Divine Revelation
by George Hawtin

Treasures of Truth vol. 2: Seed for the Sower and Bread for the Eater. "Divine Revelation"  by George Hawtin

Natural versus Spiritual Understanding

    As this age of grace moves towards its inevitable close and the kingdom of God draws near, the diverging paths of the carnal mind and the spiritual mind become ever more distant the one from the other. As the tides of the old age ebb away and the swelling surges of the new age roll in from the ocean of God, the natural mind becomes less and less capable of comprehending any of the things of the Spirit. Centuries ago the apostle Paul wrote: "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1. Cor. 2:14. Whenever, therefore, natural men with natural minds endeavor to investigate the things of God, we should know at once that all such investigations is doomed to end in error, false conclusions, and utter failure.

    We live in an hour when the natural man with his human mind vainly imagines he can understand anything and everything. He supposes that a mind capable of trips into the stratosphere and journeys to the planets is capable also of comprehending the things of God. Be assured, however, that just as blind men are completely incapable of seeing the marvels of the natural creation all about them, so the natural man, however learned he may be, is completely incapable of comprehending the depths of the things of God. A deaf man may sit and watch the great symphony, but not one sound of the music thrills his ear. Indeed, the motions of the conductor and the obedience of the players may seem meaningless, boresome, amusing, or even stupid to him. But, should his ears be opened what a change there would be! Oh that men would cease from their striving to understand spiritual things with natural minds!

    Of our natural understanding it was written: "Eye hast not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." 1. Cor. 2:9,10. Who is it that knows the things of man save the spirit of man? And who is it that knows the things of God save the Spirit of God?

    Our Lord Jesus Christ taught Nicodemus that two distinct realms exist all about us, one belonging to and confined by the flesh and the other belonging to the boundless realm of the spirit. The realm of the flesh is the earthly realm. It is of the earth earthy. It is the realm of the physical incapable of anything beyond the sphere of the five senses. Those who dwell in the realm of the five senses are never able to partake of anything but death. Their eyes are not filled with seeing. Their ears are never filled with hearing. The sweet perfumes of earth must be smelled and re-smelled. Our taste, like fire, is never satisfied. Every device in our day and every permissiveness is used to cater to the sense of feeling, yet it is never full, but always empty. Because all these things belong to the realm of the flesh and consequently to the realm of death, they are born only to die. The natural realm is hermetically sealed off from the spiritual and can never by its striving reach the spiritual realm. It must be lifted from above, born from above. Just as it is impossible for a stone by infinite striving to become a plant, or for a plant by taking thought to become flesh and blood, so it is impossible for the natural man by any means of his own to enter the realm of the spirit. How vain are the hours of "taking thought"! How useless is penance or self-righteousness! Vain are all works and righteousnesses because man, born of woman, is hermetically sealed in the realm of the flesh and no striving of any sort can make him a citizen of the heavenly realm.   

        Could my tears forever flow
        Could my zeal no respite show
        These for sin could not atone;
        Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Jesus, who knew this truth better than any of us, directed the mind of the inquiring Nicodemus to the eternal fact that two distinct realms exist, the one of the flesh and natural, and the other of the spirit and the kingdom of God. Nicodemus recognized that Jesus was a great teacher, but his poor natural mind was incapable of rising any higher than to marvel at the miracles he saw performed on every hand. There are multiplied thousands of Christians just like that. They can recognize that some supernatural things has occurred, but the mysteries of the kingdom are completely hidden to them. To explain to them the deep things of god is a waste of time, because their ears are incapable of hearing spiritual things. They have eyes, indeed, and good eyes at that, but they are not open to the realm of the spirit. They cannot understand the heavenly because they are living in the natural realm far below the realm of God.

It was not enough that Nicodemus could recognize a miracle when he saw it. Our Lord has ambitions for His beloved higher far than that. Therefore Jesus told him the secret that would open his spiritual eyes and his spiritual understanding to see and comprehend the things that belonged to the kingdom of God. "Ye must be born again," He told him. We must be born from above. Our spirits must receive light and life and understanding from God. Then and only then will we be able to see the kingdom of God. I am afraid many, if not all, of us hold twisted and oblique ideas concerning the new birth. We have lowered it to the realm of an evangelistic process, accomplished at a time when people walk to an altar and confess their sins to God. It is more than that, much more, and at the risk of much misunderstanding I would be inclined to say that we are born again and again to realm after realm in God as we are changed from glory to glory and as we proceed from light to light throughout our Christian lives. Paul, who was caught up into the third heaven, never attempted to tell us about it, because he knew it was beyond our realm.

