INDWELLING OF GOD

1. THE TABERNACLE OF MOSES

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If
anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you
are." (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have
from God, and you are not your own?" (1 Corinthians 6:19)

"And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." (Exodus 25:8)

"In whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." (Ephesians
2:22)

The tabernacle of Moses was divided into three sections, and they illustrate how we can enter into
an ever increasing indwelling of God in our lives. We will describe seven objects in the Tabernacle, which
points to the seven-fold presence of Jesus in our lives.

1. The Outer Court

The Outer Court was surrounded by white linen, which was more than eight feet tall. There is only
one entrance thirty feet wide, which only Levites and priests can enter. The people can only watch the
proceedings from outside. In this Outer Court, there were two sacred objects, the "bronze altar," or altar of
burnt offering; and the "laver," or washbowl. The bronze altar is where they slaughter the animal
sacrifices, and the blood is shed every morning and every evening as a sacrifice to God. There will be
smoke and incense going forth as well. The bronze altar points to Jesus who would be that Sacrifice
whose Blood would be shed for the forgiveness of sins. . That is the first thing you would see at the
entrance of the tabernacle of Moses as you move into the entrance. After this, you would see just before
the veil the laver or washbowl where water is contained in it. The parts of the animals, the entrails and
the feet of the animals are washed inside the laver. The entrails represent sin and feet represent sins.
Both entrails and feet are dealt with at the laver. The laver represents Jesus the Word of God.
Symbolically, this conveys us the powerful truth that both the sin nature (represented by the entrails) and
the acts of sin (represented by the feet of the animals) can only be renewed and washed and transformed
by much meditation and reading of the Word of God.

2. The Holy Place

The tabernacle proper was a rectangular tent forty feet long by fifteen feet wide. There were two
chambers inside this tent. Only the priests were allowed into this Holy Place in order to conduct their
ministry of worship to God. The Holy Place contained three pieces of furniture: the table with the
consecrated bread, the lampstand, and the altar of incense which faced the thick curtain separating the
Holy Place from the second chamber, the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies. The lampstand would light
up the Holy Place, and points to Jesus the Light of the World. The altar of incense is where incense is
burnt to release aroma to the Holy Place.

3. The Holy of Holies

And as you enter into the second veil, you would see the Holy of Holies where the ark of God
dwells. The Holy of Holies was the smallest but most sacred tabernacle. Only the High Priest enters in the
Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. The Ark of the Covenant has a covering called the
mercy seat, and two cherubim carved in gold. Here the glory of God was revealed in visible form,
the Shekinah. The presence of God became visible in the shape of a brightly lit cloud, appearing over the
blood poured over the mercy seat and the cherubim of glory. There is no need for light in the Holy of
Holies because God is the light there.

Putting the seven objects or instruments together, we get a composite picture of the sevenfold
presence of Jesus in our lives. Increasing our contact with these seven fold aspects of Jesus would
increase the indwelling of God in our lives.

First, the bronze altar points to Jesus the Lamb of God, whose Blood takes away the sins of the
world. Exodus 38:1-2 They built the altar of burnt offering of acacia wood; five cubits was its length and
five cubits its width – it was square – and its height was three cubits. He made its horn on its four corners;
the horns were of one piece with it. And he overlaid the altar with bronze.

I want you to look at the utensils in verse 3, He made all the utensils for the altars: the pans, the
shovels, the basins, the forks, and the fire pans; all its utensils he made of bronze.

There are pans to carry the ashes. There are shovels to remove the ashes from the altar. There
are basins to carry the blood. There are forks to lift animals to be sacrificed. There are fire pans to take
the fire into the Holy Place. The fire that is to light the Holy Place and the incense must come from the
brazen altar. If you offer any other fire, it is not acceptable to God. It is called strange fire. There were two
guys who died in the Old Testament because of that - Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu. God required that
the fire must come from the brazen altar. He wants the fire that comes from the consecration of your life.

All the various instruments speak of something. The pans that are used for carrying ashes away
from the tabernacle represent the carrying of our sins away. And the shovels are to dig the ashes out -
that is God dealing with our sin nature. Then we have the basins to carry the blood. The forks to lift up the
animals to be sacrificed. The forks are attached to the flesh of the body, representing the putting to death
the things of the flesh and the consecration of the body. The fire pans represent the carrying of the fire of
the Holy Spirit that comes to purify our flesh life. So there are five utensils. Five is the number of grace.
Each instrument represents an aspect of the work of Jesus. The brazen altar represents the power of the
Blood of Jesus.

Second, the laver points to Jesus the Word of God. Let's see our experience of God from the
meaning of the laver. The laver represents the power of the Word. As far as the laver is concerned, there
is no dimension. You can’t limit the Word of God. God has exalted His Word above His name Ps. 138. So,
His Word will never pass away. Even heaven itself will pass away but the Word of God will never pass
away. If you notice in Lev. 1:9 there are two parts of the animal sacrifice that will be washed in the laver,
the entrails and the legs. The entrails represent sin nature. The legs represent sin contracted in the world.
So, you will notice that the two pieces of instruments deal with the power of sin and sin in your life. The
laver represents the power of the Word. Incidentally, it was made from the ladies bronze mirror. They
don’t have mirrors like ours. So they polish the metal until it shine and they use that as a mirror. The laver
was made from the bronze mirror of the ladies. The Word is the mirror. James illustrated the Word to be a
mirror of God where we behold ourselves in the Word and we know how much we need to be changed
and to conform to God.

Third, the table of consecrated bread points to Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then
you will see the showbread. The showbread has two moldings. The word moldings is from the Hebrew
word nerzer which means, "crown." So there are two crowns. Jesus was crowned twice. The crown of
thorns and the crown of God where He is exalted King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So, He was crowned
Son of Man and Son of God. We have twelve loaves. The number twelve represents the number of
government. In heaven, there are twenty-four elders. We talk about twelve apostles. It is the number of
government. This is why we see here it has to do with Jesus Christ's government and kingship. The
showbread represents the power of the name of Jesus Christ.

Fourth, the lampstand points to Jesus the Light of the World.

Fifth, the altar of incense which points to Jesus, our High Priest and Intercessor. We have the
altar of incense. The altar of incense is the tallest piece of furniture, yet the tiniest, smallest in size. And
incense is offered every day to God. It represents the power of praise and worship that is constantly
offered onto God.

What Aaron must do when he enters into the Holy of Holies is recorded for us in Leviticus 16:12-
13: "Then he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, with his hands
full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil. And he shall put the incense on the fire
before the Lord, then the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testimony lest he die.

Aaron must put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the
Mercy Seat that is on the Testimony lest he die. What does this mean? Sometimes people have the
impression is that all he does is to enter with the blood. Let me emphasize that the blood is insufficient.
You need blood plus something else. Verse 12 he emphasizes this. That he must take incense in his hand
and censor. And as he enters into the Most Holy Place, he must quickly put the incense on the censor. As
the smoke comes out all over and the incense covers him, he takes the blood, puts it on the Mercy Seat,
and come out quickly. Because Lev. 16:13 tells us that unless he does that he will die. We all realize that
the High Priest goes there only once a year into the Most Holy Place. On the Day of Atonement, he must
sacrifice an offering for himself. And he must take the blood of the lamb for the Israelites. And as he takes
it in the blood was not sufficient. So Lev. 16:13 says that he must put the incense on the censor. The
clouds cover him. And as he enters, he must put the blood there on the Mercy Seat and come out quickly.
The bible says unless he does that, he will die.

The incense represents praise and worship. We always think that praise and worship is to meet
God's need. Let me tell you praise and worship meets our needs. And praise and worship protects us
from His awesome presence. The incense represents the power of prayer, praise and worship. If we don’t
have the incense covering our life and God manifests, we will die. That is why God does not answer some
people's prayer. They know not what they ask. They pray, “Lord, reveal Yourself.” If God does, they will be
blasted into eternity. God can’t stand ungodliness and sin. If He reveals Himself in the presence of sin,
those in sin must die. So, God does not manifest Himself to protect us from His awesome presence. He is
God. He is not a man. He is Almighty God who created the whole universe. Think about the Person who
just spoke and the world come into being. What kind of personality and presence He has. His power is so
great that He could right now and say, “Cease,” and the whole universe will stop and go back to
nothingness. That’s how great His power is. And so, before we could approach His being we need the
covering on our life. Praise and worship cover us.

Moses understood this principle. In the book of Numbers 16:42-48 relates what happened when
the people were in rebellion.

Now it happened, when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they
turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord
appeared. Then Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of meeting. And the Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, "Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment." And they fell
on their faces. So Moses said to Aaron, "Take a censer and put fire in it from the altar, put incense in it
and take it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the
Lord. The plague has begun." Then Aaron took it as Moses commanded and ran into the midst of the
assembly; and already the plague had begun among the people. So, he put in the incense and made
atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was
stopped.
 Moses told Aaron, see the people are starting to die. They are in rebellion. The plague has started
and Moses quickly said to Aaron to quickly take the censor, the same censor that he entered the Most
Holy Place that protects him. And with the smoke coming out, Numbers 16:48 says the plague was
stopped. That was not part of the program. God never authorize Moses to do it. It was not part of what He
wanted to be done. It was not part of the service of the tabernacle. In fact, all those holy instruments were
never meant to leave the Holy Place. But Moses understood this. When the awesome presence of God is
there we need that incense to shield and protect us.

That is why in heaven there is constant praise to God. There are these four creatures around God,
day and night saying, “Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty.” There is always constant praise to God. God
organized that system in heaven. Do you know why? Even the heavens cannot contain His presence. And
if praise and worship ceases, the whole heaven will fall apart because the awesome presence of God
cannot be contained. See on this earth He has designed it in such a way, that when praise and worship
come, He can manifest Himself. Why does He do that? Because it is only praise and worship that protect
us from being killed by His presence. He loves us so much that He would take us, cuddle us, and hold us
close to Him. But we cannot stand His presence. So, He designs a way by which He could love us, He
could embrace us and take us into His love. And He said let my people be a people of praise and worship,
offering up spiritual sacrifices to God.

Sixth, the Ark of the Covenant points to Jesus, the Mediator of our Covenant.

The Outer Court represents our body. The Holy of Holies represents our soul. And the most Holy
Place represents our spirit man. This is the first lesson on the indwelling of God in our lives. .

The description of the Tabernacle of Moses found in Exodus 37 and 38 would list the furniture
found in the Holy of Holies, then to the Holy Place and the Outer Court. But when we experience God, we
experience the brazen altar first. And then we go inwards. God always work from the inside out. The devil
always works from the outside in. Every temptation of the devil has something to do with the flesh or with
a sense knowledge that is around you. He can’t work without that. If you walk in the spirit and not in the
flesh, you are immune to all his wiles and deceptions. So, when God works, He works from inside out.
And He has never changed his method. It is we who need to change our methods. We need to change
our ways. The principle never changes but the methods keep improving. God’s methods are what we will
call principles that He has revealed and always are constant. Unless He changes your inward life, He
cannot change your life and ministry. Unless He changes your thought life and your emotional life and
your will and He gets a hold of it, He cannot work through your body. No matter how much you sing that
your body is a living sacrifice, if your thoughts are not consecrated to God, your emotions are not
consecrated to God, your will is not consecrated to God, God cannot work through your life. He may do
His best according to your percentage of yieldedness. That is all He can do. He works from the inside out.

As you enter the Holy Place, you will see the candlestick. The candlestick represents the power of
the Holy Spirit. The ark represents the presence of God’s presence and glory. Each piece of instrument
also represents an aspect of Jesus Christ. The brazen altar represents Jesus Christ the Lamb of God.
The laver represents Jesus the Word of God. The candlestick represents Jesus Christ the Baptizer in the
Holy Spirit. The showbread represents Jesus the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The altar of incense
represents Jesus our High Priest. When you get into the Most Holy Place, you will see Jesus Christ the
fullness of God. Each piece of instrument speaks about the aspect of the work of Jesus Christ. See Jesus
Christ has to work in our spirit, soul and body to bring us, to conform us to His very image. And God has
always desired to live with us. The purpose for the creation of the tabernacle was so that He could live
among us. Yet, it was only a shadow of what is to come. The greatest desire of God is that He could live
in us. Even if Moses’ tabernacle survives, God will not be satisfied. The original plan of God was that He
could live in and with His people. This tabernacle of Moses was only a shadow. The best temple that God
seeks after is the temple of human life. Individually we are temples of God. Corporately we are one
temple in the Lord. But you cannot be a part of the temple of God unless you are individually part of the
temple.
 The word temple of God has been used two ways in the New Testament. One is used on an
individual basis where Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said know ye not that you are the temple of
God. You are the temple of God individually. And collectively the book of Ephesians speaks to us about
the purpose of God. That He wants the whole church to be His temple. God's desire is that He would
dwell in His people. The indwelling of God is the ultimate plan of God. It is the ultimate plan of the church
of Jesus Christ.

The book of Ephesians talks about two parts. The first part speaks about the position in Christ.
The second half speaks about our walk in Christ. Look at Eph. 1. After revelation has been poured forth,
Paul prayed for the Ephesians to be filled with the spirit of wisdom and revelation. And when they are
filled this is their objective. It says in Ephesians 3: 22-23 And He put all things under His feet and gave
Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

I pray that God will give you a vision of His purpose and a vision of His heartbeat. Why He is
doing what He is doing today? What is the purpose of salvation? Why has He called us? Why has He
chosen us? It is because His Father’s heart beats with the desire to fill His people with all of His fullness.

In Ephesians 2, Paul speaks about the grace of God and being brought near by the Blood of
Jesus, but that is not the end. Sometimes, people taste and remain in the Outer Court. They thank God
for the Blood of Jesus that washes their sins. They thank God for the gospel. But they forget to announce
their salvation and the gospel to everyone. See, there are two furniture with four horns. One is the brazen
altar. The other is the altar of incense. The four horns from the brazen altar point to the four corners of the
earth. That represents the gospel going forth. Jesus is being announced as the Lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. The four corners of the altar incense represent the Word going forth where it
will be proclaimed that God’s people will worship Him. The prayer, praise and worship must go forth. The
Word and the message must go forth. Right at the beginning of the gate and right at the ending of all of
human endeavor before we enter into the fullness of God, there are the two furniture with the four horns.
It talks about the going forth of the message of God. One proclaims the power of the Blood of Jesus. The
other offers praise and worship to God. As God’s presence draws near, and as His coming draws near,
the Word goes forth to get the people ready for the Lord. We are to praise Him, to worship Him and to
honour Him so that we could get into the fullness of His presence.

Notice that His full purpose is revealed for us in Ephesians 2: 21-22, Having been built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the
whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being build
together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Notice again the emphasis. You are being built into
God’s dwelling place.

Rev. 3:12 says, "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he
shall go out no more. The overcomer does not literally become a pillar. It is a figurative language. God is
not going to take you and put cement on you and fixed you up in heaven. It is a figure of speech that
speaks of God’s purpose in our life to bring us as close as possible into His fullness. That is the purpose
that we become the habitation of God. That God will be in His people and His people will be filled with His
fullness. Paul, in his prayer for the Ephesians, mentioned about the love of God in Ephesians 3:18-
19 May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width, the length, the depth and the height,
to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. The
greatest revelation that Paul had brought forth is the revelation that God dwells in His people.

I'd like you to understand that to the New Testament Christians who have just known all the
outward workings of the Lord, it was a revolutionary revelation. They even had to have a council meeting
about that in Acts 15. When the Gentiles started accepting the gospel, the apostles had to have a meeting
to decide whether the Gentiles should follow the Jewish outward rituals. Because it was such a revelation
to them that God can now dwell among the Gentiles, some couldn't accept that and felt Gentiles must still
follow Jewish customs to be acceptable to the Lord. But Stephen caught hold of that revelation when he
spoke about how God no more dwelt in the temples made by the hands of men (cf. Acts 7:48). God now
dwells in the temple He Himself has made without human hands. We are His temple. They have caught
up to the revelation of the indwelling of God’s presence among His people. And the indwelling of God in
our lives need to be taught, need to be nurtured, need to be developed, need to be increased, so that we
could know how to relate to God.

