Stepping Out Into The Deep Waters

The opportunity to open the scriptures and to break the bread for the children. I pray that we would have humble hearts to receive with meekness the word of God that he could cause it to be planted within us and that it would bear fruit in Jesus' name. Amen.

A lot of the scriptures that we read, we don't understand because they seem to come in visions or in parables. So we need someone to unravel or open the scrolls for us and that's what the anointing of the Holy Spirit is for and that's the ministry of the gifts of the Spirit and the teaching and preaching of the word. We might get revelation, something fresh from heaven and cause us to grow spiritually.

You know, Sean, you shared about a tree that's planted. It can be watered, but eventually, like he said, we have to be able to tap into the source for ourselves and find the refreshment from the Lord. That's the importance of teaching the children until they can come to their own faith in Jesus and start to hear from the Holy Spirit.

Even as the lambs follow the sheep, eventually the lambs must become sheep to hear his voice and to follow him. Personal relationship with Jesus. When Jesus came, it says, without a parable, he never spoke.

So why did he speak to the people in parables? So that hearing they would hear and not understand. So what happens if I speak to my children and they hear but they don't understand? Then I can have mercy on them. I can have compassion on them.

But if they're defiant, they know exactly what I'm asking of them and they defy my word. I have no choice but to deal severely with them in discipline. And so it's kind of his mercy toward us that he conceals things to us from us so that he can have compassion on us when we're ignorant.

You know, when Jesus was speaking of those who were crucifying him, he said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. What seemed to me from reading it, they knew exactly what they were doing.

But it says, had they known or had they really believed that Jesus was their Messiah, they would not have crucified the Lord. And so he was able to exercise compassion, even on one Saul of Tarsus. Because he did these things, killing Christians, he was persecuting them, thinking he was doing God's service in ignorance until he got the revelation.

So let's not despise the fact that everybody's not getting the revelation at the same time, or by now we should be farther. Yes, we should be farther. But the Lord is still working.

And we're on the journey. I wanted to read something from Ezekiel 47. I shared this a little bit with Gerson a couple few weeks ago.

Ezekiel, is there a Jeremiah Ezekiel 47? And we see a vision can be like a parable. We'll start in 47 one. Then he brought me back to the door of the temple.

And there was water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. From the front of the temple, it faced east. Water was flowing from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar.

And he brought me out by the way of the north gate, he led me around to the outside of the outer gateway, which faces east, there was water running out of the right side. And when we think about water running out of the temple, we're thinking flood, we're thinking these are not good things. But in this situation, these are good things.

Because he's speaking of the Spirit. And then the man went out to the east, and there was a line in his hand, and he measured 1000 cubits, a cubit, I think is like about 18 inches. And so there's a certain measure of line that is measured.

And when you go out a certain distance from the temple, through the waters, the water came up to his ankles. So it seemed as though this water was flowing. And the further the water went out, you would think it would get less.

You would think the water would be less as it spreads out. But as the water was leaving the temple, and it was extended out, the water was increasing. And he brought another measure and another 1000 cubits, the water came up to the knees, which is totally contrary to gravity and the way things work.

When you have a flood and things in the water goes and eventually you you see a trickle coming from somewhere, you follow it back and you can see it's the closer you get to the source. It's really coming out now. But this is actually the opposite.

There seems to be a trickle coming forth from the temple, from the throne of God, and from the Lamb. And as it goes forth, and as the walk happens, it goes to the ankles. And then now we are where the water is going to the knees.

The further we walk with the Lord, the greater the flow of the spirit of life is moving. Again, he measured another 1000, and the water came up to my waist. And then again, he measured another 1000, 4000 cubits now, and it was a river that could not be crossed, for the water was too deep water in which one must swim a river that could not be crossed.

And he said to me, Son of Man, have you seen this? Then he brought me and returned me back to the bank of the river. And when I returned there along the bank of the river, where very many trees on one side and on the other, then he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, the waters are healed.

And it shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the river goes, will live. And there will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there, and they will be healed and everything will live wherever the river goes. We see the vision of Ezekiel.

