Being Made Trees of Life — Robert B. Thompson

As we come unto you this morning, it is with praise and thanksgiving. You are so good. God is good. God is good. And Lord, you are good. Hallelujah. We go through the fire, Lord, but your faithfulness brings us through, and we can look back and rejoice.

We pray for each family represented here, Lord, you know, the struggles, you know, the attacks of the enemy, we pray that there'll be peace and health and safety in each home represented here, Lord, where there is problems, we pray you'll solve them and bring your people forth in health and peace, worshiping you, Lord.

We pray you'll be with the little children and bless their helpers as we continue. And Lord, you know the needs that are here. I don't. The Holy Spirit does. And I pray, Lord, you will add Jesus where the need is and that no one will leave this place without something from God.

I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We'll turn in our Bibles to Ezekiel 47. If you don't have an NIV, it'll be up on the board in a minute. Ezekiel 47. We're going to read verses three through seven.

The River of Ezekiel and Its Four Levels

This is an old, tiny passage. We've been a long time getting here. How long we've been on the book of Ezekiel? About two months? Three months? And we've finally come to the great climax. One of the greatest types in the Bible is the waters.

We're going to read verses three through seven. You can read together with us if you like. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle deep.

He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in a river that no one could cross.

He asked me, son of man, do you see this? Then he led me back to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. That's a great, great type in the Bible.

And what I want to show you this morning is the meaning. Now we covered the water to the ankles, water to the knees last Tuesday night, so I'll go over that briefly. But I thought this morning I'd like to emphasize where this is going, what the end of it is, why we should have to move.

The river stands for what? The Holy Spirit. And it's a deeper level of the Holy Spirit, first the ankles, then to the knees, then to the waist, and finally the fullness, the waters to swim in. So if we could see for a minute, Brian, those four, like I told you, those four things, remember the four levels.

The first level, we'll just look at this briefly, and then I want to show you where this is going, why this is necessary. The first level is death to the world and resurrection into the kingdom of God.

That, of course, is speaking when we're first saved. We die to the world on the cross, and then we are resurrected with Jesus into the kingdom of God. That's waters to the ankles, so we can think of that as basic salvation, as first being saved.

And then the second level is pretty well known to us, death to sin and resurrection to life, lived in the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit. That's Pentecost. That's when we, water to the ankles, we have the Spirit.

We cannot be a Christian without having some of the Holy Spirit, but when we go on past death, then the Spirit has us, so to speak, to a much greater extent. Now, we know about the Holy Spirit and Pentecost pretty well.

We know about speaking in tongues. I think most of us here speak in tongues. I've been speaking in tongues a long time, over half a century. I don't know what I'd do without it. But the Spirit has two main operations in our life.

One is to give us power to witness, to minister. We know that, Acts 1 .8. But the other, I don't think, is as well known as an equally important role of the Holy Spirit, and that is to give us victory over sin.

There's quite a bit of Scripture about that, victory over sin. So the Holy Spirit gives us both power to minister, the ability to minister within the body and out from the body, and also power to overcome sin.

We cannot overcome sin on our own strength. That's the second level. And those two levels are pretty well known to the Christian Church. It's the last two levels that are not nearly as well known, but they are at issue now, and I'll explain why that is in a minute.

They are at issue now. We've had a whole century of Pentecost. We've had the whole twentieth century. It was a Pentecostal century. Now we're moving forward in the kingdom. Pentecost is not the last feast, as we see from the feast on.

There's three more to go. And all the types of the Bible show us that Pentecost is kind of a midway. We have more. I first heard that in Bible school from an assembly of God presbyter, that there was more after Pentecost.

Hallelujah. It's a wonder I didn't get raptured right then. So the third one, and the third one is known to the old timers. You'll see it coming out in A .B. Simpson and Madame Gayon and Jesse Penn Lewis and other deeper life teachers, but for the Church as a whole, it has not been known as a specific action like getting saved and getting filled with the Spirit.

