All That Is in the World — Art Katz

Thank you for the promotion, gentlemen. I'm P. F. C. Katz. Let's have a word of God, a word of prayer for this word, rather. Precious holy God, thank you for the marvel, the miracle of speaking out of earthen vessels.

Give this precious people a demonstration of just how true it is. May they hear through this Brooklyn accent the voice of the most high God. And may they, hearing precious God, respond. Save us from any ceremonial gesture, Lord, from mere speakings of men.

May we hear thy precious voice, Lord. Thank you for this occasion now, which we ask you to bless and perfectly fulfill for Jesus and for his kingdom's sake. Amen. I don't think it was just a little quip that I'm P. F. C., private first class Katz.

I still feel such a young believer, although it's now 14 years. Maybe it has something to do with the freshness with which a Jew is thrust into the kingdom of God, but it remains. And one of my continuing perplexities is the matter-of-factness with which God's people take the word of God.

The Radical Authority of God's Word

I almost have the growing impression that they believe that he has given us this holy word to be a subject for Bible studies or a platform for sermons. That we need somehow to be apprehended by the word and to apprehend it in the radical way that God intends.

I marvel that not more men fall on their faces before it. I marvel that there are not more glazed eyeballs rolled back into skulls and more spittle falling from the corners of mouths as they are confronted by the word of God.

Surely, if we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, it would bring us on our face. It would bring us into a clear and radical contradiction of everything that is about us. It would unfit us for the word, for the world.

We would be radically out of place. And though it's not part of my message, but I'll just throw it in. Where is your life essentially lived? Is it lived in the reality of the word, which is in contradiction to your senses, or is it lived in your senses?

Is it lived on the basis of that which you see naturally, or is it on the basis of what God says is so? For example, the theme of this morning, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world passes away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. Little children, it is the last time. Remarkable that John should say that to a generation 2 ,000 years ago, for whom it is more cogent than we.

If it was the last time 2 ,000 years ago, what is it now? How much more should we tremble before such words as these? But do you recognize the assault that language has suffered in modern times? That all no longer means all.

It's the title for a detergent, for washing machines. Do you think that God means what he says? All that is in the world, can he be that inclusive and that radical? Is all that is in the world really opposed and contrary to the kingdom of God?

We understand that drug addiction is and that orgies are and pornography is and all of the blatant and apparent evils. But how about that which is seeming and good? I think that it's in this area that the issue really is important and that we really need to see it.

If you've never seen the book by Watchman Nee bearing the title, Love Not the World, I would commend it to you. In the very first pages, he just culls out of the scripture many of the references to the world, and I'll just shoot them at you like buckshot just to revive your sense of what a fierce, hostile, and inhospitable place the world is for those of the kingdom.

He refers to the spirit of the world, the wisdom of this world, the fashion of this world, worldly lusts, the corruption that is in the world, the defilements of the world, all that is in the world. The world knew not God, the world hated Christ, the world cannot receive the spirit of truth.

Friendship of the world is enmity with God. My kingdom is not of this world, which, by the way, does not mean that he does not want a kingdom established in this world. The whole world lieth in the wicked one.

Do you believe that? I'll tell you that if you believe it, it will bring you to crisis. And my perplexity is that we're not more often in crisis, not more often confronted with the radical and the sharp edge of the word.

Peter's Confession and the Wisdom of the World

There's an episode in Matthew that will get to the heart of what I believe that God is about with us this morning, in a text that was brought up by Peter yesterday in Matthew, the 16th chapter, when Jesus asked, who do men say that I am?

And after they told him what was the conventional wisdom, then current, and the way that's peculiar of the Lord, he said, who do you say that I am? That's what I love about this God. I love a God who puts his finger in our chest.

Who do you say that I am? I love a God who does not allow the question to remain academic or general. And of course, there was bumptious hotshot Peter waving his hand in the master's face to volunteer the correct answer.

Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And you see his chest swollen with that good sense of the correct knowledge of things, and A for the day kind of spirit. Blessed art thou, Simon by Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And then it says that from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day.

Then Peter, the same one who only moments before had made this correct identification, took him and began to rebuke him saying, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. I'll tell you that if my Jewish people knew this scripture, but which of course they don't, nor do they know it very many others, they are as a class by and large biblical illiterates, but if they knew this scripture, they would applaud it.

This would speak to the cockles of their hearts. This would endear them to Peter. This is the kind of wisdom that they could instantly recognize. This is the kind of wisdom that they universally applaud.

This is the kind of response that universities to this day acknowledge and for which they give honorary doctorates. The world loves the kind of sentiment that was expressed by Peter. Let this be far from you, Lord.

It sounds so beguiling. It sounds so honorific. It sounds so filled with concern. It sounds so loving. It has every appearance of rectitude and right that if you lack discernment and you just hear the word nakedly, you'll miss all of the filth and the viciousness and the contention against God, against his kingdom, and against the salvation that is implied there.

There's something about the world's reaction to suffering that always says let this be far from you. And what is unspoken but which is equally clear is let it be far from me also. See, all of the wisdom of the world, all that has to do with morality and ethics, and I speak as a Jewish expert having trafficked in it for 35 years, has at its heart vile self-interest.

It's not the blatant evils against which we need to be warned, dear children of God, that this is the last time, but the apparent things that are good, the things that are seemly and beguiling, the things that come to us gobbed attractively and seem almost to serve the purposes of God but which in actuality contend against them.

Divine Severity and Speaking the Truth in Love

You're looking at a man who is vehemently opposed to sentimentality. I just hate that squishy, oily stuff. I hate that definition of love which is squishy, schmaltzy, as we Jews say, that sounds so good to the ear and sounds so beguiling but indeed is not love at all but some kind of palaver.

I love the kind of love that is divine, that comes from heaven and which often comes as cutting and often incurs pain which has to do with the divine severity of God which is so little exercised or expressed by God's people for they have been suckered into the world's definition of love and have been rendered inoperative, a bunch of schmaltzy platitudes which has no effect and no possibility to shape the character of men for eternity.

When have we last spoken the truth in love? When have we exhorted one another daily while it is yet today? When have we confronted one another with needful things as an act of love? I can't think of any greater expression than what is described in the second chapter of Galatians when some Johnny come lately by the name of Paul, recently an enemy of the faith and whose reputation is still suspect, confronted the very pillar of the church, Peter, and that to his face publicly for the purity of the gospel's sake.

Oh, may this spirit be restored to the church. May we no longer walk mincingly on eggshells and wear chintzy smiles and call that love. May we experience the divine severity of God that will make us like him.

Well, it's interesting to see what the response of Jesus was to this platitude of Peter's, which, by the way, had Jesus heeded it, There would not be a cotton-picking one of us in this room this morning.

I praise God for a son of God whose face was fixed as a flint and would not be distracted by beguiling human sentiment coming in the appearance of good. May you detest good as much as you love that which is perfect.

May you be as maniacal as I for that which is perfect only and be willing to suffer failure rather than any lesser standard than that which comes down from heaven. But how many of you dear men here who are pastors will be content with quote and unquote good services?

And how many of you would be willing to risk the pain of failure in the hope of the experience of the glory of God? How much have we lamentably fallen short of the glory of God because we have been too easily satisfied with that which is good?

We need to be reminded of the answer of the Lord to Peter. Let this be far from thee, Lord. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

It will do us well, all of us, to ponder that statement. I don't think anyone has ever adequately pondered the far reaches of what Jesus implied in that statement. You savor of the things which be of men and not of God.

Get thee behind me, Satan. I'm willing just to offer as a hypothesis this morning that what Jesus is implying is the equation of things that be of men with that which is of Satan. Can you believe that a formerly sophisticated Jew can be so changed, so converted that he sees things now ever and always in stark simplicity as a choice of one thing or another, always a choice of polarities and nothing in between?

