Book of Luke - Ch. 18, Vs. 1-8 (04/25/2004)

I think we're in Luke 18 .1, aren't we? Actually I'm in Nahum chapter 1 here.

I need to change pages. Wonder how long you could study that tabernacle

Sunday after Sunday. Not that I would do that, but I'm just, it is amazing the pictures that are there.

Not only - I have that video of Brother Rocky there. Oh, really? Oh, you know, we need to put that together someday.

Don't throw it away. Oh. Because I think the other, remember we made two tapes, I think the other one's gone now, so.

Okay, let's see, Luke chapter 18. Let's start with verse 1 and we will end with verse 8.

Verse 8 is an amazingly interesting verse to see, you know, what does

Jesus mean by this? And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint, saying there was in a city a judge which feared not

God, neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him saying,

Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself,

Do I fear not God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said, and shall not

God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily, nevertheless, when the

Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth. Isn't that interesting?

How does that tie in with that parable, that last phrase? And the word nevertheless ties it in directly with that parable.

I like the verse as a standalone myself. Verse 8, I like to use that,

I've used it many times. When the Son of man cometh, will he find faith on the earth? I believe it means will he find the faith, will he find a church doing what the early church was supposed to be doing.

But isn't it interesting that the word nevertheless ties that in with the above saying. So let's study this little passage, which is obviously a passage dealing with prayer.

And I do think that it's a passage, some of it is, it's not all comparison, some of it is contrast.

And I'll show you what I mean as we get to it. But let's look, go back to verse 1 and look at some of the words. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not faint.

The word ought in the English is a weak word, whereas in the

Greek, it's a very strong word. In the Greek, it's the word da, which means necessary.

And you can see how this is stronger if you read it this way. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that it is necessary that men always pray.

You see, that's stronger than saying men ought to pray, because we use the word ought to nowadays as like you ought to, but you probably won't.

That's how we think. In the Greek, it does not mean that. In the Greek, it says it is necessary that men pray.

That's strong, strong word. Now the word always, it says it is necessary that men always pray.

The word always literally is a Greek word, which means at all times. So what this does is it sort of ties in with the message this morning in a way, because we looked at that tabernacle and the fact of that gold on top of the wood pictures the oneness of our spirit and the

Holy Spirit being, you know, that he is laid right over us. We're baptized. Think about it this way.

That wood was baptized in gold. Now we've got to find out how the process was.

I don't know where to begin. I don't even think Unger's Bible Dictionary discusses it. So I'm not sure where to find that out, but we should be something written on it somewhere.

But any way you look at it, the wood is baptized by the gold because it's totally surrounded and engulfed within the gold.

The wood is immersed inside the gold. If you look at that box from any angle, in fact, the scriptures, the words say it was overlaid with gold, both outside and inside.

So if you open it and look in, all you see is gold. If you look from the outside to underneath the top, inside looking in it, it comes out and wraps, goes down the whole thing.

You don't see wood anywhere. And that picture is how God sees you right now. He does not see the old man.

If he did, you would die. He sees the new man, the risen man, the new nature, and it cannot sin.

And I'm talking about God the Father. As he views you, he sees that gold. Well, we can think of it as where the gold and the wood unite, however that happens.

They sort of become one. One comes into the other, and the other into the one. We can talk about that in terms of us being spirit -filled.

Now this is positional and experiential. By positional,

I mean this. It doesn't matter what you do, the Father sees the gold. That's positional truth, and it's taught all through the

Bible, that once you are born again, and isn't it beautiful that the skin, there were three types of skin that cover that whole tent, which pictures you, the tent pictures you.

One of them is dyed red, so that if the Father's going to look through that skin to see the inside, he's looking through the blood.

He is looking through the blood and seeing only the gold. That's awesome. And it doesn't matter what you do today, he will only see the gold.

That's positional truth. Now there is also experiential truth taught in the Bible, and the truth is that the

Lord Jesus, the one we call the Lord, it does matter what you do today on the experience side because he views that.

