The Feast of Passover represented two things. It was a culmination of judgment upon the Egyptians; and it was also, during the process of those ten judgments which culminated in the Passover night when the death angel came (Exodus 12:29–30), a concluding experience of judgment upon the Israelites. They suffered things at the hands of the Egyptians that were greater than the torment of their slavery, but they came out of it with the wealth of Egypt (Exodus 12:35–36). They did not come out as cringing slaves; they came out as conquerors. Through their cries, through their intercession, they had won their war (Exodus 3:7–10).
When they came to the Red Sea, they did not know what to do. They were exhorted, “The battle is not yours but the Lord’s. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14:13–14). And they had the promise of God, “The Egyptians whom you have seen today you will see no more forever” (Exodus 14:13). They had won a war, but they had not won it through carnal fighting.
Likewise, we are told that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Everything that rises against the knowledge of Christ, even every thought and imagination, can be brought into subjection to Christ (II Corinthians 10:4–5).
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. II Corinthians 10:3–6.
The signs of judgment in these days are very great. In this day we could have the most momentous Feast of Passover since the time of Christ, and even since the time of the first Passover at the Exodus. The first Passover saw a people delivered out of slavery, so that they could go in and possess a land which had been described over four hundred years before to Abraham, when he walked through the land and God told him it would be his (Genesis 12:6–7; 13:14–17, especially 17; 15:7, 18).
Then we come down until the time of Christ; and at the time of the Passover, Christ was crucified. At that time He did not perpetuate the Passover for the Christian Church as it had been before, but rather He inaugurated it as it is to us—Christ our Passover is crucified for us.
For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I Corinthians 5:7b–8.
He opened up a whole new way of keeping the Passover which has existed for almost two thousand years. Approximately fifteen hundred years before Christ was the first Passover, and it has been about nineteen hundred and fifty years since the second Passover was inaugurated; so you can see that we may be ready for the third Passover to come—a mystical Passover in which we are delivered out of Babylon and keep the Passover anew in the Kingdom.
In the Red Sea were drowned all of the army of the Egyptians (Exodus 14:9–28). That was a marvelous deliverance for the Israelites, and all they did was just believe God and obey Him. When we come into the deliverance that is ours through Christ it is very similar. Christ came against all the forces of sin; He overcame principalities and powers with their stronghold upon the lives of men (Colossians 2:14–15). This is the victory of His Passover, which we keep every time we partake of the Communion.
Now what is the next step in redemption? All of these centuries we have been appropriating a victory that He won for us, but we also have had the promise that there will be a day in which there will be a special fulfillment. Even the Scripture says that after Christ’s victory He was seated at the right hand of the Father, henceforth expecting until His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.
But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Hebrews 10:12–14.
He is waiting for the great Red Sea experience of the ages in which there will be a putting down—permanently, experientially—not only of sin in our life, that we may become the children of God; but more than that, a putting down of futility, that we would see all of creation delivered. It is not just a few hundred thousand square miles of land in Israel that is involved; it is the whole world and every facet of the world, every dimension of men’s lives, every aspect of their lives. We want to see futility ended.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Romans 8:20–21.
We are reaching into the reality of Romans the eighth chapter. We will be on this course perhaps for years to come, but we will never lay it aside. This past year has seen more real advances toward the manifestation of the sons of God than have occurred for hundreds of years. We have had more breakthroughs, more beginnings. Sometimes it is just a little token, but it is there. We have seen the release of things that we have never seen before, breakthroughs that we have never known before. Sources of supply and blessing from God are flowing into our lives in a way that we have never seen before. Where do we go from here? Right on into the completion of it.
Our Passover services will be, more than anything else, high-level services in which we are appropriating and moving into the things that God has for us. It will be the operation of the rod of Moses: we stretch out our hands and see judgments come, and we stretch out our hands for deliverance (Exodus 7:19; 8:5–6, 16–17; 9:22–23, 29, 33; 10:12–13, 21–22; 14:15–16, 21, 26–28). In this great, mystical Passover of the ages that is coming, we are being conditioned to accept something which the Israelites never accepted. Israel never accepted their liberation. They never accepted it. They went out, and yet they kept on thinking like Egyptian slaves (Exodus 13:17; 16:3; 17:3; Numbers 11; 13:30–14:4).
Now it came about when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was near; for God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” Hence God led the people around by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea; and the sons of Israel went up in martial array from the land of Egypt. Exodus 13:17–18.