Some years ago I was traveling in the state of Georgia. Some well-meaning Christians had erected a sign by the highway which read: "Except a man be born again, he cannot go to heaven." Well, what they said is almost certainly the universal opinion among Christians, but really now, it is not what Jesus said, is it? He said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He did not mention heaven. One of the great sorrows of my life has been the pitiful discovery that very few Christians ever go beyond the ABC's of the things of God, and what has been more startling still is the discovery that tens of thousands who have once received the baptism of the Holy Spirit are as blind as they can be to the great eternal purposes of God. To multitudes of Christians the cross is only historic. Their Christ has become a little church Christ, all wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of creeds, ethics, doctrines, and systems. The purpose of God to them consists of trying to save as many as possible from a raging inferno which somehow got out of God's control and into which all will fall who have not seen things their narrow way. What they need is a birth from above that will unfold to their hearts the limitless lengths, the boundless breadths, the deepest depths, and the heavenly heights of the wisdom, the love, and the knowledge abounding in the purpose of the Lord.

The great audience at Athens listened patiently to Paul's sermon about the unknown God, Acts 17:22-34, but the moment he mentioned the resurrection, they mocked. The natural mind cannot understand the words of Jesus, "Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood, ye have no life in you." The unregenerate preacher flounders through his human interpretation, but only the spirit that is from above can fathom its depths. The Christians of our day have their heads stuffed with church tradition. Tradition has become a false bible to millions who hold it in such reverence that even scripture itself is made to conform to their tradition. They willingly wrest the Bible into any shape to make it conform to their creeds and substantiate their doctrines. Like the Pharisees of old they make the word of God of none effect by their traditions.

If I say that Sunday Schools are nowhere found in scripture and that such a procedure was unknown in Bible times, I will make enemies for myself at once. Christians by the countless thousands will spring to the defense of this unscriptural tradition. Yet you can search both New Testament and Old Testament and you will never find a hint of one anywhere. Should I say that Bible Schools were never known in New Testament times nor ordained of God in the Old Testament times, some will surely say I am mad. But can you point to one man any dispensation who ever entered God's ministry from such an unscriptural source? True ministries are made when men hear from God as did Gideon, Moses, or a hundred others. They were never made by studying homiletics, nor the doctrines of the denomination, nor the arts of the precentor. No man can speak with greater authority on this than I, for as Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, so am I learned, and that by experience, in all the ramifications of Babylon. There is scarcely a dungeon in its prison house where I was not incarcerated. If you want to know the depths of Satan, you will find it in the Babylon system. Nothing can be more blinding to the sight, nothing more dulling to the ears, nothing more numbing to the senses than the sectarian systems of Babylon with all her human tradition. This "foolish woman is clamorous. She is simple and knoweth nothing. She sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city to all passengers who go right on their ways. Whoso is simple let him turn in hither; and, as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. but he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." Prov. 9: 13-18

From which seminary did Abraham graduate? Where did Encoh learn teh truth, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints?" Who taught Moses that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth?" Did not the Egyptians, in whose wisdom he learned, teach him that the earth was flat and stood upon four pillars, and that man came from a grub that wallowed in the delta of the Nile? What college taught Daniel  the course of the ages? How did he know that in our day, "many would run to and fro and knowledge would increase?" What school of the prophets taught Isaiah to say, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and yes shall call His name Immanuel?" Is it not that they were ignorant and unlearned men? Yet the thing that staggered the minds of the learned and ignorant alike, forcing them to listen to and take note of them, was that they had been with Jesus. If there is one exception to this rule, it must have been the learned apostle Paul, who was a Pharisee of the strictest sect, brought up at the feet of the educator Gamaliel. As far as the Jew's religion was concerned, he had it all-- circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, touching the law, a Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, and touching the righteousness of the law, blameless. Phil. 3:5,6. But see what he did with all this theology when the revelation of Christ shone into his soul, when God drew back the curtain of the flesh and broke down the barriers of tradition that he might see beyond the teachings of carnal with carnal minds to be born anew into a higher realm where the invisible things of Him are clearly seen.