We haven't known it as a definite act of God in our life. That's something to look forward to. But we have to know about it today because this is what the Holy Spirit is pressing. This is where the action is in the Spirit, is in this third level.

Death to Self-Will and Resurrection to Fruitfulness

And it is death to our own will and resurrection to fruitfulness and to the power to exercise our Christ-filled will. God never removes our will from us. He changes our will from our own personal ambition to God's will.

But our will, we can't just say I'm an empty vessel and flap around. We have to always keep our will strong, but then we have to permit God to blunt our own will and impregnate it with his own will. You see that?

Blunt our own will and impregnate it, but we always keep a strong will. You can't get anywhere with God unless you keep your will razor sharp. But we have to submit to the process of death to our own will and strength.

How does that sound to you? Death to our own will and strength. We were saying about it this morning. But as I say, we haven't seen it as a thing as specific as the Holy Spirit. We haven't seen it that way.

But this question of will and of obedience, stern obedience to God, is the issue of the hour. That's where the action is in the spirit realm. That's the growing edge. We'll speak about that later. He has a way of accomplishing each of these four levels.

Finally, the fourth one, the waters to swim in, is after we go through these first three, we may feel that we're pretty hot stuff spiritually. I had a lady say that once to me. She says, oh, I've been through tabernacles and all this.

I said, isn't that wonderful? Wished I was. No, you don't go skipping through these things like that. And also, the purpose is not to exalt us. After we get victory over the world and victory over sin and victory over self-will, then God wants to bring us, as it says, back to the bank of the river.

He wants us then to humble ourselves under the hand of God. Remember Christ. He said he did not count it a thing to be grasped that he was equal to God. It's not something that we grasp and say, look how spiritual I am.

We have to learn to go with God. And the end of that is to be a chariot of God, like we said this morning, that God's will be in us, that we'll live, we'll just be God's chariot. We're not all occupied with our own spiritual growth.

So we're occupied with our spiritual growth up to God and then up to getting our will right, and then we have to learn that this is not where it is. We then are the servant of God. And the purpose that God does this is what I want to speak about right now.

Trees of Life and the Purpose of Spiritual Growth

I want to show you, with the Lord's help, what the purpose of this is. There's a purpose for it. And when you see the purpose for it, it helps a lot. So we look at where we're reading in Ezekiel, back to Ezekiel 47.

I'm particularly interested now in verses 5, 6, and 7 in Ezekiel 37, verses 5, 6, and 7. They follow this. This is verses 3 and 4. But look at 3, 4, and 5. But 6 and 7 give us the purpose of it. He leads us back to the bank of the river, and that means that he brings us back to the place where we're ready to give to others in this life and also in that which is to come.

When we appear with the Lord Jesus, when he comes, we have ministry to accomplish. We have ministry now. We'll have ministry then. And so we go through these four steps with God, and then he brings us back to the river, and on that river is a great number of trees.

Now those are the trees of life, and Christ is the tree of life. But he's like some kinds of trees that they grow up, but their roots go underground, and then you look a few yards away, and up comes another tree, and then you look away, and up comes another tree.

There are trees like that that all come out from one root, and that's what God is making us. That is our destiny, is to be a source of life for people who do not have life. And that's why we have to go through these steps, because until we go through these steps with God, God is still occupied with our growth in the Spirit, and of course we can minister all along the way, but God has a much greater fullness of ministry for us.

All right, now let's look at 1 Corinthians 15, verse 47. 15, verse, I mean 45. 1 Corinthians 15, 45. 1 Corinthians 15, 45. So it is written, right at the top of the screen there, the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

That's a tree of life, and we're being made in that image. We are being made trees of life. Now think about the depth that there is in the world, and we want to get out the gospel to people, we want to get out the information, and of course I'm into that with the internet and so on, we're transmitting information about, just like we're doing now.

But you know, the sin is getting so bad in the world, it just seems that a new horror comes up every week it seems. I don't want to go into them, they're things that are so bad that they're just sullying our minds.

