God's Questions Iii (Provision) - Part 1 — John Follette

The Deep Work of God in the Whole Person

I was just praying how often we are only conscious of surface disturbances because we live so on the surface of life. We don't penetrate down into the depths. Out of the heart, that means the lower levels, the lower levels of your being, the lower levels of your thinking, the lower levels of your whole spiritual setup, there are the issues of life, but they come poking their way up.

Sometimes they are released and it takes days, weeks, and even months, and with some, even years, before it reaches the surface where it is made manifest. And so I often say, Lord, I am hungry and I am in need, but perhaps I am only concerned with a surface disturbance, which is annoying me now.

Perhaps that has its origin down on the, I call the ocean floor of my being. You see, we are like a trinity, down on the ocean floor. And so sometimes he has to go down there to reveal to us the real reason for this disturbance up here, or even the heart hunger.

Sometimes when we analyze what we call the heart hunger, we will be quite amazed. It isn't just a desire, I want more of God. That's all right, that's all right. We won't talk about that, but that isn't it.

The whole being, we are a trinity in our structural law of our being. I was said so pointedly, need for God, neither shall it find rest until it rests in Him. Now he was not just talking about my soul finding salvation.

He was not talking about that, that's included. But I am more than a soul. The soul content in me is only one aspect of my being. The whole being is to be brought under the powers of redemption. Soul and even body.

Now God takes regard to the body. Never become so spiritual that you lose consciousness of body. No, even in the resurrection, God's going to yet tamper with this old body, sure as you live. But why not?

Because it's the completion of the redemption of my life and your life. Spiritually. Well now sometimes this urge to live, when God gave me the eternal urge, it's rather heavy, I don't know, but sometime I might dare to do it.

The eternal urge, this to every one of us, it does seek expression. The first law of life is to become expulsive, to live. Since that is true, that urge to live relates to three departments of your being and to my being.

It actually does, to make the personality a complete concept. It has to be. If I disregard or become ignorant of any part of it, how many see my salvation is limited? The response is only partial. And God is only partially glorified in the release and in the redemption of the whole being.

Spirit, soul, body. He's concerned with your spiritual life. He's concerned with your soulish life, your psychic, soulish life. He's concerned. It's a part of it. And think you are just a spirit. Know this great field of what we are.

I'm freed in the millennium. I'm going to lecture and talk on some things which are very wonderful to me. I'd like to give you a real analysis of what we are as God created us. I would like to do it. Not purely from the sense of a scholar in psychology.

Not that. I know that field. I'd write courses in it. Courses in experimental character. I know that. But that is not it. It has a certain background and a certain fundament. But there's no one in the world but this mystical spirit of God that can get in there and do it.

And he is so wonderful in the delicacy of his dealing. He can get in there. Now sometimes the urge may rest in one department, the need, perhaps in another. As we found out, we know from just ordinary 1, 2, 3 psychology that most all of the ailments that react in your affection body are mental and spiritual.

They are. Jesus knew it too and he dealt with it. He dealt with it. He is the most gifted psychologist that has ever lived. Ever did. And any of you who have allowed him, I should mean, he may take you.

People say, oh Lord, show me my heart. Oh, just as it is. I say, don't pray that. You'll drop dead. I'm not laughing. I say that with all seriousness. Because we are not able to receive even a glimpse of it.

I, in one of the chapters in my book, I hope that my books will come before the meetings are over. You'll find a chapter there deep. Call us unto deep. I want you to read that. I want you to read it quietly with the Lord.

A bit of truth, but read it quietly with the Lord. Two great profound depths of the human race. One of the most profound depths that people would ever want to dig into. What is the other deep? The deep in the heart of God.

In the heart of God. God down like this to broken humanity. And one deep calls to the other deep. Broken humanity is calling in 10 ,000 voices. 10 ,000 creations is calling. A country clouded with judgment.

Redemption Beyond Escaping Earthly Frustration

How many know it's redemption? Redemption isn't just saving my soul and taking it out and putting it in a place they call heaven with golden streets and hand me a harp. Well, I say thank you, but put the harp down.

Where's the Lord? Be with me. I don't think a harp will ever entreat me. If you are frustrated here, and you've never had certain longings and urges and desires satisfied here, don't make heaven of those frustrated things liberated in a glorified state.

