Who Will Believe Our Report - 1

[Speaker 1] Okay, Praise the Lord. I said as we look at the ministry of justification versus ministry of condemnation last week, we began to see some very serious matters. And I said when I got home, I was just meditating on something and look at what came out of this meditation. Just trying to move from where we left the matter last week to Isaiah, where we'll be looking at, where we'll really dwell on today. Now look at Psalm 91:3. Compare with Exodus chapter 23:25. Psalm 91:3. Compare with Exodus 23 verse, let me read Psalm 91:3 here. Psalm 91:3 reads, it says: "Surely he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler." There’s a commentary, there’s a small write-up on that: "That is, one who catches birds in a trap or snare, and from the perilous pestilence." In Exodus 23:25, he says: "So you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take away sickness from the midst of you." What do you notice? What do you notice? As I read that scripture in the course of the week, let me read to you my meditation. I said it just occurred to me following from the things that we have been discussing, I’ve been studying the Psalms. It says: "Under the jurisdiction of the law, God said, you will serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless your bread and water, and I will take sickness from your midst." In Psalm 91:3, he said: "I will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, and then from what? The perilous pestilence." I now said this was the ultimate that the ministry of condemnation, that is the law, could offer man. Good health was a promise. But the blessedness of the ministry of justification, that is grace and truth, says: "But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities. The chastisement needful to obtain peace and well-being for us was upon him, and with his stripe that wounded him, we are healed and made whole." Isaiah 53:5. I now said: "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. Good health is an inheritance at salvation." You know, as we try to look at Isaiah chapter 53 today, I want you to look at Isaiah 53 with a very open heart. Let’s get to the scripture, and let’s trust the Lord to meet with us. Now look at Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah 53. Just about, I think it should just be about 11 verses. 11 or 12 verses? How many verses? [Speaker 2] About 12 verses? [Speaker 1] Yeah, and it’s a very short chapter, but it contained so much. Now in opening that chapter, the Bible says something that looks like a thing that calls for us to really ponder. Bible says: "Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely, he bore our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him not, we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, and we have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people, he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death. Because he has done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When he made his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied." Amen. "By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressor, and he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors." Brethren, you know the first thing I want to ask you? How will you describe the fulfillment of this prophecy? How will you describe the fulfillment of this prophecy that we've just read? [Speaker 2] 100 percent. [Speaker 1] Okay, that's a description. What other way can we describe it? That's a description, which is very true. It was fulfilled 100 percent. Yes. Other things can we say other things about the nature of the fulfillment of this prophecies? [Speaker 3] It's about Jesus the Messiah. [Speaker 1] Yes, still about the prophecy, what can you say? This whole thing that we just read. What can you say about it? Particularly with its fulfillment. In respect of its fulfillment, yeah. [Speaker 4] In terms of... you know, I was just thinking about the things that was happening. We have not seen this thing happen to our generation. [Speaker 1] Okay, we haven't seen the fulfillment of this thing as well being in our generation? [Speaker 4] In terms of health among believers. [Speaker 1] Okay, in terms of the promises that are there, we are not really seeing it being fulfilled in our life? Okay, that's one way of looking at it. No, I want us to look at it from the point of... okay, maybe I should narrow it further so that we can be more specific. In terms of the fulfillment of this promise by Jesus. Somebody said it's 100 percent, which is true. What other description can we give it? Look at how Jesus came. Look at what he did. Look at how he died. All of those things. Look at it vis-a-vis this thing that was said here. That's what I'm trying to say. How will you describe it? [Speaker 2] Exactness. [Speaker 1] That's what I'm looking for. Do you notice that it is exact? Exact detail by detail. Does it not make you afraid? Listen to how precise it is. He said he will be numbered with the transgressors. Yet at his grave he will be with the rich. Do you understand what I'm trying to bring out? At his death, it was the rich. No! [Speaker 5] It was the grave of a rich man! [Speaker 1] Yes, oh! It was the rich. It was the rich man's grave. I mean just look at that. He was numbered among the transgressors and then he was buried in the grave of a rich man. This is exactly what happened. That is why sometimes the spirit of prophecy needs that we have it, we understand it in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. You get the point I'm making. You know that's why some people say, "God told me this thing. He said..." I said, "No, look. Yes. But be careful. You need to understand what God is saying in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." It may not be as literal as you are taking this thing. You need to sit down and say, "God, how does it go?" How really is it? Just like when they told Mary that you will give birth to a son and he will sit on the throne of his father David. They will call him the son of God. They were thinking that everything will happen immediately. But between when he was called the son of God and when he will come and sit on the throne of his father David, they didn't know that he will first die. There would be so many years in between. Even Mary would have died. All of them would have died. And so that's why they keep asking him, "Will you at this time restore the kingdom? Remember the angel said..." He said, "Look, don't bother