The Dispensation of the Gospel - Lesson 4 — Robert Wurtz II

Continuing the Gospel Dispensation Series

We're going to continue our study this morning in this series I've entitled The Dispensation of the Gospel, Rediscovering the Workings of the Holy Ghost. We talked in the first lesson about the born-again experience, the genuine born-again experience.

We looked at the three different states of sinners, that being careless sinners, awakened sinners, and the convicted sinners. We looked a little bit then at what it was like to be born again and some of the characteristics of someone who's truly been born again.

And then the second week, we had a little addendum to that lesson, which was crucified with Christ. And we talked about how the old man is crucified with him. And then last week we began moving on in our studies as well, and we looked at some of the means and ways in which we walk in the Spirit and the importance of being full of the Holy Spirit in order to keep our flesh mortified and the desires of flesh mortified.

Filled With His Presence

And I want to move on this week, and I've entitled this particular lesson, Filled with His Presence, Filled with His Presence. When I first became a Spirit-filled believer, and God really did a work in my life back in the early 90s, it might have been 1992 at this point, I learned three very simple axioms or truths that I've really tried to live by to some degree or another ever since.

And every time I reach a level of personal revival or I see God really bringing me to a place of personal revival, I always come back to these three things. And if you want to write them down, they're not in your notes this morning, I want to give them to you.

The first one is, until you get a revelation of God, you will not reverence God. The first one is this, until you get a revelation of God, you will not reverence God. Secondly, if you do not reverence God, you will not worship God.

If you do not reverence God, you will not worship God. And the third one is, if you do not worship God, His presence cannot be on your life. That is a very powerful progression, but it begins when we get a revelation of who God is.

I believe that God, in many minds, especially in our day and age, has, as it were, been diminished of who He really is. Our brother talked about it in his prayer this morning. Many questions being asked, but the bottom line is, God is still God, and if we would get in the Word of God and get revelations of God from His Word, and allow His Word to come alive in us by the Holy Spirit, we would gain an all new reverence for God.

And when we gain that reverence for God, we can worship God. And in worshiping God, we can invite His presence to be upon our life continually. See, I believe that we must have the Holy Spirit in its fullness in our life to walk in the Spirit.

So much of the New Testament is left misunderstood, let me say that, because people do not realize that it requires being filled with the Spirit in order to live it out. Scriptures in the Book of Romans make absolutely no sense if you have no concept of what it means to be filled with the Spirit.

But if you are full of the Holy Ghost, the passages make perfect sense to you. Same thing with the Book of Galatians, when the Bible talks about if you will walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

What is He talking about? If you live your life full of the Holy Ghost, you will not be going after the things of the flesh. But when you start to get cold, when you start to get indifferent, and you lose touch with what it means to be filled with the Spirit, all of a sudden these passages don't make sense anymore.

You start wondering, well, what are they saying here? What is God saying to me through this passage? You must be filled with the Spirit to understand it. But it all begins with the revelation of who God is.

And once you get that revelation, you will reverence God. And in that reverence, you will worship. And when you worship, His Spirit will come upon you. Our text this morning, this people draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. That's Matthew 15, verse 9 and 10. At the root of all spiritual declension or backlighting, there is an inaccurate and unworthy conception of the character of God and an overestimate of man.

Matthew 5, 15, 9 and 10 is a reference to Isaiah 29, 13, which tells us of a time when the leaders in Israel were teaching the fear of the Lord by the precept of men. See, this is something that happens whenever God is no longer present among the people.

All of a sudden, people start redefining what it is to walk with God. And His fear is taught by the precept of men, their concept of what it is to be holy, their concept of what it is to be a Christian.

In our times, like the days of Israel, something has been lost in the body of Christ, and it is the reverence for a holy God. Many do not fear Him. They have a satanic pride and arrogance birthed from a gospel of humanism.

Men worship a God of their own making, a God who they feel is a means to their own end. Yet there is something, listen, worth examining in the book of Job, the words of Job that we come to in chapter 23, verse 15.

Job's writing said, When I consider the Lord, he said, I tremble and I stand afraid. A paraphrase of this is when I consider the Lord, I stand in awe, trembling inside and out. I want you to think about this for a minute.

Job is the first book that we believe ever written in Holy Scripture. It's the oldest book in the Bible. And Job is telling us that when I stop and consider, when I ponder the Lord and all of His majesty, he said, I tremble and I'm afraid.

The word tremble is the Hebrew word pakad, and it means to shake on the outside. The word afraid is the word bahal, and it means to palpitate inwardly. So what Job is saying, when I really consider the Lord, I tremble inside and out.