It's light or darkness. It's flesh or it's spirit. It's of God or it's of Satan. It's of heaven or it's of hell. It's the kingdom of this present world or it's the kingdom of God. Stark polarities every time.

He equated that which is of men with that which is of Satan. Now let me just go on a bit from Watchman Nee, in which he says, The time has passed when we need to go out into the world in order to make contact with it.

Today the world comes in and searches us out. There is a force abroad now which is captivating men. Have you felt the power of the world as much as today? Have you ever heard so much talk about money?

Have you ever thought so much about food and clothing? Never in this sphere of things have we needed to know the power of the cross of Christ to deliver us as we do at the present time. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.

Maybe these English pastors have it right that one suit is sufficient. If it does nothing more than to save us from the preoccupation with color and fashion and style and fit, that would be sufficient to commend it.

I'm making a case this morning for ruthless separation from the world, not only from the things that are vile, but the things that are apparently good. He writes,. There is a spiritual force behind this world scene which by means of the things that are in the world is seeking to enmesh men in its system.

Have you ever thought of the world as a system? Although I'm not especially enthusiastic for the Schofield Bible, I will commend in the Revelations 13 a footnote on the world that is remarkable in which it describes the world as a system utterly opposed to God in every point in particular based on the satanic principles of power, lust, ambition, deceit.

Although outwardly garnished and made attractive by the things that pertain to education and culture and even religion, inwardly and totally opposed to God. Something like that. Are you aware of the world as that kind of a system ruled over by the prince of darkness and that the whole world lieth in the evil one?

Resisting the World's System in Church and Culture

How watchful we need to be lest at any time we'd be found helping Satan in the construction of that ill-fated kingdom. How many of us are employing the spirit of the world in our own religious and church practices?

How many evangelical organizations are flooding the mailboxes of the saints with multicolor lithograph junk inspired by the world by the principle of mass mailings by which you know that if you send out so many hundreds of thousands there is going to be a return sufficient to cover the expense and then some.

How many of us have condescended to the devices of the world to advance the purposes of the kingdom not recognizing that God's ends must be accomplished by God's means? How many of you have got the fever for building that seems now to be so endemic in the Christian world?

Million dollar and more. Great plants, we call them. A fever for buildings. Great impressive facilities which has more than we know taken its inspiration from the spirit of the world. There's only this one conflict in the universe, he writes, that whenever two conflicting courses lie open to us the choice at issue is never a lesser one than God or Satan.

Do we acknowledge that Satan is today the prince of education and science and culture and the arts? I can't tell you how painful an acknowledgement this is for me who had for so long luxuriated in culture, education, and the arts and wondered why it was that God had to send me back to the university to complete a master's degree after my conversion when I myself had no personal interest in attaining it.

I think it was primarily for this reason that I might see by the eye of the spirit what I could not have seen previously as an atheist on the same campus that there's no more savage cesspool, nothing more at the heart of this world system in all of its satanic power than what is to be found in academic realms.

As I have since become an encounter confrontationist by the grace of God at many university campuses I can tell you that just walking through the bookstores of some of these places is enough to sense the eerie chill of satanic power, the exaltation of mind and of intellect and the other values which are expressed there have been the grave of many precious young evangelical souls who have been sent there unwarily to their doom.

Not long ago I remember making a statement that I would no sooner send my kid to a university than I would to darkest Africa to the most foreboding mission places except by the same explicit call of the Holy Spirit.

I don't think that going to the university is the automatic logic to which Christian families ought to subscribe although they've done so without so much as an iota of thought as whether God approves.

They have been sucked in lock, stock and barrel to the conventional wisdom of the world that of course assures us that if a child is to make any kind of gain in the world he needs the advantages of education.