We see the temple, a picture of the temple. And we think in terms of natural, but he's speaking in terms of the spirit. I want to read a passage from John and chapter seven.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John chapter seven. The great feast is at hand, the brothers are going up to the feast and they told Jesus to go, they didn't believe in him. They thought that he wanted to be a show-off.

He wanted to show himself as being a somebody. Jesus said, my time is not now. But then shortly after, he did go.

And people were asking questions about him. In verse 37, John chapter seven, verse 37. On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried out saying, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. This here is a picture of Ezekiel's vision. Jesus being the source of life.

But this he spoke concerning the spirit. Whom those believing in him would receive, but the Holy Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified or resurrected. And so we see an example of the temple.

Jesus told the priest there, tear this temple down. And in three days, I'll raise it up again. And they were thinking naturally.

They looked at the natural buildings. They said it's taken 40 some years, 47 years or whatever, to build these temples and you're going to rebuild this great thing that took so many years in three days. They did not understand that he spoke about his body.

Jesus' temple is the place where the presence of God dwelt. And wherever Jesus went, love flowed from him. Power flowed from him.

Life flowed from him. People followed him. People were healed wherever he went because the spirit dwelt in him.

Now, we who are born again become part of his body. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are adopted or grafted into the vine. We become the bride of Christ, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.

And the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is able to raise us up with Christ. And so we also become part of this temple. He being the the capstone and the cornerstone.

And we being knit together as individual members but part of the corporate body or temple of God. And so when we receive salvation, we receive a measure of the spirit. But we can go further with the Lord and we can receive a greater measure of the spirit.

We can receive an outpouring of the spirit and another outpouring of the spirit the further we go. And we can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We can receive the gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And we can emanate the same power and love that Jesus emanated when he was on the earth. Because Jesus himself said, greater works than these shall you do in my name. Either Jesus was a liar or he spoke the truth.

Just because we haven't experienced it, just because we haven't seen it with our own eyes, it doesn't mean that there is untapped source of life and power in the spirit. And we're not hindered by him. We're hindered by our own affections.

We're hindered in our own unwillingness to keep going with God. Because maybe we're going to come to a place where we start to become uncomfortable. Oh, we get excited.

The spirit is moving and we're jumping around and things are exciting. But then it's getting deeper. And some of us like Uncle Sean, they don't like to swim too much.

They're afraid of the water. But if you want to keep going with God, it becomes a mighty river to a place where you're going to lose control of where you're going to go and how much ground you're going to take or not take or which direction. Because you're going to come to a place where it's going to come over your waist where one must swim.

And that is a place of total dependence on Christ. And that's a scary place. For those of us who lack faith, who are weak in faith, who have not experienced swimming in the river of God.

So sometimes, you know, and actually we take our children to the to the pool. And they're afraid, but people hold them and they teach them some things and they have to learn how to float and some things. This is what the teaching of the scriptures and the experiences of gray-haired men and women, where this comes into into play.

Because we hear the testimony of the forerunners of Christ and we see Hebrews 11. We see those who risked everything for the sake of Christ, who didn't receive freedom. They stood fast and said, we will not deny the Lord.

And we see that others went through with God and it builds our faith until we come to a place where we say, hey, you know what, it's time to step out and go deeper. You know, Jesus was at the well. I'm sure he wanted to get some food too, but you know what the father told him to sit tight.

So the brothers went to get food and he waited at the well until he got instructions from his father. And all of a sudden here came a woman, a Samaritan woman come drawing water from the well. And the father speaks to him and says, this is the woman that I want to use to spread the word of God to the people in the surrounding region.

I want to use this woman. This woman? Yes, this woman. And the woman is there drawing from that well, Jacob's well.

And he says, could you give me a drink? This is how he begins conversation. Very simple. The woman's like, you're talking to me.

Why are you talking to me? First off, men and women, there was a separation. Now, you know, we text women and we text men. This is not proper, guys.

You got no business texting another man's wife or daughter or another woman texting some other guy's husband. This is not fitting, guys. You have your own husbands, you have your own wives.