It was after this that he wrote, "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me ... immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." Gal. 1:15, 16. It was after God's Son was revealed to him that he said of all his previous learning and all his exactness under the law, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss from the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Phil.3:7-11. When Paul received his revelation, he called his former tradition "the Jew's religion," Gal. 1:14, and that is just what it was. So also it is true that church tradition is only a religion. It is not Christianity.

Is it not true that Martin Luther, learned in all the ritual and ceremony of Rome, abandoned it all and cast it away as filthy rags when the Holy Spirit shone the heavenly light upon these sacred words: "The just shall live by faith." Being thus born of the Spirit, he saw beyond the monotonous drone of ritual and ceremony into the glorious freedom of God's sons. Limitless realms, hitherto invisible, were opened wide to his spiritual eyes. His spirit that had known naught but the wearisome drudgery and bondage of sectarian tradition, which never in a thousand worlds could offer peace, now beheld with open vision the glories of the kingdom of God, limitless as space and boundless as the trackless universe. Emerson wrote these beautiful words so profoundly true to those who walk in the light and revelation of our blessed Lord: "Our eyes are holden that we cannot see the things that stare us in the face until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened. Then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream." That, my friends, is really what revelation is. It is when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, takes the things of God and shows them unto us.

The harlot systems who eat their own bread and wear their own apparel, yet insist upon being called by Christ's name to take away their reproach, talk in circles all around truth, but never understand it. They speak of the new birth, but never enter its precincts. They theorize about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but never receive the Spirit. They talk of sonship, but the Spirit of God's Son is not in them. Christ, who formed the universe and by whom all things consist, is reduced by them to a little church Christ, a sort of a doll in a manger, who Himself would fade away and be forgotten if we did not do our best to keep His tradition alive. Christ to them has become historic. How weary I am of that thing!

Every year I grow more weary of Christmas, of Good Fridays and Easters. I know Christ was born in a manger. My soul blesses the message of Calvary and the limitless lengths and depths, breadths and heights of God's wisdom and love vouchsafed for us there! My soul thrills that He rose again! But, oh, how much people miss when they dwell in history! Wonderful was the birth in the stable at Bethlehem, but more wonderful by far the day when Christ was born into the heart of this sinful man. Marvelous is the story of Calvary, but more marvelous still to know that, when He died, I died with Him. When He lay in the grave, I lay in the grave with Him. When He rose from the dead, I rose from the dead with Him. When He ascended to heaven, I ascended in Him. When He was seated at God's right hand, I sat in heavenly places in Him. When He comes again, I will come both in Him and with Him, and when He reigns, I will reign with Him. Marvelous beyond compare is the grace of God that says to you and to me, "Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." What, brother Paul? What was that you said? That I am a member of Christ even as my hand is a member of my body, or my eye or ear or nose is a member of my body? Yes, that is what he said. And Jesus above all others knew that we, His heaven-born sons, are the completeness of Him who everywhere fills the universe with Himself. It was Jesus Himself who prayed to His Father, "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they may be one in Us." John 17:21

For centuries the nominal church has read the sublime words of our Lord, "In my Father's house are many mansions", without the spirit of revelation ever making known to their hearts that the many-mansioned house which God is building is indeed the mystical body of Jesus Christ, the fullness and completeness of Christ. "Ye are God's building," said Paul. "Ye are God's husbandry." "You are therefore no longer mere foreigners or persons excluded from civil rights. On the contrary, you share citizenship with the saints and are members of His family. You are a building which has been reared on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Jesus Christ Himself, in union with whom the whole fabric, truly bonded together, is rising so as to form a holy sanctuary in the Lord: in whom you also are being built up together to become a fixed abode for God through the Spirit." Eph. 2:19-21 (Weymouth)