The course of my calling in God requires me to be almost continually staying at the homes of ministers throughout the world and I'm just coming to the shocking realization as I have an opportunity to glimpse their lives privately the enormous disparity between what they profess from the pulpits on Sunday and what is the actual substance and conduct of their life otherwise that when it comes to the basic decisions that touch their security, their well-being, their future and especially that of their children these decisions are made exactly as anyone else in the world makes them predicated upon human wisdom and not the counsel of God either by his word or by his spirit.

So I made this remark at a meeting and there was a man there, precious charismatic brother who was an executive of a corporation in that particular town and he was stunned by the audacity of that remark and he followed me along with others to the house where I was staying and I remember him sitting on the floor looking up at me still wearing that stunned confidence and said, what did you mean by that?

And in the answering of his question God gave him such a total requirement to submit his entire life to the light of the kingdom that that one question pertaining to the education of his daughter was only like the stone that had been thrown into a placid pool and now the ripples were concentrically going out to the farthermost reaches of his entire life.

And before that man got up from the floor that night God had shown him that the whole of his life needed to be examined in the light of God that there was more than the issue of education involved and that though he was a happy charismatic there needed to be made some searing and radical separations from the world.

This realm, the world has many strange facets. Sin of course has its prior place there and worldly lusts but no less part of it are our more estimable human standards and ways of doing things. The human mind, its culture and its philosophies all are included together with the very best of humanity's social and political ideologies.

Alongside these two we should doubtless place the world's religions wherever the power of natural man dominates there you have an element in that system which is under the direct inspiration of Satan.

Deliverance Through Separation from the World

I myself had a precious charismatic secretary and after the course of a few years with us and what a blessing she was, what a model, what an exemplary believer I could have offered her as the model of what a believer ought to be in freedom, in spontaneity, in originality in sincerity, in the knowledge of the word she was precious for God called her to a more challenging environment than what we presented at that time.

And she's now at a community of believers in Germany very stringent spiritual atmosphere and environment a fixed liturgy which violated all of her charismatic sensibilities. Fixed times of prayer, three times a day risings 5 .30 in the morning.

And despite all of her wonderful talent as a secretary and as a personality they put her in the laundry room for over a year, no personal privacy. And I remember after a year or so when I had an occasion to visit her.

She said, Archie, I feel like a drug addict. I feel like I'm coming off of drugs. This is like cold turkey, this is, what's the phrase. This is like withdrawal pains she said, I can't even get to a Chinese restaurant not even a chocolate bar.

And God has shown me the subtle psychic powers and reliefs that were to be had in such innocent things as Chinese restaurants and chocolate bars she said, it's like withdrawal. It's coming out of the world.

The essential character of the world is satanic. It is at enmity with God to see this is to find deliverance. Well, cats, you might say you've made some strong statements. And if the world is as vicious and as vile as this all the more in its subtlety and its power all the more because it is thoroughly insinuated in the things that are seeming and attractive and good that have to deal and touch the values which we have all along esteemed as education and culture and refinement.

Where is our safety? How would we find our way through such an inhospitable world as this and retain our integrity before God and not ourselves be snared as Satan was that we might be killed to hear the voice of the Lord saying to us get thee behind me, Satan.

Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac

That brings me to my text for this morning which is in the book of Genesis again in the 22nd chapter the familiar story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in which we read, it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham, and he said, behold, here I am take now thine son, thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

So Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and claimed the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him.

Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off and Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you.

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son and he took the fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together, it came to pass after these things. One of your precious men told me yesterday that he felt that this entire movement was at a threshold of God that there was an hour coming for this movement and I have an instinctive sense though I know little about you, practically speaking that he might be right after these things it came to pass the same Abraham who contended fiercely for Sodom and Gomorrah and argued with God for the preservation of that city.

And the same Abraham that shrieked, can't Ishmael live is the same Abraham who has now come to a place of utter silence when God requires of him his son. Will you understand me when I say that the only place of safety of thorough disengagement from the world and its power is not when we just lift our skirts and our pant cuffs from the muck that is visible in the world but when we bring to the place of total sacrifice that which is dear, given of God and spiritual is the opportunity for the subtle interweaving of our own fleshly self-interest the things that savor of men and not of God.

