Present at the Birth (Part 2): Viewing Through His Eyes

Now, brothers and sisters, if we come to see, by revelation, His eternal plan, and become one with that plan, to live unto God—just say that with me—Live unto God. And if our whole consecration, our whole thought, our whole activity is there, primarily, if not totally, then our personal needs…they may not vanish…but boy oh boy oh boy, they don’t dominate either. As long as we have a gospel so centered on salvation—and I do not take anything from our need of being saved—but you were told, you’re a sinner, you’re a sinner, you’re a sinner, you’re a sinner. You’re fallen, you’re this, you’re that, you got to do this, you got to do that, and you know we come out of the baptismal waters kind of feeling like we’re this. And you meet us 50 years later, and here we are; we’re just really needy people. Brothers and sisters, if you’ll take that brother out of the baptismal waters and put him behind the eyes of God, and put him into the purpose of God, which is totally outside and unaffected by sin, then brother, that changes the course of the whole Christian faith. Now say something. Praise the Lord.

Are you understanding this? For those of you who meet here, there will be no babying of your needs. We will go to another plane, and another place. We confess that we have needs. We will minister to those needs. I don’t mean we’re going to get cruel about it. What do you mean, you broke your leg? Don’t be coming and telling me you broke your leg. We don’t care about you. We care about God. What do you mean, you’re broke? What did you get broke for? We’re up here in the heavens. (laugher) No, I don’t mean that kind of cruelty. I just mean, brother, that the emphasis is going to be on Him. It will be Christocentric. You understand that? It will be Christological and Patrological. It will be on the Father and on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s where we’re going to look. Sometimes you’re going to say, “Gee, isn’t there anything in this for me? What about little old me?” Well, brothers and sisters, everybody else is out there taking care of little old me. Let’s see what happens if we lay aside a real concentration on ourselves and go to other realms and concentrate with Him on that which He desires.

Would you look at some passages with me? Why don’t you turn to Romans 11? This is so great. Romans 11. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. Now, let me take the last three words and say, all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. Now, do you like that verse better than Romans 6:23? Do you like that verse better? You want to belong to the Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 church, or do you want to belong to the Romans 11:36 church? Which do you like the best? Can you feel it? Just feel the difference if you don’t understand the word here. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Are all things.

Now what does it mean? Listen. All things are from Him. That solves more theology. All things are from Him. That means that absolutely everything originates with Him. Now, a lot of things don’t originate with the Lord. Sin does not originate with the Lord. The fact that you broke a leg does not originate with the Lord. The devil does not originate with the Lord. But according to this verse, all things come from the Lord, and we have always had the theological problem about sin. And, you know, there’s been every theory in the world. Let’s lay aside sin for a moment. Does Satan come from the Lord? Do his activities come from the Lord? Could not possibly. Oh, yes, dear child of God. He is His handmaid. You don’t believe that, do you? You don’t really believe that. Then let me take a minute to do something I hadn’t planned on doing; you might as well get this. This is just terrible. I’m going to tell you something that’s probably going to make you not want to be a Christian anymore.

Can somebody tell me what page Job is on? Actually, it’s 716. There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job…that’s the main thing you’ve got here. Now, verse 6, listen to this. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. Now this is probably the angels. Satan also came among them. And Satan said to the Lord, I believe you would better open your Bible here. I’m preaching unadulterated heresy here. I’m going to read it again. I’m going to give you time to go look it up. You need to see this. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan, the adversary, also came among them, and the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you been?” Satan said, Roaming about on the earth, walking around to and fro, and the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job?”

For all things are from Him. I’m not sure you’re following me. Do you know where I’m headed? Did you get anything out of that? Here come the angels presenting themselves to God, and in comes Lucifer, that’s Satan, he has every right to be there. He can’t stay there. He’s been cast out. It’s not his home, but he can visit. Can’t enter in; he just came in and stood there. Got no power. He’s before the throne of God, and the Lord spoke first. “Have you considered my servant Job?” Now who’s in trouble? Who is suddenly in trouble? Job is in trouble. Job is in big trouble. You don’t want this kind of a God, do you? And Satan does something quite surprising if you will listen very carefully. Satan does two things. He judges God by Satan’s standards. I’ll explain that in a minute. The second thing he does is he offers the gospel that we offer, or that has been offered to us. I’m sure that none of you understand what it means, so let me explain that.