9/1/01

The True Church

    Listen to the prayer of the apostle Paul as he prayed that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation would fill the minds of the saints of God. Well he knew the dullness of the human heart and well he understood that without the spirit of revelation no man could begin to see the limitless glory and wonder of God's purpose for the saints, the elect of God and members of Christ's body. This is his prayer: "I always beseech the God of our Lord Jesus Christ--the Father most glorious--to give you a spirit of wisdom and insight into mysteries through knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of which His call to you inspires, what the wealth of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the transcendent greatness of His power in us believers as seen in the working of His infinite might when He displayed it in Christ by raising Him from the dead, and seating Him at His own right hand in the heavenly realms, high above all other government and authority and power and dominion, and every title of sovereignty used either in this age or in the age to come. God has put all things under His feet, and has appointed Him universal and supreme head of the church, which is His body, the completeness of Him who everywhere fills the universe with Himself." Eph. 1:17-23 (Weymouth) Is that not a staggering, awe-inspiring marvel of spiritual revelation? Not only that we are "complete in Him", but that we are the "completeness of Him" who everywhere fills the universe with Himself! It is when by the spirit of revelation we grasp these inscrutable wonders that we are changed by His Spirit from glory to glory, and we are born anew to walk the elysian fields of revelation and understanding in the precious knowledge of our wonderful Lord.

"Whom do men say that I am?" Jesus asked his disciples, and the reply He got was typical of the understanding of the natural mind, for it can never rise higher than the realm upon which it now is. Naught but the revealing light of revelation can draw back the curtain and let the wonder of truth shine through. Many were the opinions of natural men with natural minds, but all of them were wrong, because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. "Some say you are Elijah," they replied. "Others that you are John the Baptist. Others again say you are Jeremias, or one of the prophets risen again." "But whom do you say that I am?" the Lord enquired. And Peter with a confidence born of the glory light of revelation replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then said Jesus, as if to add another blessedness to His beatitudes, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven." Then our Lord opened the gates of revelation to Peter concerning himself, saying, "And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church." Matt 16:13-18.

There has always been something wrong with the way men have interpreted that verse of scripture. Peter is not and never4 was the foundation of the church, "for other foundation can no man lay that that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. 3:11. No man can see that foundation except by revelation from on high; neither can he build upon it nor discern that which is being built. Because there is no spirit of revelation among Christians, they have in the blindness of their minds looked upon the denominational system and called it the church, and worse still, they have broken even that wretched thing into a thousand pieces and called them the churches. Test it for yourself, my friend. You will not talk to any professing Christian very long before he will ask, "To what church do you belong?" And, when you give your answer and name your denomination, you identify yourself, not as a member of the mystical body of Christ, the habitation of God through Spirit, but as a member of "that shameful thing", Jer. 11:13, The Babylon system of harlot sects, who eat their own bread and wear their own apparel, but call themselves Christian to take away their reproach. My answer to those who would enquire of me as to which church I belong is simply this: "I did not know there was more than one church." It is said that when St. Lucien was asked by his persecutors, "Of what country art thou?" he replied, "I am a Christian." "Of what family?" "I am a Christian."  "What is your occupation?"  "I am a Christian." To Lucien Christ was all, whether of citizenship, occupation, or family; and this, my friend, will be true of you when you see the truth as God reveals it.

Christ, then, is a revelation, and without a birth from above no man can see Him as He is. The body of Christ is also a revelation from above without which no man can perceive that we are the completeness of HIm who everywhere fills the universe with Himself. The church, the ecclesia of God, is a revelation from above without which the church will be to you nothing more than a conglomeration of man-made organizations, sects, and denominations. But, when God by the Spirit reveals His church to you, your eyes will behold a mystical temple rising from the lowly earth to the vaulted heavens, built of stones, indeed, but every one a living stone fashioned without hands to form a living habitation for God through the Spirit. How unutterably small do these organizations of man appear in the light of such heavenly glory!  They are the chaff that the wind will drive away. Do not boast tome, much less to God, that your organization is growing faster than all the others, as though God cared for that, for what will it profit to grow to the skies only to be cast down and driven away as chaff in the wind of His anger?

People are always referring to the divisions in the church. You are wrong and misinformed, my friend. There are no divisions in the church and there never have been any. "But," you object, "look at them all about you! There are a thousand denominations." No, my friend, you are looking at the wrong thing. Those denominations are not the church; they are Babylon. Their speech and language is as confused as were the people at Babel. When the angel revealed Babylon to John, he saw on the woman's forehead these words: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. Rev. 17:5. Babylon, too, is a mystery, a very great mystery. I am inclined to think that one of the greatest mysteries about her is her ability to deceive all nations, Rev. 18:23, and make the millions of earth believe that she who is robed in purple and scarlet, she who is drunken with the blood of saints and the martyrs of Jesus, she who has a whore's forehead, is in truth the bride of Christ, the chosen of God. This is without doubt a great mystery. It is a mystery that has deceived us all at one time or another, Mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, posing as the spotless bride of Christ.