And I believe with all my heart you can make a note in the bottom of your Bible that every true ministry and every true minister that God will use in the end times those little children, these are the last days must pass through the fire must be brought into the dust of death must be brought to the final place of sacrifice and only that which God will resurrect and return will be safe for our use and for our participation.

Have you come to that place dear Holiness Pentecostal Church that you're ready to bring it to the mount of sacrifice. Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest. How we clutch such sons but God gave them to me.

It was born in revival, it came from heaven. True, but you've had a whole half century or more now to subtly interweave your own ambitions and your own self-interest in with that son. Well I'll tell you it's easier for us to be stretched out over the altar than that son.

But if God does not put his finger upon that which is dearest he doesn't have us. Are you willing to go up to the mount to the place of sacrifice and not some kind of mock religious gesture but to go up as Abraham did with the knife and with the fire.

How many of our sacrifices have not eventuated in the glory of God because we've gone up but we've not gone up really meaning it. We've not gone up with the intent to kill. We've not taken the knife. We may have lain something on the altar.

And if we've slain it, we've not brought the fire. And so we have in the last analysis something that is putrid and stinking but not the sweet smelling savor in his nostrils. What's the Isaac of the Pentecostal Holiness Church that God would ask of it now in this hour that came to pass after these things that he would have brought up to the mount both with the knife and the fire.

Abraham said to his young men you abide here with the ass, I and the lad will go yonder and worship. I'll tell you I know for a fact that there are things you ministers in your minds and in your hearts that have to do with your ambitions and your intentions for the future your building programs and your plans that should rightly be left below with the ass where they belong.

He doesn't want that. It's interesting that this is the first reference to the word worship to be found in the scripture. It has not to do with the quivering voice or any of the other things that we think constitute worship that impress us.

But it has to do with bringing something totally to the place of death. Maybe even the quivering voice itself. Maybe our Pentecostal style the kind of things that play upon our heart strings that are fleshly and sentimental and keep us stagnated and fixed at that one plateau from which we've not risen in decades.

Maybe that needs the knife and the fire. Are you willing? Stripped of your style and left dead naked. And let God resurrect that? Which is worth resurrecting? Oh I wait for that kind of Pentecostal movement.

And I'm not speaking as an outsider taking pot shots. I'm speaking as one who came to God in the Pentecostal movement and has continued ever since. So Isaac said where's the sacrifice? Behold the fire and the wood.

But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abram said my son God will provide himself a lamb for burnt offering. So they went both of them together. Wasn't that true? That when he lifted the knife above that son he found the ram caught in the thickets by its horns.

And may I tell you dear precious children that if you'll have the courage to go up both with the knife and with the fire bringing the very dearest of what you have hallowed by tradition the old time religion you'll find that God has something better waiting for you caught in the thickets.

If you'll bring your highest he'll give you his utmost. If you'll bring your utmost he'll give you his highest. There's something waiting in the thickets for that one who will bring the Isaac who is dear the son whom thou lovest.

Strange that we should come to such an ironic fix as this that the very traditions that we love that titillate our souls and our emotions which we identify with the word revival are the very things that require the knife and the fire.

If we are to enter into the transcendent place at the top of the mount for which God is calling us I'll tell you there's a cry for transcendence in the earth if you know what this word means something above, something beyond, something that goes beyond religious categories in which the glory of God is and for which all mankind is organically crying though they know it not for which they're going berserk and leaping off of bridges and pumping junk and heroin into their veins and cheating on their wives and doing all of the desperate things that men do who are organically crying out for a transcendent life which needs to be brought down from the mount to a son of obedience who will go up with his dearest Isaac your precious Pentecostal services are not going to impress my Jewish mother as a matter of fact if I know Jews at all they will recoil from the very things that delight you as Pentecostals.