How many get that kind of a heaven or don't you? Do you get it or don't you? I got shoes, you got shoes, all God's children got shoes. How did he write that? What in the world made a slave write that?

When I get to heaven, I'll put on my shoes, I'll walk all over God's hips. But now, what provoked that? Do you know? The slave's terrible lack that he saw provided for in his master and the household and all the other people.

So he comforted himself because that was denied, that forthcoming frustration. Why, heaven to me will be what? Lifting this thing up into a new realm where it can be satisfied on the golden feet, on the golden slippers, golden slippers.

How many get it or don't you get it? Oh, just about half of the heavens that I ever deal with with people are just about on that level. They are. Now, don't say you don't have a heaven. I want it all here so I don't get out with that.

I misquote it all over the continent and I know it. Because people don't know what I'm trying to go out. Don't you believe in a heaven? Now listen, everybody. I, John Wright Pellett, I do believe in a heaven.

How many of you got it? Now don't say you don't or you're lying. Pride in my spirit because of these things. People don't know who I am. They don't know what I'm doing. Don't know yet who I am or what on earth I'm driving at.

And I've been trying to get this thing in for 25, 30, 40 and even 15 years and they don't know it yet. And if I dare to let out a bit of real Christian philosophy, real Christian teaching, well, that is the orthodox.

You should take my place just for a little while, dear. I just certainly do. I just wish you could. Do you wonder why I hibernate in the woods back up here in New York and they dig me out once in a while?

Well, you'll get my shoes and you'll know just exactly why. Just exactly why. No, there was a disturbance. So heaven will be to many people. The perfect, all the things which we're not able to attain or experience here.

Heaven will be to the most... How many get that or don't you? It's written on that basis. Well, now, I believe in heaven and harps and golden strings and all this business. That's all right. But it never intrigues me at all.

Ten thousand golden harps and I can play on seven at once. And one of them with a thousand strings, as somebody said. Do you know that it seems so strange to me? Where is the wonderful Lord in all of us?

Where is a deeper understanding of His love? Where is a deeper communion? Where is the release? Oh, dearly, dearly. At least a release for that adoration and the glory which is becoming our God. And I can only stand before His eye in holy awe to lift my head in the adoration and the praise.

Not even praise, I thank you for. No. The Spirit of God. Who wants more? Instant adoration from heaven. Don't let it be very beautiful. Find there something that God has been seeking all through time.

Seeketh them to worship. But then it's all right if you want by heaven to do that. Why, that's good. That isn't the point. He wants the whole Trinity of the being redeemed which we live. Of His glorified.

I'll come back to this idea of the hunger or the thirst. That is, that's a potential thing. It belongs to it. Of the creation. Now, God is the answer. He doesn't mean that He is just the answer by having salvation.

So that my desire for salvation is answered in Him. That's true. But He means the whole being is to find its perfect and adequate adjustment and satisfaction in Him. All my heart. That's in the body. Sometimes I feel just like I could go that way and get out of it.

I don't think that's fanatical. I'm 75. I'll be 76 in a couple of weeks or so. And I feel as if I were 40. If I were 40, these are all my own feet I can eat. Why shouldn't I? Well, He lives in me, dear.

I'm not that. That isn't who I am. I am a private living. You won't either. You'll only know it. Now, I'll come back. This urge, this desire, don't let it become too local in any one certain field. But remember, your whole being is crying out to you.

Your whole being is crying out to God for its redemption. And so we will have our heaven. A beautiful heaven. I saw this line one time. Heaven for some of us which has not been satisfied. And an urge that never found its release here.

But heaven will be lifting up there and finding it. And somebody heard me talk like that. And the dear woman, she says, Oh, there goes my heaven. As if I had knocked the heaven out of her. She said, Right on, I suppose.

Oh, there goes my heaven. I don't want to take anyone's heaven away this morning, dear. I want you to have the sweetest heaven you can have. That can't hurt. I'm leaving that heaven away. I'm only letting the little things that God has.

And He hopes that we too may have it. We're going to get at these questions we'll never in the world get through. We had two yesterday. The one, can you remember? You see, I'm an old school teacher. And I used to teach, you see, before God ever got a hold of me.

