Sometimes as we read the Scriptures, I think we read with a bias so that we do not receive the honest picture that the Holy Spirit is trying to present. This is a fault of fundamentalists as well as modernists. One tries to read a great deal into the Scriptures that is not there; the other tries to read out a great deal that is there.
In going through the book of Acts, I have observed something which I think will be an encouragement to you. I give it because our services are sometimes a little far out, and it is difficult for visitors to evaluate a service that starts with everyone worshiping the Lord as we do; worship that is unique to the hundreds of churches coming up in this walk. It is different, but because it is different doesn’t mean that it is necessarily wrong.
Two observations came to me as I looked through the book of Acts. One was the blindness of those who should know; the other was the revelation that came to those who were many times wrong in their thinking, or—untaught, untrained. They were certainly not in any position to come into the things that God brought them into.
With these two opposite things working there has to be an explanation. First, why is it that the people who should know are often the blindest, spiritually? Reading through several chapters (the fourth, fifth, and sixth, then from chapter 13 to the end) of the book of Acts, in each of these chapters we find certain Jews—the priests, the Sadducees, Caiaphas the high priest—all versed in the Scriptures. These men were as orthodox as they knew how to be, yet how completely blind they had become to what God was doing. This is a startling thing. It is startling that people who many times have been raised in a Christian church may be so set in their thinking that when God does move they are not prepared for it. Certainly the book of Acts is an account of people whom God met by revelation, but the people who were steeped in orthodox teaching many times missed what God was doing.
The second thing I noticed was that revelation often came to those you would not think would receive it. Of course, the classic example of this is Cornelius (Acts 10:1–2). A Gentile, a Roman centurion, he was not a Jew, wasn’t trained in the religion of the Jews. The Scripture tells us only that he was a very devout man who prayed a lot and gave alms to the people.
You may think, “Well, this man, as good as he is, doesn’t know very much. He doesn’t know the Old Testament Prophets, he doesn’t know the Scriptures. Certainly this man is not prepared to enter into the great revelation of Jesus Christ who rose from the dead.” Well, strangely enough, he came into it with a roar. All of his relatives gathered in a room and the Holy Spirit fell upon them and Peter, even Peter, was aghast at it! He said, “I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).
God had met those Gentiles, and the Jews thought that was probably the last thing God would ever be inclined to do. In the eleventh chapter Peter is confronted by other Christian Jews who asked, “Why is it that you went down to those Gentiles to preach to them?” He said, “I’m not one to withstand God. God did this thing. God revealed it to them.” That means we have to find a better reason than just indoctrination for people to find their way in God.
When I was young, I knew a great deal. It was only as I grew older that I discovered the vast areas of my ignorance. Have you found the same thing true? As I grew older I began to discover how much I did not know. I was persuaded when I first read all the manuals on soul-winning that the only way you could ever win a person to the Lord was to back him into a corner and, first of all, convince him that he was a sinner: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23. There was a certain procedure that you followed. And of course if he was seeking God but didn’t know the name of Jesus Christ, why he was just bound for hell no matter how much he was trying.
As I have grown older, I have not embraced anything less than, … there is none other name given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12. I still do not accept anything else, but I have come to be much more tolerant about the paths by which people find the Lord. I notice people who come into this walk come from a variety of backgrounds. But if you should tell some good fundamentalist from the Bible Belt that someone following Buddhism would eventually have a real walk with God, he would feel that you were a heretic. But we have them.
We have Buddhists in the church—ex-Buddhists who have come to embrace Jesus Christ. Now, were they right? I don’t think so. I’ve never felt there was any revelation in Buddha or Confucius or anything of that nature—they have philosophies. But many times it was an outgrowth of people’s hunger that made them reach for these things. They were hungry and they started searching. They were looking for something.
Were they right? That’s not the issue. Saul of Tarsus wasn’t right: he had papers to go out and seize the Christians and persecute them, put them in prison, kill them. And yet God met him on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). That is another strange story in the book of Acts, showing that revelation came to those who were really not right; they were not correct in their teaching.
If a person is sincere and honest and really is seeking God—what do we do with such people? Can you say, “Here, you’re wrong. Put up your dukes; we’re going to fight it out”? No, you will not win people that way. The best way is to pray for them: “Lord, here’s a hungry heart. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6a). Lord, meet this one.” Pray for them. God can reveal Himself to that person just as He did to Saul (Acts 9), as He did to Cornelius (Acts 10).
You know, I realize that some of the people who are supposed to have all the correct doctrine do not necessarily have an open heart. And sometimes people may not have the right doctrine, but they do have an honest, open heart. If you pray for them God will lead them into what He has for them. This is the way it was in the book of Acts. Certainly this is a very Scriptural message. People can be led by God.
Jesus pointed out the faculty by which men will know the truth when they hear it. That’s the thing—to hear the truth and to really recognize it, because there are many ears that don’t hear. The Word tells us, “Blessed are they that have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Revelation 2:7a, 11a). Unless God opens the ears, unless the ears are spiritually tuned to God, there doesn’t seem to be a breakthrough to what the Spirit is saying. But in John 7 is a very interesting thought. Jesus said, If any man willeth—you know what it means to will to do a thing—willeth to do his will, he shall know the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself. John 7:17.