Isn't that a far different concept of God than what we see today? Do you really ever stop to consider the Lord? Do you get a revelation of who God is and His awesome majesty? You know, the passage in Isaiah chapter six, verse one, where Isaiah said, I saw the Lord high and lifted up.

His train filled the temple, and then I said, woe is me, for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. See, that was his reaction to the revelation of God. In this particular lesson, I want to show two specific things.

First, the fear of God accompanies the presence of God. And secondly, true worship invites the spirit of God to fill believers. First, the fear of God accompanies the presence of God. In our text, we have a reference to Isaiah in which we are told the teachers of Israel taught the fear of the Lord by the precept of men.

This is the fear of the Lord according to man and not according to the revelation of God's word and His Holy Spirit. Israel would prove over and over again that they were not interested in the glory of God.

So you can take the Bible and make a religion of your own out of it if you want. But when God accompanies His word and when God is present among the people, there will be a reverential awe and fear of the Lord that is in place.

When God is near, the fear of God need not be taught by men's precepts to be experienced. Of course, we can teach the fear of the Lord. The Book of Proverbs talks about this, and this is all very important.

But scripture is filled with accounts of men and of angels that are falling on their faces in the presence of God. You know, that's what the word worship really means. It means to fall prostrate on the floor.

Prostrate. You really never worship until you really get prostrate before God. We stand on our feet and we worship and we do a lot of things, and that's really awesome. But we need to get to a place in our life with God where we realize that we need to utterly humble ourself in His presence.

It seems to be nearly an automatic response to the majestic splendor of God that men and angels will fall before the presence of God. When God is not near, the fear of God is taught by the precept of men.

When God is not near, men draw nigh to God with their mouth. They honor Him with their lips. When God is not near, it is because the people's hearts are far from Him. And though they lift up their voices as a trumpet and sing with great harmony and precision, it is all in vain.

Why? Because their words and their heart do not match. The Bible talks about their drawing nigh with their mouth, their drawing near with their lips. But their heart is far from me. See, God is looking on the heart.

Worship Begins With an Altar

Secondly, worship begins with an altar. The entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament was in place for the purpose of allowing man to maintain somewhat of a relationship with God. It is a picture of what Christ has done for us on the cross.

Yet we read in Exodus 20, verse 25,. And if thou will make an altar of stone, thou should not build it of hewn stone, for if you lift a tool upon it, you have polluted it. The beauty of an altar of hewn stone was of no consequence to God.

You know, God's not interested in all of our extras and all of these things that we think are so important. You can worship God in your house and God be just as pleased if you were to worship him in a setting where everything was going right, everything looked beautiful and all of that.

We need to realize it's not about the beauty of the altar, it's about the sacrifice that goes upon that altar. We're to worship God in the beauty of holiness. God is not a man that is well pleased by outward beauties.

God is well pleased when his people listen, worship him from a pure heart and in sincerity, deep sincerity. But again, where does this begin? It begins when we have a reverence for God. You cannot worship God without a reverence for God.

I challenge you to get into the book of Isaiah, chapter six, the book of Revelation, the book of Ezekiel. Go back to the book of Job, read Job 38 and 39. Read those passages where God is manifesting his awesome majesty.

Get revelations of God. Let the Holy Spirit begin to deal with you so that you will grow a deep reverence for God. So your concept of God and the way you view God dictates the whole way in which you live.

Do you know that the lower your concept of God, the less you're going to worship and serve and trust him or any of that. It all begins with our revelation of who God is. I've often wondered why is it that it seems that every time somebody genuinely gets saved, they head to the book of Revelation.

Like, why is that? I used to kind of poke fun at it. Why does everybody go to the book of Revelation? And I begin to wonder, you know, maybe that's God leading them there, because when you go to the book of Revelation, you're going to get visions of the glory of God.

You're going to get visions of the majesty of God. And unless that's part of the very foundation of your Christian upbringing and your learning and teaching, you really can't go far from there. Where are you going to go?

And so you really get a reverential off for God. You're never going to worship God. You're never going to serve him. God wants us to worship him from a pure heart and sincerity, but God wants all of us.

He wants all of us. He wants the entire stone, as it were, to build in holy habitation. If we keep back part of ourselves, we are tooling the stones. You ever thought of that? Bible said we are lively stones that are building together in this temple.

God wants all of us. He don't want us holding back a portion. He don't want a tool being taken to our life and saying, you know, God, I'm going to give you 90 percent, but I'm going to keep this part back for myself.