It's in my blood. We can remember some of the points of this. How will you remember that first one? Let me see it. Broken down creature. And there we are. And he says, The other one, that's going out a little bit after you have come on past that first phase of your living.

This is a picture of your experience in God to us as we move into God. This Bible isn't just stories. It's one of the most profound and marvelous, amazing revelations of God. It's all hidden away there in picturesque, dramatic form.

But don't become involved with that. Now, afterwards, we found another question. Can you, before God, answer the question, Is your name, Now, I said yesterday, a name spells your character. Your name.

The name always indicated the character. The person carried certain characteristic marks which were all summed up by a word which would cover it. A deceiver. Man, Jacob, could not get through to God, get through to Him, until he could make that confession.

Don't do that. That's an old trick. Then you remember how the question provoked an answer. The answer became a confession of a platform upon which the blessing will always fall. Well, I found it. Nobody told me about that.

But God showed it to me. And I have traced it all the way through my experience. How do you know even from salvation to the end? That will be the process. My confession of being a sinner does what? Makes a platform for God to come down with His salvation.

But He can't come until we say it. You take that all the way through. It's a little principle that's found in there. In some forms, it's rather dramatic and alive. And other times, the jaw of it is still there.

If you want to analyze and go into it. Now we will get those two bits of your setup straightened out. Now I want to talk about two other questions which are asked. And both of them are asked when the Lord knows exactly all about it, and yet He goes and asks it.

And as we found yesterday, there is a reason why He should do that. Not for His benefit. It isn't to satisfy His ego. To do a miracle in every one of us. Now this next question has to do with, we've had positions to our provision.

Jesus’ Question to Philip About Provision

And in John, we will find it. I'll read it to you. So if you don't want to fuss around with the Bible, I'll read it. I read the same kind of Bible you do. Some people don't believe it. So sometimes when I say it in such a text, they all grab to see if I'm lying or not.

I don't know what else it could be. And so I often am disturbed with them doing it. I have a one-track mind. I believe I have some mind left. Sometimes I wonder if I have. But it's one track sort of.

Sit down at the breakfast table. And you'll be eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, listening to the blare of all the latest news on the radio right over here. His wife has talked to our dearie about the things of the day.

And he's trying to solve a problem before he gets to the office. How many see him doing five things all at once? Now, he's what I call highly gifted. Sit down to listen to music or anything. I don't want somebody chattering at me all the time.

Now, I go into homes. I hope I won't hurt anyone's feelings here. If you do this naughty, bad thing, don't do it anymore. The minute someone comes in and you feel like you want to visit with them, they get the everlasting, tormenting thing, and nobody on earth is listening to it.

How many have ever got caught in a mess like that? Come on. Now, don't you ever do that again. Is your conversation worth listening to? If it is, then talk. If it isn't, then put something on that can talk.

Don't do those things. They're horrible. They're horrible. You say, well, I'm getting my message. I want to give you something practical so you don't think I'm too ethereal. I'm very practical. The minute you get in, put a television so that this thing is in front of you.

And they're talking to you. And you're saying, good afternoon, dear. Don't do things like that. When I hear fine music, I don't want somebody chattering at me. I don't want to be looking at things. I want to get the music.

I want the texture. How many of you know there's great texture in it? And it's subtle. And it's lost. What you do today, and here's this artist just pouring out his soul, and you're talking about being.

Don't you get it? Please don't do things like that. If you don't know nothing and you're dumb about it, somebody else may not be as stupid. So I'll tell you for the sake of appearing as if you know something if you don't.

See? My grandmother used to say, keep still. People think you're intelligent anyway. Don't say anything. Isn't that good advice? Yes. Well, here's this little story. Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him.

He said unto Philip, when shall we buy bread that these may eat? How many got your question already? When shall we buy bread? And this he said to himself, knew what he would do. Isn't that exactly what I've been telling you?

Exactly what I told you. He knows. This he did for his sake, not for Jesus. This he did to prove him, knowing himself, what he would do. Well, of course. Then why not let him do it? No, you can't. You've got to fuss around and pray and tear it up.

Don't get into that confusion. Penetrate in past that thing and come into the possession. He has that. But he's going to ask this question. And now listen to his answer. Listen to his answer. It's so very typical.

Another little principle that's going to run from Genesis to Revelation. Right in this little story. A principle. Is not sufficient for them. That every one of them may take a little. Do you see something that goes here?