I am never too disturbed by the people who reject this walk or the ways that we worship, because I know that now they have been exposed to it, and they will look to the Lord for revelation. The Saul of Tarsus today may be the chief apostle tomorrow. You don’t know. The one who persecutes today may be the one who edifies and strengthens our hands tomorrow. So we open our hearts to not judge by the present condition or attitude of a person, but to believe that he has an open heart for God to meet him. If he wills to do the will of God, there is an innate faculty he will have to know the teaching whether it is of God.
It is strange that the Scribes and the Pharisees who could quote Scripture by the yard missed the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, “The harlots and the publicans go into the Kingdom ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31). That’s rough, isn’t it? No wonder those religious people met behind doors to crucify Jesus; that kind of teaching is a great put down. They thought, “We are the religious leaders and He is saying we are blind leaders of the blind.” That is exactly what the Lord said. And, “They will all fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14). For, you see, blindness is one thing and an open heart is quite another.
“You will know the teaching whether it is of God or whether I speak for Myself.” On what basis? YOU WILL TO DO THE WILL OF GOD. If a man’s heart is not set to serve God, if he has no dedication to serve God, no teaching will ever get through to him. He will never listen to it. He will hear it, but his ears will be deaf to its full import.
I feel in my heart that what I’m saying to you is completely Scriptural. You should give it very serious consideration. If you win someone to the Lord it may not be by giving the correct doctrine; it may be by praying for the Lord to be revealed to him. Pray for the Lord to give that person a hearing ear; pray for the Lord to give him an open heart. This is more important than anything else. In fact, I rather doubt that many people come into this walk unless it is really revealed to their own heart. If we should say, “Let’s have a class and we will give the various reasons why God wants you to walk with Him in this way,” it will not mean anything until God makes it real to their hearts. When the Lord makes it real to their hearts, it’s quite another thing.
Now this works two ways. It helps us to understand that we are not to judge another person if he does not accept what we are or what we say, for the moment. Yet he may be a person who is in a transition. There may be enough hunger in his heart that he will move on from one plateau to another and may arrive at a place of real fellowship with you in time. Have faith for it. Believe for it. I think we tend to give up on each other too soon. Some of the ones who take the longest to win are those that you just pray for a little longer and believe the Lord to open their hearts to give them revelation.
We are faced with times of persecution in this church because it is difficult for people, who want to take the traditional version of Christianity, to relate to it. Recently, an article in a weekly news magazine pointed out that the denominations following the traditional approach are not effective either. Well, it is one thing to be deeply ingrained in orthodoxy, but just remember, there were no more orthodox people in the world than the Pharisees in the New Testament time. They were the most orthodox people, I think, of any generation. They knew exactly. When the wise men came from the East, they asked, “Where is He that is born king of the Jews?”
“Why, we don’t even have to look in our scrolls to answer that. Micah 5:2, we can quote it. But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you ONE will go forth for ME to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. We have our Scriptures all memorized.”
“Thank you very much,” and the wise men went to find Christ. What about all those people who knew the Word, knew the Scriptures? They didn’t bother. They were too busy having a religious conference in Jerusalem. When the Lord is moving in the earth, and He moves in every generation, blessed are those who are hungry enough to seek Him. Blessed are those who are not so steeped in their own orthodoxy that they’ve lost their ears to hear what God has to say.
Paul tried to explain what that meant. He said, concerning the Scriptures, to those people who followed them, “The letter killeth but the Spirit maketh alive (II Corinthians 3:6). A lot of dead sermons preached from the dead letter of the law have come from a lot of pulpits. They didn’t do anything for anybody—it is the Holy Spirit who makes it come alive. The Holy Spirit speaks to people through the word. Sometimes they may not understand it, but they come into a revelation to their hearts and later their heads come into an understanding. And the people who insist on leading with their heads rarely get their hearts in. Hunger and thirst after the Lord. It’s the best way.
We are not asking for tolerance among those who do not understand the church or the walk. We are asking that our own hearts be tolerant; that people who have followed another path should not be measured in our minds—we in this walk should not measure them and say, “Well, they’re not interpreting the Scriptures as we do.” That is not the issue. Pray for their hearts to be open. Pray for God to give them revelation. Correct doctrine has not been the key of great movings of the Holy Spirit. Great change in people’s lives is always by revelation.
When Paul had finished a life of great service to the Lord, his testimony was not, “Well, I thank God that I was taught at the feet of Gamaliel, I knew all the right answers, and I understood the Scriptures. That protected me. That’s how I made it—I was thoroughly indoctrinated in the Law and the prophets.” When he stood before the old Roman governor he said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). It wasn’t the indoctrination. It was what the Lord had revealed to him; a revelation of the Lord that sustained him. It is not enough to have followed a catechism or to have been confirmed, or anything else. Go a little farther. When the Lord has become real to your heart, really real to you, you don’t quickly slip away from that. Difficulties can come to you, but you are sustained by the fact that God has revealed Himself in some measure to your heart.
We know that children can be trained in Sunday School, but as J. Edgar Hoover pointed out, a high percentage of those in crime went to Sunday School in their younger years. Sunday School did not prevent them from going into crime. The fact that they knew about Daniel in the lions’ den did not keep their hearts true. The Bible stories may not be enough. But it is when the Word comes alive, and the spirit of it becomes real, and they will be as Daniel when he determined that he would not defile himself with the king’s meats (Daniel 1:8). Then you have the answer; you have someone who is going to be true to the Lord because he has had a revelation from God to his heart.