YOU Are the Reward of the Cross

Will you just take this, please? It’s the truth. I can think of nothing more nightmarish that can happen to a believer than to have the sense that the Holy Spirit has extracted Himself from you. I’m not talking about a dry spell. I wrote about this in The Inward Journey, and a friend of mine read that, and he said, “Gene, why did you put that in there? Those who have never experienced that won’t have any idea what you’re talking about, and those who have don’t want to be reminded.”  I want you to know that you have the Holy Spirit in you, and He is doing things in you you’re not even aware of or conscious of. I’m speaking to you now as individuals, and I’m going to stop at that point, but I want to say to Mike and Daniel, and I want to say this to Kirstie and Gerhardt and Regina: those words were not written to an individual. They were written to a church. The Holy Spirit was given to you as a people, as proof and down payment of the total inheritance of the church, of the bride, of the girl, and not you, the individual. The Holy Spirit will not leave her. The church of Jesus Christ has an inheritance, and we have the Holy Spirit indwelling all of us, and she has the Holy Spirit dwelling in her as proof of that coming inheritance.

Now, Brother Paul does not explain what that inheritance is. Therefore, I will follow his lead and not tell you what that inheritance is, but I will tell you that the Holy Spirit in you witnesses every day. It’s going to take place. It will be full. Shall we continue? One day, God will come forth and repossess everything that is His. He will go to the pawn shop and get everything, and our salvation will not be our salvation from sin or trespasses. Our salvation will be a salvation that is the totality of everything. If you want to know what total salvation is, I will tell you what total salvation is. Would you like to know what total salvation is? Would you? That’s when this creation gets saved. That’s when this fallen creation stops groaning, and the prayers end. That full total redemption—that full repossession of that which is His—will mean when you drop off your fleshly body, and God gives you a body just like the body that Jesus Christ now lives in today when He is seated on the throne in heavenly places. Say amen.

That is full salvation: He will come back for a total redemption of all things that He possesses. The rest of it will go into annihilation, including your flesh. He has resurrected your spirit. He has saved your soul. He has made no provision whatsoever for flesh. None. The only provision He has made for your flesh is to nail it to the cross with him. Your flesh is unredeemable. Isn’t that Great? But He will give you…We will receive full redemption. Until then, we have the pledge of the Holy Spirit. Brothers, we could stay here for a week, and we ought to be just shouting our lungs, our throats dry, that He can give us full redemption. Now I’m speaking to a church, and I am telling you each of you—Denver and Chicago and Philadelphia and Constance and the rest of you who ought to be in a functioning body of people, because that’s where you belong, and some of you are. I don’t know about this brother; he’s just a Pentecostal.  (laughter) That the Lord has given to the church, local gathering, congregation, body of believers, a witness in the Holy Spirit that He will totally redeem that girl. Please ask the Lord to give you something that will help you think in these terms. We have heard of redemption. We have heard of salvation. We have heard inheritance and everything else in here on the level of blameless and holy, on the level of the individual. This was written to the gathering body of believers in Constance.

Now, verses 15 and 16 are beautiful, and we can pass over them very quickly. I am in prison in Rome: my left arm is chained and shackled to a Roman soldier, and I have to pay him, by the way, to keep me imprisoned by him; otherwise, I go to jail, but if I can pay for Roman soldier, I can sit here in Rome in a rented room, and I can write you a letter in Constance. Ever since I heard that you have believed, I have been praying for you that God would give you something. I really wish, at this point, I could lift this room into the other realm. I want so much for you to see this. I want so much for it to possess you. Brother David got obsessed today. It’s been a long time, David, since I heard anybody talk like a babbling idiot the way you have today. He has gone off his rocker because God has given his brother, this day, or last night, in the middle of the night…a revelation. I could wish that disease off on every one of you, but I would wish it off on those who gather. Paul has talked about, as we have our second state, he has talked about our first state, he has talked about, now, our present state, and it’s all glorious. Now he has come to something that he knows a body of believers cannot understand unless they have a revelation. I don’t mean a knowledgeable revelation, but a revelation. I want to stop and pray. Lord Jesus, give the body of Christ a revelation. Answer Paul’s prayer, among those who gather. Okay, here we go.

Verse 17: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, He who fathered glory…and he won’t give up the subject of glory, by the way…may give you a spirit, a certain spirit. A spirit that is two “of”s, then results. That God would give the Ecclesia…Constance, now listen to me: there are things that cannot be known nor appreciated without a certain aspect or functioning of the Spirit, one of the graces of the Spirit. May God give you a Spirit…a Spirit of two things: wisdom—whose wisdom? God’s wisdom. The wisdom that was functioning in Him when He took His own counsel, when He laid out a plan, and He did it in all wisdom and in all kindness. May God give you that Spirit of wisdom, and may He give you a Spirit of revelation, and there, it would be good if we would stop and pitch a tent.