The greatest secret in Jesus' life was the indwelling of the Father in His life. This was His
greatest secret. He said in John 14 that the works that I do is not I who do it but my Father who dwells in
Me who does it. And He says if you cannot believe that the Father dwells in Me, believe Me at least for
the works themselves. Every work, every miracle, everything that He did was the result of the indwelling
of the Father in him (cf. Jn. 14:10-11). Then He turns around in verse 12 and says, "Most assuredly, I say
to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do,
because I go to My Father. If you analyze the phrase because I go to my Father, it means that He is going
to send His Holy Spirit. He explained that later in John 16:7, It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I
do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. Therefore, we can
take the phrase because I go to my Father as relating to the indwelling of the Spirit in our lives. And we
can pull it further to this conclusion that when Jesus says that he who believes in Him will do the works
that He did and greater works than this shall he do because He go to the Father, we can interpret that as
Jesus saying that we will do the works of Jesus and greater works through the indwelling of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit in our lives. All through the Holy Spirit. The secret of the Christian life lies in
the understanding of the indwelling of God in our lives.

We are trying to lay a foundation to see the importance of knowing the indwelling of God in our
lives. The whole secret of a Christian life is the indwelling of God. It is not a creed. It is not just doctrinal
understanding although it is important. See doctrinal understanding is not an end in itself. The purpose
of doctrinal understanding and theology is so that we could co-operate with what God is actually doing in
our life. We realize that mental blockages are a hindrance. So, that is the purpose of doctrinal teaching
and theology. And the end is that the manifestation of God comes forth to the correct understanding of
God and how God works.

Having laid all these ground work, we need to see a little bit more here about the presence of
God.

So, we understand the presence of God in the Old Testament. How does this apply in our lives
today? And we have to start with the Outer Court, then the Holy Place and then the Most Holy Place to
understand the workings of God in our life. The Outer Court represents your physical body. The Holy
Place represents your soul. And the Most Holy Place represents your spirit. Each piece of furniture also
speaks about the aspect of Jesus that is working on your soul, on your body and on your spirit. The
brazen altar represents Jesus, the Lamb of God, and the power of His Blood. The laver represents Jesus
the Word of God, the power of the Word. The candlestick, Jesus the Baptizer, the power of the Holy Spirit.
The table of showbread represents Jesus the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the power of the name
of Jesus. The altar of incense represents Jesus Christ the High Priest and the power of prayer, praise and
worship. And as you enter the Most Holy Place, the Ark of the Covenant is Jesus the fullness of God, the
power of God’s presence and glory.

Some Christians learn the "ought". What I ought to do. What I ought not to do. And it becomes
like the new Ten Commandments. They lost the full meaning of the New Covenant. Jesus has given us a
new way to overcome sin. Not just by the Old Covenant. The New Covenant is an inward change, an
inward way of overcoming it. If you know the indwelling of God in your life, the desire to sin disappears.
Paul seeks to change the Corinthians who were living in sins by reminding them of this, Know ye not that
you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What was the underlying statement? That if they knew they were the
temple of God, they would never sin. Since they are in sin, he had to remind them again that they are the
temple of the Holy Spirit. And if we realize how much we are temples of the Holy Spirit, we will begin to
deal with sin and falling as a Christian.
 Turn to Romans 6,7 and 8. Here we see the indwelling of God unfold in our life. Romans 6 start in
the Outer Court and the power of the blood. Romans 6 talks about what has happened in Christ. How we
have died with Him? Our old man has been crucified with Him. In fact, Romans 5 already started it. We
approach God from having the Blood applied to our life. So, in chapter 6 it deals primary in sin nature.
Chapter 5 deals primarily with sins in our life that God has come to remove. Look at Romans 5:19 For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be
made righteous. Then in Romans 6:4, Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,
that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be
in the likeness of His resurrection. Verse 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.

It is God’s purpose that we be free from sins and later on from the presence of sin. When you are
born again, you are freed from the penalty of sin. The penalty of sin that is laid over your head where
eternal death is your rightful judgment, the Blood of Jesus comes and take the penalty on your behalf.
Jesus took that penalty of sin for you and for me. We are freed from the penalty of sin that is in the past.
We have been born again. Now from the time you are born again until Jesus Christ comes again, we are
learning how to be free from the power of sin. Sad to say that sometimes Christians are still under the
power, the lure, and the temptation of sin. Some are even still living in sin. If they only know the presence
of God. We should be, we ought to be free from the power of sin. And that is the purpose of this teaching.
It is to realize what God has planned for our life and freedom from the power of sin. When Jesus comes
again, we will be free from the presence of sin. There will be no more sin, no more death, no more tears,
no more pains, thank God, we will be free forever. Now when you live on this earth the presence of sin is
still around. There are sinners around. And as long as sinners are around, there will be sin. And it is on
this earth that we need to learn the secret to allow the indwelling of God to preserve our life from the
power of sin. That is the whole point.

And then in chapter 7 Paul talks about the struggle that is present in all Christians to a certain
extent. In verse 14 onwards, For we know that law is spiritual but I am carnal sold `under sin. For what I
am doing I do not understand. For what I will do that I do not practice but what I hate that I do. Have you
ever seen such a fellow? What I am doing I don’t understand. And then what I will do I don’t do. But what I
don’t like to do I do. Sound exactly like a Christian in bondage. They don’t like sin but they still sin. They
don’t like it but they still do it. It has become a habit. It torments you. It grips you. It holds you. It enslaves
you.

Read on because the solution is coming forth. Verse 16, if then I do what I will not to do, I agree
with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin who dwells in me. Paul ascribes a
personality to sin. The force of sin, the nature of sin does not dwell in his spirit but still dwells in his body.
See our bodies are not renewed yet. We have not received a new body yet. He talks about sin nature that
dwells in your body. And he talks about how the mind is to be renewed. There is where sin is holding on.
And we need to know how to release that indwelling of God in our spirit to flow out and wash and cleanse
our soul and our body to His holiness. Verse 19, For the good that I will to do I do not do. But the evil I will
not to do that I practice. In that short phrase he mentioned so many "I". Paul was having an "I" problem. A
lot of Christians are also having "I" problem. This kind of "I" problem the optician cannot help you. Only
Jesus can help you. So, his struggle was in himself. The basic struggle of sins is the "I". SIN you take
away the S and you take away the N you are left with the I standing there. The root and power of sin is in
the "I" of a person.

The hardest thing for a human being to give up is his own rights. That is one of the things that
we find it hard to conceive today. Probably in the olden days it was easier when they had slaves. Today
we don’t fully understand the concept of slavery. They understood what a slave mean. A slave is some
one who has no rights, no rights to his family, no rights to his children. Even the children and his wife
belong to the master. If he leaves, he has to leave his wife and children behind. He has no rights to his
own life. He has no rights to say when he rests, when he wakes up. He is just property that belongs to
another. When they came into Christ, they understood when Paul said you are now a slave to God, a
bond slave, and one who chooses him eternally. In the Old Testament, a bond slave is different from a
slave. A slave is some one who could be serving without being willing. But a bond slave is some one who
had a free choice to be free and to go free in the year of jubilee. But the person chooses and says, “I like
you master I want to stay forever with you.” Paul says we are a bond slave to God. We have to give up
our choice, our will, our understanding, and our thinking and take His understanding, take His thinking,
take His will for our will.

Sometimes when we teach on things like it is God who appoints ministers in the church as
found in 1 Cor. 12:28 And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. When we
talk about God appointing, sometimes people will say, “How come He chose you and not me?” See
behind that concept is rebellion. You say I'd like to do it too. I'd like to be in the limelight. Now listen here
whether we are in the limelight or in the background, it makes no difference to our reward. God rewards
us according to our faithfulness to His plan. If you have been fulfilling His plan, you have a great reward.
Whether human beings like you or not makes no difference. And so behind that kind of statement like,
"Why should God choose him? Why didn't He choose me?" is a spirit of "I", the spirit of rebellion. Behind it
is a man saying, “I like to be able to choose. I think I can choose better than God. I think I know better
than God. I think I am smarter than God." These statements are behind and between the lines when a
person says that. We have to realize that in this life you have actually only one choice. To obey or disobey
His will. If He designed that you be like one of those four creatures, stand in the presence of God, in your
prayer closet saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord,” praying all the time, so be it. If He designs that you be
outside in the limelight so be it. It takes humility to say, “Lord your choice is better than our choice.” You
better believe that. Adam and Eve didn’t believe that. They were saying when they chose that fruit, that
they know better than God. It is one of the hardest things for a human being to give is to bend the "I" and
make it a "C". “C” stands for Christ. We can trust God.

I give you two reasons to trust God. One He loves you more then you love yourself or any other
body loves you. He loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son. You can trust the being and
the person who love you that much, who think only the best of you. Secondly, He is Omniscient. He
knows more about yourself than you know yourself. Any father who brings up children knows. You ask
your children what they would want to do when they grow up. If they are four years old, they will say they
want to be an ice-cream man. Not to sell but to eat. If they are six years old, they will say they want to be
a teacher. If they are ten years old, they will say they would like to be a doctor. See they are changing
their minds all the time because they cannot comprehend what they actually can do. And sometimes
being parents, you could actually see what talent your child has. And you seek to be a good parent with
the help of God to develop the child the way God has created that child to excel in. We all know that is
happening in natural life. How much more that God knows more about us than we know ourselves. If He
did not choose you to be an evangelist, He will probably choose you for something else. God has His plan
for different people. It is humbling to do it. But it is the only way to walk a Christian life. To say, “Not my will
but your will. God you are smarter than me.” So, Paul was having the "I" problem. And that is the struggle
behind sin nature - the "I" problem. The moment you overcome the "I" problem, you begin to understand
how Paul does it.

This is how Paul does it. He is coming to the solution now. He says in Romans 7:22-23 For I
delight in the law of God according to the inward man. Now he is talking about the inward man. The
indwelling of God is there. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will
deliver me from this body of death? I thank God - through Jesus Christ! So then, with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. That means the flesh is still subject there. Just read
on, there is therefore, see he is concluding. Romans 8:1 There is therefore no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus. Notice he says two things here. In verse Romans 7:25 he says about Christ
setting you free. It is not a doctrine that just set you free. It is not just a revelation; no doubt, revelations
set us free. And the truth does make us free. But the fact of the truth is that truth reveal more about Jesus.
All doctrine and all theologies must lead to the exaltation of Jesus. All bible studies and all the reading of
the bible must lead us into more of Jesus. He is the author and the finisher of faith. He is the beginning
and the end. He is the alpha and the omega. Paul was saying he has found the key. He has found the
secret. It is who shall deliver me. It is not what shall deliver me. But a lot of Christians are
asking what shall deliver them. So, they run from one seminar to another seeking for the secret key. And
then they grab the key and try it. It did not fit. And they seek knowledge and knowledge with no
satisfaction because the answer is not in a "what". The answer is in a person, the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that person has come to live in us.

Think about its application. Everyday when you wake up, the most important thing that you
remind yourself is that He is living in you. You are not living your life any more. But you know we forget.
We live our life all over again. We get up and start letting ourselves be doing what we want. We forgot that
He is in us. And you are a bond slave. You have given your rights to your mind, the rights to your will, the
rights to your emotion, the rights to your body over to Him. Paul says, “Thank God the Lord Jesus Christ
sets me free.” When you are tempted by a temptation, something that keeps hitting your mind, the key is
to remember that He is in you. The moment that you begin to meditate the fact that He is in you, let Jesus
in you begin to face whatever you face. And you will find that temptation will disappear. Because when
Jesus in you faces it, the demons or the devils who came to give you all those temptation will flee from
His presence. But if you forget that Jesus is in you, the demons will take a closer look at you and say that
it was only you. For you have "I" problem. But if you bend the "I”, if you humble your "I”, and turn it into a
"C", you allow Christ Jesus in you to come forth. When the demons see Jesus, they will run. See Jesus
lives in our spirit. But as long as you don’t bend yourself, the devil can’t see Jesus, the demons can’t see
Jesus, and human beings can’t see Jesus. They only see you.

2. THE MERCY SEAT

We are going to look at the indwelling presence of God. In the last message, we looked at the
various parts of the furniture in the tabernacle. In this teaching series, we will be relating how the Outer
Court represents the body. The Holy Place represents the soul. The Holy of Holies represents the spirit
man. The tabernacle represents the temple of God. That was God’s dwelling place in shadow in the Old
Testament time. Now God’s temple is corporately the church and individually our spirit, soul and body. So
definitely there is a relationship between our spirit, soul and body and the Holy of Holies, the Holy Place
and the Outer Court.

We are going to look at the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 37: 1-9, Then Bezalel made the ark of
acacia wood; two and half cubits was its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its
height. He overlaid it with pure gold inside and outside, and made a molding of gold all around it. And he
cast four rings of gold to be set in its four corners; two rings on one side, and two rings on the other side
of it. He made poles of acacia wood and over laid them with gold. And he put the poles into the rings of
the sides of the ark to bear the ark. He also made the mercy seat of pure gold; two and half cubits was its
length and a cubit and a half its width. He made two cherubim of beaten gold; he made them of one piece
at the two ends of the mercy seat: one cherub at one end on this side, and the other cherub at the other
end on that side. He made the cherubim at the two end of one piece with the mercy seat. The cherubim
spread out their wings above and covered the mercy seat and their wings. They faced one another; the
faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat.

Just take note that the title of the throne of God on the ark is called the Mercy Seat. Moses could
have named it some other names. He could have named it as the holy seat, the love seat, or the power
seat or the seat of judgment. But God has a choice. The Holy Spirit has a reason for naming it the Mercy
Seat.
 We are just going to look at some articles in the ark before we proceed. Heb. 9:3-5, And behind
the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which has a golden altar of
incense and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that has
the manna, Aaron rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of
glory overshadowing the Mercy Seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in details.

The author of Hebrews talks about the three other aspects that are contained in the ark. One is
the manna. The second is Aaron’s rod and the third is the tablets of the covenant. The three parts are
represented here in Eph. 1:17-19 That God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

So there are three things that Paul prayed for the church to know. The first is the hope of His
calling, which is also the will of God. The two tablets of the covenant represent that calling and will of
God. Second is the riches of the glory of His inheritance, represented by the manna. The manna reveals
God’s providence for our spirit, soul and body. And thirdly, Aaron’s rod represents the resurrection power
of Jesus Christ. The first time that Aaron rod was brought in was because of the resurrection power. Now
Aaron’s rod was actually Moses’ rod. Aaron was a spokesman of God. He represented God in every
action of his. And he followed Moses wherever he was. The rod of God was the same rod that Moses had
and it was probably a shepherd’s staff. It was with him all those 40 years in the wilderness. But when he
met God in Exodus chapter 2 and 3, that rod was given a new title. It was called the rod of God. And that
rod was used in all the signs over Egypt. And that same rod was used when Moses crosses the Red Sea.
The same rod was used throughout all those times in the wilderness until the Israelites challenged Moses’
and Aaron’s leadership. When the people challenged Moses and Aaron leadership, that was when God
said, “All of you take your rods and put it in My presence. I will show whom I have chosen.”