How do you see he's reverting now to his natural limited resources right away in the presence. The whole loaf of the bread of heaven is talking. Isn't it? Isn't he the great loaf of life? Isn't he the loaf of the bread of heaven?

Certainly. And here is the loaf of heaven is saying. He can't see eternity. He can't see the eternal supply. He can't see even Jesus in his miracle power. He is too yet centered. How do you get him centered?

In what? His own little interpretation of the problem. Instead of saying to the Lord. Oh be the host and feed him. Wouldn't it be nice if he could have done that. But he can't do that. He's not advanced enough yet to do that.

He has to twiddle around with his flesh. Natural processing. A can full of bread. Two pence worth of bread. It's not sufficient. Certainly it's not. But then he's going to help himself out of this difficulty of his limitation.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, says unto him. There is a land here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes. Now again. Fall down. Fall down. How do you see him always falling down on the limitation point?

Or don't you get it? Both of them. Right away. Answers to both of them. Fall right down. Two pence worth. Even if you are a fish in bread. What is that? To this multitude. Do you get it or don't you? They are too self-conscious of their limitation.

And they become that way because of their self-counting. I wish I dared to open up the types in here. The figures of it. How many of you notice there are seven items? Loaves and what? Two make what? Seven.

I don't want to get in there. But it's good eating in there. That's really good. And seven is your completion. And two. It can't be four and three. It has to be five and two. That has to be that way. It has to be that way.

The story won't reveal the truth. That's underneath here. It won't be spirit of life vibrating coming up. If you had four and three. Would four and three make seven? Sure it does. But it doesn't here.

Five and two make seven. And so he says we have this surprise. So they begin to count it. How many times you and I have had to do that? I don't do that anymore. The Lord thrashed me out of that sometimes.

That. I tell you the benefit of my thrashing. He just digs me out. And after I get out I say oh thank you my dear Lord. Does anyone want to know this? He says yes. I have a few people who would like to hear it.

Now you go out and peddle it. So I go out and sometimes out of 150 to 200 people I get five people. That's good. It bothered me first. I said well dear Lord. I ministered to all of this great group. And all I'm conscious of and they have touched my spirit.

And I know they have touched me in spirit. They have come physically and spoken. I said I got five out of a hundred. He says don't be disturbed. Of all the thousands I had twelve. And one of them was a failure.

Do you see the ratio? Do you know how many get to ratio? All right Lord. If all I got is four people out of this camp meeting I will be happy. The ratio is very tight. Because your price is very tight.

Two. When you count. Don't fall back upon counting forever more your limitations. I have this. Now that. Group. And this. But I can't make it come out to feed a multitude. You never will. Do you know why?

You have counted your limitations five thousand times. And never counted in the loaf of bread which was standing right by your side. Do you get that? He's not so concerned about their limitations. He's concerned with the fact they wouldn't recognize him.

He is the great loaf. Now the next time you're tempted to count your limitations. Count them in his presence. And then look up. Just so happy to say thank you Lord. How many know you'll get something.

If you take comfort. A subtle psychic comfort. In falling back upon the limitation. Because it brings a certain reaction psychically in you. And I know that. Now don't do that. It's sort of a little sense of justification in feeling poor.

You know. Yeah. How many know some people are only happy when they strike a note like that. So that self pity can come in. For myself. You know. You know that will damn you quicker than pug tobacco. The next time you count.

You count him in. He is the loaf. I like it the way that it's given over here in Matthew. The story when it's given here. It adds some little touches that I like very much. And when it was evening his disciples came to him saying.

This is a desert place. And the time is now past. Send the multitude away. That they may go into the villages. And buy themselves. Say unto them. They need not feed them to eat. Now let me feed them. By saying let him feed.

No he didn't say that. He didn't say that at all. He said. You give them to eat. He didn't say. Now I'll feed them. Don't worry. No he didn't say that. Because he couldn't. He's telling us something. Give ye them to eat.

Why is it that instantly the need is revealed. The disciple always has an escape. Some way of getting rid of it. By projecting it off here there and yonder. He says. Send these hungry groups. Send them to the villages.

That they may do that. The villages. How many of you know what the villages are? Know what the villages are? That often you have set the hunger of your heart. And that urge within you. You have sent it to strange places for satisfaction.