He wants the whole stone. He wants the whole thing. He wants all of you. He wants your whole heart. We keep back part of ourselves. We're tooling our stone in this regard. We are not just polluted by the profane thing that might be added to our life, some sin or some compromise, but by what part of ourselves that we are holding back.

See, we can't worship God until we give God 100 percent. So we give him our all. Thirdly, you also as lively stones are built up as a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Becoming the Temple of God

Now, studying for this lesson and even meditating upon it this morning, the Holy Spirit kept dealing with me along a very, very simple thing, very simple. And I've never heard God really speak this to me in this way.

So I want you to kind of turn this up for a minute. The Lord was saying to me, just focus on being the temple of God. Just focus in your life on being the house of prayer that you're supposed to be. Just focus on walking and being the habitation of God by the spirit.

And if you will do that, everything will flow rightly from there, everything, your work, your service for God, everything. If you will just be that just be the temple everywhere you go, you can't help but make an impact if you're walking, being the temple of God, full of the glory of God.

You can't help but be an impact. You can't help but be salt and light. But what we do so often times is we think I'm going to go to church and then I'm going to get into the presence of God. That is false thinking.

You should walk in the presence of God. You should be like the wilderness tabernacle. You should be a portable, moving temple of the living God, the habitation of God, where the glory of God is flowing out and shining forth.

That's what our walk should be like as we go about in this Christian life. Say, man, Christianity can be very complex. Let me simplify it. Just focus on being the habitation of God by the spirit. Focus on that and let everything flow from there.

You are lively stone. You build up a spiritual house. You are a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. This passage parallels Romans 12 and 1, which tells us present our bodies, therefore, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual worship.

King James says your reasonable service. It's our spiritual worship. What is that? To live our life walking as a living sacrifice before God. This is the purpose as to why God saves men. That's why he saved you.

He didn't save us just so that we could miss hell and go to heaven. He saved us in this life so that we could become temples of the living God. And walk with God living in us. Is there another religion like that?

Is there any other religion in the world where God comes to live inside of the person? That is what we have in Christianity. The father is seeking such to worship him. We think God is seeking workers.

We think God is seeking preachers. We think God is seeking all these things. You know, God is seeking people that will worship him. And when he finds the people that will worship him, that his spirit can come and reside in that worship, in that praise, he can do a work in that people.

But too often we get the cart before the horse. We think God is more interested in us going out and doing a work. We think he's more interested in the fact of whether or not we witness. Friend, you've got the cart before the horse.

If you will worship God, if you will become the habitation of God by the Holy Spirit, all those other things will be added unto you. You can't do one without the other. It all begins with our worship of God.

A Vision of God's Majesty

Fourthly, you will never worship God until you get a vision of who God really is. You'll never see God for who he is until you make a leap from time into eternity. And the only way you can do that is to get in the books I mentioned, get in the book of Revelation, get in Isaiah six, get in the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel.

I like the way Ezekiel starts out. He talked about being at the river Chebar and he said, all of a sudden the heavens opened and I saw visions of God. What a way to open up a book. Sends a chill right up my back.

Just reading that makes me just want to keep reading. Well, tell me about this God. Show me this God you saw, Ezekiel. Tell me what you saw. I want to have that vision. I want the Holy Spirit to quicken that God in my heart that I might reverence him.

And when I reverence him, I might worship him. And when I worship him, his presence will be upon my life. When I walk with him, you'll never see God till you make the leap from time into eternity. This is a hard thing, but there's something about drawing nigh unto God in which he draws nigh unto us and we taste of the powers of the world to come.

You know, there's a place where you can walk with God. There's a secret place of the most high where you can live in, where the spirit of God will come down and dwell in you and walk in you. You can entertain that presence all day through your life.

There's no need in God having to lift off you. You can walk in that presence if you only will. Isaiah tells us of a God who is high and exalted, angels that utter their voices and the doorposts of the temple shape.

Job tells us of a God who speaks from a whirlwind, a God that demanded him that he would stand upon his feet, gird his loins and answer him like a man. You ever read Job 38 and 39? We're serving an awesome God, church.

And if you get a revelation of who God really is, you will reverence him. You will reverence him. In Revelation, we read of voices like thunder, voices like a trumpet and a voice that is like the sound of many waters.

In Genesis, the cherubim wield flaming swords in all directions. But before the throne of God, day and night, they cry, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory.

What is he saying? He is separate. He is other. He is unlike you. Over and over, day and night, they cry these words, separate and other. Fifth, the revelation of God's creation itself is enough to stagger the mind with awe and wonder.

God's Creation and the Awe of His Glory

The fearfulness with which God has wonderfully and fearfully made us. Have you ever just looked in the mirror and thought, God is an awesome God? You ever get a report back from the doctor and think, could we really be this complex?

