Spiritual Life #33

Spiritual Intuition 2

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’ve seen so much Christianity around (or “so-called Christianity) that is pretty harmless. Satan isn't concerned with a lot of it because it doesn't do any harm. It's just more like a general kind of religious jamboree that's going on that doesn't really stop his will being done in the world. So, a lot of it he isn’t concerned with. And that leads into what we are talking about tonight.

I would point out to you that there is only one way to become a Christian and that is to allow Jesus' Spirit to come in and take over your life. I would point out to you that there's a great deal of so-called Christianity around. There really is, there's a lot of excitement on television and in Bible study groups and independent churches. That's the thing of the moment, be an independent church and you're almost bound to be successful.

But do you see that there's a great deal of it that lives off itself and there are a lot of loved ones that are running around talking about, do you know what the Lord did for so-and-so and do you know what the Lord did at this meeting and at that meeting? And do you know who has turned their life over to the Lord? And there's a great deal of talk about the great things that the Lord is apparently doing, but there isn't a great deal of love of the Lord himself. And there isn't a sense of what Jesus wants a person to do privately in their own lives.

So, I just point out to you that to become a child of God, you do need to approach Jesus yourself, confess your sins and repent of them, and then commit yourself wholly to Him by allowing him to become the Lord and the master or the boss of your life. Not me, not your pastor, not Derek Prince, not some other charismatic figure, but Jesus. Jesus becomes your Lord and your master and the boss of your life.

And that's what we mean when we talk about walking after the Spirit. The only way to become useful to God is to walk after the Spirit that is within you. Now, do you see that there's a great temptation today with all the excitement around this? There's a great temptation to go by what Ernest O’Neill says or by what somebody else says. There are so many teachers around that you can really have about five or six different opinions for what you should do in your life. Loved ones, don’t. I dare not trust the sweetest friend, the sweetest person that I know, the dearest teacher that I know, the dearest pastor that I know. I dare not trust the sweetest friend but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

Only if you learn to listen to the Spirit of Jesus within you, will your life be useful to God. So what we talk about in these evening services is how to walk after the Spirit and the importance of that.  And really there is no mystery about walking after the Spirit. To walk after the spirit, you just walk after the Spirit. But the more we talk about that subject, the more you become aware of ways in which you aren't doing it and the more you yearn to do it.

What we began to discuss last day was the importance of the intuition of our spirits because our spirits, you remember, have three functions. I’ll just put up that diagram and point it out again to you. All that's important is that you see that our lives must be governed by Jesus and by his will and not by other things. We've said that I Thessalonians 5:23  says: “May the God of peace sanctify you holy and may he keep your spirit and your soul and your body blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus.”

And what we have done is go through the Bible and discover that when the Bible talked about the soul, it would mention soul and it would refer to a function of our minds. When it talked about the soul in other places, it would refer to a function of our feelings. When it talked about the soul in other places it would refer to a function of our wills.

And then when we studied the position of spirit in the Bible, we discovered that at times the Bible uses spirit and it means communing with God. And there are verses like worshiping God in spirit, communing with God in spirit, and so the spirit has the ability to commune with God.

We find at times when Jesus said he perceived in his spirit that they murmured against him, that he knew. He was able to know in his spirit what God wanted them to do. And at other times, spirit obviously means conscious. So at least three of the functions of the spirit are those of communion, intuition and conscious.

What we’ve shared continually is: It’s God's will for us to operate like that (pointing to the diagram). For the Holy Spirit in deep communion and prayer to God can come through our spirits and tell us in our intuitions what we should do. And then our conscience is to constrain our will to obey that direction. It directs our minds to understand what God is telling us so that we can send the necessary information out to our body that will do those things.

In other words, the mind is primarily an interpreter for our body and for other people of what God is telling us in our spirits. It can also direct our emotions to express the joy that we sense in our communion with God. And that is God's plan for our lives. And what we are sharing about this evening for the second time is the importance of walking by the intuition of our spirits.