yourself." You see, because what God was saying, they didn't understand it in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. You know, that's why as God speaks to us, it needs wisdom and spiritual understanding. But just to respond to what was just said about how many rich people were at his death. Now so we saw that it said like a lamb before its shearers he will be silent. Have you read the account between him and Pilate? Pilate, Bible says, "And Pilate marveled exceedingly." What makes Pilate to marvel? [Speaker 2] He was silent. [Speaker 1] He said because he uttered, "Don't you hear what everybody is saying? Say something! At least if you have something to say! Do you want to die just like that? Why can't you talk?" But are you following what I'm trying to say? That the word I'm looking for is that you will notice that the minutest details of this prophecy was fulfilled exactly the way it was said in time. That's the first thing I want you to see. What gets me wondering again is the fact that they were talking about chastisement. What led to chastising Jesus? Look at the incident that led to it. Okay Pilate was looking for a way to free him. He said, "Okay, by the time I will beat him like they normally beat thieves, that way if I bring him out at least he has been punished they will let him go." That was his own mind so that he can use it to set him free. But as they were doing that to do that, it was just look at the way divine hand can move mortals both in intention and in inclinations and in emotions, in psychology, in judgment, in reasoning, to bring about what? Divine counsel. Even when these mortals were not aware of these prophecies. They don't know the scripture, they don't know God. But God had a divine mind and God wanted that mind to be achieved. And God moved through... if you go and check several other ones, the details sometimes makes me afraid. It said you will be born in Bethlehem. How was he born in Bethlehem? Suddenly Augustus Caesar just said everybody should go to their town to be numbered. Go! You must be in your own village. They could take census anywhere. No, I want to count you in your village. And they went there to be counted and there in that place just when Jesus was about to be born. What I'm showing you is the first thing that gripped my heart in this scripture is the awesomeness of God. Our God is awesome. Our God is awesome. And the awesomeness I first want you to see, apostle Paul said something. He said having this confidence, he said since we have this kind of hope we speak how? Plainly and with confidence. I want to show you what these people saw. He said they spoke confidently and they spoke plainly. They could say it, they were too plain, they were too bold about the matter. Now the first thing that I want you to see is the fact that there was a divine mind and even men who does not know God, who does not respect God, who wanted to act against God, who felt they are acting within their power, within the whatever they think they have and they can do, they were just fulfilling the nitty gritty details of God. Now what I'm trying to make you see is that if the fulfillment of these promises of these prophecies by Christ was precise, two: was exact, three: was complete, four: was total. Could it be that the promises attached to them will not be exact? Could it be that those suffering that went so exactly the consequence of them will not be exact? If the suffering, the specification of those things were precise, they were exact, they were complete and they were total. Could it be that God do not intend that the consequences of this suffering God didn't intend that they should be exact? They should be precise? They should be complete and total? Could God have made all those movements? Could he have moved all those things? Could he have done it so exactly? Could he have done it so precisely? And yet he never intended that the consequences should be real? Could it be? Or could it be that somewhere somehow we were deceived? Could it be that somewhere somehow we were misled? Could it be that somewhere somehow we heard another gospel? These are the issues. That's why I said I want you to go ahead and read before today. It is a matter that Baba has been raising in my heart over and over and over and over. And the question I'm asking you is that don't you see that we are limiting God? He says it is not possible. I say it is possible. There are two specific references in scripture that shows that his own could act in a way that will make God not to make his promises to manifest in their lives. It will take your mind back to what happened to Jesus in Nazareth. Are you familiar with the story? In Nazareth. Are you familiar with the story or we should read it? [Speaker 6] Yes. They said, "Is he not the son of Jacob?" [Speaker 1] So how did the Bible now conclude? [Speaker 6] He could not do much work because of their unbelief. [Speaker 1] He could not do it! He came to do it. He came to do it. But "Is he not this? Is he not the son of this? Is he not this?" We bring God down from heaven. How are we sure if we pray God will answer? If we decree are we really sure? If I lay my hand on this person will the demon go? I don't know now. Are you understanding it? He could not. Not because he did not. He came, he wanted. I'm trying to make you understand that do you know that we can be in affliction because we don't believe him? Do you know that it is possible for his promises not to take effect even though he has promised us? Let me read one scripture to you. Can we just pray a little? Can we just pray? Can we just pray a little? Can we just pray? Can we just say: "God, help me to see you"? It is only him that can do this thing in our heart. It is only him, I'm telling you, it is only him. It is only him that can move in the heart of men. He said he worked in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Can you say: "God, this new thing you want to start, this fulfillment of your promise in the life of your people, this lifting away of affliction, this entrance into that which Jesus has made available for us. Lord, work in me both to will. Lord, work in me both to will and to do of your good pleasure. Make me perfect in this good work to do your will. Work in me this which is well pleasing in your sight. Lord, work in me. Lord, work in me that which is well pleasing in your sight. Lord, help make me to see you. Let every veil of fear, veil of doubt, veil of unbelief, veil of ignorance, veil, O God, remove