Revelation of Sonship

There is another mystery, a sacred mystery. It is the mystery of the body of Christ, which for centuries slowly but surely has been rising in the Spirit, founded upon the Rock of Ages. God with infinite care and patience has been choosing its members one by one, putting His Spirit within them into one body of sons of God, the mystical body in the image of Jesus Christ. Even now all creation stands on tiptoe, waiting to behold the wonderful glory of the sons of God, of whom Jesus is the firstborn. Then shall the triumphant shout fill the heavens and echo among the everlasting hills, "Behold, I and the sons which God has given Me!"

Sonship, too, is a revelation. I do not belittle or depreciate the value of spiritual gifts, but it is pitiful to find little groups of people everywhere wasting their time playing with spiritual gifts. They seem to vainly imagine that spiritual gifts qualify them for sonship. To every man who believes on Christ the door is open that he might become a fully matured son of God. The scripture has said, "As many as received Him to them gave He power to become sons of God; even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12. Sonship does not consist of mighty works nor the operation of great gifts. You can have them all and still be nothing. Paul told us this when he said, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." 1 Cor. 13; 1-3. If God has granted you a spiritual gift, you may bless Him for that, but never allow yourself to think for even a moment that great meetings, many conversions, miracles, healings, or supernatural displays of any kind whatsoever are evidence of sonship, because they certainly are not. There is not one iota of evidence in all holy scripture that would lead us to believe these are any sign of sonship. Surely the words of Jesus in Matt. 7:22 should lay that thought in the tomb forever. "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity."

There is a spirit that goes with sonship. It is the spirit of His Son. Paul calls it the spirit of adoption (sonship). Words fail to unfold its mystery because it is divine. It is beyond human explanation and can be understood only by those whose hearts throb in unison with Jesus Christ, God's first-begotten Son. No teaching can disclose the sacred blessedness of that man whose heart can say, "God is my Father and I am His son!"

"Abba Father," the spirit of sonship cries!
'Tis deep calling unto deep.
Far, far beyond the scope of natural man lies
The son' great eternal realm.
Naught but the spirit of sonship
Can take the veil away.
Naught but deep calling unto deep
Will bring in God's new day.
Night and day must the cry go forth
From deep down within,
Cleansing, purifying, changing,
Till I am fashioned just like Him.
Then in all His glorious fulness I shall come.
Deep will call to deep,
"Abba Father, I am Thy son!
FATHER! I am Thy Son!"
                                            ~ Mrs. Frances Quantz

There is no possible way of measuring the vastness of God's plan nor of understanding all that His infinite purposes embrace, but the honest searcher must soon conclude that no purpose is dearer to the heart of God than sonship. In sonship lies the hope of all creation. This is the hope of the Creator and this is the hope of creation as well. Built into the innermost being of all created things, whether animate or inanimate, there is a secret knowledge that some day, sometime, somewhere, all will be restored when the sons of God, all in the likeness of their elder brother, deliver creation from its thraldom and decay into the glorious freedom of the sons of God.

Does it not reveal what lay in the heart of God that He should say, "Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness," and , having so said, He brought forth a Son of God? Luke 3:38. You may not believe it now, but if like the blind man you will pray, "Lord, that I might receive my sight," then God will open your understanding and touch your brow with the finger of revelation. Then will the eyes of your understanding be enlightened and you will know that all God has purposed in the beginning will be accomplished just as He planned. Your eyes will see that the fall of man was not a tragedy; neither was it a victory for the devil nor a momentary triumph on his part. The fall of man and the closing of the gates of Eden were all part of an eternal purpose which to this hour only the Father fully understands. Trials would be of no value at all if we understood them at their beginning. It is of faith that it might be by grace. Rom. 4:16. Testing would not be testing if we knew the outcome from the start. There would be no room for trust or faith if we knew the end from the beginning. Happy is the man who can walk the weary path of fiery trial with faith in his heart that, when the trial is over, he will be more in the likeness of God's Son than at the beginning. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, knowing  that it is of the Lord, assured in himself that the trial of his faith worketh patience, and patience, having her perfect work, makes him both perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Jas. 1:4