I would just point out to you that to walk by the intuition of your spirit, you actually have to be dealt with by God through very harrowing experiences so that the power of your soul is destroyed. I'll give you an example. Peter was walking on the water, you remember. Jesus said to him, ‘come to me.’ Peter saw him on the water and his faith was stirred up and his spirit was stirred and strengthened in the inner man.

That's what the Bible means when it talks about the inner man -- it means your spirit. Peter was able to stop receiving information through his body. In other words, his eyes saw the waves and the water. His mind remembered all the times that he had put his foot on water and gone through it to the bottom of the lake. He stopped thinking of those things and he stopped receiving the information through his mind. His spirit was strengthened and he was strong enough to act by the intuition within when Jesus said ‘come’. He then stepped out onto the water. While he kept his eyes on Jesus, he allowed his spirit to be exercised and strengthened by being preoccupied with Jesus and his will for him. He was able to walk on the water. But for a moment, he turned back to the normal avenue by which he received information about life: his ears, his eyes, and his mind.

He looked down again at the water and his mind clicked that water is not solid, and you can’t walk on it.

Then, his ears heard the waves and he thought; those waves, every time I hear them, it means water and danger unless I'm in something that will float. And he began to sink because the soul and the body had set up a process that had been used for years by Peter. For years he had gone by what his eyes saw and what his ears heard and so his mind and emotions were used to being dominated by that.

And loved ones, for that one moment Peter worked the other way and immediately he began to sink in the water. Only when Jesus called him again was he able to raise his eyes to his Savior and walk again by the intuition of the spirit. So loved ones do you see it's vital if you're going to walk by the intuition of your spirit, it's vital to be dealt with again and again and again and again by God so that the whole inward direction of your body and your soul, the whole in-turned movement that you've developed for years is broken and destroyed.

Now you'll say, I'm glad you've told me that because now I'll operate that way. But - the first time the baby gets sick, the eyes will see the baby crying, the ears will hear the baby crying, and the soul will immediately begin to take in water again. It will take in information from outside, see those great walls of Jericho and say, it cannot be done, it cannot be done. You'll begin to work from the old fleshly method again and you'll begin to sink. It’s those powers that have to be broken.

Your soul and your body are used to working inwards like that. Your body gets information from the world, passes it onto your mind and emotions then like old manipulating Jacob, your mind sets about trying to manipulate these events in the world so that you'll come out right. And that's the way we're used to working. It’s like a ping pong ball. You hit the ping pong ball, and the events and circumstances hit it back to you. Then, your soul hits it back, the world hits it back, and your soul is in the world playing ping pong.

That's the way we operate and it’s hopeless. It has no power in it. It's just one against the other manipulating the other. It's not the way God wants us to work. And God must by mighty dealings with you, destroy that whole process and programming that governs your body - your physical and your psychological personality. In other words, the Father is determined to rescue you from that.

That's why you've to greet it as pure joy when you enter into various trials because every trial is God attempting to strengthen your spirit. And honestly, why do you think that a man like like Paul died in house arrest? Why do you think great saints die often in very difficult external circumstances? Don't you see, God is working continually and the stronger that person's spirit becomes, the stronger God deals with that person and the more he strengthens that spirit by allowing them to come into more and more difficult circumstances.

That's why at times we’ve been able to see that it doesn't get easier as you go on – at least not easier in the world's eyes. But, it does get easier inside. Your spirit becomes stronger, and you become more indifferent to sicknesses and diseases. You become more indifferent to the apparent defeats outwardly. Your spirit gets stronger and it’s more victorious within. But, according to the world they wonder why is that person suffering so much? Why aren't things going better for them? Why aren't they having more success if they're in God's will?

Well, how did Jesus’ life end? The greatest saint that ever lived –did He live in the midst of apparent prosperity and success with crowds coming to him and elevating him? You know how he died and how he left the earth. It was in ignominy and apparent defeat.

So, loved ones greet it as pure joy when you enter into various troubles. You have a combination of physical and psychological life within you that is strong, strong, strong, and God has to break it. And that's what we talk about when we discuss the daily bearing of the cross. God allows you to come into conscious situations where everything seems hopeless. The job doesn't seem right, things don't seem to be going the way you hoped they would go, and the tendency is to flee and fly. And if I could just encourage some of you to see God's greatest difficulty with many of his children is to get them to stay in one place long enough for him to deal with them.