And the world needs more than information. It needs life. It needs the communication of life. Jesus said, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. The world is dead in its sin, and what it needs is life.

And that's what God is making us as we go through these four levels of the river, is life. Jesus said in John 7, 37, 38, out of your inward being shall flow rivers of living water. Hallelujah! Rivers of water, not just doctrine, that's important, but the world needs life.

And the more life we have, the more we can give. You buy that? The more life we have, the more we can give. And that's why God takes us to the water. It's not for our own aggrandizement. It's so we can go back to the bank and be a tree of life, and then, of course, when you go on further in Ezekiel, you can see the great revival, the end time, where the water goes out into the sea and the multitudes live, etc. and so on.

The Calling of God's Elect in 1 Peter 2:9

Alright, 1 Peter 2, 9. Now this is, 1 Peter 2, 9 is the crux of it. This is the purpose for getting saved, for getting filled with the Spirit, for having God break down our will and ambition, and for finally humbling ourselves so we can just do God's will and not try to be something great in the creation like Jesus said he made himself of no reputation.

We have to go through these four things in order to fulfill 1 Peter 2, 9. This is what we are called to do. This is practically the same thing that God said to Israel, almost word for word. It's the calling of God's elect, and it's our destiny, it's what we are saved for, and it's why we have to go further than Pentecost.

Pentecost is great, being saved is great, but if we're going to give this world what it needs in the last days, aren't you glad he's kept the good wine until now? Hallelujah. We're going to have something to give.

If we will allow God to take us now through the next step, surrender our will to God, say, not my will but thine be done, and go on and learn the lessons of humility, we'll be able to, because we're facing an age of moral horrors.

People write to me and say, what do you think about all this vote stuff? I don't think anything about the vote stuff, because these are only ripples. These are not the big issues, and if Satan himself were elected president, Romans 8, 29 would still operate, all things would still be working for good to those who love God.

Politics doesn't change that, so we vote and we pray and do what we can, but don't worry about it, because the Bible doesn't change. All things will continue to work for good to those who love God, no matter who's elected.

Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. All right, now look at that, because this is why God saved you. We say, well, we chose Jesus, but the Bible says in John 15, he chose us. You have not chosen me. I have chosen you, and this is why he chose us.

I think it's James 1 .18. Don't put it on now, but get that ready. I think that will be the next one. It's James 1 .18. I didn't have it written down here. You are a chosen people. You are not like the rest of mankind.

You can read John 17. You see, I'm not praying for the world. I'm praying for those that you gave me out of the world. You know, we have to get a stronger grip on that idea that we are saints. We are holy people, because God called us out of the world for a purpose, and once you're called as a saint, you don't have any other calling.

That's the only calling you have, is to be a holy one. Regardless of what you work at, you're calling. You were called out. You have not chosen me. I have chosen you. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Now, that is our goal, and that is why we have to go through these four levels of the water of the spirit if we're going to serve in our role. We can't stop anywhere along the line and say, well, I'm ready to go up and rest on my cot in heaven.

I'm ready to go up there, and I'm sure Jim and Mary Lou are, but that is not what God has called us to, a great retirement home in the sky. What God has called us to is to show forth his praises now and especially when the Lord returns with his saints.

Hallelujah! I get cranked about it. Why is God stressing that in these days? Audrey and I were in Pentecost in the 40s, and we know that message. We've been to Pentecost, and the things that we're stressing now today have been not what we were stressing in those days.

What we were stressing in those days was the baptism, get the Spirit, the Antichrist, the Catholic Church was babbling, and we were all supposed to fall away. The problem with that, Jim, you may remember that, but that was the doctrine.

I mean, the Catholic Church was babbling and Antichrist around the corner, and we were all falling away as fast as we could because we were appreciative of the great falling away. The only problem is God had another idea, and so along toward 1949, 1950, God began to prophesy in his church, I'm ready to move again, and he began to move, and as you know about David Duplessy and the charismatic movement and so on, and I'll tell you, God is not finished yet.

