John 7 is a chapter in the New Testament that is dedicated to the Feast of Tabernacles. It is good for us to study this chapter, because the manner and the way in which Jesus observed that Feast of Tabernacles was prophetic of what will take place in the last days.
There are certain books of the Bible which on the surface seem to be historical accounts of events that took place in Bible times. Upon a careful analysis, however, we see that they are more than just historical accounts; they lend themselves almost entirely as symbolized stories which unfold what will actually take place in the history to come.
An obvious example of this is the Lord’s message to the seven churches, recorded in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. These were actual churches that existed at the time John received that message from the Lord. But we know also that every one of those seven churches can be applied to a certain period in Church history; and in consecutive order, the messages they received unfolded the whole course of Church history in symbolic, parabolic language before it ever took place.
Because the books of I and II Samuel were written by the prophet Samuel, and the Chronicles of David by the prophet Nathan and the prophet Gad (I Chronicles 29:29–30), we can look for them to be more than just an account of history. We can look to the fact that the prophets had hid away in them symbolic truths, so that as we read the story those truths begin to unfold. As you study the books of Samuel, it is not long before their symbolism becomes most rich for you. The same is true of the Gospel according to Saint John. This Gospel gives us many stories, and each one of them has an amazing prophetic significance. As an illustration, recall the first miracle that is recorded: the wedding at Cana of Galilee (John 2). The significant phrase in that account is that the best wine was saved until the last (John 2:10).
Don’t you think that it was prophetic of how God has reserved great outpourings for the last days, so that the great wine of the Spirit, poured out upon men in the last days, is even greater than that which was former? (Haggai 2:9; Joel 2:23, 28–29; James 5:7–8.)
We could go through the Scriptures and look at a number of illustrations like that. But I think it is sufficient to say that we are going to look at the seventh chapter of John as something more than just an historical account of Jesus attending a Feast of Tabernacles observance; we are going to look upon it as being of special significance, and as a prophetic picture of the last days in which you and I are now living, looking for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 7:1–14, ASV: And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up unto this feast; because my time is not yet fulfilled. And having said these things unto them, he abode still in Galilee.
But when his brethren were gone up unto the feast, then went he also up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? And there was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him: some said, He is a good man; others said, Not so, but he leadeth the multitude astray. Yet no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews. But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.
Apart from the significance of Galilee and Judea, representing the Gentiles and the Jews, which has an application in this passage, there is something here that I feel pertains just to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is an analogy of the Parousia, and the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Feast of Tabernacles, as God would make known His presence in their midst, we see that He manifested His presence during the entire feast; but He did it in secret for the first half, and then the last half of the feast He taught openly with an open revelation of Himself. The connection may seem a little strange to you, but now we shall read a passage from the book of Malachi.
Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness. Malachi 3:1–3, ASV.
Note the phrase, “He shall come suddenly to His temple.” The way people explain that and apply it, of course, varies according to what particular brand of dispensationalism they have been taught, or according to what their background has been. People get a certain set way of interpreting a Scripture, and they rarely vary from it.
I am not interested in antagonizing anyone with another system of interpretation; the Lord Himself has to change people’s interpretations of the Word of God, because they can become so set upon one or another viewpoint. But I feel that this verse—“The Lord shall come suddenly to His temple”—is a foreshadow of what we see actually happening in John chapter 7. Jesus came up to the feast; He was there, but He did not manifest Himself. They did not know that He was there. Then suddenly His appearance was made known.
Jesus said to His brothers, Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up unto this feast; because my time is not yet fulfilled. John 7:8. They had to go ahead of Him; it was all according to a time schedule. Jesus did not do that without a purpose; there was a reason why He followed such a rigid time schedule. Then we read in verse 10 that He went up secretly to the feast, and we see in verse 14 that it was in the middle of the feast when He went up to the Temple and taught.
Verses 15–17: The Jews therefore marvelled saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself.
What I am going to say now may be a little difficult to understand. Nevertheless, receive it with grace and consider it carefully, and do not reject it on the spur of the moment. I have the following witness concerning the Parousia.
The Parousia is the Greek word which means, “the presence of the Lord,” and it is translated most often as “the coming of the Lord.” However, the normal usage of the word “coming” usually indicates a set event that takes place in a moment. If I say, “He has come,” it would mean that someone walked in at a certain instant. But if I say, “He is present,” that statement assumes that someone did come, and not only that, but he is abiding with us.
