Utterance

John 7. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. In all the teaching that goes on in this flock, the emphasis has been and will continue to be that we are to live a life that matches our message.

We are to live our gospel. We are to walk as children of light. I am to be an embodiment of the gospel that I proclaim.

And if I don't live toward my wife and children the gospel that I proclaim to other people, then my message loses its edge, not just with my wife and children, but with people who never see my home life. As long as we are in this body of flesh and blood, we continuously strive to bring our life along with our gospel so that even the most private and secret and hidden areas of our lives are lived as men and women who have in fact become new creatures in Christ Jesus. But there is a problem at the other end of the picture, which we often miss.

Most of us are having difficulty not only living our gospel, we are also having trouble speaking it. Now there are many of us who have in fact, in truth, come into the kingdom. We know Jesus.

He has become real to us. He has manifested himself. He has changed our lives.

He lives within us, and yet we have no utterance. Somehow we find that we are not able to proclaim in words the truth about Jesus which is in our hearts. Either the words just don't come, or when they do come, they simply lack authority.

They don't have the power. And so, instead of telling people about Jesus, instead of speaking forth the word of God through these tongues which God gave us, we think we have to take people over here to listen to somebody who will have the word, we hope. Come to our church and listen to our preacher.

Come to our fellowship. We have a wonderful teacher. Read this book by Watchman Nee or Oswald Chambers.

Take this tract and read it. It explains everything. The word of the living God ought to find a way of utterance through our mouth, our mouth, at that moment of opportunity, at that place of need.

We don't have to be dragging people around to hear the gospel from somebody else's mouth. Is not the body of Christ, in fact, a nation of prophets? Every man, woman, and child who is indeed born of the Spirit should have rivers of living water flowing out of his heart and across his mouth. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people.

What for? That you should proclaim, declare, speak forth the wonderful work of him. Notice that it does not say certain gifted ones of you are to do this. All of you, all of us, are called to speak forth the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why isn't the word of the living God just gushing forth from every single mouth in this assembly? How is it that so often the words come but they're dead? On the day of Pentecost, the first organ of the human body to manifest the power of the Spirit was the tongue. What's wrong with our tongues? Now this door of utterance, this power to speak forth the word of God, is one of the most holy mysteries in the life of the believer. It's not some skill that you acquire by going to seminary or Bible college or some kind of training program.

Not something that you acquire like learning how to swim nor is it some kind of gift that you're born with like the gift of God. It's a spring of supernatural utterance which God opens up in your heart causing words to flow across your lips which you know are not yours but they are God's and you are dependent upon God hour by hour and day by day to keep that spring flowing. Don't be misled by these slick, glib testimonies that you sometimes will hear on TV or by this smooth flowing gospel that comes from the mouth of the professional Christian orators.

Divine utterance is not facility with words. Divine utterance is not being able to say these things fast and easy. Divine utterance is being able to speak for the witness to Jesus Christ which God puts in your heart and to do this without worrying about how it sounds.

One of the reasons we don't have that liberty to speak is because we're all the time worried how does it sound? How's it getting over? The apostle Paul for instance was a man who had absolutely no eloquence. He was unimpressive to look at and yet the Spirit of God opened up a spring in that man's heart so that the words that poured across his mouth even though they stumbled and fumbled even though they came painfully and hesitatingly those words that came across that man's mouth for all the lack of eloquence and all the stuttering were a white heart with the power of the living God. They accomplished that to which they were sent.

They did not come back empty. Next to our Lord no words ever flowed across human lips to accomplish more than the words that came across the mouth of Paul. But Paul of all people was well aware of the fact that he was utterly dependent on God.

He never got to the place where he could say to himself now I know how to preach. Now I've acquired skill at speaking forth God's word. All his life long in every situation he had to be crying out to God for a door of utterance.

Brothers and sisters pray for me that I may have a door of utterance so that I'll be able to speak the word of God as I ought to speak it. Jesus stood up and proclaimed If anyone thirsts, feed on me. As the scripture has said out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water For the servant of God the source of our utterance is Jesus himself.

He who believes in me as scripture has said out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water. If the words don't come it's because we're simply not going to the source. We're not going and drinking of that river of utterance.