God is concerned that we accept our liberation. This truth is probably one of the most significant messages that has come to help us break into a realization of who we are—practically, realistically. We may have the scars of the Egyptian whips on our backs. We may be clouded and oppressed and we may see them trying to come in against us to destroy us. But we are going to be blessed because we are going to be conditioned to a new way of thinking.
The combination of thinking that has existed before has been this: “Let’s use the power of positive thinking. Let’s have self-confidence. Let’s pump up a certain degree of self-confidence in the old nature.” That is the world’s thinking. In fact, it is the thinking of a lot of the Christian world too. But concerning this Paul said, “We put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). Or we swing the other way, and we are hesitant in accepting our position of having a divine nature.
What about the old nature? Reckon it dead (Romans 6:11). Even if it still shows activity and signs of life, reckon it as dead, because you are not going to enter into the Kingdom as a dual personality. You cannot try to pump up the flesh and at the same time say, “I’m a child of God.” Rather, you say, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Galatians 2:20a, KJV. This must become real to us.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts. Romans 6:8, 11–12.
Whenever people get wiped out in their walk with God, it happens because they are still shattered because they are put down as a human being, and they do not recognize themselves as a divine being. Every time you are wiped out it is the same story—you are looking at circumstances or something on a human level. It is the human viewpoint that defeats us. Do you understand that it is the human viewpoint that defeats us?
We should see ourselves as the offspring of the Almighty, begotten of God, accepting our sonship at whatever state it is. You may be a babe, one of these little ones, a child, a young man, or a spiritual father; the book of I John speaks about all of them (I John 2:1, 12–14). Regardless of where you are, you have to accept yourself.
And it is rather strange that the one battle Satan would want to win over you is not over whether the Bible is true or whether Jesus is God. That is not the issue of the battle that he wants to fight with you. That is an illusion which comes through the things that are fed to you by the agnostics. The real battle is not over the veracity of the Scriptures. The real battle is for you to accept what God said He has done for you, and to accept who you are as a consequence of what you have believed He has done for you. This is where the battle really is.
Do you realize the truth of this? These are simple statements, but aren’t they the key of what we go through? Every time we think like a man, we tend to cross out what God has done for us.
For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? I Corinthians 3:3.
Let’s think as a son! As long as we think as a human being, and we approach our problems as a human being and say, “I have to win this battle,” we are defeated already. The whole of the Scriptures is to teach us one thing: We lost the battle in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), and there is no way that we can win it back again; rather, Christ had to come to win that battle for us. And the victory is not an overcoming of circumstances; it is a change of nature (II Peter 1:4). The whole issue is to be born again, to be born of God (John 3:3, 5). To be born of God is the whole key.
Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. II Peter 1:3–4.
Some say, “I don’t see that. There are a lot of religions around. Everybody is trying to do better and better, and they are working their way up to a very high state of grace.”
No, they are not. They are refining an old nature which is already condemned. Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world; it was condemned already. He said, But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:18b, KJV. Christ did not come to condemn you—you were already in that state. The whole battle we are in is to be born of God.
You say, “I know that. That is what happened when I accepted Christ as my Savior.”
Then stop thinking like someone who has to win the war all over again every day. Think like someone who has been born of God. The battle has been won. And it is the assumption of our new nature that is the greatest source of our victory—assuming in our own mind that what God has said about us and what we have experienced in God and where our faith lies is really true.
We must think like that instead of reverting to an old, conditioned response to life on a human basis. In short, we have to begin to think like a son, to think as a son thinks. When you walk up to a situation do not wonder, “How am I going to get through this?” Instead, say, “How does a son of God view this? How does a son of God react to this?” And of course it will work.
“But you don’t know the things I face. I have a lot of troubles.”
I find that I become depressed when I begin to view things on the human level. It all keeps coming back to this: We are seated with Christ, seated in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). What does this mean? Can you be seated on the throne and have your head down in the gutter?
You say, “I’m seated up there.”
But you are thinking down here. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Colossians 3:1, KJV.
It is a new realm and sphere, and this is the area where we need our Passover deliverance. We need to come out of our human bondage once for all time. We need to be delivered until we begin to think as sons of God.
“But I haven’t been feeling well lately.”
Think as a son. You have a choice. Because the pressures are on, you can react as a human being, as an invalid, as an ex-sinner, or maybe as a very present one, or at least as one who is afraid that he is about to add to the list of sins. Or you can think as a son.
