Foundation Stones #5 – Living by a Life Not Your Own | Christ Within You & the True Christian Life

When you feel like a failure and you feel kind of stupid and you really are ashamed and you’re crying your heart out and you wish you were dead, it may be the only time in your life you were ever a Christian. Say something to me, would you? To say, Okay, I would like to sit under men like that. And that’s who 3,000 sat under. And they watched them. They listened to them pray. They watched divine fellowship with them. They watched them get along with one another.

I have to say something about that. I know I’ve already mentioned it, but I will say something about it again because it’s very close to my heart, and those of you who are listening on the video, if a young brother ever gets this tape and he’s been called of God, I want you to listen very carefully what I’m telling now, saying, where my heart lies today. There is so little church life, and there is so little of the proper worker, much less the proper Christian. I am impressed with the organic thing, that God never does anything with ones. Jesus Christ said He worked with a coworker. Did you know the Lord said He had a coworker? He did not say the Holy Spirit was His co-worker; He said the Father was His co-worker. He said, “I have a witness here inside me. My Father witnesses.” When He says, “My works witness that my Father witnesses.” How many workers like me have you ever met who had a coworker? How many times in your life have you seen two men co-work? Just two. I begin questioning it when it becomes three, I really do. I begin to smell rats when it’s three. Not always, but two.

I witnessed two people working together. This seems to be organic to the divine nature, as soon as the Lord called the 12, He broke them up into pairs. Did you know that their names are always listed in pairs? And they’re always seen in pairs, and they were sent out in pairs. Why? To balance one another. Yes, but to be a witness, what He said is true. What he said is true. To be a witness and also to testify to angels that the Life of God is always in harmony with itself. There is always unity. You can’t find men who work in the kingdom of God who can get along with one another. You can have big cheese and little cheese. You can have big cheese and three little cheeses and say we’re co-workers, but two cheeses are exactly the same size. You try to find two cheeses with neither one above the other. How many times have you seen it? You can look at me and say, Gene, what about you?

All my life, all my Christian ministry, I have tried my best to be with men and to be submitted to them. And I’ve seen a lot of men stand up and boast about being with other men, and I’ve been in church life and all that, but there’s still a big cheese and little cheeses. And I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. I am 53 and I haven’t found one yet. And after the meeting, if you have seen it, two cheeses of the same size working together, tell me.

The closest that I know of on this planet right now, the whole face of the earth. Lance and Chuck, but that’s all. And I mean to change that. I mean to change that. Before I die, I hope I can leave four pairs of people on this earth who’ve been called to the Lord to serve Him, who work together in harmony as a witness to the devil himself. I can think of nothing. I believe the enemy would fear an entire denomination less than he would fear two men who grew up in the church together.

Now, if you think this is a small thing happening in Jerusalem and if this is not important, what those 3,000 are viewing, I am telling you that literally the salvation of the Gentiles hung on that simple witness in Jerusalem, and I will make that point in a moment that those men saw, those young men saw those older men, was crucial. And one of the things they saw was twos, and another thing they saw was 12. A wall of unity, 12. Boy, 12 is a perfect witness.

12 men who were in complete unity with one another, and they broke up into twos, and when they ministered, they ministered in twos. May their tribe increase. That takes the spilling of blood, and I pray for it, and I would wish you would pray too. God gives us church life. God give us people, and within those people, God give us men called to be workers. And within that, give us brokenness, to the point that stones can match and witness together. Not for a day or a week or a month or year, but for a lifetime in unity.

They saw their life, they saw their prayer life, they saw their witness with one another, their unity. They saw their internal fellowship with Jesus Christ, and they saw them persecuted. The 12 had learned how to be persecuted, and where did they learn it? Tell me again. Where did they learn how to be persecuted? By watching Jesus Christ be persecuted, and He did it with such nobility. He had a flair for it, now they had a flair for it, and we need to watch somebody be persecuted who can do it with grace and nobility.

Well, Gene, I just can’t wait for you to get persecuted so I can watch you just do it with such royalty. You’re about 5 years late. I tell you again, it’s too late. I’ve given up being honorable. I gave it up for Lent. Pray for me that I will have again the patience I’d had with people who give me a hard time. I am not as patient as I once was. And I’m really keenly aware of that. And I want the Lord to do something about that. I really do. I am tougher than I used to be. I don’t put up with as much as I used to when it comes to getting persecuted. I think, I’ve maybe, well, I am not going to say more. Okay.

I hope you find someone who can be persecuted nobly. If not, then you have to learn to be persecuted nobly. Tom, I think we’ll designate you. Brother Ricky, would you volunteer? Chuck will, Chuck is really good at that. Persecuting. I want to share something else with you. I want you to walk out there in that audience with me and see who’s listening.

There are 3,000 people out there. I don’t know how many of them were called of God to be workers, but there are about six of them out there who are, and I want you to hear their names. And if you can help me, help me. Do you know who some of the people are out there in the 3000? Some of them. Steven. All right. Who else? Sorry. Who else? Barnabas. Who else? Silas. Maybe John Mark. Maybe too young for this to be catching up with him. He’d be about 13 now. Probably at best. Maybe 14. No chance of Luke’s there. None. And Luke’s a pagan off somewhere lost as he can be.

I’m trying to think of who became the 13th apostle, and his name is eluding me at this moment. Matthias, Matthias was there, and I’m leaving out somebody. Agabus was there. You know who Agabus was? You don’t know who Agabus was?  He was a prophet? You’ll meet him later. There were at least six brothers out there.