Sometimes human beings forget that God runs an organization based on an anointing not just on
an organization. That is why when an organization grows big people try to get rid of the key leaders.
When they get rid of the key leaders, they find that they have also gotten rid of God and the anointing.
See God always operates through a vessel. The pattern and the mode of God’s operation are fixed in the
bible. God always choose vessels. Organizations are tools of God. They can change. They can be
adapted. They can be reformulated. Organization represents the wine skins. What is important is the new
wine. It is not the wine skin. The wine skin needs to change from time to time since an old wine bag
cannot contain what God needs to do. So as God’s Spirit reveals new things and new revelations and put
fresh anointing, we need to adapt and change the organization to fit God’s order. We don’t fit God into our
organization but we fit our organization according to God. The problem is not in the system that God has
ordained. The problem is sometimes the wrong people get into the top of that organization. That is when
the whole system breaks down if it is based on a theocratic kind of hierarchy.

The kingdom of God is based on a theocratic hierarchy. Jesus is Lord of Lord and King of Kings.
He is the final authority. But the wonderful thing is that Jesus' character enables Him to function in that
role. He is the most loving creature in the universe, the most merciful of all creatures in the universe and
the wisest in all the universe. He is the eternal, uncreated, pre-existed being; He is God. So, His character
and His qualification suit Him to take on the top post in the universe. God has assigned that position in
heaven and earth to Him.

So, the problem many times is not in the system or the structure of the organization. But if you get
the wrong man into authority that is the end of the organization. It is not the system it is the people that
involved in an organization that makes the whole thing go haywire. And for that reason human beings of
quality are important and not the system of organization. If you can have a system running without the
right people, it will not function according to God’s requirements.

Today people have realized that democracy by itself will not work. When the majority vote for sin
what are you going to do? When abortion, pornography, prostitution, gambling, and a host of other vices
are legalized, this will corrupt the nation. The people have lost their moral standards. If the Supreme
Court of a country has more unbelievers as judges, that is the end of righteousness and justice in the
country. It is the law by the majority, not the law by spiritual, physical, social expedience.

So we see here that these three parts that are mentioned in the ark that will relate to our lives. The
manna represents provision of God. The tablets represent the will of God, and Aaron’s rod represents the
resurrection power. Aaron’s rod was placed in God’s presence and budded. Overnight it budded. It bore
flowers and a fruit. From that day onwards God said to put that rod into the ark. The other contenders
became rodless, that is, powerless and God’s ark had a new article, Aaron’s rod. So, from that day
onwards that rod became the resurrection power and the life of God.

Many times, as we try to understand God’s indwelling presence in our life we stumble because
we cannot conceive fully the omnipresence of God. Why is it that we want to look at the indwelling
presence of God? For this purpose, it is the indwelling presence of God that enables you to live a sinless
life. When the Corinthians fell into sin, Paul reminded them, “Do you not know that your bodies are the
temples of the Holy Spirit?” See Paul knew that they have forgotten that their body was the temple of the
Holy Spirit. He is referring to their individual bodies. Paul was implying that if the Corinthians knew and
were aware that they were the temples of the Holy Spirit, they would not have sinned. So, they sinned
because they forgot. They didn’t realize the fact that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.

It is important to understand the indwelling presence of God. How God dwells in our life today.
God actually puts His presence into you. God in person actually dwells in heaven and Jesus at the right
hand of God. The only person who is down here on this planet earth is the person of the Holy Spirit. From
time to time God manifest Himself through the Holy Spirit where we can see Jesus in person. We can
relate to the Father in person. But officially, God is in heaven and Jesus at His right hand. The Holy Spirit
is the official person working on this planet earth. How is it that He is in your heart and in my heart? In our
hearts here, in our church here and in many other churches on the other corners of the earth, nothing can
contain the person of God. So, what God does is take a portion of His presence and put it on this earth.

In the tabernacle of Moses and in the Solomon’s temple, God did not actually come in to dwell
there. What God did was put His presence there. See God is in heaven. Do you mean to say that when
God came to dwell in Moses’ tabernacle, heaven was empty of God’s presence? That cannot be. The
earth cannot contain His presence. If God were to send His outriders, that would be more than enough.
Do you know how many angels He has? Multitudes. So, God did not actually come down in person to
dwell in the temple. I will prove it to you from the scriptures. The bible people recognized it. See Moses
recognized that God is a person. But he can only relate to so much of God and the person of God.

Look at the finishing of the tabernacle in Exodus 40:16, Then Moses did all that the Lord had
commanded him. This phrase is repeated over and over again about 21 times. Moses did according to all
that the Lord commanded. Verse 17, And it came to pass in the first month of the second year of the first
day of the month, the tabernacle was raised up. It took one year for them to build it. The whole one year it
took to build the tabernacle was in the book of Leviticus. Verse 18 So Moses raised everything, fastened
its sockets, set up its boards, put in its bars and raised up its pillars. Verse 20, He took the Testimony and
put it in it’s the ark, inserted the poles through the rings of the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the
ark.

Everything was set up. There was no glory yet. Any Tom, Dick and Harry could carry it. I am sure
you don’t think Moses carried it himself. He got a few guys to help him and put them in the right place,
everything in order. And everybody had a first look at the tabernacle. That is the only time they had a
chance to look at it before the glory came. After the glory came, they never got to see it again. Only the
high priest who enters the Holy of Holies once a year gets to the inside of the tabernacle. And he still
couldn’t see because of the incense. And whenever the ark was taken in travel, they covered it with a
special garment. So, nobody had a chance to see it. So, when they brought the ark in and every thing set
up, it was like a normal renovation work that is completed. There was no glory, no power of God and no
presence yet. God was still in the pillar of cloud.
 After everything was completed, notice what Moses did. Verses 23-25, And he set the bread in
order upon it before the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses. He put the lamp stand in the tabernacle of
meeting across from the table, on the south side of the tabernacle and he lit the lamp before the Lord, as
the Lord commanded Moses. I’d like you to take note of this phrase in Exodus chapter 40. They have set
everything in order and anointed everything by this time. And in verse 29-33, And he put the altar of burnt
offering (That was the last piece. See he set from the inside. And from the inside he set it all ready by the
time he came to burnt offering the altar was) before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and
offered upon it the burnt offering and the grain offering, as the Lord had commanded Moses. He set the
laver between the tabernacle and the meeting, and put water there for washing. And Moses, Aaron and
his sons would wash their hands and their feet with water from it. Whenever they went into the tabernacle
of meeting, and when they came near the altar, they washed, as the Lord had commanded Moses. And
he raised up the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and hung up the screen of the court gate.
So Moses finished the work.

It was after finishing all the work that the glory cloud came in verses 34-35, Then the cloud
covered the tabernacle and the altar, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not
able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled
the tabernacle.

And for the first time Moses could not get in. Notice that the bible says that it was not the Lord but
it was the glory of the Lord. The glory of the Lord and the Lord is slightly different. The glory came from
the Lord but the glory of the Lord is a part of His manifested presence that He imparts. There are different
degrees of glory. And God manifested a degree so great that even Moses could not stand it. He has not
even manifested His person. His glory was placed in the tabernacle. And the glory of the Lord in verse 35
filled the tabernacle. From that day onwards, Moses' tabernacle was filled with the glory and the presence
of the Lord. Not the Lord Himself but the glory, the presence of the Lord.

I’d like you to look at the temple of Solomon. Sometimes people think that God Himself came
down and heaven was left empty. It was not that way. God put a measure of His presence on the
tabernacle. God put a measure of His presence in the temple of Solomon. In Solomon’s dedication of His
temple in 2 Chron. 6: 8 “But the Lord said to my father David, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a
temple for My name.’” Notice it is a temple for His name. It is for God to put His presence and name there,
not for God to come and live inside. It is too small for God. It will be like an ant house for a human being.
None of you live in an ant house. You can’t even get in. And when God looks at man, that is what it is like
to Him. God can’t live inside that house. But what God can do is put a portion of His presence and glory
there permanently. God presence and glory can be taken and placed in a place permanently. You can
have the glory and presence of God on your life too. It’s on you all the time.

So here, we have in chapter 6 Solomon himself acknowledge as he came before God in verse
18, “But will God indeed dwells with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain You. How much less the temple which I have built!

Verse 24, Or if your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned
against you, and return and confess Your name and pray and make supplication before You in this
temple. Solomon was asking God to hear the prayers of His people when they confess His name here.

Verse 26, “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against
You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict
them. So, it is actually, quote and unquote, a place that God puts His name. It was not a place for God to
live in. It was a place for God to place His name and to place a portion of His presence and His glory.
How can God live in you in His fullness? Our body can’t take it. So, He puts His presence in our life to a
certain measure. What God actually put on His temple was His glory.
 You can see it in 2 Chron. 5 that when the singers were as one (in verse 13) that the cloud of His
glory (in verse 14) filled the temple so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud.
For the glory of the Lord, it tells us there, for the glory of the Lord has filled the whole house. It was just
His glory. It was not Him but just a portion of His presence. That is much as we can know God on this
earth according to His glory and His presence.

Now what did God place in your life when you were born again? He placed a portion of His glory
in you. That is why the bible says we are being changed from glory to glory. That means that God’s
presence should be increasing in our life from one measure of glory to another measure of glory. God’s
glory is increasing in your life. We can’t contain; our physical frame cannot contain the fullness of God.
But God places a measure of His presence in our spirit. And what many Christians don’t realize is this.
That presence was not supposed to remain stagnant. That presence of God in our life is not supposed to
remain stagnant. You can’t just say, “Thank you God. You are with me now.” That presence is to be
increased day-by-day, month-by-month, and year-by-year. We can have an increasing measure of His
presence.

And the indwelling presence of God can grow so much in your life that at the very presence of sin
you feel uncomfortable. Do you know God feels (if you can use such a word, but human language is so
limited to express the great things of the spirit realm) great discomfort in the presence of sin? Jesus felt
the same thing. He did not just suffer those six hours on the cross. But all His life on the earth was a
suffering because of the presence of sin. But you and I know that the people of the world don’t feel such a
thing about sin. In fact, some of them enjoy it. When you are born again, part of you still enjoys it. But the
other part says I don’t like it. So what do we do? Leave it as it is? No, what we must do is to increase the
presence of God in our life until you become uncomfortable in the presence of sin. You can’t stand that
presence. Not that you will come out in your wrath but rather when you reached that stage, you
understand what Paul meant when he said, “Know ye not that .you are the temple of God?” How can you
enjoy something that you don’t enjoy? The only reason Christians fall into sin is because they still enjoy it.
The only reason some choose to sin is because they are still pleasurable to them. Although the pleasure
is short and the condemnation is great, it’s the pleasure. That is what Satan tempts you with. He tempts
you with flitting pleasures that pass away. Isn’t it wonderful if you could get rid of that? It is possible. The
key is in the presence of God in our life.

As the presence of God fills your soul, the things that are enjoyable to the world will no more
enjoyable to you. You will notice that happens in your own life as you grow as a Christian. What you enjoy
two ago, things that were lawful but not expedient today you don’t enjoy any more. Percy Collette went to
heaven for six hours. He enjoys playing tennis a lot. But when he came back from heaven, he couldn’t
enjoy playing tennis any more. You can’t enjoy tennis any more when you have seen the glory of God.
You ask, “What is your hobby then?” Prayer. “How do you get exercise?” Dancing in the spirit. The world
needs hobbies because they don’t know what to do with their time. He said that when he came back his
tennis racket was untouched. He says there is no pleasure like the pleasure of being with God. It draws
you into the presence of God. God placed a measure of His presence in our life. It was that presence that
Adam lost. It is that presence in Jesus’ life that causes Him in Heb. 1 to do what He did. He hated sin and
loved righteousness.

Why is it that Christians find doing righteousness and doing the lawful things a burden? The
presence of God in their life is not strong enough. It is not strong to the degree that they enjoy it. It is just
like having taste buds that don’t work. You won’t enjoy eating food. The taste buds are there but they are
not working. But when the presence of God comes into your life in fullness and increases, your taste buds
for the things of heaven are restored. The things of God become pleasurable. Reading the bible is
something you look forward to. I mean you could hardly take your eyes off the bible. Prayer is such an
enjoyment. People ask you what is your hobby. You say, “Prayer and the Word of God.” You really enjoy
it. It is your leisure time. But not many Christians enjoy doing that. They do it because they have to. They
are like little children. When their parents give them cod liver oil, they find all kind of excuses. But if you
give them ice-ream, you don’t even have to reason with them. They don’t understand the value of certain
food. In the same way, most of us are so young spiritually that we don’t enjoy the things of God. For God
to get us into the prayer closet is more difficult than dragging a stubborn donkey. We don’t enjoy it. We
don’t run to the closet and say, “O we missed you Father.” And what about reading the bible? You don’t
enjoy it. You don’t say this is wonderful. This is food. This is life. No some of us, we get up in the morning
we say, “I have got to do it. It is good for my spirit man, but I don’t enjoy it.”

We will reach a day that we will enjoy it. The question is how. When the presence of God
increases in your life, there will be something in you that you just don’t enjoy sin any more. It is the
presence of God in our life that causes you to have awakened spiritual taste buds. When your taste buds
are working, you can taste good food. You can also taste bad food. When your taste buds are not working
and your sense of smell is not working, you wouldn’t know if someone gave you smelly food. That is what
the devil did. Because our spiritual taste buds are not working and we have been corrupted by the world,
the devil comes and says, “This is good for you.” And you go for it and say, “It is nice.” But you don’t
realize it is awful. God doesn’t like the smell of sin. What is the problem? Our spiritual taste buds are not
working. However, when the presence of God rejuvenates your spiritual taste buds, your whole being will
be tuned to God and godliness.

Our spirit, soul, body need to be tuned, just like musical instruments. If a musical instrument is not
tuned, you can’t play the right key and hear the right note. So, you need proper tuning to have a perfect
pitch. In the same manner, when our whole being, spirit, soul and body are tuned to the things of God,
you begin to sense His chords stronger than before. The key is God’s presence and God’s glory in your
life.

Turn to Exodus 33 as Moses met the Lord. Moses said in verse 18 Please show me your glory.
God said, “You can’t see My glory and live. But I will show you a little bit of My glory, just the ending part.”
You know what the ending part is like. It is just like on a National Day you have a parade of soldiers,
tanks, dancers, acrobats, clowns etc marching by. And you see only the ending, which is nothing much.
They always put the not so nice items at the ending. You missed the best part. And God said, “You can’t
see all of My glory and live. I will let you see the ending.” And just the little ending caused Moses’ face to
shine so much. Think about what will happen if he sees the beginning. Just the ending or the tail end of
God’s procession when God had walked passed already was so invigorating for Moses that his skin was
transformed. But that was the desire of his heart, “Show me your glory.” God showed him the glory.

Exodus 34: 5, Now the Lord descended in the cloud (that is His glory) and stood within him there,
and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Remember the same thing is happening, as happened in
Solomon’s temple: the name of the Lord is the glory of the Lord and the presence of the Lord. For
Solomon built the temple for the name of the Lord and for the glory of the Lord to dwell. God descended
in the cloud. Some people don’t understand what that word cloud mean. The bible says that Jesus is
going to come in cloud of glory and take us in His cloud of glory. Some people think that those clouds are
those that float about in the sky. Those are H2O and we are not going to go up in the water vapor. We are
going to up in clouds of glory, not the physical cloud that you see. But the spiritual cloud can be
manifested in physical form if God wills it. We are going to go back in clouds of glory, God’s wonderful
transport system. Those are the clouds when he talks about the clouds of glory. So, God descended in
the cloud.

Then the Lord said in verses 6-7, And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy.
The mercy of the Lord is connected to the glory of the Lord. God said, “I will show you the back part of My
glory.” But the word glory is not mentioned after that. Instead, when God came down He mentioned His
mercy, His love, and His long-suffering. That mean His glory is made up of His mercy, His graciousness,
His long-suffering, His goodness and His truth. God mentioned that these five attributes of God make up
the glory cloud.

