TRUTH!

I’m just saying that this is the hour that we’re in. So CNN is on the side of the woman that was no good. She was the worst thing that, that guy who forgets things on one of those, she’s the worst choice he could have ever made. When she spoke, it sounded like a Caesar salad. It was just, she talked about dumb things and tried to make them sound sane. And so she was just a drag on the whole thing. And all of a sudden, as of about three weeks ago, wow, she’s the best thing that ever happened to America. That’s the news. The news is, I guess she’s been born again. I don’t, I don’t understand it. Everything is filtered for you.

Everything is filtered for you. And I talked about CNN, I should talk about Fox. But I’m going to just leave it there. I don’t listen to CNN. I listen to the other animal, Fox. And that means nothing whatsoever today. But I hardly trust the news media. And you know, in Russia, Proveda is their official voice of the country and its state owned. So Proveda tells you what the government wants you to hear. And that’s very prevalent in our own country now. And so the truth is being muzzled and you’re being told what somebody believes you need to hear.

But the challenge is this, we all filter things. We all filter things. I filter things. You filter things. And hopefully our filtering system is a good system. Some years ago, I had trouble with a car where it wasn’t changing. The transmission wasn’t changed. Cold mornings, it stayed in first gear for about six blocks. And then all of a sudden, it would go into second gear. And I’d say to my car, well, thank you very much. I didn’t have to drive for the rest of the day in first gear. So finally, I went to the dealership. That was a mistake.

And they checked it all out and said, you need a new transmission. Your transmission is shot. So we need $2,000, $2,500. This is the 1970s. I said, I haven’t got that kind of money. I’ll drive around in first gear. On my way home, I stopped at this little transmission shop, pulled in there. And they said, well, bring it in. And I’m here in 2500, 2500 in my head. And old gentlemen, as soon as I told them what was happening, they called out old Joe. So this crippled old gentleman comes out, he opens the hood for me. I opened the hood. And he went and got a little wrench.

And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I saw $2,500, $2,500. He said, well, you relax, son, just relax. So he undid this little thing. He undid this bolt or whatever. And he took out the tiniest thing. Like it was a tiny thing. He held it up to the light like this. And he said, that’s what I thought. Put it back in. He said, son, your troubles are over. I said, yeah, right. He said, they are.

He said, your whole system on your transmission works with a vacuum process. He said, that’s air. Air carries molecules of water. He said, when your car cools down over the night, that water freezes in a little screen that’s supposed to stop the water from going anywhere. But he said, after you’ve driven a few blocks, the heat of the motor melts the little ice crystals in that little thing and away it goes. That man saved me $2,500. It was a filter that just needed, I don’t know what your filter needs. If we had Benny Hinn here, he’d go, and your problems will all be finished. How’s your filter? How is your filter? Here’s, I’m just going to say this this morning to begin.

Divine truth, the Word of God, you’ll never get it. You can read it. You can read it. And you can say, I see what it says. I understand what it says. But in your knower, the Word of God says you will know the truth. Not talking about your reason now, it’s talking about spiritual comprehension. That when you know in your knower the truth, that truth will set you free. But that truth will never be known to you without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is known in Scripture as the Holy Spirit of Truth. So I want to talk to us this morning about hearing. Hearing. Am I hearing the truth?

Since I was a youngster, I heard people giving testimony that they read the Bible at least once a year. And they have these charts and they mark it all off, mark it all off. And I thought that was a wonderful thing back in the day. I’ve never done it. I have done the chart thing, mark it off, mark it off. And then I changed. And I didn’t want to read all those so and so begat so and so. I skipped over there, went over here, went over there. And then I lost track of the chart. So I’ve never read the Bible to my knowledge, like worse by verse. I’ve never read it in a year. And I’m not going to apologize for that.

Because here’s the suspicion I have. I believe that some people read the Bible like a newspaper and they believe that simply by reading it, by reading it, it acts like an antidote to fix you up just exactly what you need. And so you read it, read it, read it, read it. There, I read my 24 verses. And maybe you might even go ahead and read another section for tomorrow because you know tomorrow you’re going to go to a church picnic. Are you going to go to Aunt Flossie’s birthday party and you might miss out because you’re going to get busy doing things. So you might even do a little extra reading. Because you’ve got to get it done before the end of the year. And to me, we’re treating the Word of God there like a four leaf clover or a rabbit’s foot. You can read and read and read.  But isn’t making a difference in your heart and your life. So the Word of God can only be truly perceived in your knower in your heart.