There's more good stuff coming down. Hallelujah! That old unpacked, there's more good stuff coming down. We're ready to go on with God, and what God is stressing, and it makes sense. Most of us believe the coming of the Lord is near.

Now, I'm not going to say it's going to happen tomorrow. It may not happen in 50 years from now, as far as I know, but if you stop to think about it, if the Lord is coming in his kingdom, and he's going to bring us with him to install his kingdom on the earth, and we're going to appear with him, as it says in Colossians 3, 4, then there has to be more done in the church.

If he's going to have a church without spot or wrinkle, it ain't there yet. I haven't noticed that it is yet. It isn't there yet, so obviously if the coming of the Lord is at hand, and he's going to come as king of kings and lord of lords, and we're going to rule with him, then we've got to have more than we have to the present hour.

My goodness, the churches are still having them, bitterness and division and every other thing, and this is not what you call spot or wrinkle. So there's got to be more. Thank God for what we have, but there's got to be more if we're going to reach the prize and the high calling of God in Christ.

Royal Priesthood and the Fullness of Christ

And so, as we might expect, that's what the Holy Spirit is talking about. That's exactly what he's talking about. So if our calling was something else, it would be different, but our calling is to be a priest, and a royal priest at that.

That is a governing priest. That is our calling, and that's why we have to go through these steps in God, is in order to be qualified, to be capable of this calling. Now, does that make sense to you? You know, goals are awfully important.

If you have the wrong goal, the whole system goes crazy. Goals are important, and our goal as God's people is to come up to the measure, the stature, the fullness of Christ. That's why we have ministries, to bring us to the stature and the fullness of Christ.

That's why we have ministry. Why are we coming to the stature and the fullness of Christ? Tell me. So we can serve as a tree of life. So we can serve as a priesthood. So these things aren't in there to mystify or frustrate us.

They're in there because this is the nature of redemption. We're being redeemed from everything that is of Satan and brought into everything that is of God. Hallelujah. It's not halfway there. It's not half Satan and half God.

We're pressing for the mark. We're pressing for the fullness, as it says in Ephesians 3 .19, the fullness of God. We're pressing toward the fullness. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. The Holy Spirit is speaking about obedience.

Amen. Preach it, Brother Thompson. I'm preaching it. All right. That you may declare the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. All right. Another word on that. Revelation 1 .6.

I don't know why these things have been kind of hidden to us. We know we say we're going to rule with Christ, but I don't think we pay enough attention to it. What does that mean? Rule with Christ. What in the world are we talking about?

Rule with Christ. When and where and how and over whom? Got to pay more attention to it because time is getting there. We're going to be ruling with Christ. We got to be ready. Got to go through these four steps.

Not only salvation and the Holy Spirit, but we've got to go through this death to our will. We've got to become humble, count it not a thing to be grasped, to be filled with God. Amen. Hallelujah. And all that.

All right. Now we're on Revelation 1 .6. He has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve his God and Father. To him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. This is what we are being made. It is a kingdom.

We talk about the kingdom of God. We don't even know what it is. We pray about it. Thy kingdom go, right? Thy kingdom come. God's kingdom is coming to the earth and we will be priests in that kingdom.

We will be rulers in that kingdom. That is our destiny. Somebody say amen. That is our destiny. That is our goal. That's where we're going. So we don't go through these things with God because they're nice or because we think it'd be a good thing to be spiritual.

It's because it qualifies us, trains us so that we can serve God in this kingdom as a priest over the people that God is saving. Hallelujah. When the Lord comes, everybody isn't going to be killed. We read in the Bible.

And we're going to appear with him. And we're going to rule with him. So we say we're going to rule with Jesus. Well we all say that, but now it's becoming real to us because the coming of the Lord is near.

So we have to start thinking, what does it mean to rule with Jesus? Where are we going to rule? Over whom are we going to rule? What in the world are we talking about? Rule with Jesus. But it's in the Bible.