That glory of God was placed in Moses’ tabernacle and it is called the Mercy Seat. For God,
understand that mercy and glory are one. Human beings don’t understand that mercy, love and glory are
one. But human beings understand that glory and power are one. When we talk about glory, what comes
to people’s thought? It is power, power. That is true. But it is a fringe benefit of glory. When you apply for a
job, you thanked God when you have fringe benefits. But you didn’t apply for the job just because of the
fringe benefits. You can’t live on fringe benefits only. You will die of starvation. There is your salary and
everything else plus fringe benefits. You don’t go for a job just for the fringe benefits. The fringe benefits
may have an involvement in helping you to make a decision but they are not the main things. You decided
on a job because that is the area you like to work in and you felt that God has led you and lifted you in.
And you decided on the job because it pays you sufficiently well. And then only finally you consider the
fringe benefits. The fringe benefits are at the ending not at the beginning. You don’t put the cart before the
horse.

Power is the side effect of glory. But human beings see it as the main effect. This is sad. The
substance of glory is mercy and love. Mercy and glory are one. Even the throne of God in heaven is
called the Mercy Seat. There are only two other times where Jesus sat on the judgment seat. In case, you
don’t realize it, your Revised Standard Version and New International Version removed the
word judgment seat. Two thousand over words Christ and Lord have been removed. They followed the
wrong Greek manuscript. That is why we never recommend those versions.

And we have in the book of Hebrews 4:16, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now one of the attributes of glory is
grace, graciousness and mercy. The author of Hebrews is not exhorting us to come to the tabernacle of
Moses or to the temple of Solomon. He is telling us to come to the real throne of God in heaven. He says
let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. God could have called His throne a throne of power.
Why is this so? There is no doubt about it. Human thrones are built on power but God’s throne is built on
grace and mercy. This is very difficult for people to understand. Think about God that is all-powerful, wise
and loving; He could do what He likes and nobody could stop Him. What is the most important attribute
when He deals with all others who are lesser than Him? Mercy.

Let me give a small ant bite example, something that cannot compare to God in scope. The more
you know and the greater social power, status or position that you reached, the easier it is to see the
mistakes of others that they don’t see themselves. The more perfect you are the more you can see the
mistakes of others. It is because you know and they don’t know if you are perfect and you know how to do
something. Let's take something in the natural. If you are the best mechanic on the planet earth, you can
judge every other mechanic. And humanly when people get wiser, they become more critical, saying,
“This is wrong, that is wrong.” Anyone that relates to that guy is inferior. It is the easiest thing for a person
to become critical. There is pride in human power, human wisdom, human authority. Paul says knowledge
puffs up. The reason knowledge puffs up is because the knowledge came without the character to deal
with others who have lesser knowledge. So the wiser you become, the more powerful position you hold,
the more you tend to look down on others, humanly speaking. Such people are critical and self
proclaimed critics.

But that is not the perfect will of God. In Christian life, the wiser you become, the more loving you
should be. The more you know, the more you are patient with others who don’t know. This is what we are
going to teach on the indwelling in Christ. If you only understand the concept of knowledge and revelation
but you don’t balance it with love and mercy, you are going to be a hard taskmaster. We will not call you
apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher. We have to call you a new title: Pharaoh. You become
hard on people. Everybody is wrong and you are right. So, you got a right to do what you want. That is the
whole problem. It is not supposed to be that way. The more you know, the more merciful you become. For
the ruler of the whole universe knows everything. And every other being even the angels are inferior to
Him. What is the most important attribute? It is not power. Power is no problem. At the wave of His hand,
the earth will be split opened. But the more He knows, the gentler He has to deal with us. For He knows
that we don’t know, while we ourselves don’t know that we don’t know.

Mercy and wisdom are important at that realm. So as you grow more and God promotes you
more, you have to ask God for more grace and more mercy. If you have promotion without more mercy,
which in the world they do, you will turn out to be a perfectionist and a tyrant. The world promotes you on
your ability and on your wisdom not on your love. That is why Jesus said, “The greatest among you shall
be the servant of all.” Jesus’ kingdom promotion is different. There area lot of people who probably know
more, know better, who could have been promoted in the kingdom of God. The problem is God does not
promote based on your wisdom or your knowledge. He promotes based on your love. He says, “Don’t be
like the Gentiles. Their leaders lord it over the others. But the greatest among you shall serve.” The heart
of a servant is a heart of mercy, love and compassion. He is going to promoter us according to our love.
And you will need that too. See the higher you go up into the ministry of God and in the things of God,
there will be things you understand that people don’t understand. And those who don’t understand
sometimes criticize and pass comments and sometimes do things that are offensive.

But the grace of God and the mercy of God is in you. You could show mercy. And the greater you
develop mercy the higher God promotes you to stand close with Him at His right hand. We are already
potentially there seated at the right hand. I am talking about manifestation of ministry and power. You
need to have the same degree of mercy and love He had. Do you know that Christians don’t love like
Jesus love? No wonder they don’t have power like Jesus had. You know why? If they don’t love like Jesus
had love and they have power like Jesus had, they will misuse it. So, God does not dispense his power
on those who cannot handle it. God is wise not like human beings. Human beings are not wise. Worldly
companies are not wise. They promote people not based on love. They promote people based on their
abilities and their achievements. So some of them will use others as stepping-stones to climb the
corporate ladder. Along the way, they will assassinate their rivals by whispering, slandering, politicking
and backstabbing. But what is that to the world? Success is the only thing they care for. So, we see that
God placed His glory and presence into the temple into the tabernacle. When you were born again God
placed His love in you. That is His glory and presence.

Rom. 5:5 Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our
heart by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That is His glory. That is His mercy. That is His presence.
People have asked what is the indwelling of God like. It is the love of God in you. See many times you
have to make a decision in your life. You have to check that love. There are some decisions that can be
made without love. But if love is there, you will probably make a different decision. Then you will know
which decision flows with the presence of God, and which does not. And the more you grow up in spiritual
life, the more you learn to flow with love. There could have been hundred of decisions I could make
without love in the church. Thank God for the system we organized. I mean I could say it and it is done.
But because of love, we have to take the method of love.

One of my personal little values is this. When people make mistakes, we must know how to deal
with them in love. But if a church is not run on the presence of God and the glory of God but is just based
on human organization, this is what they do. If someone commits a small mistake, the pastor would
quickly go to the pulpit and cry, “Don’t fellowship with such a guy.” Ninety nine percent of the congregation
hears about what one percent did. What happen if God promotes you to a platform, where what you say
carries effect to influence one hundred thousand people? You have to be more responsible. More love is
needed. More mercy is needed. See among a group of ten, they are already imperfection. If you have a
group of one thousand, you have the imperfection multiplied. It is the easiest thing in the world to be
critical and to be condemning. But the higher we go up in Christian life, we have to be more merciful.
More mercy is required. Think about God looking down on His whole church on this earth. I mean we are
not perfected yet. The bride is sometimes not looking for the bridegroom. The wedding is near and the
bride is still playing tennis. She is not preparing for the day of the bridegroom’s coming. We don’t kill
mosquito with a cannon. I think it is an overuse of power. It is important for us to understand that we can
make hundreds of decisions without love. But yet, we always have to flow with the presence of God.
Which path flows with the mercy and love of God? And as you flow along, you will find the way God wants
you to move in.
 3. THE INWORKING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named that He will grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be
strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend what is the width, the
length, the depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout
all ages world without end. Amen. (Ephesians 3: 14-21)

Here Paul is praying in regard to the indwelling of Christ Jesus in the hearts of the Ephesians.
They were already born again. They were already baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has already
lived in their hearts. They have accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and were tongue talking, demon
chasing, hand laying Christians. So here Paul is still praying that Christ may dwell in their hearts.

Christ's presence in our lives is in different measures. There are different degrees of His
presence, which He puts in our hearts. In praying for these Christians there are three things that we want
to take note.

No.1 is in verse 16 Paul says that God may grant you according to the riches of His glory to be
strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man. There is an inworking of the Holy Spirit in our
spirit, as much as there is an outworking. Unless He works in you, He cannot work out through you. The
Holy Spirit can only work out through you in proportion to the measure that He has worked in to you. Only
what has been worked in to you can be worked out through you. Paul talks about the strengthening. He
says that this is a continual process. Our inner man continues to fellowship with the Holy Spirit and
receives nourishment from the Spirit. You see in No. 1 the work of the Spirit in our spirit, our inner man.

No. 2 it says that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Apparently whatever the Holy Spirit
has done or is doing in our inner man will affect the presence and the indwelling of Christ in our life. The
first thing is that you are strengthened so that Christ may dwell in your heart in a fuller and a greater
measure. There are different proportions of Christ dwelling in our hearts.

And No 3 the love that is established in our life. In verse 17 it says that you being rooted and
grounded in love. The next three verses talk about love: how that we will comprehend with all the saints
the love of God in a great degree. We can immediately find from these scriptures that it harmonizes with
what we have been teaching so far: that the rooting and the grounding in the love of God is the same as
rooting and grounding in the glory of God and the presence of God. So when Christ dwells in our hearts in
a greater measure means that we are in the process of being rooted and grounded in love. When were
you rooted and grounded in love? When Christ dwelt in your heart. The presence of God coming into our
hearts is proportional to the love of God that is shed in our hearts. They are related together.

We want to understand how the Holy Spirit affects our inner man. How does He affect our inner
man and what does He actually do?

Eph. 3 is related to John 14 and 15. Remember the three points. The first is the Holy Spirit
working inside us. The second point is Christ dwelling in us and the third point is we are established in
love, rooted and grounded in love. These are the three things that go together in Eph. 3.

Lets look at John 14 Jesus Christ is speaking about the indwelling of God coming to believers. He
introduces the subject in John 14 in referring to Himself. He said to the disciples, "If you had known Me,
you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” (John 14:
7) And one of His disciples who didn’t understand the statement was Philip, who asked Him in John 14:
8, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." See Jesus was talking to them about the Father
and said, “You have seen the Father. You know Me, you know the Father.” Then one of them said, "Show
us the Father." And Jesus expressed astonishment and surprise. He said, "Have I have been with you so
long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?” After three years with you, you are still asking, 'Show us
the Father.' "

But in His patience Jesus continued teaching and said, "The words that I speak to you I do not
speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works." (John 14:10) So He begin
to describe to them and said that everything He has done thus far, everything that He has said, everything
that He has demonstrated was due to the Father inside Him flowing out. There was the oneness of Jesus
with His Father.

He didn’t stop there. In verse 12 He said, "Most assuredly I say to you He who believes in Me the
works that I do, he will do also and greater works than this because I am going to my Father." The works
that I do he will do. It is strange that in the next two verses He talks about He Himself doing it. In verse 13
and 14, “Whatever you ask in My name that I will do.” Then in verse 14, “If you ask anything in My
name I will do it.” In verse 12 He says, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do.” When He
says, “He will do,” that means the responsibility is on the believer to do it. Then in verse 13 and 14 He
says, “I am the one doing it.” That means it is His responsibility to do it. Now isn’t that a contradiction? We
are doing it. He is doing it.

Now how do we reconcile the two together? His dwelling in our life will do through us. There is
cooperation there. He is emphasising on indwelling. Jesus Christ will give you all the direction you need to
do whatever works. But the responsibility is for you to obey. He will not do it for you. The responsibility is
on our life to receive it and to flow in that category. When you do your part, He will do His part.

The next three chapters as He talks about Himself is a further development of this emphasis that
He is bringing to them. He says here in chapter 14 that He continued speaking in verse 16 about the Holy
Spirit. And He described what the coming of the Holy Spirit will be like in verse 17, The Spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him for He
dwells with you and will be in you.

Firstly, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit working in us. He goes into details to describe what it is
like. Paul just mentioned that the Spirit strengthens our inner man. But Jesus describe that this working of
the Holy Spirit in our life is in a manner that the world neither sees nor knows as it is in the invisible realm.
You can’t see the Holy Spirit. I don’t know anyone who has ever seen the Holy Spirit. He remains
invisible, He manifests Jesus and He glorifies the Father. The Holy Spirit works inside us and that it ties
up with the first point of the inworking of the Holy Spirit in Eph. 3: 16, that He would grant you, according
to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.

Secondly, in Jn. 15 Jesus talks about He dwelling in us and we dwelling in him in verse 4, “Abide
in Me and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you
unless you abide in Me.” That synchronizes with that second point in Ephesians where the inworking of
the Holy Spirit brings about an indwelling presence of Christ in our lives. There is a co-relation between
the two. Let me give you scriptures for relating the two together.

In John 14:21, “He who has My commandment and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he
who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” So Jesus talks
about His commandments. And even when He mentioned about the Holy Spirit dwelling in our lives, He
gives the Holy Spirit a title. There are many titles that the Holy Spirit carries. Jesus is not just mentioning
a title for the sake of mentioning. Jesus mentioned the title of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth in
particular in reference to the way the Holy Spirit dwells inside us. See in John 14:17, “The Spirit of truth…
dwells with you and will be in you.”

And in John 15 when Jesus talked about abiding in Him, He describes how it will happen in John
15:7, “If you abide in Me and My word abide in you.” Jesus is not talking about personally coming in
person to dwell in you since He is at the right hand of God. But Jesus Christ will send His presence by His
Spirit and by His Word into your life. And when His Word comes and dwells in your life, that is the
presence of God.

If you understand the glory of God, you would understand that the glory of God, the love of God,
the peace of God, the goodness of God, the compassion of God and the Word of God are related
together. He puts a portion of His Word into us. Don’t think of the Word as just black words printed on
white paper. In the bible the Word is logos. It is a living substance and material that can be transmitted.
By itself it has life. Even today all substances are going through a process of decay. However the Word of
God is eternal. You could live the Word of God for a billion years and it would still contain that same
power and same substance of life as when it first came forth.

The bible says in Heb. 4:12 the word of God is living, it has power and it is filled with life. For that
reason when God speaks His Word, even though Jesus spoke some of those words nearly two
thousands years ago, it still carries power in the spirit realm. There is life that is being released in the
Word. The bible refers to Word not just as sounds. The apostle John wrote in 1 Jn. 1:1, That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked
upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life. Jesus is regarded as a living Word.

Having put that concept forth, the degree of the dwelling of God in our life is in proportion to the
measure of His Word in our lives. Jesus had the fullness of God in His life. He was the Word made flesh.
The purpose of God is that all of us become the Word made flesh. The Spirit of truth, which is the Spirit of
the Word, imparts into our life the revelation of the Word, measure upon measure. He begins to transform
our thinking. He has already transformed our spirit. He is now transforming our soul and He wants to
transform our body until our spirit, soul and body flows in His Word. In this way, Jesus will dwell in us
through His Word. He interchanges Himself with the Word. Then you can understand how Jesus can
dwell in different measures. This ties up with the second point in Eph. 3: 17, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith. Romans 10: 17 tells us, So then faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word
of God.

And No. 3 having dwelt in our lives Jesus made another statement in Jn.15:9-10, “As the Father
loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My
love.” Jesus tells us that if you want to abide in Him and let Him abide in you, the third point has to come
in – His love. Abiding in His Word and abiding in His love flow together. We see that the three points
mentioned in the gospel of John 14 and 15 are also mentioned in Eph. 3. No. 1 the Holy Spirit working in
our inner man. No.2 the indwelling of Christ. No. 3 love. And here in John 14 we see No. 1 the Spirit
indwelling in our life working inside us. No 2 the Lord Jesus Christ indwelling in our lives by His Word.
No.3, His love working in our lives. They are the same Holy Spirit speaking forth through His written
Word.

