses him like he did Miriam. How many remember Miriam coming out of that Red Sea, singing

before the Lord, beating her tambourine and them all dancing before the Lord. In no time after that,

she has a nasty, critical spirit that judges Moses and upsets the whole business. The Lord comes down

and says, "Miriam, you know how I see you? Like a leper and that's what you are." Wasn't that an

awful thing? I'll tell you, after she had danced in the spirit, banged her tambourine. Well how many

know that thing was in her anyway. "Oh no, the devil came at night when she didn't know it and stuck it

on her." No! She carried that right through the Red Sea didn't she? Sure she did. It was a part of her,

but she didn't know it. Isn't it good that God doesn't expose all the stuff we're made of at once? My

goodness, what a funeral it would be. He doesn't do that, He lets us see a little bit and then he blesses us

to death.

Now, this man is coming along you see. He's on a new level, but there is something that he has to learn.

He has a new position, but now this is what we call "condition." This little story is in Genesis too. It is a

nice story, but as a rule it is quite misinterpreted. Geneses 32:24, "And Jacob was left alone; and there

wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." Jacob was left alone. Dreadful to be left alone.

And he wrestled and fought in prayer with God Almighty until he got the Lord in a corner and God says,

"I'm put. What do you want?" How many of you know prayers are just like that? I've heard people

pray just like that and I've said, "Haven't you got Him in the corner yet?" But I don't. I just peek out of

one corner and say "Lord, stay out." And He stays out. Now these people who get a hold of God, now I

say, "Dear what would you do with Him if you had a hold of Him." I always wonder what they would do

with Him. Why do you do these nonsensical things?

How many know we have traditional patterns and habits in Pentecost worst than any old Jew had in the

traditions of Elders. How many of you know Pentecost is stuffed full of them? It is just full of tradition

and patterns, slogans and verses, attitudes and notions. Wouldn't it be something if one day the Lord

just swept it all away and said, "I'd like to start from scratch now?" And the Lord should come down

and start doing some of the things He wanted to. Wouldn't it be lovely? I would go to a meeting like

that. I'd keep away from the rest of them.

Now this man doesn't know too much about this business and so he is left alone. That is very bad.

Most everybody wants at least a prod at some time, but in a real crisis, it has to be settled by you alone.

You can have the prayers of all the saints, but you have to make your own decision and you have to

make your own confession. So he's left alone and the Lord got him alone. Don't think that this is an

accidental thing. I told you the other day, there is nothing accidental in this Word, there is nothing

occasional, nothing casual. The story sometimes reads so smoothly and beautifully that you would

think that it was just a casual doing. No! There is nothing casual. It is studied and arranged like a great

drama where every word of an artist or actor is weighed. Isn't that true. It has to be. It is not a casual

thing; every word, every gesture is weighed and fashioned as in a drama. The Word is a drama. The

most tremendous drama ever given. It carries nations in action. It carries personality, it holds great

prophecies, it holds lip conversation. These little words are studied out by God from the beginning, as

the media through which that Spirit and life may vibrate. It isn't of the earth, man didn't write it. God

wrote it, the Holy Spirit breathed it, and these little spirits of ours, some of them were able to catch it

and put it down.

When Jesus stood to give a little explanation about this great impact of truth which He has brought to

the world, He never got up and said, "I have some truth to give you." He didn't do that, because he is

the personification of all truth. The embodiment. All truth, light, life, all the greatest manifestation of

God possible. In Him, the fullness of the God-head dwelt. A most marvelous and wonderful

demonstration produced. When He wanted to speak about the Word which He is bringing, this

everlasting truth, He didn't say, "My Word is this, "and He held up a Bible. No. What did He say? "My

Word," what God calls His Word. This is His Word. Now I'm coming to that. Don't get scared, but that

is not what He said.

God did not say, "And behold, this is my eternal word." No, He said, "My word, the truth that pushes

out through Me, moving out for 2,000 years into the hearts and lives of thousands of people - THIS

TRUTH, MY WORD, IS SPIRIT AND LIFE." Two abstractions. Now, in order to make this clear to

us, because we are such limited creatures, He has combined in this which is the word of God - this is the

word of God, but it is the technical ledger of the word, which is the medium through which spirit and

life will vibrate and move and do the wonders which God wants through His word. Do you get it? That

is why He had to speak to those old scribes who were revering the words. I have great reverence for

this word. Who wouldn't who knows any thing about God? But to me it is the instrument through

which spirit and life will vibrate and move in spite of you and do the miracle that is needed in you. Can

you get it or can't you? He didn't say, "This is my word." It is the word, but He never says that. He

says, "My word to you is spirit, it is life." So He collects together all this phenomenal grouping -

nations, people, conversation, types, symbols, cities - all the elements in the world are mentioned,

wind, rain, snow, hail and earth; cows, birds, animals and people; all their emotions and emotional

reactions; all that is gathered up in this strange mystical wonderful word which is divinely inspired,

breathed by the Holy Spirit and yet only understood by the Spirit. You will get a surface

understanding through your mental processes, but you will never get into the spirit of the thing,

excepting by the author who wrote it.