They'll call it hokey and affected. They'll see it as a religious culture. And you know what folks, they're right. There's something more than the quivering voice and the religious cliches and the pulpit thumping but it's only to be found up at the mount.

For those who will bring their dearest Isaac there on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. I believe that the angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven and said do not lay your hand on the lad nor do anything to him.

For now I know that you fear and revere God since you have not held back from me or begrudged giving me your only son since you have done this and have not withheld from me or begrudged giving me your son, your only son, that in blessing I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply you.

Transcendent Ministry and True Multiplication

One of your precious pastors told me over some ice cream yesterday that unlike the assemblies of God and other Pentecostal movements you have not multiplied. And you know what my spirit did? It rejoiced hallelujah!

Because I don't think that we ought automatically to be impressed by multiplication of the kind that we've seen up till this hour by men who are so slavishly impressed and moved by numerics. I'm looking for this multiplication God adding to the church daily such as he'll be saved.

But what a church it was. Look how they love one another. Why no man thinks that the thing which he has is his own. Those that believe were together with great power gave they testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and great grace was upon them to that church God added daily such as he'll be saved.

Oh forget your hokey programs and taking people on airplane rides as they bring ten more to the Sunday school class and all of the other incentives and stupefying things we do that are a shame and an embarrassment.

But come up to the place of transcendence and in multiplying he'll multiply you. Because you have done this. Just let me end with this. And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Hallelujah to see children from this kind of transcendent church going forth into the nations of the world not to reproduce hokey Pentecostal chapters with the same inflections in the voice and the same quiver and the same gesticulations and manner and style but authentic expressions of a transcendent kingdom in which is sanity and hope and truth and reality and the glory of God in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed and by him bless themselves.

Because you have heard and obeyed my voice. I have a little question before you this morning. Is this some Jewish eccentric speaking. Or can it be very God calling you to a kind of an obedience of ultimate trembling.

So Abraham returned to his young men and they rose up and went with him to Beersheba. There Abraham. What a glorious conclusion. And I mentioned Beersheba yesterday when Jacob fled from Beersheba to Haran going the wrong way he went from the city of seven wells the picture of the spirit of God given without measure.

No more. These little gifts of the spirit for which we're so gleeful and excited because it sparks the congregation and gives a little luster to otherwise inept and grey houses of God. I'm sick of this talk of the renewing of the denominations when there's a God who has more profound purposes in restoring apostolic glory.

Men speaking of the Holy Spirit as if it were an adornment the spirit of God given without measure to those who dwell at Beersheba. You'll not dwell there until you have gone up to the mount with your Isaac and met God in the place of transcendence with the knife and with the fire.

And here's this last beautiful point that the spirit of God impressed me. So Abraham returned unto his young men and they rose up and went together to Beersheba. You know what I have a feeling guys if you'll take your Isaac up to the mount when you come down you're going to come down to a new relationship with the young men.

I don't know exactly what that means. May the spirit of God fill it in for us. Whether it means those in our own congregations to whom we have only been superficially related because God is going to free us from the subtle idolatry that in here in our own families which is one of the most subtle hiding places of self.

Or does it mean the young men of other denominations with whom we've not been able effectually to relate. I can only say this, it may mean all of these things but I know it, that when we come down from that mount we're going to go on in a new way with the young men together to dwell at Beersheba with all of the talk about the body of Christ.

It's almost become a glib formula an unctuous reference that everyone is expected to make we all speak of it. It's become another patsy formula. And we're touching the things that pertain to the very glory of God unto God be glory in the church world without end.

The body of Christ, the thing over which Paul palpitated passionately. The mystery that was concealed from the beginning of the age now being revealed. The walls of partition being broken down. A quality of life between men of different origins and races that will astound the earth.

Not just this kind of cordiality of sitting alongside each other in pews that can the Rotarians do and the Elks and the Moose and all the rest but such a quality of life demonstrated in relationship that bespeaks another kingdom.