Now lets look with understanding to see how the Holy Spirit does the first work of inworking in our
spirit since this is important. If the Spirit could work in our life and strengthened our spirit man, Christ will
dwell in a greater measure. And the love of God will increase in a greater measure. It is very important.
How do we go about that? How does the Spirit work in our inner man?

The key is given in John 14 when Jesus calls the Spirit the Spirit of truth. What is truth? To some
people truth is information. After some time they discovered that not all information are facts. And further
along the line, they found out that they actually had misinformation. Then they discovered later that what
they considered truth three or four years ago, was no more truth. Some people say that truth is a fact.
Then when we tell them there is a fact that sickness is present but the truth is that it does not belong to
you, we find that the fact sometimes conflict with the truth. If truth is just a fact, you have to define what
the word fact means. If the word fact means information that is received through sense knowledge, then
your definition of truth is limited by your senses. Truth goes beyond the natural realm. In the educational
system that is established in this world truth and fact are treated as equals. Conclusions based on the
study of facts and phenomena become what are called acceptable truth. The only problem is that
sometimes five years later somebody comes out with a re-arrangement of the facts and phenomena and
say actually the earlier conclusion was misleading.

So where is truth? Truth comes to you as a revelation. Let me illustrate something in the natural.
For example when man first recognised the fact that the earth revolves round the sun, it was a brand new
revelation for them in the natural sense. It was a natural revelation. Remember that all truths have fact but
not all facts have truth. The truth will always be substantiated by facts. But what is so called, “fact” may
not be truth. So it was a natural revelation for men. It was astounding to them to know that the earth goes
round the sun. Everybody thought that the earth goes round the sun. Why? They based it on their sense
knowledge and perception. Everyday when they wake up they see the sun moving across the sky.
Therefore they concluded that the sun moves round the earth. What was wrong with their observation?
Their observations were limited by their experimental ability. In other words, they were limited here. They
couldn’t travel to outer space and have a look. So they are basing their conclusions on their perception.
They could perceive the sun moving. But you can’t perceive yourself moving. So they took the moving of
the sun around the earth as a fact. I don’t know for how many years men believed that way until
Copernicus came along and said that was not true. It is the earth that goes round the sun. And how did he
conclude that? He concluded by mathematical calculations. He says that if the sun goes round the earth
mathematically all the movement of the planets and stars will not co-ordinate. So he says the only way to
harmonise with the mathematical calculations is when the earth is moving round the sun. The movement
of the sun is only our perception. It is not really the sun moving around us but we are moving around the
sun. So he says if the earth moves round the sun, then mathematically things fall into place. Now that
shows what I call a natural revelation.

Think about the many things in natural life you discovered. They become like revelation to you.
And those revelations changed your life. When they first discovered that the earth goes round the sun,
nobody was very interested at all since they could not see how that fact could help them. In fact they
mobbed that poor guy. Some decades later somebody else said if what Copernicus said was true, then
we could use the calculations to navigate our ship. We could calculate our ship’s position. We could
calculate our position, north, south, east, west by the stars.

The Spirit of truth will dwell in your life Jn. 14:17. Now what does the Spirit of truth bring? Let me
put it this way. If I say the spirit of joy will come on you, what will be its effect? Joy. Wouldn’t that be right?
If I say that the spirit of love will come upon you, what will happen? Love will be there in your heart. See
the Spirit produces after its kind. And on the reverse it is also the same. A spirit of blindness, a demon of
blindness produces blindness. Or a spirit of confusion produces confusion. It produces after its kind.

Now the Holy Spirit is one person who has many attributes. And Jesus particularly chose the
attribute of the Spirit of truth to relate to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our life. If the Spirit of love
produces love, if the Spirit of joy produces joy, then the Spirit of truth produces revelations. Therefore
when Jesus said the Spirit of truth will dwell in our life, one of the things that the Spirit of truth will come in
and do straight away is to give you revelations. He will start talking to you. He will give you revelations.
And those revelations will cause an indwelling of God in your life to grow in a greater measure.

Lets see if that is exactly what Jesus meant. In Jn.14: 17, the Spirit of truth whom the world
cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him but you know Him for He dwells with you and
will be in you. Then verse 26, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He
will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you . Now what is that
revelation? That is the Spirit of truth pouring into our lives revelations. Jn.16:13 However, when He, the
Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; (That means natural truth and spiritual truth) for
He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to
come.

Lets apply that to Eph. 3. That Holy Spirit will strengthen your inner man. You know how He
strengthens you? He gives you revelations. Revelations strengthen you. The Spirit of truth brings truth.

Let me prove it from the bible. Matt. 16 Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the
Son of Man, am?” And they gave all kinds of answers. He turns around and asked, “But who do you say
that I am?” Then Peter said, “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” Look at what Jesus said in
Matt. 16:17-19, “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but
my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that on this rock I will build my church and the gates of
hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” He
speaks about the blessings that will come. Peter received a blessing.

I would dare say that a revelation brings authority. And spiritual authority is based on revelation.
Let me illustrate a case that you may be familiar with. Suppose that a church had been in existence for
ten years. The good old guardians of the faith have been in the church since the physical foundation of
the church. The only revelations they have are some revelation truths discovered by the founder of their
church, like Martin Luther or John Wesley. They have what I call an organizational authority in that church.
But the young people started coming up and the youngest start growing. They reached a stage if the
elders themselves do not grow in spiritual revelations, the younger ones will move into revelations that the
elders have not received. So those new ones start moving into revelations that these older guys don’t
know about. So these older people will say, “That’s not from God, that’s the devil. That cannot be from
God. If God wants to say anything, He will talk to me.” Now this is where the problem is. The spiritual
revelations of the new ones are above the old ones. And the elders had natural authority but no spiritual
revelation. The new ones had spiritual revelations. And usually spiritual revelations carry spiritual
authority. So you have a problem there. Spiritual authority flows from revelation. These older people in the
church should have supposedly “spiritual authority.” But they don’t have the spiritual revelation to qualify
them for that authority. So when they make statements about certain things, they don’t have the revelation
behind it. So their statements no longer carry a spiritual authority. Instead their statements only carry a
natural ecclesiastical authority. The church will begin to feel a burden because the people who have the
spiritual revelation should be the ones who are in spiritual authority. For that reason in any church the
pastor or the leaders of the church are supposed to grow further and ahead in revelation than the younger
ones. That would be the case in a perfect church. So that as the new people grow in the Lord in that
church, the elders would know how to guide them to grow even more. They are supposed to be ahead in
revelation. Revelation gives you spiritual authority.

Now here is a problem we have to be very careful about. Sometimes you have a revelation that
actually equips you and qualifies you for spiritual authority in those areas. But you don’t have the
ecclesiastical authority yet. What do you do? You wait on God. You don’t start a rebellion and manifest
spiritual pride by saying, “I know more about you. It is time you guys resign and make way for us younger
ones.” You wait on God’s timing. Samuel the prophet had spiritual revelation far above Eli the priest. But
Samuel didn’t come and topple Eli. He waited on God. Anyone who exercises church authority but who
has stopped growing in spiritual revelation will not last long. David had more revelations than king Saul.
Actually king Saul lost the kingly anointing by his disobedience. But Saul’s natural kingdom still continued
for some time. David abides his time. He waited for God to promote him. If you have a spiritual revelation,
watch it. Sooner or later that spiritual revelation will bring you into a position of authority.

But if you have no spiritual revelation, don’t hope for it. You don’t reach into God’s kingdom of
spiritual authority by campaigning or by politicking. In fact in heaven there is no political party. They don’t
even take the vote. Why should they? They could read people’s mind. In heaven we know what each
other think. The moment you think somebody else will know what you think. God reserved it for heaven
because in heaven we will be perfected. In heaven, all of us would have the mind of Christ. The mind of
Christ would even inspire what you think in heaven. On this earth imperfection reigns.
 So revelations bring a strengthening of the presence of Christ in your life. And it is supposed to be
the presence of Christ in your life that draws people to you and to your ministry. The presence of Christ
draws people to be ministered by you in the home, over the phone, in the car parks, in hospitals. It is the
presence of Christ in your life that people are drawing from. The spiritual revelation you receive brings
forth spiritual authority and the presence of God in your life. Now we understand how the inner working of
strengthening takes place. It takes place by spiritual revelation.

The Spirit of truth worked mightily in Paul’s life. The key in Paul’s life was revelation. Where did
Paul get the authority to overtake all the other apostles? It was not his education. In fact he considered all
his education and worldly position as garbage. One thing he always relied on was divine revelation. He
says in Gal.1: 11-12 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not
according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the
revelation of Jesus Christ. See the revelations that Paul carried gave him the spiritual authority to do
something that he did in his life. It was the revelations he carry that brought him into the spiritual authority
that he was. He definitely had spiritual authority. He wrote one third of the New Testament. What did he
have? He had revelations. Revelations have been granted to him. Revelation is the unfolding of truth to
us. When truth is unfolded to you it is revelation. There is so much truth that the Holy Spirit will lead us
into all truth by unfolding it to us a little bit at a time. We can’t take all His revelations at one time. Our
mind will blow out. In fact when you have only one revelation, it may take you one whole year to saturate
it into you. The Holy Spirit works in our life by strengthening us with His revelations.

Turn to Gal. 1:16 To reveal His Son in me, that I may preach Him among the Gentiles. I did not
immediately confer with flesh and blood. Lets look at chapter 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is
no longer that I lived but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. He says I live by faith. Now you tie that up to the
book of Eph.3:17 that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith

Do you notice that every time Paul talks about the indwelling of God, he talks about the working
of faith? What is faith? Where does faith comes from? Faith comes from the Word. Faith comes by
hearing and hearing the Word of God. Didn’t Jesus said, “Abide in Me and let My Word abide in you”?
The degree of His presence in your life will be proportional to His Word in your life. And the degree and
the proportion of His Word in your life will be the degree and proportion of faith working in you. His Word
is faith. And faith comes by hearing both from logos and rhema. Revelation harmonizes with the written
Word. At the same time it is fresh from heaven. The indwelling of Christ is linked up to what you received
every day in your life.

Every day when you get up in the morning, every day when you pray and seek God, the Spirit is
revealing things to you. We are not supposed to be stagnant in our revelation where for ten years, twenty
years, all we know is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are supposed to have daily revelations in our life.
When I talk about revelation I am not talking about supernatural visitation. I am not talking about weird
oddball kind of revelations that is against the Word of God. It definitely has to be in line with the written
Word. Yet there are so many things in the written Word. Every revelation you receive does something to
you.

Let me point to something that is happening in your life without you necessarily realising it. You
have noticed that by sitting under good teaching and receiving revelation that the presence of God has
gone stronger in your life. Good teachings strengthen your inner man. Bad teachings weaken you. Some
people teach how big the devil is and about transference of evil spirits. You lay hand on a demon-
possessed person and the demon runs on your hand. See these kinds of teaching produce weak
Christians and fearful Christians. Instead of being conscious of the presence of God they become
conscious of the demons. But the right teaching should produce the consciousness of the presence of
Jesus. The true revelation of God in the bible is to glorify Jesus not to glorify the devil.

And so by sitting under good teaching and revelation, you begin to receive revelation after
revelation. After one year you look back and say, “I didn’t realise I have grown. My Christian life has
grown. I have received more strength. I have the presence of God.” See all those things are happening all
the time. But you have not figured it out how it was happening. Today we figure it out for you to show you
how it was actually taking place. The revelations that are coming to you cause Christ to dwell in your life
by faith. The revelations are causing an indwelling of Christ in your life in a greater measure.

For that reason I like to open myself to any new revelation in the body of Christ that somebody
else may bring forth. Whether that somebody is unknown or well known, whether it is from the old or the
young, the bible says not to despise prophecies. Acts 2: 17 says even your sons and daughter can even
prophesy to you. Open yourself to receive revelation from God. Revelation will establish the presence of
God in your life. The more revelations you have the more, the greater is the presence of God. The greater
the presence of God, the greater is your spiritual authority to function and to walk on this earth. Revelation
is the key.

Paul says that in the book of Eph.3: 3 How that by revelation He made known to me the mystery
(as I have briefly written already). He talks about the mysteries that he wrote in a few words, his
understanding in Christ. In verse 5, which in other ages was not make known to the sons of men, as it
has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets . Revelation was what established
the prophets and the apostles. And in Eph. 2:20 they are the foundation and Jesus is the chief
cornerstone. Why are they the foundation? Because of the revelation they carry. If you are in a place of
spiritual authority in the church supposedly, you must make sure you have the revelation to carry it out.

If you put someone in the church authority without the revelation, you are causing hurt in the body
of Christ. That person will move without revelation and people cannot submit to anyone without revelation.
Submission can be given easily to someone whom we recognized have the revelation. But it is very
difficult to give submission to somebody who does not have the revelation, who you know may lead you
blindly, like the blind leading the blind into the pit. And that is the reason why people struggle with
submission. There are people with no revelation who sometimes say, “Submit to me.” But how can we? If
for example there is a particular type of sickness or disease on the body, we need someone in authority
with the knowledge to identify and diagnose the sickness. Naturally the one who is a qualified doctor
would be the best person to diagnose it than any one of us in the natural. Then if the doctor has much
background experience, we would respect his diagnosis even more. But if some quack doctor comes
along without any medical training at all and says, “I think this is the problem,” his statement has no
weight or authority and we wouldn’t want to submit to.

Now in the spiritual sense that is true. You need a spiritual revelation to bring people to submit to
you. And submission is given not taken. You don’t demand submission. When people see the revelation in
your life, they will naturally submit to you. So Paul talks about the revelations the apostles and prophets
are supposed to carry. If they don’t carry that, they cannot demand submission. People will not submit to
them. And it is right for people not to submit to them because they don’t show forth the revelation. If you
force people to submit to you when you don’t have spiritual revelation, then your church has become an
ordinary organization and a club.

Col.1: 26-27 The mysteries which has been hidden from ages and from generations but now has
been revealed to His saints. (See it is the revelation that transforms.) To them God willed to make known
what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory. Verse 29, To this end I also labour striving according to His working which works in me mightily.
How did the working work in him? Through revelation. Paul laboured with the working of the revelation
that God granted to him. Without revelation, God’s people perish. It is revelation that produces the
inworking of God in your life.
 4. THE OUTWORKING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
In the Outer Court, there are two pieces of furniture. Right at the entrance is the brazen altar.
And before the first veil is the laver, where there is water to wash the animals and also the priest to wash
their hands and feet. As you enter the first veil, you come into what we call the Holy Place. In the Holy
Place, there are three pieces of furniture. To the left there is the lamp stand. To the right there is a table of
showbread. Just before the second veil to the Most Holy Place or the Holy of Holies is the altar of
incense.

As you move into the second veil, you will come to the Holy of Holies. There is only one
piece of furniture. That is the Ark of the Covenant. And inside the ark, there contains a pot of manna, the
rod of Aaron and the two tablets of the 10 commandments. The ark is basically a mercy seat with two
cherubim facing it.

We have seen how each piece of furniture represents something. We have seen how the
brazen altar outside represents Jesus Christ the Lamb. The laver represents Jesus Christ the Word. The
lampstand represents Jesus Christ the baptizer in the Holy Spirit. The table of showbread represents
Jesus Christ the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And the altar of incense represents Jesus Christ the
High Priest.

As you enter into that, you will find the ark. Jesus Christ the fullness of God. And each aspect
of the furniture represent an aspect of Christian principle, which we must know and acknowledge in our
life. The brazen altar represents the power of the Blood. The laver represents the power of the Word. And
the lampstand represents the power of the Holy Spirit. The table of showbread represents the power of
the name of Jesus. The altar of incense represents the power of praise and worship. As you move into the
Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant is the glory of God. And each aspect represents something in the
Christian life.

