The Fellowship of the Father and Son Comes to Earth (DCLC – July ’87, Part 3)

How many men and women have gone to Bible schools and seminaries in order to find a deeper relationship with the Lord? And as the old joke goes, go all the way through, study Greek and Hebrew, take all the classes we were supposed to, come out wondering what day it was that I was absent when this was discussed, and we missed it. Now then, I want to, and we’ve come up to this particular generation, and there’s been a little progress made, a little progress, but we’re not about to work our way out of a job. I think that somewhere along the line, we have failed to realize that this incredible vocabulary of the first century emerged from personal experience.

When I was a young man, 17 years old, I got saved. I read Ephesians 1. And I’ll never forget reading that thing and putting it down and saying, “What in the world does that mean?” And I heard gospel preaching all the rest of my life, and that question bothered me and bothered me and bothered me. Here is such a spiritual chapter written to a young church that seemed to fully understand absolutely everything said. Some of the mind-boggling statements in Colossians 1 and 2. Some of the awesome things found in Galatians 2. Deep, intricate things, mysterious things of the Lord that seem to have been commonplace with brothers and sisters in the early centuries. And you say, “What day did I sleep through class when they explained this to me? They didn’t; they never explained it to me, living, and you must remember, please, that I have a master’s degree in theology. I ain’t ignorant; I just look ignorant. We never had those things explained to us. We heard some theories about a few of them. They didn’t ring true to anything within anybody. You could tell when your theological professor talked about it, his eyes were kind of glazed over, and he was talking really, really fast and going over his pages really quickly, trying to get past this subject so he could get back to things like propitiation and cosmological soteriology and Eschatology and transubstantiation, consubstantiation and things like that, that we know all about. But these words were born out of their personal relationship with the Lord Jesus and the personal relationship of illiterate men and women.

Brothers and sisters, this New Testament was written in a world where 95, 96, 97, 98, and some places 99 and in some places, almost 100% illiteracy reigned. And yet these people, we have to believe, if we know anything from archaeology and the study of early documents and literature, if we know anything, early Christians were mostly poor, and all poor people were illiterate. The overwhelming masses of Christians of the first and second centuries could not read, and yet they could talk about the heavenly places, being in the spirit, walking in spirit, being in God, being in Christ, being Christ in them. These were common words they brandished around and understood without definition. It’s never defined. It’s taken for granted. It’s like somebody who spent his whole life in a cotton patch. He never starts off a letter saying, “Today I spent the day in the cotton patch.” Now, cotton is a plant that comes from a legume. And it’s by the way, it’s all seasonal. It’s a plant that should live 12 months out of the year. We brought it to America; it only lives for three or four months, and we get the goodies out of it, but it’s a tropical plant. Okay. And I think it’s either a legume or a vine or something like that. I don’t define that in some letter writing home saying today I picked 300 lb. of cotton because I’ve lived with cotton.

These people lived with things spiritual. They handled them. They spoke about the most incredible things; to read 1st John and look at it as, not as religious sentiment, but look at it as factual, truthful living experience is absolutely mind-boggling, and so much of this New Testament, if we can but open our eyes. Unfortunately, Plato got here, and we look at everything so objectively.

See, we come to the New Testament and because we are fallen and religious men and women, we come to the New Testament invariably saying, “Okay, God, what are you demanding of me? What are you wanting? I’ll read it and see what you’re doing.” And I began to look for that, and I overlooked so much else. I love the description someone gave of God. They said, “I always thought of God as someone who was right back there with a frown on His face, leaning over, saying, ‘You’re not trying hard enough.’ Well, you laugh a little bit, but I’m wondering if that’s not the God you’ve got, just constantly looking for the obligation, and the sermons that we ministers preach are not helping the situation one bit. We are preaching to you constantly something you ought to be doing.

Brothers and sisters, I want to talk about the deeper Christian life as it was first lived, not in the other realm, but lived on this earth. The first person who ever lived it. And I’m coming back to this little book here, and I’m saying to myself as I look at it, am I overlooking the main thrust of the writers of the Gospels? Am I so involved in what I’m supposed to do and what I’m supposed to be that I am really overlooking what the Lord is trying to communicate to me?