It only makes a difference when you experience what the Bible calls a revelation. 

They’re accustomed to the last book of the Bible. That’s called the book of Revelation. Well there’s a reason. It’s the final, it’s the blasting exclamation mark of the whole book. This is the final revelation. This is how it all comes to a conclusion. It is a revelation. But even reading the book of Revelation will not do your whole lot of good lest the Spirit of God enlightens you and brings it to have an impact in your heart and your life. I’ve always been intrigued with John 3 and 16. My grandmother taught me, got me to learn that verse when I was a little fellow. For God’s love the world, he gave his only begotten son. You know that chapter. And it begins actually with the Word of God telling us that there was a certain man and he was a Pharisee. 

And he came to Jesus at night. Why did he come at night? His life might have been in jeopardy besides his job if the other Pharisees had seen him go and speak to Jesus. So he came at night, clandestinely. I’m sure they kept their voices down low. I know you’re a man of God. I know you. You must be a man of God. The things that you’re doing, it’s miraculous. And he stopped talking. Never asked a question. He said, I think I know who you are. And Jesus responds with something in the vernacular, I’m going to put it in the vernacular. He said to Nicodemus, when Nicodemus said, I know you’re a man of God. Jesus replied with, listen, listen, listen, verily, verily, I say, what does that mean? Verily, verily. Listen, do you remember, I played it for you a couple of years ago. Most of you weren’t here.

I played a video of a little boy and he’s arguing with his mother. And he’s about this tall. And his mother’s name is Linda. You know immediately because the little, little rascal calls his mother by her first name. And why wouldn’t he? Because she calls her son by his first name. And he’s arguing, it’s on this video. It’s one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen. You can still find it out there. And if you want to look at this, you should. It’s just called Linda, Linda. Because that’s what the little boy is saying to his mother.

He’s calling her out. He wants another portion of the cookies. He says he wants something and she says you’re not going to get it. And the little kid says, Linda, Linda. And then he says, listen, Linda. He said, no, you listen. No, Linda, you’re not listening. And so she starts talking to him. Like normally she talks to, like she speaks to him. He’s putting it right back. So each of them are trying to get the other person’s attention. And that’s what Jesus is doing as he’s speaking to Nicodemus. Linda, no, no, Nicodemus, listen.

Listen Nicodemus, you have got to be born again. And immediately Nicodemus took those words and he put it through his filter. He’s going to deal with this rationally. And he asks a dumb question. But it’s an obvious question. In essence he said, surely you’re not saying I got to go back into my mother’s womb. Like, but that’s what you just said. I got to be born again. And then Jesus goes on and speaks to him. It opens up the truth to him. It’s interesting that the men on the road to Emmaus, watch this, listen to Jesus on the road as he opens up to them. This beautiful spiritual historical biblical landscape of what’s been going on.

These men were depressed. They were lost. We’ve lost Jesus. There’s folklore out there. They say he’s risen again. What? We’ve never heard of such a thing. No, we are so despondent. So this man joins them. It’s Jesus. And he’s talking to them. Watch this. He’s talking to them.

So they’re listening with their ears, but not really with their spirits. And when did they wake up and realize who he was when he broke bread and blessed it, bang. Their understanding was open and he disappeared. You see, they were hearing, hearing, hearing, but in their hearts they weren’t hearing. They weren’t getting it until the Spirit of God enlightened them. That’s the key. And the way that the Spirit of God enlightened them was Jesus doing what he does. He broke bread, just the tearing of that bread as they watched it. He had a unique way of doing it, like Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean couldn’t do anything without. . . Or was it Art Carney, you know, with Jackie Glick. Art, if he’s going to open a door, be like this, he’ll be getting all set and open the door. I don’t know how Jesus tore bread, but maybe he had a unique way. I don’t know. I’m not trying to make fun. But something about that moment when he broke bread, and especially when he blessed that bread, their eyes were opened. And suddenly they heard in here and suddenly they raced into town and said, it’s true, it’s true, it’s true. He’s alive. How do you know he’s alive?

He broke bread like he usually does. Listen, listen, listen, listen. Look 15. I love that chapter. Jesus tells a story. Three stories, 100 sheep, 10 coins, two sons. And Jesus, no sooner, started speaking, and the Pharisees who were present started filtering what he was saying immediately. And what were they filtering? The things that he was. . . He was speaking divine truth.