Now we are going to see in a different manner how each part of the tabernacle of Moses
represent our own personal body, spirit, soul and body. The Outer Court represents the human body. The
Holy Place represents the soul area of our life. The Holy of Holies represents our spirit. Paul says that you
are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Thes. 5:23 says, May the God of peace Himself sanctify you
completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The question is, how does God sanctify our spirit, soul and body? The principles by which
God will sanctify our spirit, soul and body are found in the understanding of the tabernacle of Moses.

The two aspects of the body are the two pieces of furniture on the outside emphasizes two
aspects of the principles of Jesus Christ that applies directly to our human body. They are the power of
the Blood and the power of the Word. Just as blood brings life to your physical body, the spiritual Blood of
Jesus Christ brings divine life into our mortal bodies. Lets turn to Rom.8: 11 But if the Spirit of Him who
raise Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our
mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. The life or zoe of Jesus Christ flows in our mortal
bodies. God quickens our mortal bodies with the life of Jesus Christ. Our body has bios or biological life.
Rom.8: 11 says that if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, then the
Spirit that dwells in you will give spiritual life to your natural body. So, our natural body receives spiritual
life. There is a measure of spiritual life given to our physical body. Our body already has life. But the type
of life we already have is biological life.

There are three Greek words for life, one is bios; one is psuche and one is zoe. Bios life is
biological life. Psuche life is soul life. And zoe life is God’s kind of life. Here it says that the Spirit that
dwells in us gives life or zoe to our body. It is easy to understand how the Spirit of God gives zoe to our
spirit man since our spirit man has been born again. But here it tells that the Spirit of God gives life to your
body. Look carefully. It is not talking about your spirit man. It is talking about your body. So here, it says
that the Spirit of God gives life to our physical body. He is not talking about our spirit although our spirit
did receive life when we were born again. It says that our natural body receives the life of God. When you
are healed, it is because the power of God comes on your natural body. When a person is raised from the
dead, the cells are revived when the zoe life of God comes upon each cell and renew it. So the Blood of
Jesus Christ that brings life is applied to our physical body. Then the Word of Jesus Christ becomes life
also to our physical body. The book of Proverbs 3 tells us that the Word of God becomes health to our
flesh. It is medicine to our flesh. The book of Heb.4: 12 speak about both. How the Word of God is
sharper than a two-edged sword piecing even unto the dividing of spirit and soul and of bones and
marrow. The Word of God is giving life and it’s dividing and causing a supernatural impartation in our very
marrow and bones. So, in those two aspects of the tabernacle of Moses we find that those two principles
are applicable to the body.

Now lets move to the Holy Place and that is where we want of focus in this message. The Holy
Place represents our soul life. And your soul consists of three main areas, your mind, your emotion and
your will. These three areas move together. Sometimes we separate our mind from our emotion. Some
people are more intellectual and some more emotional. However, the intellect and the emotion are inter-
linked. You can’t really separate and isolate them. Even the most intellectual person is moved by sub-
conscious level kind of emotion. The most emotional person is affected by what they hear and by what
they think. So the three aspects of our emotion, mind and will flow one into the other.

Now those three pieces of furniture also represent the three aspects of our soul and how God
works in our soul. For example, the lampstand represents the power of the Holy Spirit. The lampstand in
our soul is the work of the Holy Spirit in imparting revelation of truth, enabling the functioning of the five-
fold ministry, operating the nine gifts of the Spirit as well as the producing the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Gal. 5:23-23 talks about the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit, all of them tied up to love. So, the fruit of the
Holy Spirit is from the spirit man but it affects your emotion. Your emotion flows with the spiritual fruit of
the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and
temperance. Your soul emotion is affected in that category.

The table of showbread represents the power of the Name of Jesus Christ. The showbread that is
to be eaten speaks about the inner working of the Word of God in your life and the renewal that must be
done. The showbread is changed every week. Every week they will bring a new set of twelve loaves of
showbread. And it is sprinkled with frankincense. The priest and his family eat the showbread. So, the
showbread represents the partaking of the Word of God. It is renewal of your mind and your emotions.

And what about the altar of incense? The altar of incense represents your will. Paul says in 1
Cor.14: 14-15 I will pray with my spirit and I will pray with my understanding. I will sing with my spirit and
I will sing with my understanding. My will is involved in praying and singing in the spirit and with
understanding. 1 Thess. 5: 18 we see how Paul says, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you.” It is your will to choose to worship God; you choose to praise God. So here, it
speaks about our will; we choose to praise God, we choose to worship God. And as we worship and
praise the Lord, our whole being is transformed.

I am going to show how each part of our soul life is linked to the other. Why are we looking at this
when we are considering the indwelling of God? God dwells in our spirit. 2 Tim. 4: 22 says, The Lord
Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Jesus is always with our spirit. He has never forsaken us; He has not left
us orphans. Whether you feel Him or not, He is with your spirit. But the Lord Jesus is not manifest to your
soul or to your body all the time.

In Leviticus 9: 6-7 Then Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do, and
the glory of the Lord will appear to you.” And Moses said to Aaron, “Go to the altar, offer your sin offering
and your burnt offering, and make atonement for yourself and for the people. Offer the offering of the
people, and make atonement for them, as the Lord commanded.

Moses told the high priest Aaron that as he performs all these sacrifices, the glory of God would
appear to him. After the tabernacle was built, the glory of God resided in the Holy of Holies at the mercy
seat. And as Aaron performed all those sacrifices, the glory of God from inside the Holy of Holies came
out and filled the Holy Place, and came out to the Outer Court. And the people saw it and they
worshipped. God’s glory that resides in the Holy of Holies wants to come forth. This is the key for
releasing the glory from our spirit, as represented by the Holy of Holies, to our soul (Holy Place) and to
our bodies (Outer Court).

And it came to pass when the priests came out of the Most Holy Place (for all the priests who
were present had sanctified themselves, without keeping to their divisions), (2 Chron. 5: 11). Indeed it
came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising
and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments
of music, and praised the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever,” that the house,
the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because
of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God (2 Chron 5: 13-14)

After the temple of Solomon was built, the priests came out of the Most Holy Place into the Holy
Place, but as the trumpeters and singers were as one, the glory of God filled the place so that they could
not minister there anymore. The fact that they could not minister tells us that the glory of God came from
the inside outwards, that is, from the Most Holy Place outwards to the Holy Place and the Outer Court.
The glory of God came from inside the Most Holy Place outwards to the Holy Place and Outer Court.

2 Chron. 7: 1-2 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed
the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And the priests could not
enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house.

The glory of the Lord came into the temple from the inside out and nobody could get in. However,
the glory of God after some time went back into the Most Holy Place. Why does God do that? See the
glory is the manifestation of His presence, the manifestation of His love and the manifestation of His
pleasure with us. If God had kept the glory upon the tabernacle all the time, they could not have
performed the work of the tabernacle. Nobody could get in. So, after His manifestation, He withdraws His
glory into the Most Holy Place and the priests could carry on with the sacrifices.

For that reason God does not keep His glory upon us 24 hours a day. Otherwise, you cannot
function like a normal human being any more. You won’t be able to sleep. When the glory of God is upon
you can’t sleep. If you have tasted some of the strong anointing of God before on you, you won’t be able
to sleep. You just want to worship the Lord. See God understands that our mortal body is not made for
immortality yet. One day when we get that immortal body at Jesus Christ coming, as He calls us to
Himself, that is when we can taste more of the full measure of the glory of God. But until then, He
manifests His Spirit from time to time. If the glory of God is placed on you all time, you cannot live your life
as a normal human being. God knows. He manifests His glory from time to time so that we can do His
work and His glory is manifested in this present world. When it is completed, it is withdrawn and you are
back to normal. After that live your normal life and keep a consecrated life. And after that, again it is time
to manifest His glory to minister for His glory. Tap on the glory from within.

The problem is sometimes people don’t know how to tap the glory of God that dwells in within
their spirit man and release the glory outwards. So, that’s the whole problem. They don’t know how to
draw the glory of God from within their spirit. The Lord Jesus is with their spirit. How do we bring forth the
manifestation of Jesus from our spirit outward? If we know how to bring it forth and yielding to the Holy
Spirit, then we will be able to allow God to use us wherever there is an opportunity for a need for the glory
of God to use us. We are talking about the glory of God in different manifestation and why God’s glory has
to manifest from time to time.

As we look at the glory of God in His manifestation from time to time as it comes forth, there are a
few basic points that we want to take note. We are talking about how to learn to release the glory of God
from the inside outward. God is on our inside. He dwells in our spirit man. We want to learn how to flow
forth with Him. How do we bring forth the glory from within us outwards? There are certain principles that
we want to take note. One of them is this. As we study the Old Testament example, we find that the Old
Testament people bring the blood obtained from sacrificing the animals. Every day, they bring that blood
from the Outer Court and anoint each piece of furniture with blood. And then they come into the Holy
Place and anoint the lampstand, the table of showbread and the altar of incense with blood. Every day
they did it. Every week they will change the showbread twelve loaves. Every day they will have to check
the oil level in the lamp stand. Once a week at the same time, they would have changed the showbread
almost the same time as the evening sacrifice. They will put incense and the incense will burn and form a
cloud. While the incense is burning, they quickly trim the lamp stand. It is done every week. So, in the
Holy Place there are some things that are done every day. Some of the things are done weekly. In the
Outer Court, everything is done almost every day. In the Most Holy Place, the only work that is to be done
inside is done once a year. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest will sacrifice an animal and take the
blood of the animal into the Most Holy Place once a year.

We can draw certain principles from this and can apply to the Christian life. The entrance to the
Most Holy Place by the high priest once a year represents Jesus Christ dying for our sins and opening the
way to God. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, something happened at the Most Holy Place. In the
temple, the veil that divided the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn into two from the top
downwards (cf. Matthew 27: 51). That tells us that the way to the Most Holy Place is now opened. The
bible in the book of Hebrews tells us that there is only one sacrifice done once. Jesus Christ died once
and it is enough. That one entrance into the Most Holy Place by the Lord Jesus Christ the Lamb of God
was done was fulfilled and it need no longer be repeated. So that is completed. You are born of the
natural once and born again once. Some people said if you are twice born, you die once. If you are born
once, you die twice, natural death and spiritual death. So, you are born again once and Jesus entered
into your heart once. He does not need to enter over and over again. As He enters into your heart through
the Holy Spirit once to dwell in you, the measure of His presence may increase. But His entrance into
your life is once. You are born again once. Some people feel that they have to accept Christ three, four
times before they are assured. Even though you may have done that, you are getting assurance. You
were saved once when you actually acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior died for your sins.
You acknowledged what He has done and you accepted Him. Jesus comes into your Most Holy Place
your spirit man and gives you a new spirit. You are given a new spirit once.

So, Jesus comes into our spirit man but once. In the Most Holy Place, the application of the blood
is repeated. Even though you accepted Jesus Christ once and He has forgiven all your sins, yet, when
you do fail in word, thought or deed, what do you do? You ask for the Blood to cleanse you. See you
apply the Blood in your life as you have need of it. The New Testament way is acknowledging the power
of the Blood upon your emotion, upon your mind, upon your will. You test it in your life. Every day when
you wake up, you acknowledge the Blood of Jesus on your mind, on your emotion, on your will. You will
see the difference that affects in your life. There is a purity that is there.

Lets look at Heb. 10: 16-18 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says
the Lord: I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds, I will write them. Then He adds, “Their
sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is a remission of these there is
no longer an offering for sin. Verse 22, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Now the word heart has been confusing to many Christians because some Christian writers say
that the word heart always represent the spirit. It does not. The word heart if you study it has a special
application. Let me illustrate what the bible mean by the word heart. There is a body and then there is a
soul. Your soul consists of your mind, your will and your emotions. Then there is your spirit man. Your
spirit man also consists of three major areas - the communion, your intuition and your conscience. The
communion is the part that could sense and relate to God’s presence. Your intuition is the part that
perceive. And your conscience that detects right and wrong. The word heart in the bible actually refers to
the three areas of your soul including your conscience. So, you could draw three circles. In the outermost
circle, you put the word body there. The second circle you divide it into three parts, emotions, mind and
will. The inner circle you divide it into three parts, intuition, communion and conscience. Then you color
the second circle with the conscience one color. Now that part represents the heart. How do we come to
that definition? If you take a concordance and look under the word heart, you will find that it says the heart
thinks, that is your intellect; the heart feels, that is your emotion and the heart chooses which is your will.
And then the heart also has reference to your conscience. So, that is how you get a basis of scriptural
understanding. Some times the word heart is used primarily in reference to the spirit area. But most of the
time, it is in reference to your soul plus one portion of your spirit area, conscience.

Now you understand what it means to cleanse our hearts with the Blood. With that background,
when we say the Word of God washes or the Blood of Jesus cleanses the heart, it means there is a
cleansing of the Blood upon the mind, the will, the emotions and the conscience. Why do we not accept
the word heart to simply mean the spirit? Jesus said out of the heart of men proceeds evil thoughts. How
can I accept that evil thoughts can come from the regenerated spirit of man? I can’t relate that scripture
as referring to the spirit man. Jesus said out of the hearts of men proceeded evil thought, adultery,
fornication etc. By the study of the Word of God, how can I say that the born again spirit of men produce
all these thoughts and desires? The word heart refers to these four areas corporately together. Heart
refers to the mind, the emotion, the will and the conscience. So, those are the areas that the bible refers
to when it says the heart.

Lets look at the book of Heb.10: 22 Lets us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Sprinkle with what? The Blood of Jesus. How do we
know that? Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? See the
Blood of Jesus purges your conscience and purges your heart. Your hearts are cleansed by the Blood of
Jesus. We need to acknowledge the application of the Blood of Jesus Christ upon our minds, our
emotions and our will. We need to acknowledge that in our lives. If you have not done that, what do you
imagine when you say, "Thank you God for washing me white as snow." Do you know many Christians
don’t have the right imagination? And your imagination must be in line with the Word. Most Christians just
see a substance of the Blood coming on their body and cleansing them. Your picture must be more
detailed than that, according to the scripture. The Blood must cleanse your mind, your emotion, your will
and your conscience. So now that you know that, you can apply the principle of applying the Blood upon
our conscience, mind, emotion and will.

In the Old Testament, when the priest took the blood from the Outer Court, they went through the
first veil and applied it upon the different parts of the tabernacle. He put the blood on those pieces of
furniture. The blood from the Outer Court was applied there in the Holy Place. That is the application of
the Blood of Jesus Christ upon our soul.

Let's look at Exodus 28 at the priestly garments. Those areas are emphasized over and over
again in the bible. Verse 4 it says And these are the garments which they shall made abreast piece, an
ephod, a robe, a skillfully woven tunic, a turban and a sash. So, they shall make holy garments for Aaron
your brother and his sons that he may minister to Me as priests. Verse 5, they shall take the gold and
blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine linen. And they shall make the ephod of gold, blue, purple,
scarlet thread and fine linen artistically woven.

Bronze represents sin is judged. Silver represents redemption. Gold represents divinity, the
spiritual part, or the spirit being. Gold emphasizes the divinity or the godhead of Jesus. Blue represents
Jesus Christ the Son of God. Purple represents Jesus Christ the King of Kings. Scarlet represents Jesus
the Savior of the world. Fine linen represents the Jesus the Son of Man. All those four colors are repeated
in the tabernacle parts.