He can view that. You see, it's not Jesus that those cherubims are protecting the holiness of, it's the

Father. Jesus is the box inside the big tent, which is you, and he's in you and he's both wood and gold also, like you are.

And the truth is experientially when we sin, the

Lord Jesus deals with that, and that's why he told us we need to have our feet washed.

He said, you don't have to be washed all over again, that's salvation. You are bathed in the blood, but your feet are walking in this world, and Jesus is telling you right there that you lapse out of that, you lapse out into the flesh.

How Satan does that? I got some insight into that last week, more than I'd ever had when

I heard your Sunday school lesson on how Satan tempted Eve, because you have to think a little bit on there because Eve had not sinned yet, so they're not like us.

We tend to think of Adam and Eve through our eyes like they're like we are, but they weren't. They were vastly different before they sinned.

Now after they sinned, they became more like us. We can identify with that more, but to think of how they were in that perfect paradise before sin, how could

Satan tempt them? And Brother Otis pointed out he had to come from the outside because he could not enter them in any way, their mind or their thought life, because they were perfect.

They were in Christ. They were perfect. They could not. But he came to her from the outside and brought this temptation, and she could see that, even being a perfect woman, she could see that, and he brought her out of that perfect situation into the flesh.

And I thought, that's how it works with us, because when we are spirit -filled, do you know that Eve was a pretty good picture of us?

When we are one with the Spirit of God, which means one with Christ and one with the

Father, attached, like that gold is attached to that wood, it's one. It is two things, but it's one also.

When we're like that, Satan cannot possess our heart or our minds or enter our thoughts.

All he can do is show you something that's out there in that world to try to pull you back down out of that stake and separate the two, and now you're just wood.

Now the beautiful thing is, from God's view, he always sees the gold. But the

Lord Jesus has to deal with it when we get off into the wood, the natural man. And he has ways of dealing with it.

One is, there is going to be the judgment seat of Christ, where we do deal for the experiences. But I believe that's going to be

Jesus dealing with it, not the Father. I think the Father looks at us, he sees us forgiven, he sees us as if we've never sinned, that's the definition of justification.

He sees the gold. But Satan comes to us and he shows us some temptation.

Now there are far more than one piece of fruit now. There's just a vast world full of temptations for us now that he can bring before us.

I will say he can come from your mind, from this viewpoint, he can bring something out that you put in, that he had put in ten years ago.

That's why it's so devastating for young boys to get involved with pornography. And I can't even speak for girls,

I don't know how girls are nowadays. I think they're somewhat different than they were when I was growing up. There are things girls can get involved with at a young age that can damage them because it puts fleshly, carnal things in that computer, that Satan can bring that out of that computer and show it to you again and tempt you with it years after you looked at it.

That's just one example. So he has a myriad of ways that he can present this fruit to us, but he cannot force you to come out of that perfect state.

Because when you are spirit -filled, you are in as perfect a state, in a sense, as Eve was before she fell because you are wood with that gold attached to it and you're one with the very spirit of God and you cannot sin.

The new man cannot and will not sin. So the only way he can cause you as an individual to sin is to pull you out of that state somehow and to me that's still a mystery.

But it worked with Eve. And so I don't understand all the workings of how that can happen.

If I'm in a perfect state, why would I sin? You know, that's my question. If I'm in a perfect state and I'm one with Christ and my new nature can't sin, how can

I ever sin again? But Eve did and she was perfect. So we learn from that that it does happen and it can and Satan has a way to do this and it's through temptation.

We don't know all the mechanisms of it, but it is beautiful. Now as we look at this verse for this afternoon, this is a great key.

Men, necessary always to pray. Could that be telling us from Jesus' own lips that if you want to stay one and not sin, it is necessary for men to always be praying.

You say, well, I can't always pray. Then you can't always be in the spirit. Now I don't mean prayer, it doesn't necessarily mean prayer where you are literally specifically asking because Brother Bill, you couldn't do a mathematical computation or Brother Clarence, you too at school trying to help a child with algebra and still be praying verbally at the same time.