The presence of the Lord that is prophesied for the end time-the Parousia, the revelation or the coming of the Lord—is actually not a sudden event to come (although there are instantaneous events that take place when He reveals Himself). I feel that this story in John 7 is the purest picture we have in the Gospel of John of end-time events.
I believe that John 7 is a picture of how the Lord will be in our midst secretly for quite a period, not revealed in clouds of glory (Revelation 1:7), not revealed as He indeed will come, with the voice of an archangel and the trump of God (I Thessalonians 4:16–17). That is an event that I believe is to take place in the middle of the Parousia. But I feel that there is something that must take place first, and we are already in it—it is that time when the Lord comes secretly into the midst of many of His people to begin to manifest and reveal Himself (Hosea 6:1–3; Joel 2:23–32; Luke 24:13–15, 36; John 20:19–21).
Many people do not know Him; they are not aware of Him. They are not aware of the fact that in a special sense, Christ is now indwelling and speaking through the mouths of various ones (John 17:22–23, 26; II Corinthians 4:5–7; 13:3; II Thessalonians 1:10). Christ is ministering to His Body, preparing them for the great Advent, preparing them for the events that are going to take place upon the earth (Ephesians 4:10–16; 5:26–27; Luke 12:35–40; Hebrews 10:24–25). And He is doing this secretly for the first half of the Parousia.
I have often wondered why the symbolic seven-year period of Christ’s Parousia has always been divided into three and a half year periods (Revelation 11:2–3, 7, 11–12; 12:6, 14). Why did the Lord go up to the Temple halfway through the feast? Again, this has a prophetic significance to us: it points to the fact that the first part of Christ’s revelation is something of which the world is not aware. It is a thing that is very secret to the hearts of His people, a time to prepare them and get them ready for the things that God is going to bring to pass.
Since I believe in Christ coming first in His believers, in His coming to His Church secretly, people have asked me, “Don’t you believe in the coming of the Lord?”
The Scriptures tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ is returning to earth again (Matthew 24:36, 42, 44). But the problem is that the events of the end time have not been understood. Witness the fact that almost all Fundamental and Pentecostal groups are interpreting prophecy in one single manner: that the falling away takes place and it gets worse and worse, and woe be unto everyone. Then at the last minute, because the whole program of God has turned out to be such a miserable fiasco, the Lord comes in a cloud of glory and catches away a handful who were hanging on to the end. Isn’t that a dismal picture for the end of the Church! Yet in their teaching, almost all of these groups emphasize the falling away and the terror that is to take place (II Thessalonians 2:3–4; I Timothy 4:1; II Timothy 3:1–5; Matthew 24:9–13, 21).
The truth of the matter is far different. If we would be honest expositors of the Word of God, we would not try to take all of the Scripture and cram its fulfillment into our generation. We would not declare, “It all has to be fulfilled now,” and thus say that the falling away has come within our generation. Those who do so point to all the Modernists, all the agnostics, and all the atheists today and ask, “Isn’t that the falling away?” Those people have not had a falling away from anything. They never had anything to fall away from! People point out, “But look at all of the dead churches that do not even preach a born-again experience” (John 3:3). Back up again! Look back to the Middle Ages and think of all the churches that were not preaching a born-again experience.
If you want to talk about a falling away, look back to the antichrists, the Popes of Rome, and at the way they led people down the path of penance and dead works that damned their souls. When you read the stories of the Dark Ages, can you call that anything but a falling away? Yet people ignore a thousand years of apostasy under Roman Catholic domination, and they continue to look for an apostasy to take place in the very end time before the Lord comes!
I encourage you to think in this direction: for five or six hundred years, the remnant of God has been struggling up toward more light.
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. Proverbs 4:18, NASB.
And that he may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets that have been from of old. Acts 3:20–21, ASV.
We have had truths restored in our generation that were not emphasized a hundred years ago. Oh, here and there a man would be healed; but when has there ever been a worldwide emphasis on healing, with thousands of people being healed, like there has been since the fifties? Look at the bitter battle people have with miracles, healings, gifts, signs and wonders, and prophets being restored. I think that the restoration of prophets began in the forties to the sixties. God is beginning to lead out and raise men up. You cannot see the restoration of ministries that God is bringing now and say, “Well, things are getting worse and worse.” I will agree that conditions are getting worse.
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these. II Timothy 3:1–5.
And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. II Timothy 3:12–13.