It's in the Bible. Now you may not be carried away with the idea of ruling. I can't help it. That's what God calls you to. He has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve his God. All right, now we're on Revelation 5, 9, and 10.

Revelation 5, 9, and 10. I'm fixing to preach here in a minute. Revelation 5, 9, and 10. All right. And they, and this people up in heaven, they sang a new song, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain.

And with your blood you purchase men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom. Is that you? You suppose? You have made them to be a kingdom and priest to serve our God and reign.

I'll tell you the truth. When I first started preaching the kingdom of God, people thought I was Jehovah's Witness. I'm Jehovah's Witness. Heaven's sake, that's what the Bible teaches. We're going to rule in the earth.

You ever think about that? Have you ever seriously thought about that? That's the truth. That's why we're going through the water. That's why we're being made trees of life. Homey in here today, God has dealt with you this last week.

I mean, God has dealt with you. If God has dealt with you, it's been one of three lines. He has dealt with you about the love of the world, being too involved in the world. If you're all involved in the votes and everything, and you read the whole paper from page one to the last page, Alpha to Omega and all this, you're really getting too involved in the world.

Get out of it. We're in the world, but we're not of the world. Maybe God's been dealing with you and says, come on, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You're not of the world. God calls you out of the world.

By the way, did you dig up James 1 .18? I think that's what it is. I think that's what it is, if I might mind. You need to see this to get a proper vision of what God is doing. Brian will have that up there in a minute.

I'm pretty sure that's the verse. Somebody beat Brian to it. There we go. That's right. Now, if you'll get this concept, you'll have a much better grasp of salvation and of the kingdom of God. Notice what it says.

He chose to give us birth. Now, who do you suppose us is? Us. The people James wrote to. All right, us. Birth through the word of truth. Were you born again by the word of truth? That we may be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Now, you have to see that to understand the kingdom. Firstfruits is used a lot in the Bible. A term that's used a lot in the Bible, and it refers back to the Old Testament, where God asked them of their animals or of their grain or whatever, God wanted the firstfruits.

God refers to Israel as his firstfruits. He said to Pharaoh, you do this to my son, I'll do this to your son. Israel is God's firstborn. What that implies, when you have a firstfruits out of your field, let's say the first grain that was reaped was barley.

You get sheaves of barley, not the whole field, just some sheaves of barley, and you bring it to the priest, and the priest waves it before the Lord. That's the firstfruits before the Lord, a wave offering.

Then you go back and you start with the rest of the field. See, the firstfruits is not the whole field. Make sense? Capisce? It's not the whole field, it's the firstfruits from the field, the best beans on the vine, the best, the firstfruits.

That's what the church is. It's not the whole ranch. It's not all that God intends to deal with. The church has been called out from the world. You have not chosen me, I have chosen you. God has called us out from the world.

In the book of Acts it says, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. You have to preach the gospel to every creature, that's what it says in Mark 16. But from that preaching God will bring out the ones he has chosen.

Such a thing as the concept of election. And we are called out to be, like Israel, a firstfruits of God. Now what does that imply? That implies that it's the best in choices out of the field. But the field is the world.

And so our job is to be trained and filled with the spirit, made a tree of life, so that God then came through us, bless his creation. You're not getting saved to go up there and sit on a couch and read the funnies, or eat chocolate without getting fat.

You're being prepared to do something, not for you, but for others. It comes out of us. With joy you bring forth water out of the wells of salvation. There's no greater joy on earth than giving of the life of God out from your person to someone who needs it.

Hallelujah. And remember we were teaching a couple of weeks ago about every day, every day, every one of us should pray for more of the Holy Spirit. Ask and you shall receive. People come to us and they have a need, and we have no bread, and we're saying, God give us of your Holy Spirit.

God give us more of your Holy Spirit. We should be praying that every day. We ought to be baptized every day. We need more of the Spirit of God. Can you say amen? We need more of the Spirit of God. It needs to be created in us as a well.