Satan said the only reason that man loves you is because he’s blessed. And that’s the whole issue. God said it wasn’t true. He was a man who loved him. That book’s about that thick. Have you ever tried to read through the book of Job? Yeah. I mean, it is really exhausting. All of this fighting back and forth, and you’re trying to figure out what the message is. Brothers, the message is in the first chapter and the last chapter. You can skip the rest. (laughter) Satan accuses Him of preaching Satan’s own gospel. Now, how does Satan make converts? He has a gospel that says, I will bless you. I will give you the world, the glitter, wealth, fame, fortune, glory. That’s his gospel. Sounds a whole lot like the gospel you and I have had preached to us. I know that when I was a young Christian, man, I’d stand up in the pulpit, and I would preach till the hair that I had then was down in my face. And boy, you know, if you trust the Lord, He’ll do this and He’ll do that. And man, when I got through, you’d not have any problems for the next thousand years if you’d just received the Lord.

I was peddling my Savior. Do you understand what I’m saying? Peddling God, peddling His good mercies. And Satan says to the Lord, That’s what you did. He just loves you because of all the good things that you do for Him and for others. The Lord said, “Not so.” But I want you to get something really, really clear. It was God who brought up Job. He initiated the disaster. He put it into the hands of Satan, but He initiated the disaster Himself. Isn’t that incredible? That’ll shake your foundations. The only reason he follows and loves you is because, boy, did you see the list of things He had? I’ll follow and love you too if you give that kind of blessing to me. And God says it is not so. You can almost see the fight for the eternal purpose right here. Will it be man-centered or God-centered? He accuses God of his own gospel. And then he says, Man will not follow you unless you’re good to him.

Alright, that’s really why you ought not to come here, because we shan’t preach that gospel. The gospel of the good graces of God, if you’ll just come, boy, he will give you a Cadillac, and he will do this, and he will do that. The most famous man in America for preaching that gospel is serving a 40-year sentence in a penitentiary right now; it didn’t hold up. And I’m sorry, and I bleed for that brother. That brother was really railroaded. That’s just pitiful, but that gospel didn’t hold for him. I trust that brother will come out knowing the Lord, whom he knows only for himself.

Now, I want you to know, did you get the point? All things are from Him. Now, let me just give you some more things to worry about here in Job. Everybody just, you know, and in the end, Job got blessed by God, and he got back all of his cattle and stuff. Two things about that, and that is it was not until after Job had a revelation of the sight of God, not before. The restoration did not come, and then the revelation. It was the revelation, then the restoration. But you know what’s always bothered me? When we talk about when Job was restored, we all say, ‘Wow.’ Boy, Job got it all back, didn’t he? Well, he got a cemetery out there in his backyard, folks, full of kids that were killed by the hand of Satan, by the permission of God. Why doesn’t that bother people? Oh, we love to tell the stories about how a brother had this suffering or that suffering. We love to listen to brother Prem tell his stories, but when Prem – watch him go up a staircase – watch Prem go up a staircase – he’s got a cemetery in his backyard. Do you understand what I mean? The scars of what God has done are in this brother’s body, and they stay with us forever.

Alright, are all things from Him? You’re convinced. Alright, have you seen my servant, Job? There’s one other lesson to be learned from Job. You want to hear it? Accept things as from the hand of God, because you don’t know where this stuffs originating. And I’ll tell you where it’s originating; it’s originating in other realms. That’s where it’s originating. Do you understand that everything that happened to Job was decided in another place outside of space and time? Utterly without Job’s knowledge, and he died not knowing. Now, right now, they may be gathering in the presence of God, and in comes the lion, not saying a word, an utter word. And God says, Satan? Have you observed my servant?  Boy, Andy, you really know how to pick your friends. You really have friends, boy.

Brothers and sisters, you know, next week Andy may break his leg. Next week, he may break his arm. Next week, he may get bleach poured on him and turn white. No telling what kind of disaster might befall this brother. And he will not know that in heavenly places, it said, And God spoke to Satan and asked, Have you observed my servant? Now this ought to comfort you. Does it? All things are from Him. All things are from Him. All things are from Him.