Foundation Stones #5 – Judea

Twelve men were sent downstairs (from the upper room at Pentecost), and they raised up the church, and the church is whatever they made it to be. Do you realize that? Whatever the church was, it was what they made it. It wasn’t an automobile. It wasn’t a glass. It wasn’t a purse. It wasn’t a comet. It wasn’t a tree. It wasn’t a ritual. It wasn’t a book. It was Galilee, brought to Jerusalem. That’s what it was. It was an experience on dusty roads in living rooms brought to Jerusalem and shared with a group of people, and that which had been in Galilee had been in Nazareth. And that which had been in Nazareth had been in eternity. And now it’s getting big enough that we can see it, we can begin to understand it.

They brought Christ to these people, because Christ had brought Christ to them, and Christ had brought the Father to them because Christ had lived with the Father. This has now come all the way to Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ lived in eternity and 30 years without serving His Father, and then He served Him for three and a half years. These men lived with Him for three and a half years without serving Him. And now they’re going to serve like nobody ever served.

A worker, you know what a worker does? He works, and these guys are going to work, but these people are not going to work. They’re going to know the Lord. Now, I’ve got one last thing to tell you. Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son, was with the Father from the beginning, and He was with the Father for His 30 years. Twelve men were with Jesus Christ from the beginning of His ministry, and that was important. I’m going to just tell you this.

They’re going to be a group of young men who got saved on the day of Pentecost who were there at the birth of the church from the beginning, and they are going to sit under 12 men, and we’re going to watch them, and we’re going to see if the pattern will hold. We’re going to see what happens to them. It is very important, if you possibly can, be there at the beginning. You don’t have to be there the very first day, but don’t get there near the middle or the end. Come at the beginning. Be there at the beginning.

It’s not only more fun, but you’ll learn more. You may have to wait a while, or you may have to hurry. Everybody either has to wait a while or they have to hurry, but you should be there at the beginning. If that ever happens to you, don’t follow a gimmick, don’t follow a crusade, don’t follow a movement. It’s okay if you follow a man, but make sure that his message, his outlook, and his consuming passion are Jesus Christ. And let’s hope that young men will come in like that very soon. Very soon now, very, very soon now.

Men who will have joined this lineage, this pattern, instinctive to God. May we at least get twelve. Lord, I’d like to end where I began. Give us eyes to see more than we see. Give us ears to hear more than we hear. Open our spirits to be impressed by You as to Your unfathomable, incredible ways.

Eternity. So here we go again. The Christian life is older than time; the first Christian was God. The first Christian experience was known in the Godhead. I want you to really be impressed with this—no one can live the Christian life without divine life. Christian life was first lived by God, and He used divine life to do it, and living the Christian life is not something for human beings. You’ll understand, and I have New Testament grounds for saying it’s for gods, g o d s. It’s for those who have the life of God. The Christian life is off-limits to any species other than a race, a species with divine in it. That does away with legalism; you cannot force the Christian life off on people if they’re the wrong species. And it cannot be done by self-effort or human effort. It can be done only by God. That will revolutionize your gospel if you come to lay hold of that simple fact. You’ll stop preaching about things and start preaching about the Lord. Alright, because that’s what we all need, that’s what we’re going to get.

The life of the Christian worker was lived out first in the Godhead, and the first experience of church life, or body life, or the Christian church, was known in God, in the fellowship of the Trinity. It hasn’t changed a lot since then. That too is a divine thing. The church, the Christian church, is a divine fellowship. The Lord Jesus growing up in Galilee is the second motion in this same principle. The Christian, the church, and the worker, the Lord living alone in Galilee, getting to know His Father. Well, He already knew Him in the heavens and in eternity, but now He had to know Him again as a human being.

Now then, the Lord, this in Nazareth, we come to Galilee, we see 12 or 20 or maybe 70, or maybe 120 people, but around 20 people around the Lord Jesus in Galilee, they fellowship with Him. That is God they’re fellowshipping with, that has not changed. They watch the Christian life being lived out; it is being lived out by divinity. The divinity of God that is inside Jesus Christ. The church is not only experienced there, it’s people fellowshipping with God, and that’s the church. There’s only one worker there, and He’s working to produce the Christian life, the church, and other workers. That’s the three things he’s seeking to accomplish. But He is a worker, and He is doing His work by means of the Father who dwells within Him.

Now, then, we come to Jerusalem, and we have 12 men who now have Jesus Christ living inside them. If Christ had never ascended into the heavens, if He had never become spirit, and I speak even of the day of His resurrection, you remember He went through a wall. He appeared in a room with the door locked. He had a spiritual body. He had a spiritual soul and a spiritual Spirit, but now, after the resurrection, He has a spiritual body. He can go through physical things, including my bones and my chest. Do you understand? All right.

What if He had never ascended into the heavens? And what if He was still living in Galilee or in Jerusalem till this day? He’d be 2,000 years old, and everybody knew Him to be God. Would you want to go visit him? Say yes. How long do you think the line would be? You’d have to stand in a very long line. How long do you figure you’d get to stay with Him? Spend some time with Him? Enough time to get to know Him very well, and fellowship with Him? Aren’t you great? Probably 10 seconds at best. You’d say, “Lord, there was a question. I’ve been standing here in this line for three years, and Lord, I’ve got this question to ask You. It’s so important to me.