And the four gospels are found here. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus Christ is the King of Kings.
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus is the Son of Man. The gospel of Luke, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the
world. The gospel of John, Jesus is the Son of God. Now all those four aspects of Jesus Christ together
with divinity must be inter woven together to be the application of Jesus Christ to your life. Jesus as the
Son of God, Jesus as the King of Kings, Jesus as the Savior of the world, Jesus as the Son of Man
interwoven into your life and you put on Jesus Christ. Doesn’t the bible say to put on the Lord Jesus
Christ? We are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And putting on Jesus Christ emphasizes the application of
the Blood over and over again.
 Let me point more in the Old Testament time in Exodus 28 in the priestly garment in verse 9 –
12. Then you shall take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel: six of their
names on one stone and six names on the other stone, in order of their birth. With the work of the
engraver in stone, like the engraving of a signet, you should engrave the two stones with the names of
the sons of Israel. You shall set them in settings of gold. And you shall put the two stones on the
shoulders of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. So Aaron shall bear their names before
the Lord on his two shoulders as a memorial.

Now there are two stones. Each stone have six names. Those are to be placed on the top of the
shoulders. They are to be set into gold. And they are to be placed on the shoulders of the high priest.
Twice he is to bear the names on the shoulders and on the breastplate.

Exodus 28:15 You shall make the breastplate of judgment. Artistically woven according to the
workmanship of the ephod you shall make it of gold, blue, purple, scarlet thread and fine woven linen, you
shall make it. (Divinity, Jesus Son of God, Jesus King of Kings, Jesus Savior of the world and Jesus the
Son of Man.) It shall be doubled into a square; a span shall be its length, and a span shall be its width.
And you shall put settings of stone in it.

(The settings of the twelve jewels are another topic altogether. Each jewel represents an aspect.
The twelve stones represent the twelve tribes of Israel. And each tribe of the twelve tribes of Israel
represents a spiritual aspect of the Christian life and of the church life. And when you compare the twelve
stones with the twelve blessings of Jacob on the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve blessings of Moses
on the twelve tribes of Israel, you will find that each one cover an aspect of teaching. There are twelve
blessings that are involved. They are tied up to the twelve stones. These twelve again are tied up to the
twelve requirements of a priest. That is another whole set of teaching. Maybe one day we will go into that.
)

And so, what we want to see here for the time being in this message is that those twelve names
are once again written on the stone and placed on the breastplate to be tied on the high priest’s breast.
So, he bore the twelve names on his chest. And he bore the twelve names, six on each shoulder. The
twelve names represent for the priest the work of the ministry that he consecrated himself to. To minister
he needs to receive the revelation of the ministry on his heart. The breastplate is tied to his heart and he
must receive the burden of the Lord. He must carry the office that God chooses him to stand in. So when
God calls you to the ministry, God will give you both the revelation and the office to stand in.

Now that’s not completed yet. As we finish off the breastplate and put it upon him, we see how in
verse 31 it says, “You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue.” And in verse 33, And upon its hem
pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet, all around its hem, and bells of gold between them all around.

He has the normal ephod and make up of the five elements gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine
linen. Then he has a special over coat that is made of blue. Blue emphasizes Jesus the Son of God. The
divine elements are emphasized. And in his description of the pomegranates, there are only three colors
mentioned. In verse 33 blue, purple and scarlet. Blue Jesus the Son of God, purple Jesus the King of
Kings and scarlet Jesus the Savior of the world. You do not find Jesus the Son of Man mentioned there.
Because Jesus the Son of Man represents the natural part of us that must be subjugated totally. When
you come to serve God, you cannot serve God with your carnal being. Your flesh has to die in order for us
to serve God.

Now there is an aspect here. There is a whole piece of garment that is made of linen that is
mentioned in verse 39, You shall skillfully weave the tunic of fine linen thread. You shall make the turban
of fine linen and you shall make a sash of woven work. For Aaron’s sons you shall make tunics, and you
shall make sashes for them. Verse 42, you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness;
they shall reach from the waist to the thighs.

So, they have a pair of linen trousers that they wear. Now that is Jesus the Son of Man. Jesus
was likened onto us. He was tempted in every way but He did not sin. So the bible tells us gird up the
loins of your mind. The bible tells us to restrain all of your flesh. Every part of your flesh has to be
restrained. Tied up and hidden. Do you notice that the trousers were hidden? He wore the garments over
the trousers. And then over the ephod he wears a coat of mail. The coat of mail is blue with all the three
colored pomegranates, which emphasizes the three aspects of Jesus Christ, who He is (Son of God),
what He is (King of Kings) and what He has done (Savior of the world).

And between the pomegranates are bells. Verse 33-34, Upon its hem you shall make three
pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet, all around its hem and bells of gold between them all around: a
golden bell and a pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe all around.

So, on the edge of his robe we have a different type of pomegranate and a bell. It must be a
glorious garment. However, God emphasizes here that the bell will make noise. The bells are made of
gold. They are divinity. As Aaron moves about the Most Holy Place, the bells will sound.

In verse 35, And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound will be heard when he
goes into the holy place before the Lord and when he comes out, that he may not die.

It says that if the bells don’t sound he dies. Look at it here. We have mentioned that if he dies the
bell don’t sound. But God puts it the other way. If the bell doesn’t sound, he dies. That tells us that God
wants to hear that sound. Those cute tiny little bells around his garment made of pure gold make sound.
Gold represent divinity. So as the bells sound the divinity, he is talking about the spiritual being of God.
God is holy. So the bells are like the four creatures before the Throne of God that cries out, “Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty. Who was and is and is to come.” (Rev 4:8) So, the sounds of the bells are
golden sounds. They are ringing to God’s divinity. They are emphasizing the divine aspect. The bells are
ringing holiness to the Lord.

And on his head is the turban that has on his forehead, “Holiness onto the Lord.” And over on his
shoulder blade, there are the six names on each shoulder. They are held together by the sash is golden in
color. And have the breastplate held by gold. So all over, there is an emphasis on holiness. The garment
that he clothes himself with emphasizes for us the importance of holiness before the Lord. And every
aspect has the Blood of Jesus involved: Jesus the Savior, Jesus the Son of God and Jesus the King of
Kings.

How do we get into Jesus the Son of God and becomes sons of God? By the Blood. How do we
become saved? Through the Blood. How do we partake of the Kingship of Jesus Christ heir and joint heir
with Christ? Through the Blood. How do we taste of the holiness of God and be as holy as He is holy?
There is only one substance in this whole universe that can make us acceptable to God’s holiness and
that is the Blood of Jesus Christ. See how important the blood is to be applied in the Most Holy Place?

What happen if the Holy Place is not tended properly? The glory of God cannot manifest. In fact,
Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron died because they did not tend the Holy Place properly. Leviticus 10:
1-2, Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it,
and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the
Lord and devoured them, and they dies before the Lord.

There are many Christians who do not tend their Holy Place properly. We are in the new covenant
and the grace of God is there. But it is killing them. Jesus lives in our Most Holy Place. You are
responsible to tend the Holy Place. What is the Holy Place? Your mind, your emotions and your will. You
are the priest in your own temple. You have to tend the Holy Place. That is why there are opportunities to
tend to our minds, emotions and will in our weekly meetings. In our book on developing the devotional life,
we talked about how in the Christian life there must be discipline, daily discipline, weekly discipline and
yearly discipline so that you could develop a strong devotional life to God. There is something that you do
every day that you should make it into a habit. There is something that you should do weekly. Like for
example weekly fast. Or weekly time on waiting on God or weekly overnight prayers. There should be
something you should do yearly. As you develop this into your life until it becomes habitual, your
devotional life will grow by leaps and bound. Christians who don’t develop discipline in their life is like the
priest who says, “I cannot take care of the temple.” You can’t say, “I don’t feel like reading the Word. I
don’t feel like praying in tongues. I don’t feel like praising God.” It was their daily duty to lit the lampstand,
to make it a habit to worship God with praise and worship. They can’t do anything outside of the will of
God or they will die. So, we must tend our Holy Place properly. We must tend our mind. We must tend our
emotions and we must tend our will properly.

How do we do that? In the New Testament, there is reference. I just throw out all the scriptures.
Maybe we will consider it more in the next message. We have talked about how the revelation of the Holy
Spirit working in our life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit works in our emotions
through the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit works on our mind through the revelation of the Spirit of truth
revealing truth to us. See they are tied up together. The Spirit of God works in our will through conviction.
He convicts and He leads by His voice.

The aspect of the showbread, which is the application of the Word of God in our lives, is tied up to
our mind. No problem to consider that. Rom. 12:1-2 says to let your minds be renewed. Eph. 5: 26 that
He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word. The mind has to be renewed by
the washing of water by the Word of God. That is the aspect of the Word of God renewing the mind. The
Word of God also will determine the will of God. Rom.12: 2, that you may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God. The will of God in your life and the Word of God are also applicable to
your emotions. For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7. What is faith? Faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God (Rom.10: 17).

So many times your natural emotions want to pull you aside. You have the Word and it holds your
emotion. You say, “I am not going by my emotions. I am going by the Word of God.” You need the light of
the candlestick to see to change the showbread in the Holy Place. The altar of incense represents the
will. You have to choose to love God and choose to worship God. Our choice to pray will affect also the
area of the mind and the emotions. All of us know that when you worship God it does something to you.

5. FIVE SENSES OF THE SPIRIT-MAN

Everything that we see, that we can feel, that we can taste, that we can hear, that we can
perceive with the eyes, everything is temporal. It is made of spiritual realm manifested. Something must
be in the spiritual realm first before it exists in the natural realm. 2 Cor.4: 18 while we do not look at the
things which are seen, but at the things, which are not seen. For the things, which are seen, are
temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. The invisible things in the spiritual realm make
the temporal things of the material world.

Heb.11: 2-3 For by it the elders obtained a testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are
visible. Rather the visible things are made of things, which are invisible. The key behind it is the Word of
God. Everything, which is visible, has a pattern that follows after the invisible realm. Your body was
created after a spiritual image. In heaven, there is a perfect blueprint of your physically body. When God
does a creative miracle on someone and restores the person’s human body, the restored body will be
patterned after the original blueprint found in heaven. For example, God may have designed you to be 6
feet tall. However, because of some birth deformities or injury, you may have stunted by 2 inches. When
God releases a creative miracle to you, your height will be restored to 6 feet, after the original blueprint in
heaven. However, that is all you can go. However, God will not add another 5 inches to your height to
make you 6 feet 5 inches, since your original blueprint in heaven is 6 feet. All that is outward of your body
is created following that invisible image that God has created you to be.
 Physically we have what we call the five senses: the sense of hearing, the sense of sight, the
sense of smell, the sense of tough and the sense of taste. It is through these five senses that we come to
relate to the physical world around us. If you have all the five senses cut off, there is no way you could
experience the natural world. You experienced the natural world through these five senses. So, if one,
two, or three of the senses are not functioning, your experience of the natural world would be limited.
Inside our body lives a spirit and a soul. Our spirit and soul have senses.

In the parable of the rich man and the poor man in the gospel of Luke, the poor man died and
went to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and went to Hades. And from Hades he saw afar
Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. And he was thirsty. He could see; he could touch though his physical body
was dead. They had already died. But all the senses continued functioning. What kind of senses are they
talking about? It is not five natural senses that we know. They are the fives senses of our soul. There is
an inner sense of our soul. And actually, it is your soul that has the five senses first. And then only your
body has it, following the pattern of what existed first in the invisible world. The natural world is created by
what is in the invisible world. So, what exist in the spiritual world will follow through in the natural world.
You don’t have the natural first and then the spiritual. You always have the spiritual and then you have the
natural. So, in the spiritual world that our spirit and our soul exist in, there are five senses, exactly as the
same five senses that we have in the natural.

In the natural if you don’t have the sense of touch, you have missed something. If in the natural,
you don’t have the sense of sight, you will also be missing a lot of scenery and colors. Spiritually speaking
if you have some of these inner senses malfunctioning, your experience of the spiritual realm is limited.
As your natural experience is limited by the capacity of your five natural senses, so your spiritual capacity
is limited by your five spiritual senses.

We are going to show from the Word of God all these five spiritual senses so that we know the
indwelling of God within us and can experience Him. God is a Spirit and you need to contact Him through
the spirit realm. You can’t contact Him from the natural realm. And your main contact of the spiritual realm
depends on the development of your inner spirit and soul. They flow and they function together. Your spirit
and soul function together.

Spiritual Ear

First of all, we see very obviously in the bible that there is such a thing as a spiritual ear. In
Revelation chapter 2 and 3 seven times at the end of the seven messages to the seven churches, the
bible says, “He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” There is a spiritual
ear. We all have spiritual ears inside and we can train our spiritual ears to hear the things of the spirit. In
the natural, you can train your natural ear to hear some sounds. You can train you natural ear to identify a
tone. You can train your natural ear to identify a chord whether it is a "C" chord or a "G" chord. In the
same way, you could train your spiritual ears to hear God and to hear the things of the Spirit. There is a
spiritual ear that the bible talks about. Let me quote the bible itself in Revelation chapter 2 and 3. Verse
7 To him who overcome I will give to eat the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. He
who has an ear, (He is not talking about your natural ears. He is talking about your spiritual ears) let him
hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. It is hearing with a spiritual eardrum. In heaven, we all still
can hear. There are people who have died and their spirit and soul have gone to heaven. Today they are
enjoying the glories of heaven. Obviously, they can hear up there. But their physical bodies are down
here. How did they hear? They hear with their spiritual ears. And their spiritual ears can hear far beyond
what the natural ear can hear. There are spiritual ears within us and we need to train them.

Spiritual Taste

Then we have a spiritual sense of taste. We can taste certain things spiritually by tasting spiritual
food. Turn to the book of Psalms 34:8 O taste and see that the Lord is good. King David is talking about
your spiritual sense of taste. You say I didn’t know we could taste thing spiritually. Yes, we could. Ps.119:
103 How sweet are Your word to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. He is not talking about
natural food. He is not talking about a natural scroll. David is not taking a natural scroll and munching it
away. He is talking about the spiritual ability to sense the loveliness of God’s Word and to taste it. When
you hear the Word of God, and as you speak forth the Word of God and as you read the Word of God,
there is something in you that enjoys it. That says it is lovely. The Word of God can be tasted with our
spiritual sense of taste. And just as in the natural when you look at good food, your mouth starts
salivating, spiritually speaking there are certain things that cause our saliva to drop. We want to taste it.
There is a desire. It is associated with hunger and thirst. There is such a thing as spiritual hunger. There
is such a thing as spiritual thirst. And there is such a thing as spiritual food. And there is such a thing as
spiritual taste. When your spiritual hunger is satisfied, your taste bud, which is a desire for the Word of
God, experiences great satisfaction and sweetness. King David understood what spiritual sweetness is
like.

Spiritual Smell

Then there is a spiritual sense of smell. We can smell things in the spirit realm and experience
the fragrance of the Lord. In the book of Phil.4: 18 For indeed I have all and abound. I am full having
received Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well
pleasing to God. What kind of sacrifice was brought to him? It was an offering. Paul was not talking about
the natural smell. They did not send Paul some food. They sent him an offering. And Paul said it has a
sweet aroma to God.

In the Old Testament time when Noah came out from the ark, He burned a sacrifice to the Lord.
God smelt it and God liked the aroma. All of you know that in the natural. When you smell burnt meat, it
doesn’t naturally have a nice smell. God was referring to the spiritual sacrifices that were pleasing to Him.

In the same way, the book of Leviticus talks about different types of sacrifices. He says that
sacrifices has a sweet savor and aroma to Him. So there is such a thing as a spiritual smell.

Spiritual Eyesight

There is such a thing as spiritual eyesight. Eph. 1:18-19 I pray that God may give you the wisdom
and revelation that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened. He is not referring to natural eye.
He is praying for the inner eyes to be opened.

Spiritual Touch

Then there is spiritual sense of touch. Heb.11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. Faith touches the spirit realm where your natural realm cannot touch.