This is the real story of the Exodus. This is the Passover. We are covered by the blood of the Lamb of God. One of the first great announcements of the New Testament was made by John the Baptist: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29b, KJV. We behold Him. And only as we behold Him are we able to behold ourselves transformed by that precious blood of Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 3:18). It is a metamorphosis. The old nature has to die.
We have been criticized in this; some have said that this is false doctrine, that we should still consider ourselves very much human sinners whom God has forgiven. I don’t believe that. I am not just a human sinner whom God has forgiven. I am a new creation in God (II Corinthians 5:17). That new creation may still be housed within a human framework, but if I think or focus on the human framework long enough, I will become discouraged. Instead, I want to think about the divine nature that is coming forth within that human framework—His nature. How much is it His nature? Just enough that I am going to be exactly like Him (I John 3:2). Ultimately, that is the goal.
John 1:11–14: He came to His own (that is a neuter word, which means that He came to His own things, to everything He created, to the whole world—everything), and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,’ and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Christ came forth on the human level to open the door for us by His grace to advance in God to the divine level. He has given us, Peter says, … exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. II Peter 1:4, KJV. In other words, we can escape the flesh tendency, and we can become partakers of the divine nature. We can reach into God and participate. It becomes very important that we begin to think as a son.
Now let’s go a little further. We face this difficulty: the very difficult realization of sonship. If it were not so difficult, we would have responded to it a long time ago. We have to get out of this human thinking and get the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:14–16). We have to get out of this way of thinking that is on the human level. It is full of corruption. It is full of deception.
I believe that most of the time our defeats come because the devil convinces us of a problem that God has already taken care of. And most of our problems come because we fall into weakness because he tempts us out of our awareness of our divine nature. You say, “Are we divine?” If we are begotten of God and the divine nature is coming forth in us, that is divine.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God … I John 3:1.
How much time did the Lord devote to calling Himself the Son of Man? Eighty-four times in the gospels. Why did He call Himself that? Because He actually came down to the human level so that we could rise to the divine level. Do you understand what that would mean? II Corinthians 8:9, KJV, tells us, … though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. Whatever He laid aside, He laid it aside so that we could pick it up. In John 17 He spoke about the glory He had with the Father before the world was (verse 5), and then He said, “I am giving them that glory” (verse 22). There is nothing that the eternal Christ was in ages past that He did not lay aside to be born as the Son of Man, in order that we could rise to become the sons of God (Philippians 2:5–11). This is the soundest doctrine you will ever hear. This is what the Gospel is all about.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. I John 3:1.
Now we go again to the first chapter of John. All things were made by Him (verse 3), yet He came to His own and His own received Him not (verse 11). They did not know Him. Imagine the Creator, walking as a man, and they could not recognize Him as God. If they did not recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as God, neither will they recognize us as God’s sons. That is what I John 3:1 says: The world does not know us because it did not know Him. If they had known Him, they would have known us. Jesus said, “If they receive My word, they will receive your word; if they received Me, they will receive you” (John 15:20), because it is all the same Spirit—the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of God coming forth within us in a new nature.
We are hearing the same Scriptures we have heard many times. The Word says that the world does not know us because it did not know Him, and most of the time we challenge that first verse of I John 3 because we do not even know ourselves. We do not even know who we are. Verse 2 goes on to say, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. That is true. We do not look much like God now. But Christ did not either. Read Isaiah 53. He had no form or comeliness that we should desire Him (verse 2). He did not look like much. We do not look like much either; we are the sons of God incognito.
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And every one who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. I John 3:2–3.
The rest of the chapter goes on to describe a great many things. It pictures the new nature that strives to walk without sin, and shows how Christ was manifested to destroy every work of the devil.
We submit to this one thing: We are children of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that we are children of God; and we know that the world does not know us yet because it did not know Him either. We can accept that. Then we had better begin to think concerning what God wants to do with the old nature to see it disappear. And we had better begin to think toward the new nature, to see it come forth. Unless you begin to dwell on the new nature—if you are risen with Christ, then seek the things which are above (Colossians 3:1)—you do not seem to get out of the old. As long as you are focused on trying to deal with the old nature, it seems to remain as a problem to you.