I've been a student for many years, but I have discovered you will never get into the spirit of the word

excepting by the author who wrote it. The deeper, secret, lovely openings in truth have never come by

my mental processes. I do read, but they have not come that way, they have come in some strange

mysterious fashion in the Holy Spirit. Even sometimes while I'm reading, I'm caught out of it and I

see. Well what is that? I think it is the spirit interpreting. It is the spirit of life. "My word is spirit, it is

life." I feel that it is pushing up through the word. He said to those old fellows with the scrolls, "Ye

search these things thinking that in them you will find the secret of life; but you will not come to Me

about whom those are the testimonies - that is written about Me. I am the truth. This tells about Me.

Come to Me." Do you get it? Make contact with Him. Make contact with this marvelous Christ. Make

contact with Him in spirit. Take time out. Leave some of the fuddy, duddy things; the religiosity. Get

away from it, it will curse you. Get into this realm of the spirit where He wants to interpret these things

and bring them to us. How many see that? Truths have been on my heart so long. I wanted us to get

them 20, 30, 40 years ago, but I had no opening. I hope they will yet exhaust themselves. I really do.

I hope they will yet exhaust themselves that God would have at least one more little touch on this part

of the body. I hope that He will allow them to become so confused, so exhausted, that they will have to

stop eternally repeating an old pattern which has been exhausted long ago. It has been dead for years.

I haven't any idea that Pentecost will ever get back on a beam. I'm not so dumb as that. I'm not

praying about that at all. He's always worked with a remnant. I'm trusting God to bring light and life,

truth and reality to as many spirits who have found their way through this media as possible. I am

Pentecostal and my name is in the counsel books in Springfield, so don't get scared. But I don't see eye

to eye and I don't take up with half of the things that are going on. I just can't. And I'm honest about it.

It is not in the scheme of God. It is very religious, dramatically so, but the essence of the truth of

reality is missing.

Now this man, Jacob. Let us see what he is doing. We will take him as a man who is saved, filled with

the spirit, and walking with God. Jacob isn't just a beginner. Look at the experiences he has had with

God. But God said, "Jacob dear, I have somewhat to say unto thee. I can't say it unless you are alone.

And I am going to so circumscribe your living and your doing and so manipulate all these externals into

which you have become involved and that you are using half the time as an escape mechanism because

you don't like your ego to be disturbed. I know that, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to push that all

aside because I want to find you and I want you to find Me. I want real contact, but I can't through the

mechanism which you are involved in now. In the end you will find that is a very disconcerting thing.

It has certain advantages, but terrifying disadvantages." So when he is alone and God is after him - now

listen to this - don't get this story all mixed up with praying through, by getting a hold of God and

wrestling with God until the prayer is answered. Jacob never wrestled with the angel, the angel

wrestled with Jacob. It says distinctly, this man, this angel came down and he took the initiative to start

the wrestling.

There is a reaction in the wrestling, of course. If God deals with you, how many would sit still like a

dumbbell? No you wouldn't. You have to have reactions. That is the way we are made. How many of

you have thoughts? Sure you do. That is the way we are made. Don't apologize about it. I am a realist,

but I am spiritually minded. I have some moving in God, but it does not make me less a realist and

practical.

All right, now let us see what happens. "And Jacob was left." He will leave you alone dear, but don't be

scared. He will strip every last thing that you had as a source of inspiration, comfort or solace. He

says, "No, I can't deal with you with that." Well you say, you are saved. God is not talking about your

salvation and your baptism. Perhaps you have all the gifts. That doesn't get you anywhere in God. Of

course, those are the phenomenal things that belong in the development. He is left alone. Some people

can't stand to be alone. This is an age where nobody wants to be alone or still. How many can see the

power of the enemy working all the time to bring a confusion. He gets right in a spiritual meeting, he

gets right into the heart of a people, so that God should not have contact and access. I have known the

devil to start a commotion so that God would not visit. I mean a religious commotion. It was gendered

in flesh religiously, but it did the trick. It diverted the whole thing from any moving of God in the

Spirit. I know his tactics. Paul said, "I'm not ignorant of his devices." And after you've lived a few

years, you will see it too. You will see through.

