Seeing the Heavens Opened: The Meaning of Being Born Again in Christ (DCLC 1984)

Audience: Morning, you mentioned the body coming to play.

Well, I tried to cover it every time. Did I slip? Wait, I thought you meant in Christ being in the form of, okay. I don’t even know what you’re going to say, but I’d like to do this tonight. There’s a little book back there called Divine Life by Mary McDonough. That is the first clear presentation of spirit, soul, and body. And from a biological viewpoint, that makes it very, very clear and gives you all the scripture references, all of which I passed over, about the body being corrupted with flesh. There are so many; once you see this, the whole New Testament comes over and stands with it. The damage to the soul and the loss of the spirit’s relationship to heavenly places. If you have any questions about that, I really recommend you read that book. It’s not…it’s not all that interesting. It’s not like me. It’s not interesting. But it is very, very informative and very helpful. I hope you will read it. It would really do you good. And I’m not trying to wish a book off on you. Not very many people read that book. And I’m sorry. It’s something I think we really need to be acquainted with.

I am trying to give you a totally new place to stand to view the Gospel—a totally new place to stand to view the entire Gospel panorama. Don’t pass that up with some stinky little pride about something you’ve got that you think so great. Will you just lay that aside a while and get a little? Dear brothers and sisters, I hope you’re beginning to get, if nothing else, a sense of time and space and other realms. If you can make a little progress there, we’re on our way. I told you that I truly believe first-century Christians had a greater sense of the meaning of time and space, and the meaning of eternity. I don’t mean it lasts forever and ever.

You know that bird that comes by and his wing flips that steel ball that’s as big as the earth, and when it is completely worn out, then eternity has only begun. I wish people stopped telling me that story. I’m not talking about that. I’m not talking about it. I’m talking about a sense of the eternals, a sense of other realms, and an understanding of time and space.

Now, tomorrow morning, I want you to get up and get alone with the Lord, please, and go back to Psalm 23 and pray it again. This time, there’s only one thing I’ll ask you to do differently, and that is to move that prayer somewhere else in time and space. Move that prayer somewhere else in time and in space. Now you may not understand what I mean. Just do it. You just go to that psalm and pray it, but move the time and move the place. Please also remember that the English language has provided you with verb tenses.

Now you move that psalm and that prayer somewhere out of the present. Keep it in time and space, but move it. Now, that is simple. You ought to be able to understand that. How many of you understand that? Raise your hand. Real high. Come on. Don’t be timid. All right. How many of you don’t understand it? I can’t believe this. What? Then you go to the Lord tonight and say, “Lord, I am not Nathaniel, and I am not Gene. Please tell me what it means to move a prayer out of the present and pray it somewhere else.” Go somewhere else besides the present and turn that psalm into a prayer. And that’s all you get. Alright, you do that tomorrow morning. Bright and early. Real early.