And especially here in America, we are soft. We are just soft. We repeatedly think if the thing is tough or the situation is difficult, then the Lord is guiding me out. Loved ones rarely is the Lord guiding you out of difficult circumstances. The Lord has probably taken immense pains to manage to get you into those circumstances. And rarely does the Lord guide you out by difficult circumstances.

It’s rare that the job can be so miserable, and wretched that God will use it to move you. But honestly only after you've come to absolute peace and contentment to stay in that job for life. Only after you've won through to that situation. Usually difficult circumstances are being used by God to drive you into happiness. And there's only one place where there is happiness.

Did you know that there's no job that will be utterly satisfying to you?

There is no situation in this world that will be absolutely satisfying. The world is filled with people who don't like God. And God has told us that it'll be filled with more and more of them as the years go by. And so if you have a world that is 80 or 90% anti-God, you're going to have a world that is in continual foment where circumstances are being continually upset and things are getting more and more chaotic. It's more than likely that you will never have external circumstances that are absolutely content to you or are absolutely satisfying to you. It's more than likely that you're always going to be in circumstances that are only partially satisfying.

Could I give you an instance? My dad and mom went to be with Jesus about 8-10 years ago. But isn't it true that once one loved one goes, life can never again be absolutely perfect. Circumstances can never again be absolutely perfect. You rejoice in looking forward to being with them in heaven, but it means that you're continually aware that this is not your home, that you're only passing through and that heaven really is your home. And so, from the moment the first person dies, life is never going to be absolutely perfect in its external circumstances. And actually, that is true. There is only happiness and peace in one place and that is in our relationship with Jesus at the right hand of God. And, the Father is continually working with us to bring us into that place. So, I would plead with you, stop jumping around, stop being little professional butterflies, little spiritual butterflies. Well, I think the boss isn't very pleased with my work, so I think the Lord is guiding me to move.

It’s just so sick and weak that it isn't even worth talking about. When you see what the dear souls like Paul went through. He said, “I was shipwrecked, I was lashed, I received 40 lashes less one, I was hunted and stoned.” When you see what those men and women bore and then you see us moving every time the hand of the Lord begins to deal with us a little roughly – there’s no comparison.  

And so, the Father is continually dealing with us to strengthen our spirits. Now you get that principle in Ephesians 3:16 and maybe it would be good to look at Ephesians 3:16. Paul is saying that he's praying for them and according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with might through the spirit in the inner man. And that's the only thing that you need: to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man.

There's only one way to have your spirit strengthened and that's to exercise it against tremendous odds. You’re getting all kinds of information from the physical environment you're living in, all kinds of information from your mental environment, and your emotional environment. You have to exercise your spirit against all that. And so you'll find that you'll come into situations in your apartment and situations in your home where there is all kinds of mental pressure and emotional pressure. God is allowing that to come because he reckons you can do with a little strengthening of the muscles there.

He's allowing you to come to a place where your only quietness is getting into bed at night and closing your eyes and resting in Jesus. Only there, where no one else can see what you're thinking or can feel what you're sensing, only there is peace and often God will allow you to come into those situations. It’s the same at work. If there's a person that is getting at you and is wearing in on you and is annoying you and constantly hurrying you and harassing you, God is allowing you to come to a place where there's peace only in him. And we should thank him for that. We really should. We should praise him. We should praise him for every time that he lovingly allows circumstances to get rough.

I was coming in the plane home and a fellow sitting beside me said, I don't know what it is, but I find when I'm in a climate where the weather is good and where the sun is shining, I seem to be drawn out and almost seem to in some way dissipate myself. And in a way I'm looking forward to getting back to Minnesota where the winter kind of drives you into yourself a little and you seem to be less dependent and less preoccupied with people.

And I see what Ireland is. It rains continually, it rains and it's continually cloudy and gloomy. And the result is it drives you very much into yourself and you are drawn to seek brightness and lightness in your inner experience. And oh, it just comes home to me repeatedly. Men and women are both made for adversity. We are really we're made for adversity.