And he’s actually sitting with these publicans and sinners. What were publicans? Publicans were people that the Pharisees considered to be unclean. If you’re a person who handled the dead, you know, go to somebody’s. . . If you literally touched a dead part, that made you unclean. There were so many things that according to the Pharisees’ view could make you unclean. And you were called a publican. You’re an unclean person. Now you could be unclean because everybody knows your reputation. And so we say, stay away from that guy. Stay away from that woman.

Bad reputation. That’s a publican. Or you could have been declared unclean because of your employment. And so you see, to them, righteousness and purity was based on your circumstance. It was based on your health. If you were a sick person, like a woman with an issue of blood, she was declared unclean. And everybody knew that she was a sick person. She was living in abject poverty because her uncleanness, her issue of blood, had cost her everything with doctors. And she was considered a publican. She was unclean. So here’s Jesus, Luke 15, sitting with publicans, people that were declared by the Pharisees, to be unworthy.

Don’t even talk to them. Don’t go near them. Centers and publicans. And as soon as Jesus is seen with them, the Pharisees start ridiculing him. And no matter what he’s going to say, they’re putting it through their filtering system. He’s sitting with unclean people. There’s something wrong with him. And so the filtering system can really mess us up because we’re all capable of filtering people. Now in the book of Revelation, we hear a comment by Jesus to the churches. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. In two chapters, just two chapters, chapter two and chapter three, he that has an ear, listen, six times, he says it, he that has an ear.

Listen, listen, listen. That’s what the Lord’s saying there. Why is he having to say, he that has an ear, listen, because the churches were moving into depravity, they’re moving into a lull, they’re moving into darkness. 

They were losing their first love, where there had been a fiery passion within them. 

He did grow cold. First Samuel, chapter one, chapter three, first Samuel three. Hannah’s gone to the temple. She’s hurting. She’s childless. Her husband loves her anyhow. There’s another woman in the house. She had two wives.

She had a child. So the mother with the child made fun of Hannah. Hannah lived under the dark shadow, but she wanted a child so badly. And she slipped away from whatever celebration was going on. And she made her way into a place of prayer and didn’t the priest come and find her there and assume because it’s so unique. He found a person praying and he found them praying passionately and it threw him off. The priest was thrown off by this woman’s activity. He had a filtering system as well. Seeing her pray in such a passionate way, he’d never seen such a thing. Then you’ll believe it. The head of the then known church had never seen a woman at the altar by herself praying without the help of the organ, without somebody reading to her out of the electionary, without somebody turning in a chapter or jettison or whatever, without somebody doing any kind of a lead in, without an altar call. 

A woman is at the altar and he with his filter system assumes this woman is drunk. I’m going to straighten out her pin feathers. She said, sir, please. I’m not drunk. I’ve got a broken heart. Oh, well, okay. How bad was the darkness of that hour? Go to the third chapter and little Samuel, who’s at that time 12 years of age. And that segment of the story starts this way. It was an hour when the Word of God was rare. Now, you see, the Word of God in that particular instance is not talking about a Gideon’s Bible. The Word of God, nobody was getting instructions from the Lord. The Lord’s plan in that hour of Israeli history was, I will speak to the prophets and the priests, and then they will disseminate what I say to them. And that will make your life workable. I will speak. For Samuel chapter three says, God had gone silent. Was God playing hard to get? No. Nobody was listening. Listen, listen, listen. Listen, listen. Linda wasn’t listening.

Linda was so accustomed to the robes and lighting the candles, lighting the candle in the evening. Make sure that the priesthood would go in in the morning and just before dawn to save wax, I guess they would, they would douse the candle. They’d turn off the oil supply. They’d turn. They were used to keeping everything. Everything was perfect. Church happened at 11 o’clock in the morning. It started with a choir and then the pastor came out in his vestments and he sang some cute little song and then he gave them a little election area and the people left unchanged. That was the condition of the church. The word, first Samuel chapter three says, begins and the word of God was rare.

Why? Because the people had a filtering system. The filtering system had taken over. Verily, verily, verily, I say unto you, please listen to me. Please, please, I’m asking you to listen. Jesus said in John 14, it’s necessary for me to go. If I stay here, we’re not going to get anything done. You’re clinging to me. I want to be present in New York City, Jerusalem and Vineland all at the same time. It’s not going to work. We can’t rent a jet like our Justin Trudeau. He flies clear across the country in his electric airplane to take part in a picnic to see if he can pick up a few votes.