Training Our Spiritual Senses

Having seen all those aspects, we have to put all of them together in order to see the
development of our inward man. When Christ dwells inside our life, He helps us to develop all these inner
senses that are within us. Heb. 5: 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those by
reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. It says that the senses, plural,
are exercised. What kind of senses? The spiritual senses of hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling and
touching can be trained to discern good and evil.

Having understood that, this is the aspect where we want to apply this knowledge. There are
these five external senses outside. And there are these five internal senses inside. Inside our innermost
being in the part of our soul where we call the choosing part. Both these information coming from the five
external senses and from the five internal senses are channeled there. It is our central processing unit
(CPU). All the information of our outward man is channeled inside. All the information from the spirit realm
that we perceived by the spiritual senses is also channeled there. So, inside us there is an inner central
processing unit. So, inside us we look at both information, one from the natural, one from the spiritual.
 What happen if you cannot differentiate the information that is coming from this side or from that
side? Confusion will reign. The success in your life in the spiritual realm is determined by your sensitivity
to differentiate between the information from the spiritual senses against the information from your natural
senses. For that reason when Christ dwells in our lives, He helps us to discern information from the spirit
realm. And our decisions are based on information we received from the spirit realm, not information we
received in the natural realm. They both are in conflict. Many times, they are in conflict for they do not go
together. The devil works through the natural. God works through the spiritual. And we want the spiritual
to conquer the natural.

The indwelling of Christ in our lives nurtures us and trains us. When you are born again, your
spirit man has to be trained in all these spiritual areas. Just as when a baby is born in the natural world,
the baby’s eyes are not fully developed yet. Their sense of hearing also is developing. And every other
sense of theirs is developing. They can’t take all kinds of food immediately. They have to slowly adapt to
different types of food. Spiritually when you are born again, your spirit man needs to be trained in all these
aspects. We need to grow in these realms of the spirit to experience all these areas of the spirit man and
let these areas dominate our life and not those natural areas. Inside your being, you sometimes hear
something in the spirit realm. And then you hear something in the natural realm. And you can’t decide.
Inside you, you see something from the natural realm. You see something from the spiritual realm. And
you can’t differentiate them. And you get confused. Because of these sometimes people missed the Lord,
The Lord did not tell them something. But they say that it was the Lord. Why do people make mistakes
like these? It is because they cannot differentiate the information and the data they are receiving. Some of
it is external and some of it internal. They cannot differentiate the working of their own mind and the
working of God’s mind in their life.

Inside us, there is a spiritual mind and there is a natural mind. You have to differentiate the two
areas of the working of the mind. The natural mind thinks in a certain way. But the spiritual mind thinks in
a different way. The more you renew yourself the less conflict you have from your natural mind. And here
is where all the data you received can be classified in one key word, impression. We receive impressions
with our eyes. We receive impressions with our ears. We receive impressions with our nose. All these are
impressions upon our natural senses. We also receive impressions from the spirit realm. What are
impressions? Impressions are just data that comes whether it is in the natural realm or in the spiritual
realm. They come and reflect themselves upon the screen of your life. So sometimes people receive
some data that they think it is from the spirit realm. Somehow, their five spiritual senses are not trained.
And they say thus says the Lord. And it never works. They don’t give God the glory. Some times the
opposite happens. God gives you an impression that comes from the spiritual realm. You have no way of
knowing it. But it comes in the spiritual realm. And you know it. But your mind does not accept it. So, you
never act on it.

Now we will go into two verses in the bible. All these will get clearer as we look at these verses.
One is from John 14:17, Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees
Him nor knows Him, but you know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you . Jesus makes a
statement here saying that the world will not know the Holy Spirit because it neither know Him nor see
Him. The world is not used to functioning in the invisible realm. And as Christians, we must train ourselves
to function from the invisible realm. The world’s education system is based on the natural realm. But God
wants His people to function from the spiritual realm, the invisible realm. The action is from the invisible
realm, not just in the visible realm. So, the Holy Spirit cannot be received by the world because the world
is not used to the invisible. The world does not see Him. The world does not know Him. And if the Holy
Spirit is invisible, His ways are invisible; His words are invisible; His revelations are invisible; His
impartations are invisible, His impressions are invisible, everything is in the invisible realm. If you work
only in the visible realm, you will not be able to operate in the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Spirit comes as
He will, like the wind. You cannot see Him, but you see the effects of His workings. He will dwell in you.

Then in verse 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will
teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. The Holy Spirit will bring
to your remembrance all the words of God. If He brings to your remembrance means He has an effect on
your thought life. To remember is to recall in the thought realm. So, the Holy Spirit brings thoughts into
your inner most being.

Lets look in John 16:13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all
truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you
things to come. If you move in the invisible realm, you will be able to know things one step ahead of time
or many steps ahead of time. See the natural world is built from the spiritual world. Things changed in the
spiritual world first before they change in the natural. The affairs of nations changed in the spirit realm
before they change in the natural realm.

If you read the book of Daniel, after Gabriel appeared to him, Gabriel said, “I must go and
continue fighting against the prince of Persia. After I am gone the prince of Greece will come.” Alexander
the Great has not even risen yet. But in the spiritual realm, Gabriel was preparing the way for the Greek
empire to rise. And that was way before history even happened. Yet, Daniel was told of something
happening in the spiritual realm that will follow the natural realm. The rise and fall of nation takes place in
the spiritual realm first before it takes place in the natural realm.

The moves of God in your life take place in the spiritual realm first before it takes place in the
natural realm. However there is a slight little condition here. If we do not respond to the spirit realm, the
plans of God for our life may never be manifested because we do not flow along with them. The
indwelling of God in your life brings an indwelling presence; it brings an indwelling destiny; it brings an
indwelling prompting; it brings an indwelling inspiration; it brings an indwelling revelation, everything is
from the inside, deep in the depth of your spirit.

How do we get into this realm? Heb.4: 12 For the Word of God is living and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and
marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intends of the heart. The word of God is a sword. It is a
surgical knife that comes into your inner most being, into your CPU where all the information are being
channeled to and which divide the data that is from the natural realm and the data that is from the spiritual
realm. The Word of God comes inside like a light, shines on the inside and divides the information clearly
between what is from the natural and what is from the spiritual.

Look over here in verse 12 it says, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit. Who can divide
soul and spirit? We can understand the division between the body and the soul. The soul is the inward
part of us and is different from our body. But who can divide the soul from the spirit? Only the Word of
God can. It comes to our inner most being and makes a fine division between them. For that purpose and
for that reason those who don’t take the Word of God into them and who do not have their information
divided properly by the Word of God are often confused and cannot be led by the Holy Spirit. For the Holy
Spirit will only lead you through your human spirit. And if you cannot identify which information comes
from which side, you will not be able to be led by the Holy Spirit. So, the Word of God comes in and
divides your soul from your spirit.

And so, when something comes from the physical realm and affects your soul, you know it.
Something happens in the spiritual realm, it affects your spirit and then it informs your soul. And you know
that this is from the spirit realm. How would we know it? By the Word of God.

And it is strange; the Word of God can be applied to all your five senses. The Word of God can be
tasted. The Word of God can be seen. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen. Evidence of things not seen is the evidence of unseen things. Faith sees and faith comes from
the Word of God. And the Word of God can be applied to your sense of smell. It’s the Word of God that
brings the fragrance of Christ. It’s the Word of God that Paul talks about the word of the gospel that brings
the fragrance of Christ. The Word of God can be applied to our spiritual sense of smell. The Word of God
can be applied to our hearing. Faith comes by hearing. Examine that verse again Rom.10: 17 Faith
comes by hearing. And then why does it say? And hearing by the Word. Shouldn’t it be written faith
comes by hearing the Word? Wouldn’t that have been simpler? Faith comes by hearing the Word. That
would have been clearer according to our understanding. But instead, Paul puts it this way: Faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the Word. He differentiates between natural hearing and spiritual hearing. He
is saying that as you constantly take the Word into your life faith comes by hearing - that is one section.
How do we have faith? Then he says how do you have that kind of hearing. That kind of hearing comes
by the Word. Faith comes by hearing and that hearing comes by the Word of God. He is talking about
how the Word of God comes and cleans us.

All your natural senses have to naturally be on tiptop form to function. Let me illustrate, if you are
sick, your sense of taste is affected. You can’t taste some food. You can’t smell clearly. If you have a cold,
your nose is blocked. You can’t smell or if something affects your ears, do you know that your ears need
to constantly clean themselves? Your eyes constantly need to be cleansed. In the natural sense, your
eyes constantly lubricate itself. It is the same with the ears and with the nose. And your sense of touch
needs nutrition to function properly. If your starve yourself or you are malnourished your nerves can get
affected and they do not function normally. All of your senses naturally get affected if something natural
like sickness or any area affects it.

In the spiritual realm, the Word of God continues to maintain these senses in your life. The Word
of God is applied to all of your senses. It’s applied to your spiritual ears to constantly tune your spiritual
ears to recognize the Word. Otherwise, wrong perception can block your ears and you cannot hear the
Word of God. Then the Word of God is applied to your spiritual sense of touch. You could touch the Word
of God in the spirit realm.

We compressed these areas together into what we see to be the indwelling of God. And the
indwelling of God in your life will flow through these areas. Your inner five senses touch and relate to God
who dwells in you. They are the medium of exchange of information between you and the Holy Spirit who
lives in you. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just come and possess you. The Holy Spirit relates to you as a
person. And these are the information gates that the Holy Spirit flows through. So, they have to be
continually maintained in order for clear information to be transmitted so that you could act upon them.

And for our purpose to study the indwelling of God, these five senses are compressed into three
realms of your thoughts, your desires and your imaginations. Just as the natural realm compresses your
natural five senses in these three realms: your mind, your desires and your imagination. All these of
course will produce an action. In the natural all those five senses you perceived will produce thoughts in
your life. Those thoughts and some of them will produce a desire. Some of them will produce imagination.
Lets say I bring in a durian husk. The smell is so strong. You still remember it. I put it to your nose. You
smell the durian. Your imagination sees a greenish fruit with thorns all over. I never put that picture inside
you but you see it. Or I can take an ice cream that has no resemblance to the fruit except for the smell of
durian. I put it next to your nose. Then you smell it. You have the image of that greenish-colored fruit with
spikes all over it. I never put that imagination in you. But your smell produces a thought and imagination.
And if you are a lover of durian, it produces a desire. Those three realms are affected by your five senses.

In the spiritual world, all the spiritual five senses affect three realms also. It affects your thought
life. It affects your desire and it affects your imagination. What you receive in the spiritual realm through
those spiritual senses, which are trained by the Word of God, will affect three realms. When you receive
information from any one of your five spiritual senses, you will have thoughts about the will of God; you
will have thoughts about doing the things of God and you will have thought about the holiness of God. You
have desires towards God. You have imaginations of the works of God. Any information received from
those five spiritual realms will affect and give you these three areas of spiritual thoughts, spiritual desires
and spiritual imaginations. You could imagine the things of God because they are from that realm. And as
you continually feed on these areas with the Word of God, meditating upon them you will receive more
and more from that realm until all your desires are finely tuned to the things of God and your natural
desires go off.

Your Christian life is a battle against these three realms against each other. Your thought, your
desires and your imagination fluctuate into whichever realm according to which realm you tune into. If you
have the Word of God, it helps you to tune into the spirit realm. So, we have to continually train ourselves
in these realms by the indwelling of Christ in our lives. We have seen in the Old Testament in the last
message, the garments of the priest. Spiritually we have to know how to relate that armor to our lives. All
those priestly garments are reflections of Jesus Christ. So, the bible says put on Jesus Christ. But you
can’t put on Jesus Christ unless you put on the Word because the Word and Christ are one. You put on
Jesus by putting on the Word. Jesus said if anyone loves Me, he would keep My Word. You can’t love
Jesus without loving His words. See Jesus is invisible. How do you relate to Him? Through His words.
You partake of His Word and allow His Word to transform your inner most being, your thoughts, your
desires and your imagination.

Having established that foundation, on the practical side not every desire you have is from God.
Some of your desires can come from yourself or from the influence of external forces. However, some
desires are from God. And everyday as you walk in life you have a conflict of these three things. You have
desires for something, you have thought about something and you have imagination for something. If you
don’t have these three, you are dead. To be alive is to experience all these things. And as you constantly
experience these three, you are in constant state of making decisions. You decide which desire to obey.
Sometimes you have the desire but you don’t have the thought. The desires are there but you don’t
understand them fully. Sometimes you have the thought but it has not developed into a desire.
Sometimes you have the imagination. So, your daily life is constantly filled with these three things.

How do we apply the indwelling of Christ in our life? You apply all those principles that we have
touched on the worship and praise on the indwelling of Christ. As you worship God and let the Word of
God dwell in your life, you train yourself to recognize when some of those desires are from God and obey
them. For example, when you get up in the morning as you go through the day, you may have a sudden
thought about somebody. Where is that thought coming? And those thoughts arise from inside not from
outside. That could be from God asking you to visit that person or call that person. Sometimes you have a
desire for something, suddenly you have a desire to turn to the book of Psalm 39 and you don’t know
why. Where did that desire come from? It is the indwelling of Christ where your spirit and soul perceives
something coming from the spirit realm. Your spirit and soul perceive things coming back from the spirit
realm. And from time to time, they come into your life. And you ask, “Where are they from?” Many
Christians neglect them and do not recognize them. But when something that is in the natural realm, they
obey it. Some people wake up with a desire to eat something. They will drive five miles all the way to eat
the food they were craving for. Where did that desire come from? Sometimes throughout the day, you got
certain desire for something. Some of you experience a certain desire to buy something. Some of you
experience the desire to eat something. Thoughts everyday confront you. Don’t flow in them until you
have check with Christ who dwells in you.

Gal.2: 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in
me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself for me. When Paul says you have been crucified with Christ, he is saying this: all the five senses
in the natural that has an effect on your thoughts, your desires and on your imagination are crucified.
Crucified means being considered dead. You don’t respond to them any more. But instead you train
yourself to respond to what comes from inside. For Christians it is actually very easy because now Jesus
is inside us. Through training, you could see a great difference between something that is outside and
something that is inside. It’s quite easy for you to differentiate between things that come from the outside.
Like for example if after church you walk past by those eateries, you have a sudden desire for pancakes.
It is quite easy to see that the desire came from the outside. As you go window-shopping suddenly, you
are hit by a million desires. You don’t need a prophet to come and tell you where those desires come
from. They are external stimuli hitting upon your being. There’s a different way you could have done
shopping. Pray, think over first, have an objective before you go out. But some people just go out without
any purpose. We need a purpose. We need to know what we want to get. So there is an external
stimulus.

Then there is internal thing that comes from inside. Let me assure you Christ who lives on your
inside is not silent. He is alive. He is talking to your spirit man. He is relating to your spirit man. He is
communicating to your spirit man. And just as in the natural, if you go to a place, you would have a natural
phenomena and stimuli play on you, If you go into a spiritual atmosphere like an overnight prayer
meeting, or a church fellowship or meeting, in your spiritual time you receive impression in the three
realms again, thoughts, desire, imagination. It takes time to develop that. Many of them that you received
come from the inside, the indwelling of Christ. For you are exposing yourself to the spiritual realm, so you
could receive impression from the inside. Always follow God who lives in you. He knows best. This is no
more our life. We live this life as if there is Somebody inside guiding us. Somebody inside telling us where
to go, what to do, what decision to make. There is Somebody inside us and His name is Jesus.

I close by reading all these verses to show how Paul lived his life guided from the inside. Turn to
1 Cor.15: 10 For by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace towards me was not in vain; but I
labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Gal. 2: 8 For He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also work
effectively in me toward the Gentiles.

Turn to Eph.3: 7 Of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to
me by the effective working of His power. Verse 20, Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly
above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

Col.1: 26 the mystery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been
revealed to His saints. To them God will to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.