The reason a person is strong is because of adversity. Do you know that people in Minnesota are healthier and live longer than people in a sunny warm planet? You know that that's a statistical fact that the people who are old and go to a sunny warm climate don't live as long and aren't as healthy as us, dear old souls that have to get out and shovel that snow in order to get anywhere and it just isn't. Do you know where the oldest people in the world are? Do you know where the greatest number of 120-year-olds are? The greatest number of 120-year-olds live in a mountainous area of Russia where they go up slopes like that and they have to walk up and down them with heavy burdens day after day.

And those 140-year-olds walk up and down those slopes. It's a hideous physical situation with very, very thin air and requiring lots of effort and lots of energy and that's where they live the longest. There is no question physically, psychologically, spiritually we are made for adversity and we grow strong when we face adversity and we face different troubles.

So, I would plead with you, stop seeking the easy circumstances. Stop seeking situations that are easy and favorable. Rejoice in what God has given you. Be glad of the situation you're in at this present time and be glad that God is allowing those things to come to you because he has tailored them precisely to your needs. And what he is trying to do is get you to begin to exercise your spirit and grow strong in your spirit. And as your spirit grows strong and your relationship with God becomes more and more vivid and rich to you, your intuition begins to operate and you begin to sense what God wants you to do and you begin to know it without a doubt.

That's the only place where you can know what to do. Every time you are in doubt about what to do, it's because you are looking at the waves and you're listening to the sound of them laughing at your feet. You're looking at the circumstances and you're listening to this dear friend and that dear friend, to this counselor and that counselor. And you're so busy listening to all the voices that you have no idea what your Maker put you here on earth to do and what he wants you to do.

And the Father is continually bringing you into situations where you're seeing that if I listen to these outward circumstances, I'm ruined. I'm finished. I don't know how often you have felt close to God, felt really close to God, but I know fine well, when those high moments are going to come. They're always, when circumstances are hard, they're always when somebody has died or when the finances look hopeless or when the job situation looks as if it has no future or when all kinds of things are falling apart in the thing that I'm involved in.

There are always those moments when you're driven away in terror and panic from the surrounding circumstances and you're driven back to the heart of everything. God, your dear Father who loves you and that comes out from you, such a strong hunger and desire for him that you find yourself pulling him into your spirit and you find that he's real inside you.

I hoped to do a whole lot more tonight, but really I think this is more important than anything else: that you begin to see that the outward circumstances of your life, if you're fortunate, will have a good mixture of bitterness and difficulty and problem and insoluble difficulties. And if you are fortunate, you'll have a good supply of tryouts and confrontations and challenges to which you do not know the answer. If you're very fortunate, then God will bless you with those and he will drive you to seek himself and Him only. Oh, you remember what the scripture says? Those whom he loves, them he also chastens.

Now I'll tell you when the most dangerous times in my life have been and the times when my spirit has been weakest. I remember John Wesley said, “At the beginning of my life, people opposed me and when I preached in the open air, they drove cattle through my congregations. They threw stones at me, they tore my clothes off my back, they harangued me and they criticized me. Now I am popular and successful and all men speak well of me and never was my soul in greater danger.” And that's it. When things are prosperous and good and life is easy, that is the dangerous time for your spirit and that's the time when you have to be especially watchful. The most precious times are the hard times. So look forward to those. Really that's what the Bible means, “greet it as pure joy when you enter into various trials.”

I'd just like to say something to my own brothers and sisters who are involved in business with me. Do you see that these are the precious times when the pickets are out trying to stop you doing what you sense God wants you to do, when things aren't exactly right, when things aren't working out exactly as you hoped they would. Those are the great times. Those are when you rise in triumph and rejoice. Loved ones, learn as children of God to turn towards difficulties. Learn to do that. Learn to have joy and exhilaration in your eyes when you see a difficulty coming. Greet it as pure joy when you enter various trials, not so that you might not suffer, but so that you might grow strong in your spirit inside and that your eyes might turn more completely to the one who has the answer and you might begin to receive his total peace.