Have you ever watched people who were concentrating on trying to stop smoking cigarettes? As Mark Twain once said, “It’s no trouble to stop smoking. I’ve done it a thousand times.” All they have to do is concentrate on it and they can overcome it; and then while they are concentrating on it, it comes back. It is like a little dog. It may stray from you for a while to the nearest fire hydrant, but it will be back. The habit will come back. I have watched people who have quit smoking under their own willpower. The first time they get discouraged and sink down into a low spiritual level, they run right down to the store and buy another package of cigarettes. If they get discouraged, that is what they will do. Why? Because discouragement comes from looking at the human scene. And when you are absorbed with it, you become engulfed by it; you are snared by it; you are overcome by it.
What is the best thing to do? If you want to overcome something, be completely distracted from it. When you as a babe reached down and grabbed your mother’s scissors and you were ready to stick them in your eyes, your mother would take a little rattle and rattle it. And you would look at it and drop the scissors and reach for the rattle. What I am trying to get you to do is drop the scissors.
Drop the suicide of the flesh concentration. Drop the focus on the old. If you begin to think as a son, you will not be defeated as a human. Are you beginning to grasp this?
And every one who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. I John 3:3.
Your hope has to be fixed on Him. That is where your focus is to be. Hebrews 11:27b, KJV, speaks about Moses and says, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. When he looked at those murmuring slaves, wandering through the wilderness, he got discouraged. But the Word tells us that he kept his eyes on the Invisible One. He endured as seeing Him who is invisible. The focus that he had was on the Lord and on the promises of God. Only one time, and it was a very disastrous time, did he get his eyes off the Lord and so much on the murmuring of the people that they actually provoked him into a sin; and that prevented his going into the land of Canaan (Numbers 20:1–13). But he kept “enduring” because he could keep his sight upon the Invisible One. It was his true focus.
I know you cannot see your sonship when you look in the mirror, nor can you see it when you look at each other; but beloved, now are we the sons of God. Beloved, now we are the children of God. It has not yet appeared what we shall be. When we see each other there is so much that does not come through from any one of us now as it should. But remember what Paul said about that: Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. II Corinthians 5:16, KJV. We do not even see Christ on the human level anymore. We see Him rather as the manifested, glorified, eternal, only begotten, beloved Son of God. That is the way we should see Him. We do not know Him after the flesh.
It is tragic that there has been so much emphasis on crucifixes. There needs to be a portrayal of Christ to the churches in which we go through the Scriptures of His exaltation, like those in Revelation, and emphasize that. See Revelation 1:10–18; 5:4–14; 7:3, 9–17; 11:15–19; 15:1–8; 19:1–7, 11–16; 21:9–22:5. Do we have to go back to the days of His humiliation? We do not know Him that way any longer. I love to read the gospels, but the gospels are history. He will never again do that. He will never need to again come in the flesh of one man. The Father will not send His Son again a second time to be crucified (Hebrews 6:6). He is coming again, but this time to be glorified in His saints, to be admired in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10). He is coming as Lord of lords and King of kings, the Eternal One (I Timothy 6:13–16). He has again the glory which He had with the Father—everything is under His hand; He will be manifested in glory and power (John 17:5; Matthew 28:18; Ephesians 1:20–21; Philippians 2:9–11). Is this true? Then why don’t we portray Him as He is? And why don’t we see ourselves as we are too? Why is it that the human mind keeps going back to a historical viewpoint, and we see Christ as He was in that short period of time when He came to be the sacrifice for our sin, instead of seeing Him now as the Eternal One who is coming to rule and reign and have every enemy be made the footstool of His feet? (I Corinthians 15:25; Hebrews 10:13.) Why don’t we see Him that way? That is the way we must see Him.
What is the basic message of the New Testament? It is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You ask, “Don’t we believe in Jesus as Savior?” We believe He is Lord because He was the Savior. He became our Savior. “Well, I want Him to be my Savior.” He already is (Hebrews 7:25). All you have to do is accept it.
To as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the sons of God (John 1:12). How much more suffering does Jesus have to do to save you? How many times does He have to crawl up Golgotha? How many more lashes of the whip does He need? How many more hours of pain and suffering does Jesus Christ have to do? None! It is done! It is finished! (John 19:30.) To what does that open the door for you? It opens the door for you to live in Him, because He gave Himself for you.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20, KJV. Doesn’t this portray a life that is entirely different from living on the human plane?
May the Holy Spirit grant that this holy, anointed Word turn your thought and your focus into this whole new awareness. This can end nine-tenths of your problems right now, because most of them are a result of the way you have been thinking. For as he (a man) thinketh in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7a, KJV. And if you think in your heart as a limited human being, then you are a human being, vulnerable to all of the problems. But if you think in your heart, “I’m a child of God,” then you will overcome.
