Deeper Things of God

This sermon, entitled "Deeper Things of God" was preached at Mount Zion Fellowship in Jerusalem, Israel on Saturday morning of April 19, 2003. This first song, Take Us Higher was written and being sung by Sister Nancy Bergen. After, she and I sang together, "What God's Doing in Me" which was written by Sister Ruth Heflin, the founder of Mount Zion Fellowship in the mid '70's. 

These are the sermon notes:
 

The Deeper Things of God

Proverbs 30:19-21

No matter how many lives went down into the grave by war, holocaust, famine, disease, etc. Death still cries out for more lives.

The womb that has never borne children cries out to bear children.

No matter how many homes have been destroyed by floods or how many beaches have disappeared because the ever enlarging ocean, the waters still seek to cover more land.

Thousands and thousands of acres of forest have been lost to fires, yet fire longs to devour more. It's never satisfied.

These all seem like negative aspects of desire for more, but there is a positive aspect.

As true, Holy Ghost filled believers, there must be a cry in each of our spirits for more of God. Not just a head knowledge, but it must run deep in our spirits.

Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts: all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. Psalm 42:7

Where there is a deep calling out to the deep, there is a deep to respond. If there is a craving in your body for sodium, then there is sodium to fill that crave.

Boy with sulfur deficiency... eating the erasers off pencils and petals off of bicycles because of the crave for sulfur... His body knew where to find the sulfur.

Before there was ever an Earth hanging out in space, there first had to be a space for the Earth to hang in. Before there was ever a fish swimming in the water, there had to be waters created for the fish to swim in. Before there was ever a tree in the Earth, there first had to be an environment for the tree to survive in.

So, if there's a craving in your spirit for the deeper things of God, then there are deeper things of God to attain.

Before God was God

There was a time that God was not God. In order for God to be God, He had to have some to worship Him. In order for Him to be a Creator, He had to create something. In order for Him to be a Savior, something had to first be lost. In order for Him to be a Healer, something first had to be sick.

There was a deep longing in God to be worshiped, but He existed alone with His thoughts. There were no cherubim nor seraphim to give Him praise. So, He created them.

But the cherubim had no choice but to worship Him. God longed to have someone worship Him by choice.

So, after the creation of Earth, He created man from the dust of the Earth. And Adam walked with God in the cool of the evening and had communication with the Divine Creator.

But Satan entered into the plans. He had a vendetta against the Most High, because he had been cast from the Heavens for his pride.

All in God's plan, man fell from his position with God. No longer did they have walks in the cool of the evening. No longer was there Divine communication between the two.

Down through the ages, God began revealing His plan to redeem man-kind. Why? Because there was a desire in Him to be a Savior; healer; deliverer.

He did not send a cherub to do this job. This wasn't a job that Michael or Gabriel could handle. He came HIMSELF and not a messenger.

He desired to know the temptations of man. He desired to know the sickness that man is tormented with. He desired to know how it felt to have fellowship as we know it with the Divine Creator.

So the Spirit of God crawled inside the womb of a virgin, Mary and was born in a stable. Not a messenger, but God, Himself.

He experienced all that we have or ever will experience. Just because of the deep longing to know His creation.

In the same sense, there is a deep longing on the inside of every true believer, to know our Creator.

God's desire to be a husband

When God created the animals, He created each of them with a mate, but when He created man, He created him male and female.

So, God looked down and saw that Adam was alone in the garden and had that desire in him for a wife.

So, God put a deep sleep over Adam, reached in Adam's side and took out the feminine part of Adam and created a help meat for him.

On Calvary, when the Spirit of God left Jesus to die alone (because God cannot die), and the Roman soldier came by and pierced His side, it was a type of God reaching into the second Adam and pulling out His Bride.

Because God longs for His mate. The animals had a mate. Adam had a mate. But God didn't have a mate.

1. As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.

2. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Psalm 42:1-2

Just as the deer has a thirst for water, the Believer thirsts after God. The deep calls unto the deep.

There is something about the Word of God that calls out to His Elect. It draws them.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

If there is a thirst for God, then Yeshua (Jesus) is the Living Waters to quench our thirst. If there is a hunger for more of God, then there is more of God to satisfy the hunger.

If your mouth is dry and you are thirsty, your body has already begun dehydrating.

So there is a source to satisfy that thirst. Just like our spiritual thirst.

The woman at the well

She came to the well daily, but couldn't come at the same time as the other ladies, because of her sinful life.

So, she comes to the well one day and there sits a man, who asks for a drink. The dialogue continues.

Finally, He tells her to go get her husband. She says she has no husband. And Jesus tells her, “That's right, you've had five husbands and the man your living with now is not your husband.”

Immediately, there was something inside of her that caused her to recognize Jesus to be a prophet, but when He spoke again, she recognized Him as the Messiah.

It was that seed that had been planted in her spirit from the time she was young. Maybe she had sat at the table and heard her father talking about how God would one day send the Messiah.

Maybe she had heard Him reading the Law and the Prophets and now, she is standing at the well, and the Light of God had come and struck that seed planted in her heart and she recognized Him.

What was it? It was the deep calling out to the deep and standing there at the well, the Deep responded.

Reaching Out for More

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended:but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:13-14

How do you find more of God?

We reach forth unto those things which are before. We cannot just sit back and wait on God to drop it in our laps like the stork would drop a baby at the doorstep.

We've got to stretch out our arm a little farther than we've been stretching.

We may have to sacrifice a little more than we've been sacrificing.

We may have to fast a little more than we've been fasting.

Or pray a little more than we've been praying.

Read our Bible a little more than we normally read them.

It might cost us a little more than we've paid in the past.

If you're satisfied with what you've got, God can't give you any more. Wallace H. Heflin.

You've gone as far as you're going to go with God until you're willing to pay a greater price. William Branham

How do you find more of God? Press in.

When thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart said unto Thee. Thy face, LORD, will I seek. Psalm 27:8

Seek His face.

But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Deuteronomy 4:29

If you seek God with sincerity of heart and all of your soul, you will find Him.

Song of Songs 3

We find that the Bride was seeking the Bridegroom in bed, but He wasn't there.

How often do we go to bed at night, too tired to get down by the bedside and pray. So we just lay there in bed, staring up at the ceiling, expecting Him to just overlook our laziness.

The Bride didn't find Him in the bed. She had to rise up and go about the city and SEEK Him.

God is not hiding from us, in these times, but He wants to see how much we really desire to know Him.

Are we willing to pay the greater price?