From the Spirit Within 1974

I'd like to read today from the Gospel of John, chapter 4, verse 14. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

Some of you may remember when Brother Groves was here about two years ago. He started out by describing revival as an atmosphere. Wherever there is revival going on, anywhere on earth, that's genuine.

Not something cooked up by man, but something which really originates in the spirit of the living God. The characteristic mark of this thing is that whenever you walk into that area where it's going on, or among those people, or into that building, there is something about the atmosphere around you that just reaches out and gets hold of you. Before a word is spoken or a hymn is sung, you just know that the very air that you're breathing is drenched in the presence of God.

Without any effort on your part, you're simply lifted up out of yourself and brought up before the throne. Your heart prostrates itself before God almost automatically. And your spirit comes out of its lethargy and knows that it now has to get clean.

Sometimes even your body begins to tremble. That's how the Quakers got their name. Now those of us who have ever tasted any of this will testify that as long as we are surrounded by that atmosphere of worship that comes down straight out of heaven, it's easy to serve God, easy to praise Him, easy to do all kinds of very difficult and painful things in obedience to His Word.

It's easy to defy our fears and walk right through fire and danger. But this atmosphere of revival which comes down upon the earth at certain times and lifts us right up into the very presence of glory is always temporary. Palm Sunday, what we call Palm Sunday.

This spirit of worship just came down on the city of Jerusalem and almost everybody in this city was praising God. If they hadn't been praising God, the very stones would have had to cry out. Hosanna to the Son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Men who hadn't uttered the name of God for years were weeping. Children were uttering prophecy.

The daughters of Jerusalem were rejoicing with such a joy that those streets had never witnessed anything like it before. Then, this atmosphere which God sent into Jerusalem to prepare the coming of His Son into that city as He comes now for the last time to lay down His life, this atmosphere is then withdrawn back to heaven and the air becomes earthy once again. And now who is worshiping God? Now who's praising God? By the end of the week, no one left but one man, Jesus, worshiping the Father by driving that bloody cross toward Golgotha, worshiping His Father with those nail-pierced hands outstretched as He offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice for us.

Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God, in the volume of the book it is written of me. Now this atmosphere of worship comes from God and is sent down and is like an oxygen tent. You know, as long as you're in the oxygen tent, you can breathe.

No problem. The question is, what happens when the oxygen tent is removed and you once again find yourself surrounded by stale, earthy, dirty air? God is now raising up a people who, like His Son, by the indwelling power of His Son, go on living to His praise and speaking and singing His praise outside the oxygen tent. Raising up a people who go right on doing His will and worshiping Him with all their hearts, even when the atmosphere around them is utterly polluted.

People who are no longer children who have to have the right atmosphere in order to worship God, driven around by every wind that comes along, but who are now driven from within by the Spirit God has given them and go right on worshiping Him, no matter what the outside circumstances are, through all eternity. God, I am convinced, is trying to bring us to that place. Trying to bring us to the place where we worship Him not because of the atmosphere around us, but in spite of the atmosphere around us.

See, when the revival comes, the Spirit comes. But when the revival goes away, as we call revival, the Spirit hasn't gone. The Spirit's still here.

See, the atmosphere has changed, but the Spirit has not left. And the same Spirit that came to us during the revival is now speaking in our hearts and saying to us, regardless of the circumstances around us or the feelings around us or within us, worship God. So you feel utterly depressed.

You don't know which way to turn. You're all confused. The Spirit of God within you says, worship God.

You go to the Bible and you start flipping through, looking for some comfort. How many times do you find this happen? You know, instead of getting a word of comfort what happens, you become just wrapped up in a word that exhorts you to praise God. I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be continually in my mouth.

The evil one begins to whisper all kinds of terrible things that are going to happen to you in the future. You know, what if you get sick? What if you lose your job? What if you're in an accident? What if this or that? And the Spirit of God within you says, don't listen, don't even answer, turn to heaven and worship. Or you'll wake up one morning and discover that as far as you can tell, you've run out of steam.

Your zeal is gone. You have no joy or delight anymore in serving God. You just feel sick of the whole thing.

But the Spirit within you says, worship God. Now, if we would listen to the Spirit who speaks these things, this one message in our hearts to worship God, we would rise up and go from strength to strength. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up on wings as the eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint see.

And to wait on the Lord is not to sit around and tap your fingers until another revival comes. To wait on the Lord is to worship the Lord so intensely and so constantly that your body indeed becomes a living sacrifice and your mind is continuously renewed. See, but what do we do? We don't listen to the Spirit speaking in our hearts.

We look around and we check out the atmosphere around us and we discover that the atmosphere has changed. See, and people aren't praising God like they were. And those palm branches aren't being waved around like they were.

And immediately, with an act of will, we quench the spirit of worship in our own hearts. I believe that this is happening to literally thousands of people all over this city at this time. People who just a few months ago or a few years ago were red hot, really on fire for God.

But not now. Because the fire that was there has been cooled down by their flesh. And now they're extremely conscious of what people think of them.

They're afraid to move. They're on the rebound from what they now consider to be their former excesses. And so now they're very sensible and very dead.

And some of this has happened to us. Many of us. After a while, you start getting homesick for that joy you had when you were on your face before the throne.

