| |
Selling
All To Buy
Again,
the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a
field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for
joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth
that field.” There is your “full consecration”…the
setting yourself apart to the whole truth. When he finds
the treasure, a born again experience, this treasure
experience, what does he do? He goes right on and makes a
full consecration. How does he do it? He sells all that he
hath and buys the field. Complete consecration to God’s
Word, will give you the whole Word of God. The wise man
said in Proverbs 23:23, “Buy the truth, and sell it
not.” I want us to see that the devil has deceived many.
He makes them feel they are selling out a little here and
selling out a little there. When you sell any part of the
truth, you sell it all. You cannot tear it apart. If you
sell out the least bit to the devil, you lose it all.
Now, I would like to stop
a minute and put a little emphasis on the reason why this
fellow consecrates. He found this treasure through a born
again experience. He saw the kingdom; it was his. Thank
God, that Paul said we have it right here in earthen
vessels. He got joy. The kingdom is righteousness, joy and
peace in the Holy Ghost. He found joy and the Scripture
said, for joy he went and sold all that he had and bought
the whole field. What did he do it for? For joy, he did
it. Sure there is joy in finding the Kingdom, but there
was more joy available. Your joy can be full! Jesus said,
if you get the vine purged, you can bear more fruit. So he
found joy in a born again experience, and for more joy, he
goes and consecrates…sells all he has (complete
consecration), to gain the full truth. In the 19th chapter
of Matthew, we read there: the rich man that came to
Christ, the young ruler…what does he say? He had kept
the commandments from his youth up, but Jesus said, “if
thou wilt be perfect”. Don’t be afraid to use that
word. “Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine
of Christ, let us go on to perfection”
Back here in the early
part of the parables they brought forth no fruit to
perfection. When the thorns were still in the way. If thou
wilt be perfect; and God is no respecter of persons. If
the rich young ruler could be perfected, by doing that, so
can you and I. “If thou wilt be perfect”---the same
thing he said there, He said here, go and sell that which
thou hast. Give to the poor and come, and follow me. May
the Lord help us to see this; it takes a selling out. This
individual has found a treasure in the field and just like
any wise businessman, said, I found a treasure in that
field, but what does he do? He said I am going to buy that
whole field---there’s liable to be some other rich mines
in there. He just buys the whole thing.
Now, here is another
mystery of the kingdom. This is a mystery. You have the
whole field and I have it all. How do you figure that out?
There is nothing else in the world like that. If you
bought it all, there wouldn’t be any for anyone else.
But here, everyone can have it all. Who ever heard tell of
such a thing? You can buy the whole field, and then, when
I come along, I can buy it. If a man could do that in
literal life, he would get arrested. We see how much
greater heavenly things are. He sells the same thing over
and over. You get all of Christ and I get Him all. This
field of truth is the only field that the kingdom will
grow in.
In Revelation the 3rd
chapter, I want to deal with the Pentecost in the
Revelation; just hurriedly. I dealt with these hearts when
we came up through the morning time. I said I liked these
parables because you get to preach twice. We dealt with
the hearts and the thorns, and a little later on, we want
to deal with another portion; the temple, in another
thought of speaking on consecration. You turn to the 3rd
chapter of Revelation (I am not going to turn there now,
but sometime read it again), but He did speak to the
Church in Sardis (just let me hit a few high spots)
“These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of
God, and the seven stars.” We know Sardis covered that
age, as the brother showed you of Methodism, when God was
ready to give them light regarding consecration. Luther
came preaching justification by faith. We come up to that
Sardis age, my friend, which brings us right in there,
that from 1730 to 1880, God was ready to give the light on
consecration. So, how did He come to them? “These things
saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God.”
There’s only one Holy
Spirit, but it works in seven different ways through the
ages. Not only does He have the Holy Spirit for you, but
He has the seven stars, which are the ministry
(messengers) that will tell you how to get it. Just like
the star that led the wise men to Christ, God has got a
ministry that tells people how to get the field
(experience) and the treasure (experience). That was the
way He addressed Himself to Sardis.
We come on down through,
my friend, and He said, “I know thy works, that thou
hast a name that thou livest, and are dead.” In the
second chapter of Revelation, verse 23, back in this age,
He told them, if they did not repent, if they did not quit
that old Jezabel doctrine, that He was going to kill their
children with death---well, here they are, dead. They are
still holding on to a name (profession), but they are
dead. What happens to people when they do not walk in the
light? They get just like a lot of people are today, still
going around saying, we’re the church, and dead as
“door-nails”. We know, right in this age, that
Methodism was the highest organized group on the face of
the globe. If organization and its education and
intellectual power, would have saved the world, the
Methodists would have done it long ago. Sardis, my friend,
was a highly organized church. I want you to see, you can
be perfectly organized and be perfectly dead. You go back
to the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, when God took him down in
the valley of dry bones. He prophesied the Word out to
them and every bone hooked on to its bone and the flesh
came on and the muscles came on. They were perfectly
organized. And dead as they were, before they were ever
brought together. What did they need? They needed the
breath of God to blow upon them.
Our burden is to herald
the need of the Holy Spirit. We can hook every Scripture
in the book together. Someone said, I don’t think you
can hook together without it. There are people that had
the Holy Spirit once, and are still rattling over an old
truth that God showed them years ago, and it is as dead as
could be. Paul said in 1 Corinthians the 13th chapter, you
could have the gift of prophecy and understand all
mysteries and still not have the love of God. God help us,
not to be deceived. The Word of God says, to try the
spirit. There are too many being deceived. Just because a
man can get up and rattle something that God showed him a
long time ago; he may have back-slid and married a dozen
women and be living in adultery now. We must try the
spirit. How are we going to try it? He said, every spirit
that confesses that Christ has come in the flesh is of
God; not every person, but every spirit.
There are a lot of people
that will testify that Christ came in the flesh---but He
said every spirit that testifies it. There’s a
difference!
He came on down through,
my friend, and told us there in a few words what was
needed. They had, even as the religious world today, and
some that would call themselves, saints, a form of
godliness, but denying the power thereof. They had a name
to live, but no principle of life. There was deadness in
their soul, deadness in their services, deadness in their
preaching, deadness in their singing, deadness in their
praying. But thank God, they were not all dead in Sardis.
There were two groups of people down there, which shows
believers and non-believers yoked together. There were
some that had a name that were dead, and there were others
that had a name that they lived and they did live, and He
told them to overcome that thing---be careful and hold
fast to the truth they had and strengthen it with the new
light that He gave them and they could walk with Him in
white right on this earth, in consecration. Ah, these
letters and parables tie together. I would to God we could
take more time, but I want to go to the 8th chapter of
Revelation a minute.
Rev. 3:4, “Thou hast a
few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their
garments;” teaching us what? Few can remain in spiritual
childhood very long without defiling their garments. There
is very little standing grace, when failing to consecrate
our lives.
In the 8th chapter of
Revelation, verse 2: Did you know that Pentecost is
symbolized in the Revelation? Many would have us feel that
Pentecost was not in it. Would you think that when God
gave us a revelation of Jesus Christ and His reign from
beginning to end that Pentecost would not be in there
somewhere, because that is what produced it all?
|