Could we really be this wonderfully made? It gives you visions of God and his greatness. The creation alone is enough to fill our hearts with amazement at his eternal power in Godhead. The angelic hosts, which are greater in power and might than we are, are only more exhibitions of the awesomeness of his creativeness.

Great power. Have you ever just done a study of the revelation of God and how he has created angels, how awesome they are, how angels speak with their mouth and it sounds like a trumpet talking? If that is God's creation, how awesome is God?

How much are we to stand in wonder of who he is? God is beyond us. His ways are past finding out. There is none likened unto him. Six, the time was failed to deal with the sheer number of times that men and angels are said to fall prostrate in the presence of God, the disciple whom Jesus love fell in Revelation 117, the 20 and four elders fell in his presence in Revelation 5, 18 and 8 and 14, the angels, the four beasts and the elders fell in Revelation 7 and 11.

The elders fell again in Revelation 11, 16, the four and 20 elders, the four four beasts all fell down and worship God that sat on the throne. Here's what they said. I mean, in Hallelujah, the highest praise that could possibly be given Revelation 19 for moreover, rereading Philippians 2, 9 through 11, wherefore, God have highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.

That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in the earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

Worship and the Fullness of the Holy Spirit

Listen, in that day, everything that has breath is going to praise the Lord. Is that the God you serve this morning? Secondly, true worship invites the spirit of God to fill believers. I want to say this first.

God saved us to make us a house of prayer. You hear that? God saved us to make us a house of prayer. What did he say? My house shall be called the house of prayer. You are temples, little tabernacles of God by the spirit.

God saved you so that you could walk in that fellowship and communion with him all the days of your life that you could pray without ceasing that the praise of God would be continually upon your lips and all these things.

First, everyone has just as much of God's Holy Spirit as they want. If they are filled with little, it is because they desire only a little. If they are full, it is because they desire to be full. Yet we are commanded to be filled with the spirit.

This is full invitation, unhindered, for God the Holy Spirit to walk and live in us. See, this is the part of our Christian life that is the most difficult. Because when God comes in, God takes over. When God comes in, he is calling the shots.

When God comes in, it is about what he wants to do and not about what I want to do. But what we want to do so often times is say, God, I want you to come this near to me, but I don't want you to be fully near.

And again, we go right back to the story of Lot. Lot never wanted to be on the mountain. He never wanted to be where God was. He wanted just a little compromise, just a little bit of Egypt. And just a little bit of Egypt will grieve the Holy Spirit a whole lot.

This is full invitation, unhindered for God the Holy Spirit to walk and live in us. How do we make the invitation? How do we invite God the Holy Spirit to live in us? What is the means of inviting the Holy Spirit to live in us?

Scripture teaches us in Ephesians 5, 18 -20, Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in songs and hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

See how it ultimately always ends up right back at the fear of the Lord, the reverence for God. I want to point some things out in this passage because I think it's very important. He said, Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be you filled with the Spirit.

It's a strange thing about alcohol. And I've seen a lot of people who are alcoholics. One thing I always notice is that when a person is under the influence of alcohol, they have an unrealistic confidence in themselves and their abilities.

You ever heard somebody say something like this, I can drive better drunk than sober. You see how false that is? It gives you a false sense of what you're capable of. But on the flip side of that, the Bible said, Be filled with the Spirit.

What God gives us, He gives us the ability to do things we never possibly could have done when we're full of the Holy Ghost. Do you know that? He gives us the ability to do the impossible. You could never walk with God in holiness apart from His Holy Spirit.

You could never possibly lay hands on the sick and they recover except it be for the Holy Spirit. You see how the devil introduces a lie, but God's got the genuine? You see that? And there's a confidence, there's a boldness you feel when you're full of the Holy Ghost.

Think about the boldness that was upon the people who were filled with the Spirit in the book of Acts. The Bible said they expect the word of boldness. Secondly, those who are filled with the Spirit will naturally praise and worship God from their hearts.

Listen, you don't have to get people worked up who are full of the Holy Ghost to worship. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to tell them to worship. You don't even have to invite them to worship.

They're worshiping God whether anyone's around or not. They're walking, they're praying, they're seeking God, they're praising and worshiping Him when no one else is around. They're not being prodded.

But thirdly, praising and worshiping God is a means of being filled with the Spirit. A lot of people think, well, how can I be full of the Holy Ghost? I'll tell you how. Just surrender all to God. Just begin to worship God.

Just begin to praise God. Just begin to glorify Him. Begin to invite Him to come and inhabit your temple. And God will inhabit the praises of His people. Melody from the mouth and the lips is of no consequence if the melody unto God is not in our heart.