Jesus couldn’t count and it’s the idea, of course, of how the world is going to be touched if he remains in his physical form. He said, it’s necessary for me to go, but another will come. 

Even the spirit of truth, the comforter, and watch this. He said, what was Jesus? They would call Jesus master, teacher, rabbi. They were used to him teaching. They were so fortunate that they heard every word that came out of his mouth. Teacher, teacher. And he said, I’m your teacher. I have to go, no, stay with us. No, I’m sending you another comfort of the Holy Spirit and he will teach you. He will open your eyes.

He will enlighten you with the word of God. He will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance the things that I’ve already taught you. He goes on by the way to say something even more. This comforter, unlike me, I’m with you. But when he comes, he will be in you and he will teach you if you are willing to listen. I’m talking to David. You need to know when I get ferocious and I carry on like this, you need to know. He’s under conviction. That’s why he’s yelling at us. He’s under conviction. I’m trying to win the argument. You know how to win an argument?

Talk louder. He will teach you all things and he’ll remind you all the things that I did teach you. So we ended up with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Holy Spirit reminded them. And the Holy Spirit still wants to teach you and me. Congratulations if you have your little time every day, your devotional time. I read a whole chapter every day and I feel good and I take it off there. I got that done and I’m going to get on with my rice, crispies or whatever you’re going to do. And that’s okay. I’m not putting that down. But I’m just saying there’s more. That’s how this church got established, by the way.

There was a group of people in this town going to leave out who they were. That church that these people were a part of is still in this town. It was a good church, a wonderful church, and a God-fearing church. But the fellow who was present when the first woman in North America, the first record of a person being filled with the Holy Spirit, took place in a Bible college around New years in Pika, Kansas. And a man who was there, part of the Bible college at time, the Spirit of God broke out upon them, the power of the Holy Spirit. People started experiencing something like they’d read in the book of Acts and now it was happening to them and it spread. It went all the way down to Azusa Street in California, exploded there and people from Canada went down to take part in it.

But that man from that original Bible college evening, when the baptism of the Holy Spirit hit one woman, that man’s name was Frank Bartleman. And God spoke to his heart and said, you’ve got to take this to Canada. And guess where he went? He came to 20 Valley. You don’t mean to say. I mean to say. He came here and he preached the first message of this area as far as I understand at a ballpark, which I pass pretty well every day of the week. If I go from here to 4th Avenue, that’s the way I go, pass the bulb. And every day that I drive by, I don’t think it’s a day I don’t drive by that park and I think that’s where God started to meet people in this area. And here’s what happened. Some people from a church that’s in this town were drawn by their stories and they went and they found out in that tent, there’s something more. They read the scriptures every day. They prayed every day. They paid their tithes. They honored the pastor with butter tarts. Well maybe just cherry pie. That’s my other favorite. Hello. Write it down. They did everything right. God moved in that tent meeting right just about a mile from here where the people cried out and said, yes, I want more. Do you want more?

You will seek for me and you will find me. And you search and you dig and you cry out with desire for more. You’ve got to give all of your heart. All of your heart. Preach it David and then get out of here and live it. I want to take you right now then to the third passage. And that is Psalm 1. I love Psalm 1. I’m going to go to it even right now. This is a majestic passage. I’m lost. I’m lost. I should have marked the page.

It’s right after the book of Hezekiah, Dave. Get there. That’s my Peter. You’re a good guy Peter. No, 472. I used to be in camp meetings so I would do this. Everyone, turn with me your Bible now to 2nd Hezekiah chapter 1. And you’d hear pages flipping and people. It sounds like a book doesn’t it? Hezekiah. Right. Somebody’s saying, I’ve got to check this out when I get home. It was a king.

Hezekiah. Okay. Psalm 1, blessed. I love that word. Blessed. I’m going to be generally neutral. It is the person who walks not in the counsel of ungodly people. Stands not in the paths and the roadway of sinners. It’s not in the seat of the scourner. Notice the progression. You will be blessed if you don’t start walking where you have no business walking. I’m just walking there. I’m not participating.