9/09/01

Sonship through Suffering

How miserable is the Christian who gropes along through life devoid of understanding, blaming the devil for every trial, temptation, and affliction. In sickness he blames the devil. In loss he blames the devil. Wake up, O man! Look beyond the shadows and you will see the Lord. The eyes of your understanding will be opened to see that for sons of God great tribulation is a must, that patience must have her perfect work, that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. How harmful are those sermons by which men are taught that God is always in the sunshine, the affluence, the merry, and the bright! Nonsense, man! God has always perfected men through much affliction. The moment you understand this, you will say with Paul, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Cor. 12:9,10. We do well to sing, "So I'll cherish the old rugged cross," but we do wrong to flinch the moment it is placed upon our shoulders, blaming the devil for it and trying our best to get rid of it. The fault with multitudes of God's people is that to them the cross has become historic; it is never experimental. It is to be shunned rather than cherished and embraced, yet by its power still the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.

What does it mean to you, my brother, when you hear god say, "Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth"? Is chastening from such a hand of love to be attributed to the devil, or is it rather the kindly hand of the Father bringing a son to perfection? Of Jesus our Lord it is written, "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered: and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." Heb. 5:8,9. "It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Heb. 2:10. Therefore, "consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not resisted unto blood, striving against sin." Heb. 12:3,4. "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children (sons), My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him." Heb. 12:5. Instead of blaming Satan for your afflictions and trials, your temptations and reverses, look through the storm and you will see the hand of God. Look to Him for wisdom, and of His great understanding He will teach you. When you lay your head on a pillow of stone in the night of your despondency, your dream will disclose God at the top of the ladder and you will awake in the morning with these words on your lips: "Surely God is in this place and I knew it not."

It will be a glad day for you when your prayers cease to be demands, when you stop telling God what He must do for you, for your children, for your relations, for the heathen, the church, and a thousand other paltry human desires. It will be a great day, I say, when your voice falls silent to these vain requests and instead from the depths of your spirit you whisper, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Lord, open mine eyes that I may behold Thy eternal purpose and my place in Thy plan. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Much of the praying done by Christians is utterly useless. Has God become senile  that you must remind Him? Is He deaf that He cannot hear? Has He forgotten that which was committed to Him? What makes you think that you and your children and your relations must at all cost be spared from any cross or suffering? Better far it would be to earnestly enquire of His wisdom that you might understand the mysterious way His wonders are performed. Could Jacob have saved his son Joseph from slavery in Egypt, he would certainly have done so, but what harm and eternal loss there would have been. "All these things are against me," cried the despondent old man, but he knew not that God was in the whole scheme nor that behind all lay the mystery of His eternal purpose.

In the depths of my heart I believe that the long, long night of waiting is almost at an end. God's family of sons, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the ages, has almost filled up its sum. The feet members of the body of Christ are being shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace is for the kingdom age. It will be the kingdom gospel. It will be proclaimed by the sons of God. So bright will be the light of their shining that all men shall know God from the least to the greatest. The kingdom will be the age of the bridegroom, the dispensation when Jesus will be head and the sons His many-membered body. This will not be the body of the bride, but the body of the bridegroom, Christ Jesus with His many brethren. Rom. 8:29. For one thousand years shall they reign with Him in His throne, bringing deliverance and universal peace to all creation.

In those blessed days shall the bride, our lovely Eve, be brought to the glory of her female perfection and it shall come to pass in the end of those days of blessed millennial glory that the heavens will open and from its glory will descend the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, prepared and adorned for her husband, the many-membered body of Christ. Upon her lovely head shall rest the glory of God, and her light shall be like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone clear as crystal. Here at the end of the kingdom age the marriage of the Lamb takes place, for man has returned to God, male and female, in one "image of God." Then shall the new temple appear, for the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. Rev. 21:22. The marriage of the Lamb of God to His bride will signal the beginning of the age of the ages, the dispensation of the fulness of times when God shall gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in Him. Eph. 1:10. There shall be no more male or female, but "man in God's image" as it was in the beginning. There will be no more Adam and Eve, but they two shall be perfect one, though a multitude that no man can number. Man in God's image, the child of ominipotency, a pure virgin, after the form of the Eternal, a fountain of meekness and love flowing as living water from the heart of the Eternal, filled with chastity, modesty, purity, and wisdom--man at last and forever in the image of God.