The third chapter of I John speaks about this. In verses 4–9 we read: Every one who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His (that is, God’s) seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
These are hard things to understand. You cannot understand the First Epistle of John until you realize that these are people who have been born of God. You say, “They don’t sin anymore. It says that they never sin.” Yes, but the second chapter says, My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. I John 2:1. John brought out the possibility of sin; and concerning it, he wrote to the little children. You see, what we are trying to do is grow up into God and discard the old nature (Ephesians 4:15). But you do not really outgrow it; you crucify it (Galatians 5:24). You reckon it dead (Romans 6:11). You come to the place where you have another focus entirely.
This realization of sonship is the experience that will make Romans 8 the practical chapter instead of just theoretical principles and doctrine which we do not know how to apply. It is something even more than the focus of the mind; it becomes something that your spirit actually appropriates. It is not just a human being trying to think as God thinks; it is actually thinking with God’s thoughts, with Christ’s mind. You are a child of God. You are going to think as a son. And if you think as a son, you will live as a son.
The book of Hebrews contains an outstanding passage which speaks of this same thing. But because the phraseology is different, it will reach you even more.
Hebrews 2:5–8: For He (God) did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere, saying, “What is man, that Thou rememberest him? Or the son of man, that Thou art concerned about him? Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast appointed him over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” (This is from a passage about man in Psalm 8.) For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
Let’s word this very carefully. Has the whole plan of God been frustrated, that what God intended for man never happened? The whole universe was not subjected to man. Everything that God created was not put under his feet. We do not see that manifested. What do we see?
But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels (that is Christ, come down to our level), namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for every one. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things… Hebrews 2:9–10.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ in His role as divine Creator—God the Creator before the foundation of the world. John 1:3–4, KJV, tells us: All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. Here we have John the first chapter coinciding with Hebrews the second chapter. Are you following this? Don’t miss it.
Hebrews 2:10–11: For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Do you understand? We are sons of the same Father. He who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one Father. Therefore Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren.
Christ Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren, saying, “I will proclaim Thy name to My brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will sing Thy praise.” (Read Psalm 22:22.) And again, “I will put My trust in Him.” (Read Psalm 91:2.) And again, “Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.” (Read Isaiah 8:17–18.) He was quoting various prophets out of the Old Testament. Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same (Christ had to partake of flesh and blood), that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Hebrews 2:12–15.
That brings us right out of human bondage. Christ came to render Satan helpless. Again, this goes back to I John 3:8: He was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil. He came to render him helpless who had the power of death.
If we have accepted Christ, we have accepted the defeat of Satan.
I don’t know why it is easier for us to believe that God was incarnate in Jesus Christ than to believe that Christ—God the Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ—is coming forth in us. In the book of John He said, “My Father and I will come and We will take up Our abode in you” (John 14:23). In Ephesians 3:19 we are told that we are to be filled with all the fullness of God. Are these just empty words or are we going to believe it? We have to believe it. It is easier for us to believe in God incarnate in Christ than it is to believe in the fullness of God and the divine nature coming forth incarnate in us.
You say, “Oh, I believe that God sent His Son and that God was incarnate in His Son.”
Fine; the devils believe that and tremble (James 2:19). But what about yourself? The thing that makes the difference is what you believe about yourself. By the precious, holy blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, I am born again of God and a new nature comes forth in me and I am a child of God. Now I am a child of God!
You say, “I believe that.”
Then the problem is, are we going to be thinking as sons? Are we going to come to the place where we think as a son? This makes all the difference in the world.
There is very little of the testimony syndrome in our thinking. We do not have old-fashioned testimony meetings in which people who are proud of what great sinners they were proceed to describe all the devilish things they used to do. I have a feeling that I would be surprised at the different things that some of those in our midst have done, but I am not interested.
I am not interested in what you have done; I am interested in how you have accepted Christ and what you are. It is more important to me that you realize who you are now. But I will tell you one thing which is greater than that—that you know what you are becoming. The ultimate is that you are going to be like Him. You are going to be like Him, for you will see Him as He is (I John 3:2).
You are purifying your soul. You are getting ready for His coming as He is. Oh, the magnitude of the realization of being a son, and coming to think as a son!