I’m not tasting. I’m just walking by. No, you go with your feet. You start walking there and it’s not just walking. The Bible can’t give you every physical walking, touching, looking however you are. Somebody walks if you want to be blessed because if you walk, we ought not to walk. You’ll be so enamored with what you’re seeing as you walk. You’ll stop walking and you’ll stand and you’ll stare. And the progression is you’ll end up sitting where you never plan to walk. Sin does not happen in a moment. It’s a progressive thing. We begin by walking where we ought not to walk. Spending time with people that are having a bad impression on us.

Participating with people that you ought not to participate with. Now, this was preached very hard when I was a kid. Stay away from sinners. But by the way, next Sunday I want you to bring some unsaved people. How can I bring unsaved people if I don’t have anything to do with them from one day to the next? Hell, it was so confusing to me as a little friend. I thought, does anybody in this church have sinner friends? Because if you don’t, this revival is not going to happen. Stay away from them. Come out from them and be separate. So people did. Then the pastor was cheese because he was the only soul winner. He was the only guy that spent time with sinners.

No. So don’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly, but because you’ll end up standing in the crowd of sinners and you’ll end up sitting down or you should not sit. Sin will take you to a place you never plan to go. And sin will end up costing you something you cannot afford to pay. That’s just verse one. So verse two starts with a butt. You don’t walk, you don’t stand, you don’t sit, but you’re delighted. Remember when I shared about how they taught children in the schools, in the little villages in the towns, the teacher would teach in the local synagogue and every child would get a little slate. Do you remember that story? The little child would get a slate and the slate was to help them learn the word of God.

And this is something that the teachers always did. They’d often come with a little pot of honey and they’d go around to each child and with some kind of a little dipstick affair, maybe a little spoon. The teacher would put some honey on the slate and the teacher would share with them. Your word is like honey to my tongue and the children were turdled. Now you can go and lick the honey, but remember the honey represents the word of God. The kids loved the honey, but it was always put on the slate that was referencing the word. The little children were taught to delight in the word of God. That was their only education, by the way. They learned a little bit of mathematics. When they ran out of fingers, they’d go to their toes to count. Their education was ever so minimal.

Their education was this. And in his law, the blessed man woman, in his law he meditates bingo. If you want to be blessed, meditate. Okay, meditation, the far eastern people are big on this. They will meditate. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? They sit cross-legged. They put their fingers like this and they go, hmm, I don’t know how all this works. And they’re supposed to be getting vibrations from somewhere. I don’t know. There’s a lot of people who do this. And they call that meditation. So meditation is a word that’s used in so many cultures in such a variety of ways.

But there’s a divine truth here I don’t want you to miss. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, David, listen, David, God’s trying to talk to you, David. Now listen. I read a whole chapter when it’s all done. What did you get out of that? I don’t know. I read it. I know I’ll memorize it. If I memorize it, then maybe that’s good. Memorizing scriptures is wonderful. It’s not a hobby. It’s a good thing to do.

Not everybody’s good at it. Meditate though. Meditate is this. Instead of racing through a chapter, instead of marking it down, I did that, I did that, I did that. Here’s meditation. To read something out of anywhere you want. And then you pause and you listen. And this is the question in your spirit you asked the Holy Spirit to help you with. Holy Spirit, what I just read, what should I hear about me? That is meditation. How does this apply to me? So instead of trying to tick it all off, I read a whole chapter, read a whole chapter.

Read a whole verse and pause. Holy Spirit, talk to me. He will. He will. Spend time in silence with months talking in prayer. Like some of you are so kind. You become my friends and you know this. I pick it up when we’re on the phone. I pick it up wherever we are. You have found a way to cut me off. Because somehow or other, I love to hear myself. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. My wife will be driving along the road.

I’ll be a yak and away. I think we should do this. I look over. She’s gone to sleep. I’m the pill that puts my wife to sleep. She sleeps a lot these days. That’s her filter. Okay, David. Okay, I got that. She will actually go, okay, okay, okay, I got it, I got it, I got it. No, no, just let me give you a signal. I think I got the details, Ava, I got it. So in my chattering, sometimes I don’t communicate anything.

Prayer is not chattering with God. Prayer is communicating. Yes, speak. And then for goodness sake, listen, listen. You got it with the eye gate, it’s called the eye gate.

But Paul talks about, in the book of Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your enlightenment that your understanding will be broadened, that as you read the Word of God, you’ll suddenly cry out, ur reekah. There’s some other funny words. I got it. Yes, Lord, I got it. I read a book some years ago and I looked it up on the internet this week. I love the book and I must have given it away.