My dear brother, you cannot know…I want to talk to you…you cannot know much about the Lord Jesus Christ outside of revelation. That’s why getting to know that book, on the level of knowing a book, will never give you a revelation of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit alone can give you a revelation. We are all in need of a revelation, but, oh, if I can make a point here, then I will be satisfied. My point here is that the body of Christ must have a revelation. I want you to understand that I’m not big enough to have a revelation. I also want you to know that you must be a steward of this revelation, that this is not something you let go of at a conference. This is something you make sure that some member of that girl is constantly bringing us back to: a revelation which only the Holy Spirit can give you. May God give you, Constance, and Chicago, and Philadelphia, and whoever, a Spirit of His wisdom and a Spirit of revelation.

Now, I want you to know something, and a lot of people talk about it. “And God showed me a revelation, gave me a revelation that we were supposed to…” By the way, I’ll quote one, because this was said to me personally. “God showed me that in ten years from now, there would be more people who are Christians in Albania than in any other nation in the world.” I don’t know if that’s true or not. I also know that a brother said to me, “I had a revelation, and God showed me that in our town, a revival will begin that will spread around the world.”

Now, I want you to know that I’ve been in 15 or 20 or 25 towns, maybe 30, by now, in which somebody told me that. I’m serious. It’s in the drinking water. It’s all over the world. Brothers and sisters, there is only one revelation the Holy Spirit has given, gives, or ever will give. One revelation, one revelation only. He gives the revelation of Jesus Christ. And the only reason we know the church is because she’s part of Him. There is a revelation when you come to a point when the church is revealed to you because you’re only seeing a greater Christ. If you want to get in trouble, you fall in love with Jesus Christ, you really fall in love with Him, and you really see Him, and I promise you that you will get in trouble with the organized church. And that’s not all. Your heart will begin to beat with a passion to know the church of Jesus Christ. You may live and die never quite understanding that. It is dangerous to get to know Jesus Christ well, because He’ll drive you to the church every time, or He’ll at least drive you crazy wanting her.

There is only one revelation, that God will give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation…into what? Into a doctrine? Into a movement? No, into a real knowledge of Jesus Christ. It’s right there. I just read that. This is not…this is the Bible. And since I heard of you, and have thanked God for you, I have prayed that God would give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that you might come into a real experience, a real knowledge of Jesus Christ. By the way, that word means He puts “true” there in front of it, and yet it’s a strong word: an experiential knowledge. Not this, but experiential knowledge. An empirical knowledge of Jesus Christ. I would call it a “head-on-collision” knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Okay. I’m not going to get as far as I wanted to. What is it? A true knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now I need to have some imagery here. You see, you would never think this up, and you’re going to hear me, but you’re never going to know it until the Holy Spirit shows it to you. I will speak it, and all I can say is, you can tell the Lord, “Lord, show me this and make it real in my life.” God the Father sat down with His Son and said…If he were human, He would say… “I’m about to die, and I want to talk to you about your inheritance.” But that’s not likely with God the Father, but I want you to keep that kind of situation in mind, would you? That son, I want to work out with you your inheritance. In our country, we can have something called a living will and a living inheritance. It’s a legal thing; you can give everything away to your kids while you’re still alive. Father sits down with His Son and says what would you like to inherit?

Now, if that had been me writing this book and I had reached the ends of my capacities, I would have said, “Who would you like to inherit?” Here in this meeting, you would know to say “Jesus Christ.” But what Paul is talking about here is beyond anything any human, including Paul, could have ever thought of. I don’t know what Jesus Christ could inherit. I don’t know if it would be all the gold in heaven would make Him happy. I don’t know if He wants to be in control of Michael, Gabriel, and whoever else is there, and of the millions of angels. I don’t know how He feels about being in control, having inherited the seraphim and the cherubim. Personally, I wouldn’t want them. They’re frightening, terrifying creatures. Maybe somebody would like to inherit the cherubim and the seraphim. If a cherub came into my home or a seraph came into my home, I’d head for the back door. They’re not these funny little things with a little belly and this thing, you know. These are awesome creatures. I just can’t imagine, but there’s one thing I would think He wouldn’t want.

When we started this conference, I said you’re always walking around with a headache, a guilt headache. Brothers and sisters, if you read this and you’re not careful, you won’t even see it. I don’t know how many times I read the book of Ephesians before I saw this, and I almost fell out of my chair. That Jesus Christ is given a glorious inheritance. That He has died for that inheritance. He rose again from the grave for that inheritance. He came out of heaven for that inheritance. He created the universe for this inheritance. He is really after this inheritance. He wants this inheritance. He’s got a passion for this inheritance. He’s got a love for this inheritance. His passion and love, His desire, His inheritance, are the ones He has made holy.