So there is this awful stripping so that you don't have a thing to lean on. Everything is gone. That is

good, nobody wants it. We have to have something doing all the time. In a meeting it is very seldom

that you get still, only when the Lord out of sheer mercy comes down. And so, here is this man. Now it

is not Jacob wrestling with God to make God do something. Get this settled. You have never made God

do anything. God has His eternal will and purpose moving. He has been able, sometimes after severe

working, to align you up with His will, so that when you prayed, you prayed in the will of God and you

got it. And how many remember how you rejoiced and you thought you had prayed through. Now wait

a minute dear. You prayed through? No, God was six months bringing you to a place where He could

bring you to pray. How? In the spirit and God prays through you.

"And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." This is the angel. There wrestled an

angel with him until the breaking of the day. Where did that angel come from? How come there is an

angel there? Let me help you. God has been a long time getting this poor deceiving creature into a

place where He can deal with him. He has been occupied with his herds, the cattle, the wives and

children which God had given him. Well the Lord says, "Hurry up and get done with that. I want you

for a few minutes." "Well I haven't time now Lord." "Well, I'll give you time, because once you prayed

you wanted to know who I am and all about it. I'm taking you at your word. You prayed that once at a

meeting. Now I am starting to begin to commence to get ready to do it and now you become evasive.

In order to get you, do you know what I am going to do Jacob? I am going to send a special messenger

down, an angel, and he is going to grapple with you and work with you until I can get you into the

position I want you to be in and nothing in the world can do it but this method."

God sees that temperament in Jacob that nothing less than hell and damnation could get hold of him.

Some people are made like that. Some people have to have the devil and six demons shake the pudding

out of them to get them to listen. They just can't listen. But He says, "I know how to get you. I'll send

an angel down and he'll wrestle with you till you do come through. I'm after you, Jacob." "And there

wrestled an angel with Jacob." In response, Jacob begins to wrestle too. Naturally, there is a

response. You say, "Well what is this all about God? I am your child, and you have done so much, and

la, la, la." Maybe you pray for an hour and a half three times a week, I don't know. Some people take

longer than others, because their temperaments are quite different, but God sees that. So he prays this

quite extravagant prayer here.

"And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh." Oh brother!

"And the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him." Don't wait until he has to do

a thing like that - put your hip joint out of place. Learn the lesson from this, because Paul says, "All

things happened as an admonition for us." All of this is here. Jacob is here this morning. Is Jacob

around anywhere? "Oh, all I have is sweet virgin Mary worshiping the Lord." Now don't peek, but I see

Jacob too, but you don't want to be told that. How many of you feel that you are still in the flesh

naturally? All these Holy angels in front of me. How many know we're still in flesh, still bound by

certain temperamental setups. He knows that too. Now when He comes, learn your lesson from this.

Don't wrestle back with Him until He has to put your hip joint out of place.

I've often thought there is no record that God healed him of that. Do you know what I think? I think

Jacob is of the temperament that any time he might move back into this mood, do you see, his hip

would bother him. Do you get it? That is the souvenir He left him. How many of you know a souvenir

is left so that you remember something? That hip that is out of joint is Jacob's souvenir of wrestling;

souvenir of having to face God. You know, he limped ever afterward. Now matter how he got blessed,

every once in awhile he would limp. What is that saying? "Stay put Jacob." Paul had a thorn to do it to

him. He did, he said so.

And he said, "Let me go for the day breaketh." And Jacob said, "I will not let thee go unless thou bless

me." It is nice to persist, but well, "Lord, I need you and this is terrific, but if you don't bless me I'll die

and I don't want to die." How many ever got into a path like that? Well some of you have no tragedy in

you. You are so sweet and calm. People who have gone through hell a couple of times, six tragedies,

four nervous breakdowns, and have come through, I can talk with them. I can talk with them because

they have lived. But a person who has just been with sweet Jesus for 32 years and never chewed gum, I

can't get anywhere with them. I really can't. So he says, "Now bless me. Bless me." If this angel could

have spoken, do you know he would have said, "That is what I have come to do. I've been

commissioned from God, the Father to come down and bless you."

I've said it before; I have had people come to me, rather tragic people. I do a lot of personal work and

sometimes they say, "Follette, if God doesn't come in here, I will die." I say, "Now listen. Folks like

you never die." How many know they never do. They always live to upset everybody else. I always

want to say, "It would be a good thing if you could." But they never do. They are always going to die.

"I'll die." "No, you're not fit to die. How would you go to heaven? A busted down thing like you. What

would you do with the Lord? Folks like you never die." No, they are just hysterical.