That doesn't mean you lapse into the flesh while you're working the math problem at all. But it is a state of mind that I believe begins through prayer.

We have somewhat of that ability, I guess, Brother Otis, that Adam and Eve had. Your theory is that they could commune with God without speaking, that they didn't have to speak.

They had the mind of Christ. They could just communicate back and forth before the fall, and then after they fell, they had to talk to God.

I think that's very likely because I think we have that ability. When we're in the spirit, we don't have to talk.

We can commune with God from our mind to his mind through the Holy Spirit because we're attached by that gold picture is the attachment.

Our spirit has become one with the very Spirit of God. That's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in us.

That's why in John, Jesus said, we will come and make our abode in you if you obey the Father and if you love me.

You have that oneness pictured. That begins through prayer from our heart going up to the

Lord at some point in the morning after you wake up. I don't know where you are when you have that experience when all of a sudden you become aware of your oneness with God, but you felt it.

You know what I'm talking about. You wake up and some of us more than others are in the flesh when you wake up seemingly.

I mean, I'm just terrible early in the morning. Charlotte wouldn't say amen to that if she were in here, but there comes a point where God just fills my heart and I am reminded that I'm not only saved, but he's with me and I'm in him and I'm one with him.

If I could maintain that all day, I would not sin. Some of you say, well, that proves you don't, but well, sometimes we don't, but it is necessary that men always pray.

Now look what it says and faint not. Now this, so I'm going to take prayer, even though this word prayer, literally in the

Greek language, this particular word means, uh, to supplicate. It comes from two little words, pros, which means move motion towards something like we use the word pro in English movement towards something and you coma he, which means to wish.

So it means to move towards wishing for something, not wishing like we use the word, but desiring something or requesting.

So prayer literally is to move toward requesting something from God. So, uh, men, it is necessary that men always be moving towards requesting something with God or from God.

And the word, uh, pray, as I said, means to request always means at all times to pray.

Now look at this and not to faint. The word faint literally means to be weak.

It can mean to be bad in the Greek language. This word it's translated faint.

It's a cocky. It can mean to be bad, but it more often means to be weak, but you know, you can't be bad if you don't become weak, can you?

And so by implication, it means to fail in the heart. So when you read this, it says, it is necessary that men always go toward asking of the father and not become bad or weak.

So I believe verse one is a great key to how to be spirit filled. It is to have a mind and we, we know this, we learned it from other verses, haven't we?

But it's beautiful to get it from the word meanings in this verse one, uh, is it is necessary that men always be moving toward asking or supplicating toward God so that they not become bad or weak.

That only happens if you're in the flesh. So if you're, if you are communing with God and I won't say communicating because like I said, you couldn't do the math problem and communicate the way we think of communication anyway, but you can do the math problem and commune with him.

Can you not? You can be in Christ and be working gentlemen, if you're at work, you can be doing the task that you've been laid out for you today and be doing that task and be in Christ or you can be doing that task and be in the flesh, but it all begins with a heart that is always communing.

It is necessary and I think the word ought, I wish the English, the

King James people had translated that necessary instead because it just shows the strength of it. You're not going to be able to be in the spirit if, if you're not in this mode, always at all times communing with God so that you will not be weak or bad.

I think that's enough for this afternoon's lesson and that one verse, I was going to cover all those, but I'll have to share them with brother

Otis at this point and we'll gladly do so. Let's pray and we'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you for this lesson in this verse.

Thank you for how you can tie that in with our understanding of what we studied this morning of how it is to, to be one with you.

We still maintain our identity and yet it is the perfect identity that you have built us to be and to have, and that is to be filled with you so that you would show us the words to say and the deeds to do as we take the steps.

And the only way we can do this, Lord, is it is necessary to be always moving towards communion with you.

Help us to desire that with all of our hearts more than any other thing, and we will grow to be more like Jesus every day if we learn to live this way.