Those are the villages where you think you might find the sequel. The answer of the thing that's here. The hunger is in you. And you have to do the giving. But he has a nice arrangement for it. Sending them to the villages.

The village business is always an escape mechanism for people. On the way to Emmaus. Why were those discouraged disciples so happy to leave Jerusalem. And make their way to Emmaus. Because Emmaus is an escape mechanism.

So they don't have to live in the atmosphere of Jerusalem. Where they feel they have met defeat and failure. Do you get it or don't you? Is where they have had all of that glorious idea of a kingdom. And they exploded.

And died. Well who would want to deal with a more depleted wreck than that. A little handful of disciples. Completely reduced. Which was on a natural basis swept out from under them. And all the things that they desired wrecked.

And then Jesus goes away. How many of you think that was a nice position? He may do it to you sometime. Don't be scared. To some souls he dares you. But not to many. Anybody can take a blessing and stand it.

But few can take a defeat. Your reactions are not right. Your reactions are too terrifying. And you fall down under. That's why God doesn't always trust some souls with great suffering and great discipline.

He can do it. Because they are not tempted. He can trust the multitudes with a blessing. Well who couldn't take a blessing. So few that he can say. Will you watch with me an hour? He tried it with three of his disciples.

That very thing. I trust you three to watch with me an hour. I'm going through one of them in my whole living. He couldn't trust that little bunch of people. He couldn't take his disciples into it. He had three whom he felt were fairly well tempered.

I'll go where you want me to go. Oh put your hand down. I get so tired of that stuff in my living. I really do. Because it's so shallow. There's no real depth to it. There's no real significance. It's a habit.

Worship in Spirit and Truth Beyond Religious Forms

You condemn harder in an Episcopal church. And beautiful. I don't know a more beautiful service for worship than the ritual in the Episcopal church. It is beautiful. Spirit in there. It's all that you need.

It is beautiful. Don't condemn it. And go out and make one of your own. We have our little craven forms too. Right in Pentecost. Nothing but forms. But we are so free. You are not free. You move continually in a pattern.

And you carry it out in your service. You wouldn't have to have a service without it. And I know it. You fall back upon the technique of that. And condemn someone who worships in a beautiful place. In the presence of the Lord.

I can worship in any church. I can worship in a Catholic church. In the high Episcopal church. I can worship anywhere. Because my worship doesn't consist of that. I can see through the typology of it.

And the symbolism of it. And I can get the spirit. And he says to worship in spirit. Well now let me straighten you out on that. When he said to worship in spirit and truth. He was not condemning any kind of form.

He was telling you the motivation of your heart in your worship. That's what he was talking about. How do you know the Old Testament is packed with ritualism? The devil? How do you know God ordained it?

God ordained that wonderful worship. Or do you think the devil got in there? God ordained that. It had its function. It had its place. And God could bless it. And he used it. Incense. Incense. How do you know they burned incense?

It had significance. When he said worship in spirit and truth. He was not talking about form, present or absent. He was talking about the motive of your heart. Let your heart in spirit worship in reality.

If you need a form. If that won't help you. That's alright. I'm not condemning that. If that's a little crux that can carry you. He didn't condemn that. He was telling us that the motivation of the heart.

In the attitude of worship and praise. Should be what? Let it be done in spirit. And in truth. He wasn't saying a thing about form. Our poor dear Quaker brethren. When they broke out. How do you know how they broke out?

They wouldn't have a thing that looked like the Catholic Church. Anything. The Catholic Church ran off with a cross. How do you know the cross belongs to us as much as any Catholic? Do you know that or don't you?

They're scared to see them. Understand it. See it on your Bible. Why? It's a hangover of the prejudice. That has been in people for these hundreds of years. It's a hangover of a miserable little prejudice.

We will not have the priest to stand with a black robe and talk. In a long coat with 72 buttons down the front. That square hat that looks ugly. How many can see it or can't you? Do you know what that is?

That is an inner resistance to a form that they didn't understand and didn't like. Lest it would creep in and upset them. So they say not a beautiful church but one with bored seats. Do you know you can worship the Lord on a cushioned seat as well as a bored seat?