And you begin to look around for anybody who can wrap you up once more in the atmosphere of God's presence. And now you're in danger of getting sucked in by a false Christ. Because there will always be a false Christ just standing there ready to give you just the atmosphere of revival that you think you're seeking.

You know, and they'll say, lo, he's in the desert. Lo, he's in the secret chambers. And the Word of God says, don't go.

Don't go. The Christ that you seek is not in the secret chambers and he's not in the desert and he's not in some hothouse Christian atmosphere that's a constant human 98.6. The Christ that you seek is in your heart now by the Spirit who is even now urging you to worship God outside the oxygen tank. In other words, at the beginning of the day, the Spirit of God calls us to worship God always, don't you see, in spite of, not rather because of, not because of the atmosphere, but in spite of the atmosphere, in spite of the fact that we wake up and we're depressed and the day looks blah and we have sinus trouble and we have a headache and nonetheless there is a Spirit inside us that cries, Abba, fuck and is quite able to lift us right up out of that into the presence of God.

See, during the revival, God reached down and he drew worship out of us. He drew it out of us, sucked it out of us almost to help us, to teach us how this works. But now, when the oxygen tank of revival as we could call it, is removed, he wants to teach us that the Spirit of God has now come into us and let the Spirit of the Lord in us lift us out of ourselves and up before his presence.

Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again for the water that I shall give him will become into him a spring of living water welling up to eternal life. See, and that spring never runs dry and the water is fresh every morning, even in the middle of the night. The Spirit who is within us is calling us also to join into unity with our brothers and sisters in the worship of God, to glorify God with one mind and with one mouth in spite of the fact that we are few and that we are weak and that we are often confused.

You know, what makes us seem to think, so many of us seem to think that we can only really have worship when we have a thousand people so we can worship God even if we are few or even if we are mixed up and even if we do have problems. What gives us the idea that we have to first of all set the stage like you're putting on some kind of production in order to have the worship of God. You can worship God with the organ, you can worship God with the guitar, you can worship God in silence with cymbals and drums on your face, on your feet, with your hands up, with your hands down with two people or with two thousand it doesn't make any difference.

If the spirit that is in you is the spirit of God and the spirit that is in me is the spirit of God what more do we need? Why do we need a 500 voice choir or blue lights? The spirit is calling us to worship God in spite of the fact that the creation is groaning in travail. In other words, to join the creation in worshiping God when it is groaning in travail bringing forth the manifested sons of God in its time. There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars.

On the earth the stress of nations with perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves. Men fainting for fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the earth for the powers of heaven will be shaken for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famine and there will be starvation See, you're not going to be standing at your window praising God for that beautiful sunset. The window's going to be broken and the wind and the rain are going to be driving through your house and you're going to be shivering and your floor under your feet is going to be trembling and still you are going to be praising God with the creation which is even in its birth pans praising God as it brings forth this new race Meanwhile, when the birth pangs are still relatively mild as they are now, we praise God not only in the golden harvest, but in the storm and in the drought.

The Spirit of the Lord is urging us to join with the host of heaven in the worship of God, in spite of the fact that the host of heaven is to us invisible. For you have come, it says in Hebrews, to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels in festal gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. Do you see them? No.

What are they doing? They're worshiping God. With all their heart they're worshiping God. They're on their faces before him in awe.

They're on their feet praising his glory, and the Spirit who is in us brings us, links us to them, brings us into their presence. And their song becomes our song, and their joy lifts our hearts. Therefore, with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, Holy, Holy.

And when we get to that place, in our worship of God, joined with the host of heaven in his praise, the devils tremble. Sickness flees. Fear shrivels up.

Death and hell shake in their boots. We have come to a time, and this is one of the reasons why all over the city and all over the earth these gatherings of believers are being shaken. We've come to a time when God is calling us, I'm absolutely sure, and I'm sure you are too, to a level of obedience and love and sacrifice and self-denial beyond anything we've ever known up to now.

To live the life that God calls us to now, in the world as it now is, will only be possible if the inner condition of our hearts is continuous and unbroken worship of God. Only if that spring of living water is indeed gushing forth, even when we're surrounded by nothing but desert. Don't be sitting around waiting for another revival.

And don't do like so many, chasing from place to place or from experience to experience, trying to somehow duplicate the oxygen tent experience they once had. Rather, by the power of the Spirit of the Lord, who is now in you, worship God. Worship God, see, and let yourself be inspired and let yourself be guided and encouraged.

Not by the atmosphere around you, but by the Spirit who is now in you. And then, as the world around us crumbles and collapses as it will, we will go from strength to strength as ministers of the living Christ in the final hour of this world's day. Let's pray.

Lord God, we're praying for a cleansing of our hearts and of all our fellowships, of all those things which have truly hindered the free and untrammeled movements of your Spirit. For everything that's dishonest, false, pretentious, vain, self-centered, fearful, lusting, greedy, gluttonous, glory-hungry, vicious, angry. All those things in us that have just absolutely messed us up.

And we pray, Father, that that stream of pure and living water may begin to flow in our hearts, Father, freely. Regardless of what's going on around us, anywhere, on our jobs, or in our fellowships, or in our homes, or on our streets, or what it may be. That from within, Lord God, that stream of living water may indeed flow.

And that those things in us, Lord God, that have hindered and blocked may be removed now. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.