Every defeat is related to an abandonment of that realization of sonship. We see this clearly in Elijah, if we could use an illustration out of the Old Testament to describe the New Testament experience. The Word says that he was a man of like passions as we are; but he prayed earnestly and it did not rain. Then he prayed and the heaven gave rain (James 5:17–18). The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availed much (James 5:16). This would indicate that though he was a man of like passions as we are, he still was a righteous man and effective in his prayers. Elijah was able to pray the fire down upon the oxen that were slain on the altar at Mount Carmel, and then he killed several hundred prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth (I Kings 18:16–40). That was quite a day’s work. Next he went up to the top of Mount Carmel and prayed for the rain; then he outran Ahab to the city of Jezreel (I Kings 18:41–46). And in that moment of weariness, one little thing tripped him up—Jezebel threatened his life. The Word tells us that he fled out into the wilderness, and he sat down under a juniper tree and asked God to take his life (I Kings 19:1–4). And it is interesting what he said. He said, “I am not better than my fathers.”
Don’t inquire too much into your genealogy, and don’t have a pride of family, because just as sure as you look back you will find something that is not good, even if you have to trace it all the way back to Cain, or to Eve, or to Adam—any one of those. You will be very disappointed. Paul said, “We do not put any confidence in the flesh. We have no confidence in the flesh. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think that anything is of ourselves” (Philippians 3:3; II Corinthians 3:5). And Elijah found that out. He sat down and said, “God, I would like to die. There is no such thing as any spiritual evolution here. I am no better than my fathers were.”
This is not a put-down of fathers, but it is a put-down of human pride. The day that Elijah wanted to die was the day when he began to compare himself with other men on the human level, to think of himself on the human level. And the only days that you are going to wish you were dead are the days when you say, “I am not making any progress as a human being.” Of course you are not. These are the days when it is as it was in the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37–38); and God said of those days, “The end of all flesh has come” (Genesis 6:13). Don’t think on the human level. Don’t think on the circumstances.
If you want to really get discouraged, go read the newspaper; read what is happening in the world. If you want to be encouraged, then read the promises and blessings that show what God is doing in your life. Keep your focus on that. It is not an introspective thing. Really, it is an upward look; it is a looking to Christ: Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, “lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 12:2–3, KJV).
I want to think like a son, to think as a son thinks. What about you? We have a little repenting to do, and changing to do, but the main thing is the resolution that looks up to God and says, “I am determined, Lord, that with Your grace, with Your help, I am going to think as a son.” We ought to encourage each other in this and help each other when that human level focus comes.
What happened after the Passover in Exodus? The Israelites got out of Egypt and they began to murmur because of the difficulty of the way (Exodus 16:2–3; Numbers 11:1, 4–6). They murmured when they did not have fresh water (Exodus 17:1–7; Numbers 20:3–5); they murmured when the waters were bitter at the well of Marah (Exodus 15:23–26). They were not thinking like people who had been delivered by God. Yet when God spoke about it He said, “I bore them on eagle’s wings” (Exodus 19:4). That was God’s viewpoint. But they were still thinking like slaves. They were shuffling along like the blacks did in America after the Civil War, thinking, “I gotta impress these white folks that I’m still a poor ole slave, because they’re gonna put me down if I act like I’m a free man.” Long after the Civil War was fought, the blacks were still shuffling along because they were afraid to stand up in their freedom.
Some of you are doing the same thing; it is the same thing the Israelites did too. You are shuffling along in the sand of your wilderness, thinking like an ex-slave instead of thinking like a liberated son. Think as a son! Let’s not shuffle; let’s prance into Canaan! Let’s walk as sons! Let’s think as sons! Let’s live as sons!
Beloved, now we are the children of God. Though it does not yet appear what we shall be, we are going to be like Him. We know that. We are going to be like Him! We are going to see Him as He is (I John 3:1–2)
Reckon the flesh dead; it can never inherit the Kingdom of God.
Satan battles against your acceptance of who you are as a result of what Christ has done for you.
Our human reason tends to cross out what Christ did on the cross for us.
Stop thinking that someone has to win the war all over again that Christ won for all time.
Why is it that we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ, but our mind is often in the Slough of Despond?
Victory comes when we realize that His divine nature is coming forth in our human framework.
Most of our defeats come because Satan convinces us that we face a problem that God has already provided for.
To focus on the flesh is spiritual suicide.
Consciousness of your sonship must come before Romans 8 becomes a fulfillment.
If we have accepted Christ, we must also believe in His defeat of Satan for us.
Don’t shuffle along in the sand of your wilderness; prance on into Canaan. Live and think as sons.