Oh, I know I gave it away to several people. One of the fellows I gave it to became the son-in-law of David Mains. When I first met him was a bar guy, a buddy of yours maybe, Bruce, somebody. And you remember, what was Mike? You remember Bruce? He came to the church, Bethel. He was the guy that did the bars. And I didn’t know the Lord. I didn’t have the foggiest idea. I loaned him my book and I never got it back. And not so long ago I saw him and said, Bruce, I loaned you a book. I won it back. He just laughed.

But the book was written by Francis Schafer. And you really had to spend some time reading it because this guy, with one sentence, he can say more than I can say in three days. The guy’s ability to communicate is nothing short of incredible. And he wrote a whole series of books and he opened up a retreat center somewhere over in Switzerland. And it became world famous called Lebri. And he wrote this book and I had a hard time working my way through it because he used words like existentialism. I thought, what is that? Postmodernism. I’ve never heard of these words. But now, these are part of my word salad.

And he wrote this book and it was called this. He is there and he’s not silent. And I was so intrigued by every chapter, every word. I wanted to digest. I wanted to get it in my. . . I wanted to understand. Here’s a brilliant man in academics. And in the last chapter, and I looked it up, I could buy the book now for $28. The first copy I bought was a buck 99. And I don’t know how that happened. It’s going to be $28 if you buy it through Amazon, I guess.

I’m not going to buy it for the last chapter because the last chapter sent me right through Cape Canaveral because he said in that last chapter, faith is not a leap in the dark. He said, I live in the Alps, I live in the mountains. This is his illustration. And his illustration set me on fire. He said, you can climb up these mountains because lots of people do. Thousands come and climb up in our mountains. But he said, you better know what you’re doing. You should not go up in the mountains without a guide. Because within five minutes, a huge snowstorm can come. And you don’t know where it is. . .

What’s up and what’s down? It literally blinds you. So he said, you can actually get trapped on a cliff on an edge. And you don’t know which way to go. And you can’t stay there for the night. You’re going to freeze to death. You want to get down off the mountain, but you don’t know the way. He said, there you are. Trapped. If you take one step this way, will it be toward your death? There will be something there. You have no idea what the next step-depth is. And then in the midst of the snowstorm and in your blindness, you hear a voice.

It says, I know you’re trapped, but I’m here for you. And I want you to know right below your feet is a place for you to put your feet next. I’m here to help you. But you’ve got to have faith in me. I’m telling you the truth. I’m telling you the truth. I’m here for you. You’re not going to die. I’m going to help you. But I want you to take that first step. And I’m there waiting for you. He said, that voice is God. He said, he’s there in your darkness, in your feeling of being plowed up like a field, in

your hour of disappointment, in that hour you don’t even understand what faith is. And you’re afraid to take some leap in the dark. And he said, faith is not a leap in the dark. Faith is trust in a voice, but you’ve got to be prepared to hear the voice. And when you hear the voice, you can respond. David, I want to hear the voice. I want this book to speak to me. And it will, if you’ll meditate. Don’t walk, stand, or sit. We ought not to go. It’s a horrible place to end up. But meditate with delight. Your word is like honey.

When does it become like honey? When a verse like you’ve known for years suddenly hits your knower. That happens to me all the time. I read and I read and I read and I get to a chapter. Never skip over a chapter. Yeah, I know that story. No, slow down and read it. I heard Jordan Peterson, one of the smartest men in shoe leather right now in Canada. He’s an academic. He’s so smart, it’s scary. I love to hear him. I love to hear him. And he was speaking to some conference.

I think it was in Germany. I picked it up on YouTube yesterday. And so he’s talking to a group of people who are not Christians. And he said, I want to talk to you. He said, out of a Bible story. He’s not going to give you a story. I know the story of Jonah. Do you want to hear it? I can tell you the story of Jonah right now. No problem. But you know the story of Jonah. Don’t you? You know it.

I thought I knew the story of Jonah until Jordan Peterson. A man who’s not even yet as far as I know declared his Christianity. He talks about holiness. He talks about God. But don’t try and trap him to say, okay, are you a Christian? He says, well, it depends on what you mean by Christian. I met a lot of people who claim they’re Christians. And he said, I don’t want to be like one of them. Does that sound familiar? But this man opened up my eyes. I couldn’t like I couldn’t quit. I had some other things I needed to do. And it happened in Jordan and I let him go.