If the spirit comes on you, you speak from the spirit. We need to have a clean separation. Some of the, in the old, they put, when I go to third world countries, the men on the left, the women on the right, there's a separation even in the church.

Not because one is better than the other, but for the sake of purity, for the sake of keeping things clean, so the temptation doesn't come in. And then there's teaching on modesty and everything else. So as not to cause another man's husband or to look at another woman, you know, with uncleanness.

For love's sake, we dress in such a way so as not to cause a stumbling block. So that when we come into the house of God specifically and purposely, we can look to the Lord. We're not looking at the fashions and everything else going on.

There's a time for that at home. So what we see here is this woman at the well. She says, I perceive you're a prophet.

Because Jesus said, if you knew who was asking, you would ask me of a drink and I would give you living water. So you don't have to come here and draw. And it would satisfy the longing and the thirsting of your soul.

You see, this woman was looking for love in relationships. He was speaking spiritually, wasn't talking about that natural well. He was talking about the deep well within her, which was empty.

It says a harlot is a narrow well, a deep well. Longing for something, always searching deeper and deeper, never satisfied. We will not find contentment in personal and natural relationships on this earth.

You will not find satisfaction in getting married and taking a wife and having children. You might find a measure of it, but it will leave you empty because the world is seeking these things and then they divorce and remarry, they divorce and remarry. They're not happy with this person, not happy with that person.

Relationships will lead you to a dead end unless you both have a relationship with Christ. On this solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Christ is the sure foundation, the rock on which I stand.

And Jesus was seeking to speak truth and life to this woman. You would think he would do a sermon, but he doesn't. He just puts his finger on the hot button, which is where her security lies, which is where her desires are hidden in her desire for relationship and security with a man.

Go get your husband, hot button. I don't have a husband. Hope he doesn't ask me any more questions.

No, he's not going to ask you more questions. He's going to tell you you've had five husbands. The man you're with now is not your husband.

In this you have spoken truthfully. Well, she didn't really speak truthfully. She had said that the guy wasn't her husband.

That's the only truthful thing that she said. She didn't have a husband and she didn't get into details, but Jesus exposed the truth. You see, you can't experience the life in the spirit unless you come to the light.

If you have hidden things of darkness, you're not going to walk in the spirit. It says God is light and in him is no darkness at all. So you say, well, you know, I'm just kind of feel stagnant.

I kind of feel stale. I kind of feel like, you know, I'm not growing. There's no life.

Nothing's flowing. Get into the light, man. Start confessing your sins.

Start bringing the dark things to the light. Having no part dark. Watch the spirit will start to work because God is with humility and he's with truth.

His word is truth. He desires those who worship him to worship him in the spirit and in the truth. It's not very hard.

You just have to be honest. She drops her water pot. She runs to town to tell everyone about a man.

Oh, another man. No, no, not another man. Could this be the Christ? He told me everything ever did.

Love flowed from him. He put his finger on the sin issue, but love flowed from him. He did it in such a way with that woman to bring about conviction to the point where she forgot why she was there to go and run and talk about the one who brought joy and peace and fulfillment from deep within out of her innermost being started to come.

Rivers of water started to come as she ran to town to tell everyone about Jesus. When you meet Jesus, things will start to change in your life. Life will start to come.

Joy and peace will start to flow. These are just a couple of testimonies of what Jesus can do and how he meets people at different ways. On this one occasion, it's one-on-one with the woman at the well.

On this other occasion, in John 7, he's in the great temple at the last day of the great feast and he stands up and he draws attention unto himself and he speaks by the spirit and he says, come to me! Whatever your situation, if you need life, you come to him. And even if it gets uncomfortable and you're not sure what the risk is, you take that step of faith where one must swim. Go to him.

Trust him. Put your faith in Christ. Walk with the Lord.

Even when it seems like you don't know where you're going, he'll make a straight path for you. And on either side of this river, there was life. There were fishermen there.

We didn't read that far. There were trees on either side. Fruit was abundant.

But there were also the marshy places. People who would not go into that river. The places that became stagnant.

The salt marshes. Now we finish looking in Revelation 22. We started in Ezekiel.