Now some don't. You have to have it just as crude and plain and ugly and distorted. So that you feel that's more holy. No. God is the author of beauty. Author of beauty. Well why not include beauty in them things?

Well they can't. Now I come from a Quaker stock so I know what I'm talking about. My mother's grandfather was Quaker. We come from the Long Island Quakers from Hempstead, Long Island. Where the simplicity of it I like very much.

But when we go to extremes of saying you can't have a robe on when you're preaching. But I'll put on a black coat. I know those long about 72 buttons down the front. But how do you remember it? Stiff and awkward as they could be.

Then a big black hat to plop down. Does that make them any holier? It's not in externalities. Fine people can look like that and be full of the devil. Be proud of their humility. You know they're so humble they're proud of their humility.

Well you might as well be proud of your humility. So people, ah that's the way people are made. I meet them, I see them all the time. But you see we have to have charity with all of God's children. Because they aren't all made alike.

They aren't all made alike. So we have great charity. I'm just as happy with one and another. I go to all denominations. I've spoken at Catholic Church. A priest asked me to come to address 150 students.

Well I said Father College, you know I know all about that. He says you have something I wish my students had. You have a plant on Christianity. We have talked out and thrashed out our Christian doctrine together.

He says I want my students to get a slam on this. Will you come? I said I'll come if you'll pay the consequences. Well he says we'll take the host off of the altar. Not have the presence light. And when we do that, the sanctuary is turned into a general hall for any speakee.

But you can't minister with that. So out they went. The Virgin Mary was on one side and Saint Joseph on the other. Neither one of them said a word to me. You know why? Well they were made of plaster. So you see I get in everywhere.

Giving the Bread and Fish to Christ

Move in every group. Out here. The first way of getting rid of this thing is to send the hungry multitude to some village. Think of the villages to which you have sent your heart, your mind, your spirit.

Can you think of some of them? Everyone's guilty. You have tried to project that thing into another field lest it would cost you something to have it fed properly. And you would like a substitute. So you say I'll send them over there.

In my first hungering for truth, I was born and brought up in a Methodist church. We didn't have too much. Saved. Got that far. But not too salubrious an experience. If I died, God would take me. I was quite certain of that.

But I never had the generals. I never had that. I'm saved. Now don't doubt that. How many believe I am? Will you believe it? I was hungry and I thought that if I... People advised me. The ministry said well what you need is a good training in school, college, theology and all that.

And I thought that that would satisfy. How many see me pushing into a village? Sure. That was my village. I went over there with this hunger in me. Pushing this hunger into a village to find food. I didn't find it.

I found an interesting village. But I never found my food. And came back from the village hungry. You don't need to send them to these villages. Give ye them to eat. Give ye them to eat. How can this be done?

Well these people had the same little fault of counting their limitations. So listen. But Jesus said unto them they need not depart. Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him we have here but five loaves and two fishes.

Here's where the lovely thing. Bring them hither to me. You see an entire absolute surrender and detachment from every one of those things which you have possessed. And you put them into the hands of the Lord.

You get that or don't you? Bring them to me. Now stop counting them. I know who you are. I know your possibilities. I know your potentials. I know all of that. I knew you really before you were born. You haven't come into any kind of real consciousness yet as an entity.

Many Christians don't come into those realms of consciousness at all. They're saved, filled with the Spirit and have a glorious time and go to heaven. And have never come into what I would call a real inner consciousness of the reality.

They don't. And you dare push in there to speak a little word and hum. You know their face gets to do that. You bring that to me. Do you dare to surrender to me? Would you dare to surrender all of that to me?

Now that's all you have to count on isn't it? Well it's really all I have in my life. That's all I want. Now you dare to put that into my hands. That's all I ask. And I will be so grateful for the entire surrender of your being without any of these little village experiences.

Without that. Without that he cut absolutely out. It's a stripping that few will take. He says if you dare to do that I can do something. But I cannot as long as the consecration is only partial. It has to be just as he taught.

If you want to follow mammon go ahead. If you want to follow me, this is the way. How many of you know he's very very explicit about this. And very drastic. I like him because of it. One thing I love about my Lord Jesus is because he was a radical.

I love him for it. I love him. I just pull for him all the time. Because he was a radical. These flimsy ideas of Jesus walking around with white dress on and things. He was a man. He was not effeminate.