When our Lord Jesus Christ unfolded the truth concerning the bread of life as related in the sixth chapter of John's gospel, He found the people willing to follow Him to a certain point, but, when He told them that He, the Son of God, was the bread of God that came down from heaven, immediately they were greatly offended. And when He said, "Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood ye have no life in you," many of His disciples said, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" Jesus, seeing their offence and understanding the dullness of the natural mind, left us this truth: "It is the spirit that quickeneth (makes alive); the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Verse 63. But from that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.

The Spirit of Truth

Natural men with natural minds can never see nor comprehend the realm that lies just above them. But I am sure that, if any man will bow his heart in humility before God, confessing the limitations of his natural mind and the blindness of his heart, if he will ask the Lord to open his eyes and give him understanding, then, before many days have gone by, a spiritual light will flood his mind with the truth he needed to know. Then he will see what he had not seen and he will know the Spirit has taught him that which man could not teach. Christian people have put far, far too much faith in men, far too much confidence in preachers and teachers. They seem to have forgotten the admonition of John who warned the people against the seducers of every age. "These things," said he, "have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it (the anointing) hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." I Jno. 2:26,27. The anointing is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father. This is the Spirit of Christ, who filled the waiting souls at Pentecost and has come to abide in the hearts of all who believe. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in this age to lead us into all truth. You have surely noticed that John wrote, "The anointing teacheth you all things, and is truth." Not only does the anointing teach us truth, but the anointing is truth. Our minds may be confused with all manner of nonsense and misconceptions from men who claim to be teachers, but when the Spirit teaches us, the Spirit is truth. The truth is teaching us the truth.

So important was it that we should receive the Spirit and honor Him as our instructor that Jesus left us this parting message: "I will pray the Father and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: But ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you ... At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you." John 14:16,17,20. The method of instruction used by the indwelling Holy Spirit has been clearly laid down by Jesus Christ Himself. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." John 16:12-14.

The Holy Spirit never speaks of Himself, but He always glorified Christ. What He hears of the Father (verse 13) He shows to us. And if we will live in contact and harmony with Him, He will instruct us concerning things to come. Whenever, therefore, we see a man rising up into prominence and receiving the ovations of the people, we may readily know that, regardless of what he has to say, Christ is not being glorified, for in whomsoever the Holy Spirit is Lord, Christ is lifted up and glorified in the hearts of the people so that He alone is seen, and seen as God's only begotten Son.

"All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I, that He (the Spirit) shall take of mine and shall show it unto you." Verse 15. This is the spirit of revelation. It is the Holy Spirit of God, the blessed Paraclete, the Comforter, the Advocate, who dwells in us. Nothing is unknown to Him, for He is omniscient. To those who seek His wisdom He takes the things of God ans shows them unto them. During my life many precious people have asked me questions I could not answer, but there is nothing that He does not know nor anything He cannot teach. He even extends His blessing to the world at large, for when He has come, "He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment: of sin because they believe not on Me, of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and of judgment because the prince of this world is judged." John 18:8-11.

Open My Eyes

In the last days knowledge shall increase. Dan. 12:4. In the past ten years we have seen all the accumulated knowledge since Adam doubled, and in the next five years it will probably double again. But not in the world alone shall knowledge increase, for there is a company of people rising in the likeness of Christ. They are entering beyond the veil of the flesh into a realm where man with his complicated rockets and computers cannot enter. It is the realm where God dwells in the Spirit, a realm closed to natural minds as surely as the animal world is closed to the mineral world. It is in this realm that His Spirit calls us to dwell. Here we must live and move and have our being.

Long ago in Israel the Syrian armies had surrounded the little town of Dothan. In their hands were orders to capture Elisha the prophet of God who had consistently revealed Syria's plans to the king of Israel. When the servant of the prophet saw the city surrounded by chariots and horsemen, he cried to Elisha, saying, "Alas, my master, what shall we do?" And Elisha prayed and said, "Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Elisha." Kings 6.

The continual burden of my heart, dear reader, is this: Cease from thy dependence upon the wisdom of man. Say to thy Father in heaven, "Open my eyes, and anoint my understanding that I may behold Thy glory, for by  beholding I shall be changed into Thy likeness." 

Conclusion of "Divine Revelation."

Treasures of Truth Vol. 19, "Seven Baskets Full": The Six Statements of Malachi.  Seven Baskets Full

The writings of George Hawtin and A. P. Adams are available from:

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