We see Ezekiel's vision, a snippet of it here in Revelation 22. Now Jesus said, you are the temple of the living God in the new covenant. If the spirit of God dwells in you.

1 Corinthians chapter 3. You are the temple of God if the spirit of God dwells in you. He also says this, if any man defile the temple, you bring uncleanness into the temple. God will destroy that person, which temple you are.

He shares it in other passages. Know you not that you're the temple of God. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Come out from among them and be separate.

Don't touch unclean things. I'll be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters. We are God's building.

We are God's house. We are his people. And so if we are the temple of God, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And so we cannot partake of the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. That's where the passage speaks clearly about it. We are a set apart people for his purposes.

And if we are the temple, the same spirit that flowed from Christ ought to flow from us. And the further you walk with the Lord, the more you will flow in the spirit. You say, well, I only have a trickle coming from my life.

Praise the Lord. There's life there. Go deeper.

Keep going with the Lord. Don't sit on the side of the road. You become blind like Bartimaeus.

The good news is Bartimaeus heard the Lord passing by because time and time again, the Lord will visit his people. And he cried out loud until Jesus took notice of him. You can cry out loud and Jesus will take notice of you.

If you come to a place where you experience spiritual blindness, you stop getting light, become stagnated because of sin. Looking in the Revelation 22, and he showed me verse one, a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and from the lamb. Now, where is God's throne? Heaven is a strong Isaiah 66.

And there's another place the earth is his footstool. We as the people of God are the footstool of God. There's two places where God's spirit dwells in the high and the holy place and with him who is humble, who is broken, contrite, and who trembles at the word of God.

Heaven is his throne. The earth is his footstool. He dwells in the high and the lofty place and with him who is humble and contrite.

And so on the earth, there is a manifestation today of the spirit of God flowing forth from the throne of God, which is manifested through us, his footstool. This is my understanding of it. Proceeding from the throne of God and from the lamb.

You say, well, this is Revelation. This is sometime in the future. Revelation is exactly what it says in verse one, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And individually for you, it might be in a different place than it is for someone else. But we live by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Every day you need a fresh bread.

You need a living manna, not the bread that the fathers ate and died in the wilderness. Jesus said, the one who feeds on me shall live. Are you feeding on the manna that comes from heaven? The flesh I give, he says, isn't from the earth.

The flesh he gives is from heaven. He didn't have a sinful nature like Joseph because Joseph was not his father. He didn't have a sinful nature that came from Mary because Mary was a host that carried that holy thing.

He said, the flesh I give is from heaven. So not only did his spirit come from heaven, but his flesh came from heaven. I believe it was like the first in vitro.

The embryo was implanted, which came from heaven, which carried fully man and fully God. He was the second Adam. He was the last Adam.

Adam was made from the dust. Christ was not made from the dust. He was the man from heaven.

1 Corinthians 11 speaks on these things. It is a mystery. He says, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed.

My question is, when did your change come? When were you born again? We bore the natural Adam, but we shall now bear the spiritual Adam. In a moment, it happened in a twinkling of an eye. When? Not at the first trumpet.

At the last trumpet. The dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. Oh, I know one day there's something greater coming.

But you know what? First the spiritual and then the natural. First the natural, then the spiritual. What does it say? First the natural and the spiritual.

Jesus said, my words are spirit. Oh, brother, you're spiritualizing it. 100%.

Jesus said, my words are spirit and they are life. All those who came before me, they died. But this priest of his kingdom, there shall be no end.

And now the scepter is no longer in Levi, unless you're still somewhere an old covenant believer. The scepter's in Judah. Jesus the Christ, both king and priest forever and ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Which had, he had no beginning of days nor end of life. But Jesus now, he is our high priest. And he is not only our high priest, he is our brother.

He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses and our struggles. And the life that flowed from him, from the throne and from the lamb, now, because the father and the son dwell in us through his spirit, can flow forth from us, through our hearts, because we've received him by faith. We can receive a greater measure of the spirit.

We can receive another outpouring of the spirit. We can ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some people say, well, it's just a one-time thing.