Rivers of Living Water for a Dead World

Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles, not at the Feast of Pentecost, but at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 37 said, He that believes in me out of his innermost being. Pentecost is the rain, but God wants that Spirit coming out from his throne in us.

Out from his innermost being shall flow rivers, rivers, rivers, rivers of living water. We look at the world and we curse the world because they're doing this and they're doing that. The world is waiting for us.

What are they going to do? We've got it. If we belong to Jesus Christ, we have it. And God is aware of their pain. He's aware of the children that are dying of starvation. He's aware of the people that would serve God if they ever heard the word.

God sees the world. God so loves the world. But his church, it takes time. You can't build a saint overnight. You can't create people with living water in them overnight. We've all seen the different revivalists, or as many of us have in the 50s, and A. Allen was one, and there was a number of others in the healing ministries and so on.

But these things had their day, but they left because it wasn't the level that God wanted. They are signs, signs. These signs shall follow them that believe. But signs point the way. What are they pointing the way toward?

The righteousness of God. Hallelujah. So we have a ways to go. And the Spirit is ready today to take his church on past what we've known, building on what we've known, and then teaching us to be obedient to God.

God's people run around. They don't like what's being preached. They run to another church like a wild cult. Many of them have never learned to obey God. If you ask them if they're obeying God, they'll have to say it's impossible to obey God, or some other crazy thing.

God expects obedience. Hallelujah. We can't do a thing until we learn to obey God. The kingdom is based on obedience. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Not our will, God's will. And the problem with some of the early ministers, tremendous miracle workers, and God blessed them a great deal, was good.

But some of them were going in their own strength, in their own will. And God has a better thing than that for us. He wants us to have the glory, but he wants us to obey him. Obey him implicitly. Not seek our own glory.

Not see who's got the greatest tent. Not see who's got the greatest attendance or anything else. Thy will be done. Whatever he says to you, do it. And you live with it? All right. We are a firstfruits.

The church is not the whole reaping of God. The church is a priesthood, a royal priesthood, a ruling priesthood, called out from the people of the world to be trained by the Lord, to be brought through the four levels of the Spirit until we come back to the bank and can serve mankind as a tree of life.

The Revival of the Nations in Ezekiel 47

And that's why you see as you go on, in fact, we can do that. Listen, we finished with 5, 9, and 10. I didn't prepare you for this, Brian, but back to Ezekiel 47. You see where this is going. Oh, hallelujah.

These are old fires. I get wrapped up. These are old fires. 47. And you notice here, this is a great picture here of the revival that will take place when the Lord comes, same as Isaiah 60. Ezekiel 47.

We'll be there in a minute. Now notice, he led me back to the bank. This is verse 7, I believe. 7. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. Now these are saints. These are trees of life.

I'm not talking about cherry trees or something. He said to me, this water, what water? The Holy Spirit, flows toward the eastern region and goes down. Whenever you see east in the symbolism of the prophets, it refers to what?

Coming of the Lord. The day of the Lord. And goes down into the Arabah, that is down in the dry place where it enters the sea, the dead sea. It empties into the sea. The water there becomes fresh. Mankind in the Bible is viewed as a sea.

The wicked are as a sea. And so God wants to put his life into the dead sea of mankind. As it says, the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That is the dead sea of mankind.

God has in mind to save people. He's not going to return and kill everybody on the earth. He's going to save them. They're going to come to his light in his saints. And we've got to be prepared for that.

We're not going to be, the Lord isn't going to come, wave a magic wand, all of a sudden we're a great king and priest. This is not the way God works. Most of us in here are experienced Christians. Now tell me something, is it or is it not true that before God brings you into a place, he prepares you?

You've never noticed that? When God brings you into a place, he prepares you. I know God prepared us for pastoring. I spent most of my life in education. When we hit that church over there 25 years ago, and I've been here ever since, everything I ever learned in the public school, I needed it.