He says, "I will not let you go until you bless me." He said, "Do you really want to be blessed? What is

thy name?" How many get it? "What is thy name?" Now do you mean this angel had been wrestling all

night with a man who he didn't know? No, the angel knew only too well, but I will tell you something.

Jacob didn't want to say it. Why? Because a name bears your character. Names are always given

because of character. Jacob means "deceiver, crooked, liar." Whoever wants to say to the Lord, "My

dear Lord God, I'm a damned wreck?" Would you like that? So all he says is, "What is thy name?"

What is he doing, doesn't he know who he is? He wants Jacob to own up to what he was, that Jacob

could look up and say "Jacob." I'm glad to see him crash down there like that.

How many see confession is a platform? Do you get it? "What is thy name?" That is the question.

What is the answer? "Jacob". What does that become? A platform and God meets him the very

minute that he will own up to what he is. And he says, "Oh no. Not now." Why he says, "You've

prevailed with God." You have prevailed in what God had intended you to do. You've prevailed, you

have come through, but I had to bring you through in this drastic way of sending a special minister

down. A spirit that would do this strange work in you that you could come to the place where you

could say, what is it? Condition.

Our time is up and I haven't got the other two. How many got anything this morning? Did you get

some things to think about? I want you to have plenty to take along, not to work it all out here, you can'

t do it. It will take the rest of your life to get some of these things going.

Now tomorrow, I want to get to two more questions which are asked. I have two in the Old Testament

and two in the New. Both of them relate to episodes in our own experience, in our own dealings with

God. Now, I do this for our practical living. I want you to learn how to live. How to let the Holy Spirit

get a hold of you to live. To remodel, to recast, to do a thousand things in every one of us for the Glory

of God.

I was just praying how often we are only conscience of surface disturbances because we live so on the

surface of life, we don't penetrate down into the depths out of the heart, that means, the lower levels of

your being, of your thinking, of your whole spiritual setup. There are the issues of life, but they come

poking their way up. Sometimes they are released and it takes days, weeks, and even months, and with

some, even years before it reaches the surface where it is made manifest.

I often say, Lord, I am hungry and I am in need, but perhaps I am only concerned with a surface

disturbance, which is annoying me now. Perhaps that has its origin down on the ocean floor of my

being. You see, we are like a trinity - down on the ocean floor, and so sometimes he has to go down

there to reveal to us the real reason for this disturbance up here, or even the heart hunger.

Now, sometimes when we analyze what we call the heart hunger, we will be quite amazed. It is not just,

I want more of God. That is alright. But, that is not it. The whole being - we are a trinity in our

structural law of our being. As our old church fathers said so pointedly, the heart was made for God;

neither shall it find rest until it rests in him.

Now he was not just talking about my soul finding salvation, that is included, but I am more than a

soul. The soul content in me is only one aspect of my being. The whole being is to be brought under

the powers of redemption. Spirit, soul and even body. Now God takes regard to the body. Never

become so spiritual that you loose consciousness of body, no, even in the resurrection God is going to

yet tamper with this old body, sure as a lick. Well, why not? Because it is the completion of the

redemption of the whole concept of my life and your life - spirit, soul, body.

Sometimes this urge to live - God gave me a poem on the Eternal Urge. The eternal urge, this terrific

urge that is birthed within every one of us, it does seek expression. The first law of life is to become

expulsive, to live. Since that is true, that urge to live relates to three departments of your being and to

my being - to make the personality a complete concept. It has to be. If I disregard, or become ignorant

of any part of it, how many see my salvation is limited? The response is only partial. God only

partially glorified in the release and in the redemption of the whole being, spirit, soul, body.

He is concerned with your spiritual life. He is concerned with your soulish life. It is a part of you. Don'

t be shying off on it and think you are just a spirit. This great field of what we are, sometime when I am

freed in the millennium, I am going to lecture and talk on some things which are very wonderful tome.

I would like to give you a real analysis of what we are as God created us. I would like to do it. Not

purely from the sense of a scholar in psychology, not that, I know that field, I had courses in it, but that

is not it. It has a certain background and a certain fundament, but there is no one in the world but this

mystical spirit of God that can get in there and do it. He is so wonderful in the delicacy of his being. He

can get in there.

Now, sometimes the urge may rest in one department, the need perhaps in another. As we found out,

we know from just ordinary psychology, most all of the ailments that react in your flesh and body are

mental and spiritual. Jesus knew it too, and He dealt that way with it. Any who have allowed Him to

give you a treatment you have found out that He is the most gifted psychologist and psychiatrist that

ever lived. Don't ask Him unless you mean it. I have heard people say, Oh Lord, show me my heart just

as it is. I said; do