We're not trusting him to give us the message that he promised that he'd give us. On the other hand there's no problem with words coming. We've got all kinds of words coming out.

Man, they come profusely but they have no power because they are not coming from the source the spring of Christ himself they're coming from our flesh. Out of our flesh flows torrents of religious platitudes and head knowledge but no life. Jesus gives his people utterance just as surely as he opens the mouth of the dumb man and today Jesus opens our eyes to see our ears to hear and our mouths to speak all our mouths not just some of them all of them but we have to learn how to depend upon him to do this in the same way that Paul depended upon him to do this and every other man and woman of God who ever walked this earth depended upon him to do this and the problem is that some of us think we can talk and we talk man do we talk and some of us think I can't talk I'll come out and I'll fill it so nothing happens whether you have a gift for gab or whether you're shy and self-conscious about speaking in both cases we have to come to Jesus are we in fact coming to him for the message are we seeking from our father that door of utterance that he promised us to give us to open up that well of living water to flow out of us now the place to begin is not out there on the streets first begin in your room with the door shut and ask the father to give you utterance because we don't even know how to pray as we ought surely we're all aware of this but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered and as he intercedes within us you know deep down in here something happens below the level of utterance entirely which is the work of the spirit and as this happens we begin to experience liberty fresh liberty from our sins deliverance from guilt through the blood of the lamb and then our own spirit takes off and begins to rise up toward the throne clothed in the righteousness of the lamb and as this happens our tongue is loosed the string of our tongue is set free and we find that we are able to speak to our heavenly father where the spirit of the lord is there is liberty and that liberty includes a tongue that is set free from self-consciousness and from the weight of its own wordiness and is able to speak simply and clearly don't ever get the idea that prayer comes easy for some people prayer comes easy for nobody prayer flows by a miracle of the living god and every time you pray you need that miracle and apart from the miracle of the living god working in his spirit in your heart then ask god to give you a glory the four living creatures be praising god for his glory holy holy holy is the lord god almighty and the elders and the angels and the spirits of jesus never get tired of praising god and now that we have been made sons and daughters of the king the chains that have made us dumb and speechless before god's glory must break so that we can indeed praise our father uninhibitedly i will bless the lord his praise in secret in your prayer closet sing unto the lord a new song and his praise in the congregation of the saints if we're so bound up in ourselves and so tight and so self-conscious that we're not able to praise god in company with each other where do you think we're going to get the authority and the power and the liberty to speak about jesus out there in the world read the psalms read the psalms praise ye the lord praise god in his sanctuary praise him in the firmament of his power praise him for his mighty acts praise him according to his excellent greatness how we need utterance and praise when your brother and sister praises god and you don't feel the same kind of utterance get off his back the hundredth psalm everybody knows the hundredth psalm make a joyful noise unto the lord for a door of utterance then you turn as one who are sent and you go forth from the throne as one sent by the living god and the same tongue which god set free to praise him in the holy of holies is now put at liberty and given utterance to proclaim to the world the marvelous thing which he has done now god says open your mouth and i will fill it open it wide and i will fill it comfort ye, comfort ye my people saith your god speak ye comfortably to jerusalem cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished for iniquity god will give you words and you will know that those words say even if you have no eloquence at all even if you think you've ruined the whole faith open your mouth and let god fill it he will he will give you words that you will know for all that if your eyes are on the living god that those words are god's and he watches over them and they will not come back void they will accomplish that to which he sends them and they will point men to jesus christ they will glorify jesus and they will by the power of the living god create faith in jesus in every heart where they are all of us and for what other reason does he send us forth from this place than to cause the gospel of jesus christ to flow from these hearts and these mouths as rivers of living water in a dry and thirsty land may god deliver every single one of us here from the idea that utterance belongs to somebody else whoever you are if you believe in jesus utterance is his god will give it to you and he will show you how to use it lord jesus even as you cast out the demon that was dumb setting him free to speak as you loose the tongue of the dumb man so that he could speak plainly grant that the saints here assembled may experience liberty in their hearts and in their tongues to pray to you to praise you and to speak forth your glorious gospel out there to the world this day, beginning this day father old and young all of us here father may all of us come under the authority of the spirit