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:
Treasures of Truth
P.O. Box 99
Eagle, Idaho 83616 USA
Links to more writings by George Hawtin:
www.kingdomlife.com/kingdom/hawtinwritings.htm
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