And he said, I’m going to tell you about Jonah and the whale and the story of Jonah. I sat there absolutely like, I’ve never heard a preacher handle that story better. He brought out stuff that I have never seen. But it was always there. He didn’t make anything up. It was right there. And I never saw it. In other words, every word in this book is pregnant with divine truth. But you’ll never get it without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. He said, and when he comes, he will teach you. Pastor I read it. I know you read it. I know you read it.

There’s something there that only the Holy Spirit can open up for you. Meditate on the Word of God. I’m not going to speak on this. I’m just going to mention it. I’ve heard other people wax eloquently on this particular verse of Scripture. It’s an Old Testament word where God is lamenting. And he says his concern is for his people. They lack knowledge. They claim they know me. They think they know me and they don’t know anything. He said, in fact, the best way to describe it is there’s a famine of the Word of God. It’s there. How can there be a famine?

There can be a famine if we don’t know how. Like you could give me a bucket of wheat grains from the farm and I’ll starve. I don’t know how to turn it into fine flour. And if I did get it into the stage of flour, I tried to make bread once and when I was done, this is the truth. April used a couple of my loaves of bread as door stops because they were so heavy. I was the only one that ate any of it and I only got through about a quarter of a loaf and my teeth started to, you know. I don’t know how to make bread. You’ll know the truth. If you let him put it into your knower. Does that word make sense? Is that word okay?

Do I sound like a sloppy toothpick here? Like, you’re a knower. What do you mean by that? I’ll give you an example. Do I believe in divine healing? I do. It’s in the book. But I also have a story about April’s miraculous delivery from cancer. So it’s so helpful to me when I’m talking to people and they say, how do you know that there’s a God? I say, I know him. And he delivered my wife from cancer and I’ve had doctors tell me she’s a walking miracle. And so I can tell you this.

I know that I know. No, no. I know that I know that I know that I know. I know. He heals. It’s in the Word. And my wife is a recipient and I was an eyewitness. Don’t tell me God doesn’t heal. You can’t argue with our experience. You can’t do that. You can’t tell me. He doesn’t. We saw it.

It’s in my knower. I know that I know that I know. But that I know that I know can come in your prayer closet on a Monday morning when no one else is around. And you read a chapter, you have read 45 times. But this morning you read it. And God opens up the landscape and suddenly a verse that meant nothing particularly to you before you weep over it. I know this. Cuke experiences this. He tells me, I’ll read in the Word of God and you know what occurred to me recently. And this man amazes me to this day. He amazes me.

Sorry, Peter. I know you don’t like me to make a fuss. But there’s such a glow around you. Oh, no. It’s Doreen and the glow is happening over to you. No. I love to be with Peter Cuke because you know what I’m saying. You could have preached this this morning. You know that you know that you know that this is the accurate thing. Meditation is allowing the Holy Spirit to bring that word you just read to impregnate you. To change you. The Spirit will teach you all things. You got to get into your nowhere.

I hope you’re wearing your Bible out. Hello. Some of you have never picked it up, I think. No, I’m sorry it just came to me. I’m going to leave it because time’s shot. I got to go. But I’m amazed how many Christian people don’t crack the book. They have their favorite preachers. They love their gospel music. But you’re deep, honey. You’re deep. Can you hear me now? You’ll never get it unless you let him bring it to you.

So I challenge you as I challenge old Geezer Dave. I tell people all over the place. I say, what do you do? I said, I’m the pet. You are? I say, yeah, I’m an old Geezer, but they like old Geezer’s at that church. I tell them I’m an old Geezer. Cofel with what I am. And old Geezer’s love the book. Hello? Heavenly Father, I want to know you. And I’ll never really know you by listening to Bill Gaithers songs. I’ll never know you by speed reading through books.

I might catch a glimpse when the pastor preaches a word. I might pick up something when I’m listening to WDCX or my favorite preacher on TV. But Lord, that’s not really knowing you. Those are vehicles that can impress me. Lord, I don’t want to know what somebody else hears. I want to hear your voice. I want this word to speak to me. Teach me to wait. Teach me to sit in silence and allow the Spirit of God to open the eyes of my understanding.

And these are my dear friends.

I pray for them that you will bless them through your word.

Amen.