veil! Lord, release me into what you are doing. Lord, set me free, Lord! I break my limitations today. I break limitations. I break whatever is limiting me. I go beyond my limitations today. I grow wings to fly. Lord, by the working of your spirit. Not by power, not by might, but by the working of your mighty power! By the working of your mighty power! By the working of your mighty power! By the working of your mighty power! By the working of your mighty power! Lord, build your church according to your word! Lord, build your church! Lord, build your church! Lord, build your church! Lord, build your church!" O Father. Lord, take us beyond our limitations. Take us beyond those things that hold us down. Lord, take us beyond those things that keeps us down. Lord, take us to break and get loose. It is liberty that Christ has set us free. For where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Lord, the liberty that comes by the spirit. The liberty, the liberty to follow God! The liberty to lean on God! The liberty to rest on God! The liberty to host to God! The liberty to walk in what God has said! The liberty to stand on what God has spoken! The liberty to follow what God has said! Let there be liberty! O Lord help us! Lord help us! We dearly need your help. We dearly need your intervention. Lord, we don't know what we have believed. We don't know exactly what happened to us. We didn't even know when exactly it happened. But somehow, Lord, there is more to what you have done for us than we have seen. There is more to what you have done for us than we are experiencing. There is a liberty in which Christ has set us free. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Blessed be your name, Lord. Blessed be your name. Thank you, Father. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Let's continue. Let's see Psalm 78. Let's see Psalm 78. We'll come back to where we are reading. Let's see Psalm 78. Psalm 78. Are you there? Now look at Psalm 78. Let's take our reading from verse 35. Are you there? "Then they remembered that God was their rock and the most high God was their redeemer. Nevertheless, they flattered him with their mouth and they lied to him with their tongue. For their heart was not steadfast with him." I want you to be noting this thing. Talking about unbelief. What God call flatter. Take it again from 36. "Nevertheless they flattered him with their mouth, they lied to him with their tongue, for their heart was not steadfast with him, nor were they faithful to his covenant. But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time he turned his anger away and did not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they were but flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again." Verse 40, 41. "How often they provoked him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert. Yes, again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy One of Israel." How did they do it? They did not remember his power. Are you following me? They did not remember his power. The day when he redeemed them from the enemy. When he worked his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan. Turned their rivers into blood, and their streams that they could not drink. He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs which destroyed them. He also gave their crop to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost. He also gave up their cattle to the hail, and their flock to fiery lightning. He cast on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, by sending angels of destruction among them. He made a path for his anger. He did not spare their soul from death. He gave their life over to the plague and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the first of their strength in the tent of Ham. But he made his own people go forth like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And he led them on safely so they did not fear. But the sea overwhelmed their enemies and he brought them to the holy border, this mountain which his right hand had acquired. He drove out the nations from before them, allotted them an inheritance by survey, and made the tribes of Israel dwell in their tents. Yet they tested and provoked the most high God and did not keep his testimony. They turned back and acted unfaithfully like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow. Are you are you getting what is it that provoke God about these people? What did they not remember? [Speaker 2] His power. [Speaker 1] They did not remember his power. And which power is he asking them to remember? The power that he used to redeem them. What I'm trying to make you see is that there is so much about salvation. I'm not talking about a new power. I'm not talking about a fresh... I'm talking about you don't who will believe? God wasn't talking about a new power. God wasn't talking about a power that is going to make to come down. The power came down and they saw it. And so he expected them to do what? To believe that power. The question I put to you, brethren. I'm talking about how we limit God. I'm talking about limiting God. I told you first reference that Jesus himself couldn't do anything. I showed you that God himself again was limited. He wanted to just swipe off those people. You thought it was his joy to be killing them. You thought it was his joy not to make his promises come to pass according to what he told them. Do do you think it was his joy that they limited him? If it was his joy why is he doing everything not to show the fullness of his wrath? Why is he doing everything to... "Okay, okay, you, I will kill you but your children will go." He still wants the thing. "Okay, okay, I cancel this thing!" To tell you that he still wants he still wants to show that I can bring people there. I can do it. And instead of terminating the journey, he said: "No, you will die, 40 years you will wander, your children will go." What is bothering him is the fact that they limited him. And as I read as I read this scripture... you know, see, look at what the Bible says. Let's move on. It says verse 7. Let me read on again. God again set a certain day calling it "Today." This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: "Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your heart." For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not again have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his works. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will perish by following their examples of disobedience. For the word of God... please, what does the Bible say about the word of God? For the word of God is what? Is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit and joint and marrows. It judges the thought and the attitude of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before his eyes, to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. This is what he’s trying to say. Are you getting the matter? The matter is not only that Jesus have fulfilled the condition. The matter is that he is still alive, watching over God, performing them. He is still alive, praying and interceding. He has not just gone. You see, he has fulfilled it, and then we still have him. So in case Papa wants to forget... "Papa, I've taken the stripes for that thing. I've fallen so they don't fall." Are you getting the point the Bible is trying to make? We still have him. I'm showing you with what the Bible says. The reason why we must hold firmly to the faith we profess. Why it must be a firm thing. Why it must be a thing we can put our hearts on. But you know many times, we always think that this is only in the matter of living holy. Living righteously. We don't see it in the privileges that he gave us. Are you understanding me? Let me hold fast not to sin. Let me hold fast so that I can enter heaven. Yes, he did that. But he also did several other things that if you hold fast you will get them. Are you taking the point I'm making? Salvation is a comprehensive thing. And that was the problem our fathers had. He redeemed them, he brought them out, he did mighty things to bring them out. Just like he did a mighty thing to save us. But they did not understand that that is not just all about about it. He only he demonstrated so that you can know his power. That as you begin to move on, you begin to make reference to that thing. You begin to make reference. You begin to make reference. As you meet with things, you make reference to what redeemed you. As you meet with things, you make reference... that's why the Bible says we should be planted and built up in Christ. You don't get planted and then build up in some other things, in traditions, in common sense. No! You are planted having been rooted in him. You are supposed to what? To also be built on him. So it is the same but what I discovered today is like we take root, like our brothers said, salvation is general, but every other thing we begin to wait for when God wills. When God wills. You see the point I'm making? But what he’s saying is that at any moment at any point where any man stands up on these promises it becomes a reality. God has turned the matter to a matter of "Today." Why is it why is it "Today"? Because it is no more a promise to be fulfilled. It is a promise that has been fulfilled. It says so... and just before I go on, in this verse 7, I want to ask you this question. All of us seated here as believers. Let's be very practical. If somebody ask you right now that "If I believe Jesus now will he save me?" What will you tell the person? "Yes!" Why do you say why are you sure? Because it is now! Do you doubt whether Jesus can save the person? If the person says "I want to repent. Please show me the way to Jesus." You won't say "No, Jesus cannot save you today. You need to do some fasting. You see to experience this salvation there are certain things you need to do." Is there anything about this salvation... do you doubt it in your heart? Do you doubt Jesus saving at any instant somebody comes and says "Jesus, please save me"? So what happened to the other things in Jesus? So how are you sure that God wants to save when you pray? In that way it is in that way. Are you are you seeing the problem? No, are you see the problem? You see we must these are things that God must help us. These are things that God must help us. You see we have limited God in some things. We have cornered him to a place. He said: "These signs shall follow them that believe." Only when I want to do it? Did he say so? No! He said "As long as you go, these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out demons. They will lay hands on the sick, the sick shall recover." He said "Go!" But do you see why we are not going? We say "How are we sure it's God's will?" That's it. I'm just trying to make you see matters God is dealing with me myself. I'm not presenting this matter to you as somebody who have attained. I'm presenting matters as heaven is challenging my heart. What has happened to the gospel? And that's why I said this so that I wanted you to to read and meditate so that when when we come back you might have also seen some things that I did not see. Perhaps what you will share with me will further challenge my heart. But I'm showing you what I saw. And I'm showing you the questions that have been generating in my own spirit. If God could could go to the fulfillment... it was too exact. If God don't really mean to bring the consequences of those things, why bother make the son go through all those details? If that stripe will not bring peace to us, then why bother let them flog him? If the chastisement will not bring healing, then why did he have to suffer it? Could God be very light in his intention? Has God ceased to be deliberate? Brethren, you see I'm raising this so that you go back to your own closet. Attend to the Lord. Bring yourself to him. And I believe he will meet with you. Whatever he may be challenging in your own work. That is what you should pray about. That's what you should lift up to him. That's what you should say: "Baba, this is the area." That area is what you should take again to the place of meditation as you look at that Isaiah. And say "God, this matter, this area, this is my own area. This is the area. Lord, this area, how does it come up in this matter? How does it come up in the gospel? How does it show up, Lord?" Save me from tradition. Save me from whatever is limiting me. Save me if I've been limiting. Come, work in me. Let there be a life. Let something make me fly. Let your spirit again work. If perhaps I ought to be flying but I'm still crawling, Lord do something. That is the area I'm pointing to you, Baba. Baba. That's what I want us to do. Because of our different level of work with God. Let's come to God in the area where the Holy Ghost is drawing a red line. Is pointing a searchlight. Is searching something and pointing at something. Come to God in that area. Amen. We're grateful to you today for whatever has been spoken to us now. Help us, Lord. Amen.