You hear that? We should really consider that. See, God's not listening to our words. He's looking at our heart. When we come to worship God, He's not listening at how good our voices blend. And that's great that they blend.

Or how good the instruments sound. And it's great if they sound good. What He's listening to first is the melody in the heart. Because if the melody in the heart doesn't match the melody of the mouth, God is not listening.

He's not hearing it. We need to realize that. Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs describe the variety of means of worship with which to employ. Though difficult to distinguish, we might suggest that psalms are like the Psalms of David.

They were sang with musical instruments. You might turn on in your car in modern days and begin to play worship music. Just begin to worship God. I used to do that all the time when I'd drive back and forth to work.

Listen to worship music. Worshiping God. Just serving and worshiping Him. And all of a sudden I would just find I was like, man, I drove all the way home. It seemed like it didn't take me five minutes to get here.

How could it be? What was it? I was caught up worshiping God. I was inviting the Holy Spirit to come and to dwell in this temple. Secondly, there are other hymns that could be just spontaneous songs of praise.

Spiritual songs also are those that are sang under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Which is a whole other topic we could get into, but we don't have time. An attitude of thanksgiving is both the result and the means of inviting the habitation of God by the Spirit.

Listen, God said, draw nigh to me, I will draw nigh to you. It's that simple. You initiate the contact. God's drawing you already. Just submit. And you take that step, He'll take a step. You begin to worship God and He'll begin to inhabit you.

And then your desire will increase. And then you'll worship God more and He'll inhabit you more. And that desire will increase all the more. And you'll get more full and more full and more full of the Holy Ghost.

It's a real good thing to do for people that are cold and away from God. Just begin to worship the Lord. Then secondly and finally in this section, Those who are born again are the temples of the living God.

Jesus told the money changers, my house shall be called the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves. We are houses of prayer. From our hearts we ought to ascend, ought to ascend up the sacrifice of praise unto God continually.

Say, how do I walk in victory at work? Keep an attitude of praise, worship, and prayer all day long. Allow your mind to dwell upon God. Don't ever let God get so far out that you got to go back and totally reseek the face of God to even get Him back on the radar again.

Don't ever allow that to happen. Don't ever get that busy. Don't ever get that caught up. You should walk with God in communion with God. That's why He saved you. That's why He saved you. He didn't save us for all these other things so much that we think are important.

He saved us so He could inhabit us. We could be the habitation of God by the Spirit. We should continually entertain, for lack of a better word, the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Resisting the temptation to bring things in that would provoke the Lord to jealousy.

What did they do? They came into the temple. They had set up all these money-changing tables and all this. And Jesus went through and overthrew all of the tables. And I can promise you this much, church, that when you come to the all-turned prayer and you're seeking God to be filled with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is going to take on the role of Jesus Christ.

And He's going to want to drive everything out of His temple that is not of Him. He is, in effect, going to say to you, my house shall be called the house of prayer. But you have made it, and then He's going to show you in your mind's eye why it is you're not full of the Holy Ghost.

Why it is He is not coming to inhabit you as He would like. Finally, when the Holy Ghost is ruling and reigning in His temple, He will keep the members of our body upon the earth mortified. Listen, you cannot walk in victory without the Holy Spirit.

There are way too many things against you. Do you think in your own power you can stand against the wiles of the devil, the enticements of the world, and every other thing that comes your way? There's no way.

There's no way. When we entertain, as it were, the presence of the Holy Spirit continually, we are enabled to walk in the Spirit. When you're full of the Holy Spirit, you will walk in the Spirit. We must be continuously filled in order to continually walk as we began in the Spirit.

I may remember in Galatians the Bible said, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? See, we began this Christian life in the Spirit. When you were born again, God's Spirit came into you.

If you were baptized in the Holy Spirit, His Spirit came in and filled you. You have begun in the Spirit. You can't allow that to dwindle. You must do what Paul said, being filled with the Spirit continuously, ongoing, every day.

Otherwise, you will try to seek perfection in the flesh, and it is impossible. It is impossible. The Holy Spirit is not just automatically present in His fullness. If He were fully present without any effort of our own, there would have been no need to command, be filled with the Spirit.

Simple logic. If He told you to do it, it is not automatically done. It is something that we need to do. There is something that we must do continually. You cannot walk in the Spirit when you are not filled with the Spirit.

This is why so many Christians fall into carnality. They never invite the Holy Spirit to live in them. They don't walk in an attitude of praise and worship and entertaining the Holy Spirit in their life as much as they are able.