I want you to look with me at my Lord for just a moment. Has He come primarily burdened to tell you how to act? Now, if He is doing this, this is an incredible thing because He’s new to our planet. He hadn’t been around here as long as most folks have. He has been living with God the Father. Now, has God the Father been leaning over His back, saying, “Son, you’re not trying hard enough?” Are they living in a world of rules and regulations? Oh, but Gene, there was the holiness of God. I know that, but if God knows that, then God knows something else, that all my good efforts at being holy could never measure up to this incredible enormity, this mind-boggling, totally incomprehensible purity and holiness of God. He would know that better than anyone, would He not? That you will never, never be holy as His Father is holy. Oh, but Gene, He told us to be holy. That’s right. And He’s going to make us holy. We’re not going to make ourselves holy.

Is He coming with the idea and the mind that He is coming here to tell us lots of things to do? Is this the record that is unfolding before me? Or am I overlooking the great secret and message that’s being unfolded here before me? Am I looking in the wrong place? Am I looking at the objective and overlooking the subjective? Am I looking at the material and overlooking the spiritual?

Alright, let’s just look at this for a minute. Little boy, 12 years old, going down a dirty dusty road, going to Jerusalem, little boy – what does He know? How much of His past can He remember? How much of the future can He remember? It’s a good question. Consider it. There’s a little Boy going down the dusty road to Jerusalem on a festival day. Can He remember the past? How much past can He remember? He’s only 12. How much has the Father already told Him about? What’s the story? Why did Luke tell us this thing? To tell us what a good little boy Jesus was when He was 12 years old. Of course, it’s obvious that’s what He was doing. He was a good little boy. He ran off from His mom and daddy and scared the wits out of them. Mommy and His stepdaddy, excuse me. What does He know? How much does He remember? Does He remember anything in the future? Okay, if He can remember the past, how much past can He remember? Four, five, six years, if we go all the way back to when He was four, maybe. Well, can He remember before He was four? Can He remember before He was born? If not, then this becomes an incredible story that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Is that not true? Because already He knows that His Father is invisible and lives in another realm. He obviously has met with Him and fellowshipped with Him, even though He is only 12 years old, but does anybody ever bring that up? Has anybody ever brought that subject up before? Have you ever heard of that being considered? Maybe a little bit. Some of you, I think, most of you know.

He already understands that the house of God is in another realm. Read the story carefully. He is remembering lots of things about the past. He also knows already the call of His Father upon Him. I think He has the very definite, distinctive impression that Jerusalem, which He is visiting, isn’t really real, that it isn’t THE Jerusalem. It’s a picture of Jerusalem. But He knows a Father who lives in another realm. Now, how can He do that? Nobody else can. It is because His spirit, unlike everybody else around Him, is alive. Their spirit is dead. He is the first person since Adam who can see the unseen, but He is not the last person to see the unseen. For the Colossians were told that they could see the unseen. I don’t mean with your eyes, and I’m not talking about spooky things or predictions, but I’m talking about a little 12-year-old boy walking down the road who was simply fellowshipping with His Father.

Well, 12 years old. Wonder what He had by the time He was 15. Is He growing? Do you think by now He’s beginning to remember the future? Is He remembering the future by now? I don’t know, but somewhere along the line, He got where He could remember the future. He created this universe. He understood Einstein’s theory of relativity perfectly. And Newton’s how did you pronounce that word? Principia, laws of mechanics. Alright.

He had some interesting things to talk about. I’m talking about the deeper Christian life, folks. A little 12-year-old boy living the deeper Christian life. He is fellowshipping with His Father. Let’s watch Him remember the past. Let’s say he’s 29. He’s going down the road, and He remembers His stepdad, let’s say, just died, okay? He’s about to go into the ministry. He’s going to be leaving His mother. He’s concerned about His mother, and as He goes down the road, He remembers the past. You know what He remembers? He remembers the day He created the universe, and He remembers how beautifully He made lilies. He remembers that when He made them, He made them in such a way that nobody had to take care of them, that they never had to work a day in their life. And then He remembered Solomon, and He remembered the day He spoke to Solomon.