But I am not talking about the nations of the world that are running their course and coming to the end of themselves. I am talking about the Kingdom of God. I am talking about what God is doing; and I believe that God is getting ready to do something tremendous. I believe that just as Christ came secretly in the midst of the feast, as we read in John 7, so the Lord has been doing the same thing now. He is bringing forth prophets, bringing forth ministries to teach and lead His people so that this day shall not come upon us unawares (Luke 21:34, KJV; I Thessalonians 5:4–6). We are not going to find ourselves without warning (Amos 3:7). Upon the apostate, upon the lukewarm, the judgment of God will fall as readily as it falls upon the nations that in their wickedness have rejected God (Luke 21:25–26, 34–36; I Thessalonians 5:2–3). But all the time, God is bringing a people closer to Himself. He is calling every one of us into a walk with Himself that we did not have a year ago.
Even though they are going through trials and tribulations, and going through struggles, we have a people who are growing in God. We have a people who are coming into more and more of the Lord.”
When the Lord went up to the Temple and taught, everyone marveled at the teaching that came (John 7:15). They could not understand where the wisdom could be coming from.
That is typical of the revelation teaching, that tremendous creative wisdom that is coming to instruct the people of God, to give them wisdom and lead them on step by step into marvelous things that the Lord has.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” John 14:26.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said, that He takes of Mine, and will disclose it to you.” John 16:13–15.
It is a miraculously acquired knowledge.
But just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. I Corinthians 2:9–13.
They said, “How does this man have this teaching? Where does it come from?” How many times have you listened to this Living Word that comes and thought the same thing? You think, “I have gone to church for years, but I have never heard that. Where is this truth coming from?” You know where it is coming from: there is One in the midst Who is anointing prophets, anointing teachers, with an anointing for the Word of the Lord to be spoken, and that Word is preparing a people for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3–5.
In the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins; as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every ravine shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough roads smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ” Luke 3:2–6.
When we talk about preparing people for His coming, we must remember that His presence is with us. He is among us, preparing us for the great, dramatic events that will take place for the Kingdom of God in these days ahead of us. This is a real picture of what is taking place.
When we say that the Lord is coming to be admired in His saints and to be glorified in all them that believe (II Thessalonians 1:10, KJV), are you aware that it is already taking place? Are you aware that the Lord is admired more in you by your neighbor now than He was a year or two ago? Your brother and sister can see more of Christ in you. It is a forming of Christ taking place, and a bringing forth of the glory of the Lord in our midst.
Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself. John 7:16–17, ASV.
One of the most amazing things about this walk has been the fact that you can never talk anyone into believing it (I Corinthians 2:12–15). You can never tell someone all about it, point by point, and talk him into it. That is because you cannot convince a man of these things; it has to be a knowledge that is acquired in another plane.
When the people wanted to know about Jesus’ teaching, He said, “The teaching is not Mine, but His that sent Me. But if any man will do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.”
A man is going to know; he is going to know the source of the teaching. And he is not going to know it because of what he has in his head, but because of what he has in his heart. If he wills to do His will—if he is set to do the will of God—he will know.
That means that you could have college degrees a mile long and it would not help you in this. You could know the scientific process, you could conduct research, but that would not bring you into this knowledge. There is only one thing that will bring you into it: having a right spirit, being determined to do the will of God. If you are set to do the will of God, you will know His will when you hear it. When you hear the truth, it will strike you and you will say, “That’s of God. I know that is of God!” Someone may tell you something else and you will say, “I know that is of man.”
One of the most bewildering things is to listen to people on some of the religious radio and television programs, or to read their books. You wonder, “How in the world can men believe that nonsense?” You realize that they are deceiving and being deceived because in their heart they are not set to do the will of God, so they do not know the source of the teaching (II Timothy 3:13; John 7:17). They are blind leading the blind (Matthew 15:13–14). They follow after this, and they follow after that.
The greatest protection that the Lord is bringing is found in the promise He gave: if you are set to do His will, He will keep teaching you, and you will know that teaching when you hear it. You will know it is of God, that it came from the Father. Something will be bearing witness within you that that teaching is of the Lord.
This is the only way that we see people come into these truths. Because these truths are scriptural, they are explained by the whole of the Bible. They are not built upon fragmentary excursions into the Word, but they are built upon a perusal of the whole scope of the Word of God. And yet people will still not believe them unless they have a will to do His will. If they are set to do His will, they know that the teaching came from the Father. They know that it did, and they recognize it not as a teaching of a man, but the teaching of God.