Because isn't that the unbelievable truth? Whatever happens in this world, whatever pain God receives from the gas chambers of Hitler's regime, whatever pain God receives from the little children that are starving in India at this moment, whatever agony and chaos may be operating to destroy his plan in the world. One thing we do know, even though he's sensing pain, he and Jesus are in perfect peace. And that peace you and I are meant to enjoy continually and without any break. And as your spirit grows strong, you’ll begin to sense that peace continuously, not just despite the adverse circumstances, but almost because of the adverse circumstances. God is faithful. This wasn’t what I was going to say tonight, but God doesn't give me these things to share with you unless he is going to illustrate this for you in technicolor.

So do look forward to it. Don't be caught off balance. That's what Satan's aim is to do. Satan's aim is to let you be sure of these truths tonight and then get you off guard at 11:45 tomorrow morning and then he swings in at you. Now that's his method to get you to be off guard, and then to let it happen. Then what he does is whisper in your ear: “This isn’t the kind of trial that Pastor talked about.

No, this is something either that I brought on myself or somebody is bringing upon me because they're being unjust to me. No, don’t start that excusing, and start accepting your experience from what we've shared tonight. See that it's exactly what God has talked to us about tonight and that that's what he's bringing to you.

And then see that it's not knowledge that comes, it's not understanding it that comes. That's why God allows it to happen again and again to us. And when we think we've learned the lesson, then God allows it to happen again because he knows we haven't really learned. And he knows that it's not a case of knowledge, but it's a case of mighty mental and emotional powers that are tied by an umbilical cord to the five senses. And he has to break that umbilical cord and then link them to the spirit so that you come to the place where the spirit of world is more real to you than the physical world. And then you begin to feed into the physical world, the power and the strength that God gives to you. So that's it, the Father has to change you from a life that moves from the outside into a life that moves from the inside out, from a fleshly life to a spiritual life that moves from the inward to the outward.

And that involves not only your willingness to live that way, which enables you to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, but it involves a daily bearing of the cross. Until these powers of your personality are utterly broken and rerouted until your soul ceases to be under the domination of your body and begins to be a faithful servant to your spirit, then God will begin to enable you to take Jerichos and to win victories for himself. And that's what he wants from all of us. So I pray that you'll have a miserable (laughter) no, I pray what Paul prayed, that each of us will be strengthened by God’s spirit in your inner man. And for some of us it'll mean a little peace. And for some of us it requires the opposite of peace. And I pray that God will do that for each of you. Let’s pray.

Dear Lord, we thank you for truth that has its own seal of validity because our conscience attests to it as we hear. And Lord, we thank you for truth about which there's no doubt, because death speaks to death and spirit speaks to spirit. Thank you Lord. And now we go into this week, Father and the coming weeks of our lives with a different attitude to trials and a different attitude to our wishes for our lives. Lord, we see that it's only those who are not prepared to walk the Calvary road that want things nice and easy. Lord, that any of us who are prepared to walk the highway of holiness and to walk the Calvary road, greet it as pure joy when we enter into various trials. We don’t look for misery or happiness, but we look for your will. Lord, that's what we want.

We look forward to this week and the coming weeks of our lives to experience your will, your ideal will for us, and your permissive will. We look forward to those things that you filter lovingly through your fingers that Satan himself produces, but that you use to strengthen us in our spirits.  Lord, we look forward to those, and we look forward to your ideal will for us, which is to be well and whole and to prosper. Lord, we look for that and we will rejoice when that comes. We’ll stay close to you in the midst of that as when we're in the midst of trials.

So Lord, we look forward to this week and thank you for showing us and making sense to us of the circumstances that come our way. Lord, we don't want to get off the cross. We don't want to whittle it down to the place where we can carry it without your grace. Lord, we don't want to run from difficult circumstances. We don't want to scream every time the knife touches us. We don't want to change our position or our job every time. Lord, we commit ourselves to staying in situations until you have dealt with us. And we thank you, Father, that you are so real and that relationship with you is so practical. Thank you, God.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Be with each one of us now and throughout this coming week.