It's a one-time deal. I say that, fill my cup, Lord, and fill it up and make me full. That I might be a representation of Jesus to flow this pure water of life.

You notice it's not perverted. It's not murky. It's not contaminated.

The word of God is pure. The word of God is clean. The word of God is righteous.

The word of God is right. Purifying the soul comes forth from the throne of God, from our hearts also, even as we speak regarding the word of God flowing forth through the ministration of the spirit and from the lamb. And in the middle of its street and on either side of the river, the tree of life, which bore 12 fruits, each yielding fruit each month, every month.

And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse. Who took the curse for us? Well, there's a curse for those who are still under the law.

There's a curse for those who are not regenerated. But for us who are born again, He became a curse for us at Calvary. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

He fulfilled the law so that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So his brother Tyler shared about walking in the spirit and living a life in the spirit. That's where there's righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

And the further we walk and the deeper the river goes and the greater it becomes as we see the trees. Now you say, well, it says in Ephesians about nine fruits of the spirit. It's talking about 12 fruits of the spirit.

Well, the Catholics took it from one of the other writings and they come up with 12. They use charity. They separate love from charity.

They call one of the fruits of the spirit chastity. And I forget the other one, but it's purity, sexual purity, both inward and outward. And so there's symbolism in it that wherever the spirit of God is flowing, the fruit of the spirit is abundant.

And so you yourself know and people around you know that when you're walking in the spirit, you are going to emanate the fruits of the spirit. And at different times you have more need of patience. And so it'll become very evident that you have patience or it'll become evident that you have need of kindness and you'll exemplify extreme measures of kindness instead of anger.

Or you will make sacrifices of love where love is not warranted. And because of the spirit of Christ in you, you're going to exemplify love, faithfulness, and all these attributes that the Holy Spirit will do as he changes our character, as he regenes us from the inside out, which the law could never do because it was weak through the flesh. So when trying to be a good person, that's the wrong answer.

It's in letting go and letting God. It's in total surrender and going to a place in your walk with God where one must swim, where you allow the Holy Spirit to take over and manifest and emanate. If we're seeing bad fruit coming from our life, it says a good tree cannot produce bad fruit.

So repentance is needed. You say, well, I repented once. I'm good.

No, if you get angry and you can't just justify yourself in our anger, we're not to sin. So then repentance is needed. What does repentance ultimately do? It's humiliating.

We have to humble ourselves. Who gets the grace to humble? We're wondering why we're not getting grace, why we're not changing. You want to know why? Because we're holding to a reputation.

We're trying to hold to a reputation rather than coming to the light. If we'd rather humble ourselves, then he could lift us up and give us those things which he wants to pour out lavishly into our lives. It's our pride that's keeping us.

When you started out and you were a pothead and you were this and you were that and society knew that you were no good and useless, what reputation did you have then? You had no reputation, just a bad one. But now we've become something because Christ has been working. So now we're trying to hold to our reputations, hold to our integrity.

But if we're still emanating bad fruit, maybe pride is what's causing the field to become contaminated. So yes, we want to have a good reputation towards the outsiders. But what does it matter what people think of us if God thinks of us totally opposite? It doesn't matter anything.

Better to be honest, better to be truthful, better to be humble. I have but Lord, I ask for more. I'm not perfected in love.

And let the fruit start to come. Let it grow as the Holy Spirit has his way. I'll finish here with a song that we sometimes sing.

Maybe, Gerson, you can play it if you know it. Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. You are the potter, I'm the clay.

Looking at Ezekiel, and I think it was Ezekiel, and he went to the potter's house and he saw him working on a vessel at the wheel. And as he was working on something that he expected to be beautiful, it became marred, it became destroyed or flawed in his hand. And he broke it down again, and he made it again into something beautiful.

Some of us, because of pride and self-righteousness and greed, whatever it is, we've become marred in his hand. We need the Lord to break us down again, to bring us back to nothing, so that he can make us into a vessel of honor, to sanctify us by his own blood, to wash us in his word, to mold us and make us after his will, and just wait patiently while he's working. Yielded and still.

Have thine own way, Lord. Amen.