All my life I have heard people glorify man; but I have yet to see people listen to this Living Word and begin to glorify “my teaching.” That is because the people would consider it sacrilege to look back upon the revelations and the teachings that have come and ascribe them to a human mind or a human heart. We know that these teachings came from the Lord. And that is why, with a common consent, the people have given the glory to God for the amazing truths and teachings that have come forth in this Living Word.
We have some kind of a time delay —the Word of the Lord is just about six months ahead of us. Oh, I wish we could catch up with it! But we are always about six months behind the Word, just following after. I do not know if we will ever catch up to the Word as it comes, but it is wonderful walking in it; and the Word is still fresh when you walk in it.
we must realize that that prophecy did not come by the will of man; it was a prophecy that came by the Holy Spirit (II Peter 1:19–21). There is a prophetic anointing that is teaching the people of the Lord today (I John 2:27). It is because of the secret presence of the Lord Jesus Christ right in our midst to teach us and lead us into all the truth (John 14:17, 26; 16:13).
He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you doeth the law? Why seek ye to kill me? The multitude answered, Thou hast a demon: who seeketh to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and ye all marvel because thereof. Moses hath given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye wroth with me, because I made a man every whit whole on the sabbath? Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Some therefore of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? And lo, he speaketh openly, and they say nothing unto him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ? John 7:18–26, ASV.
This is the hour of which the prophets prophesied that God is going to take the sheep away from the shepherds who have preyed upon them, who have sheared them and crippled them and mutilated them (Ezekiel 34:2b–10), and He is going to put them under shepherds after His own heart (Jeremiah 3:15). And God is doing it. Everywhere the sheep of God are being driven by a sudden, new-born spiritual instinct to jump the fence and find the green pastures and the shepherd who is ordained of God. Jesus is right in the midst of His people again, and some of the rulers are trying to kill Him.
The happiest thing you can do is to get out of a movement that is already set in a pattern that is not of God, because inevitably they will seek to destroy you. There will be something that will be injurious to you if you hang on too long to the old contacts. It will injure you; it will hurt you; it will crush you down almost beyond your capacity to rise above it.
Now I know that many people do not believe that, and they still say, “Oh, the Body is coming together, so let’s all work together.” But it is the Body of Christ that is coming together; never get the idea that denominationalism is coming together. It is to no one’s advantage for denominations to come together, because that would upset whole programs and systems; and too much of it has already been commercialized to a point of being actually ridiculous. Does this mean that God is not blessing the denominations at all? No, it means just the contrary: God will keep on blessing them, because many of His people are there.
But He is still sending out the call of the Spirit, “Come out of Babylon, My people, and be not a partaker of her sins. Come out of Babylon!”
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues.” Revelation 18:4.
The call keeps coming. And I know that some of them are so deeply rooted in Babylon that you will never get them out. But there are a lot of people who are beginning to drift; and God just keeps pulling. Every once in a while, a fresh batch of them breaks loose, and they come free. Then they begin to revel in the glory and in the victory of the Lord. But it has to be a personal experience with each one. God has to prepare each heart for it. It is something in the individual plan of the Lord. That is the reason why you cannot disrupt churches and tear them apart. You must let God do this thing. You cannot fight churches. You cannot fight preachers. You cannot fight denominations. But God is doing a new thing in the earth, and they are still trying to kill Him. They are trying to kill Him!
“I know that you are Abraham’s offspring; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” John 8:37.
“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue; but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me.” John 16:2–3.
And for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men. I Thessalonians 2:13–15.
At the time that God met me, those in denominational authority were so afraid of anything, true or false. They were afraid because of what God actually was doing. And this I know—it is the time to not be very afraid if you are called loose from a certain movement; just let God establish you in what He is doing. Just let Him establish you in the righteousness of the Lord, and do not let anything else shake you. This is to be a personal walk with the Lord.
Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence he is. Jesus therefore cried in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know me, and know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. I know him; because I am from him, and he sent me. They sought therefore to take him: and no man laid his hand on him, because his hour was not yet come. But of the multitude many believed on him; and they said, When the Christ shall come, will he do more signs than those which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him; and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take him. Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, ye cannot come. The Jews therefore said among themselves, Whither will this man go that we shall not find him? will he go unto the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What is this word that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, ye cannot come? John 7:27–36, ASV.
The Lord was emphasizing that what He was doing was coming in the Spirit. He was trying to show them that it was a spiritual thing, and that they could not even comprehend it. I am convinced that even as they were bewildered and did not know what He was talking about then, people today are missing what the Lord is revealing now. They do not realize that the Lord is doing a deep spiritual thing in people’s lives, and so they misinterpret it so much.
Have you found it difficult yourself to understand what God is doing in your own life? In these last few months and years especially, have you found that what is happening to you is actually bewildering? You cannot even understand how God is doing the work in your life. They could not understand then; we cannot now. But one thing I know—this thing that is taking place in our lives is of God. You go through your tests, you go through your trials, you go through your strange dealings (I Peter 4:12); and sometimes you are totally at a loss to interpret them or understand them. The only thing you can see is that you are still moving on in God, and that God is working something out through the dealings. I never dreamed that He could work things out the way He is doing. But God is very efficient, isn’t He? He knows just how to bring us forth, and He seems to be prevailing in our lives all the time, to His glory.
With the hand of the Lord upon us, we feel that the Lord is dealing so drastically with us that we wonder, “Is the Lord doing a good thing or an evil thing with me?” But isn’t it amazing how all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).
One thing you must do is to get the bitterness out of your heart over the way that the Lord is ordering your steps. Another thing you must do is learn to not utterly sink into the abyss of despair when the Lord begins to stir up the depths of what is in you, and you become aware of the things of the flesh that are still there. You have to let Him stir up the dregs; and when they float up to the top with all of their uncleanness, then the Lord will begin to refine you and purify you, and He will expose you to His grace (Daniel 11:35; Malachi 3:1–4; I Peter 1:13).
I think that this has been a time when God has let the depths of the human heart rest until men have the appearance of spirituality. Many men have been classified as overcomers, but the truth of the matter is that the pressure has never been on them to really bring out the depths.
“Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eyesalve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent.” Revelation 3:17–19.
But this is a time when God in His dealing stirs up the heart; and He brings everything out that is down in the very depths. And as it comes up to the surface, you look at it and say, “Surely this is not me!” Then you realize that it is you, and you let the Lord begin to deal with it. Surely the Lord is getting a people ready. One of the greatest favors that God can do for you is to allow you to discover yourself. When He lets you discover yourself and the depths of your heart, and He begins to apply grace to you, that is more valuable than anything else He could ever do for your life.
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast (that was the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles), Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37–39, ASV.
This passage, of course, is very precious, and it has been referred to and preached on many times. But this event also has a significance that refers to the Feast of Tabernacles in a very startling way. During the Feast of Tabernacles, they brought water from the pool of Solomon, which they called the pool of Siloam, while everyone was rejoicing and quoting Isaiah: “With joy shall ye draw waters from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). They sang, they shouted, they blew their horns, they beat on drums, and they poured out that water before the Lord. It was then that Jesus cried with a loud voice, heard above the din and the shouting of that last day, the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, “Come to Me and drink, and out of your belly will flow rivers of living water!”
He spoke of a great principle. And to you who are hearing what the Lord in His unseen presence is bringing, it is granted to drink of the water of life that is being poured out during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Do you grasp that this teaching is showing us that it is now the Feast of Tabernacles? This is the time of His secret presence before His great coming. And as the water is coming, if you drink you have a promise that you yourself are going to become a river of living water. Anyone who will hear this message that God is bringing now will find himself joyfully exclaiming, “Oh, it’s happening! It’s happening!”
You will hear a prophecy, and then you will start prophesying yourself. You will say, “How did that happen? What is this in me that I find myself starting to prophesy? What is this in me that I am beginning to move in the Spirit and I am beginning to give out the Word of the Lord?” You began to drink of the water. On the great day of the feast you began to drink of the living water, and you found that out of your belly began to flow rivers of living water. This is the special day in all of the dispensation of the Holy Spirit when for you to hear, or to see, or to know of the moving of God, is for you to be able to move in that same thing yourself.
If you will believe, if you will just drink it in, if you will just receive it, you yourself in turn will become a fountain of the same flow from God.
To hear and receive the Living Word today is to become a fountain of it yourself.
The presence of the Lord in us is His preparing us for His revelation to the world.
The will to do God’s will is the guarantee that we will not be deceived and will not fail to discern what God is speaking.
If we will to do His will, we will know His Word and His will.
To come out of Babylon is to escape her judgments.
Don’t despair of the wilderness if the pillar of fire is leading you. If you are bitter at God for the way He is leading you, He will deal with you still more drastically.