Creflo Dollar - The Purpose of the Spirit of Grace
So, last week we began to talk about how important it is to yield to the Holy Spirit, and we started off in James chapter 3 and verse 17, and it talked about that this wisdom that is from above is first pure, is then peaceable. It is gentle, it's easy to be entreated, it's full of mercy, it's good fruits, and it is without partiality and without hypocrisy. James 3:17. Now, the phrase we looked at carefully was this phrase "easy to be entreated", easy to be entreated, and that simply means willing to yield. Willing to yield.
Now, that's the question that each of us have got to ask ourselves as Christians. Are we willing to yield? And it means that you're not so stubborn that somebody has to hit you over the head with a frying pan to try to get you to realize what you are doing is wrong. Are you willing to yield? So, what does it mean to yield? Last week, we said that when you come up to an intersection in just our traffic rules, you see the yield sign, and basically you're supposed to stop and let that car go in front of you, okay? It's the same thing. It's the same meaning. That when I yield to the Holy Spirit, what am I doing? I'm allowing him to go in front of me.
So many times we go in front of God. So many times we don't yield to the Holy Spirit. What does a life look like that yields to the Holy Spirit? What does the end look like in a life that's following the Holy Spirit and allowing him to go ahead of you, rather than you go ahead of him? I tell you the Bible says, "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will", what? "Direct your path". And so, there is a commitment on God's part to direct our path. In all thy ways acknowledge him. You need to begin to acknowledge God. You need to start practicing acknowledging him in all your ways.
"Lord, what do you say about this? Lord, do you want me to do this? Lord, do you want me to do that? Lord, do you want me to go somewhere? Lord, do you want me to put the brakes on this"? Because in the times that we live in right now, it is only the guidance of the Holy Spirit that knows how to lead you around the traps. It's the guidance of the Holy Spirit that knows how to take you to the places that will bring great, great success in your life. But what happens in the life of a Christian who knows about God, who's heard of the Holy Spirit, but we've not studied and understood enough to be able to take advantage of the guidance of the Holy Spirit?
It's no different than the little system we have, what's the little thing that tells us where to go? The GPS system? You know, it's amazing how you trust that thing. It work completely different with me. I wouldn't trust it. It would take me in a direction, and I'm thinking, "This seems to be going out of the way", and I wouldn't trust it. But maybe it would take me to a place maybe I hadn't gone before, but I remember I was in New York, and I had no choice but to trust it 'cause I was lost, and I said, "Let me", I rerouted her so much. She was just confused. She was just talking about everything, so I had to turn it off, reboot it, and I had to trust it. I had to turn where she said turn. I had to go where she said go. And you know what? It finally got me to my destination.
I think eventually we all are gonna have come to the point where we're willing to trust the Holy Spirit, where we're willing to go where he tells us to go. We're willing to turn where he tells us to turn, and we're willing to do what he tells us to do. You have been given something that's so unique and so much more powerful. There is something so awesome about you as compared to the rest of the world, something so amazing about you as compared to people who don't know Jesus Christ, and that is you have access to an unseen partner who's able to take you down the path that you should go, help you to avoid the traps.
If you should fall in the ditch, he's there to get you up out of the ditch. You have the Spirit of wisdom on the inside, but here is the key: are you willing to let him lead? Are you willing to let him go ahead of you? Are you willing to trust him to lead and to guide you, watch this, throughout all the truth? And so, the spirit of grace has been made available to you. I saw this in the book of Acts, if you go to Acts.
All right, now look Acts chapter 9 and verse 6. So, let's read verse 6 out loud together. Ready? Read. "And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will thou have me to do"? Now, pause. That's powerful. That is the most important question you can ask. "What would you have me to do"? Why is the most important question? 'Cause most people think they already know what to do. Man's goings are of the Lord, but most people don't, you know, this is really gonna test what you believe. "Lord, what do you want me to do"? How many have asked that question before? "Lord, what do you want me to do"? But were you willing to wait until he actually told you what to do?
You know, what if you don't get the answer right away? What if you're going towards God, and you're trying to seek him, and you don't get it right away? "Lord, what do you want me to do"? Most powerful question you can ask and that question needs to be one of the most-asked questions in your relationship with him. "Lord, what do you want me to do"? And look what he said to Paul. He said, "And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do".
Now, this is interesting, because the place of yieldedness is just where God wants us. You know, sometimes you're not gonna get instructions until you get to that place called there, mmm, and there he'll begin to reveal things to you. Michael Smith, Pastor Smith, has a great testimony of how God moved him from Jacksonville to here and told him that "I can't reveal to you what I want you to do until you get to Atlanta and once you get to Atlanta, then I'll begin to reveal some things". To me, what I see is (and this is just my opinion), what I see is this test of trust. Am I willing to trust God to lead me to that place called there? And then, it will be told to you what you must do.
Man, think about that now. It's pretty heavy, and you have to really have a relationship with God to be able to step out on that, that place called there. I remember that's how our conventions got started. The Lord told me to go to Shreveport one time, and he said, "Then I'll tell you what to do".
I went to Shreveport one time, met a spiritual son of mine who I've been knowing for quite some time now, Pastor Rick Layton, and it was that place called there. And I was told him to take me around the city. We rode around the city, and then I came to this parking lot where the civic center was, and when I got on the parking lot God began to speak to me about a meeting there and how he wants meetings in different places, and the Change conventions were born at that particular time. But it wasn't until I got to that place called there. Are you willing to trust the Holy Spirit, first of all, to lead you to that place called there? And when you get there things will be revealed to you.
See, it's so easy to say, well, you come to church, and you worship God, and you sing songs, and all that kinda stuff, but you want success as a Christian. And success in the kingdom is knowing and fulfilling the will of God for your life. I can't do that on my own. I can't know and fulfill the will of God for my life on my own. Every successful thing that happens in our lives, eventually we're gonna come to the point where we give credit to the Holy Spirit. He's the one that did that, so this is an awesome thing because now we're gonna be literally teaching you how to develop and begin to walk in the most powerful position of a Christian, and that is a life lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
And you know it's him. You know it's him. It's the Holy Spirit that's working in you right now. You're not flawless, you're not perfect, but you have him working in you right now, and he's not working in you for no reason at all. He's working in you, bringing you into a place, I believe, of excellence, a place of excellence. Yeah, Lord. Yeah, yeah, I heard that. You better get used to that, because average will begin to irritate you. Look at the root word for excellence: excel. The stuff you used to accept will no longer be acceptable. I mean, first of all, from you, from you, and then from the things that you do.
You know, if you look at your life carefully, you've really been abiding in the place called average. You're putting up with this and putting up with that, and you really haven't put a challenge in your own life to live a excellent life, and what happens is when we're challenged we take those challenges and use them as excuses to remain the same. This walk with the Holy Spirit is a walk. I guarantee you. I guarantee you, you will not be the same when you make a decision to walk under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He's excellent. The Holy Spirit is excellence.
The excellence in spirit, I believe, is really produced... you know, the root word for excellence comes from the Greek word "agape". It's the motivation behind excellence. Agape is the motivation for why you want to do what you do and as that increases on the inside of you you're not going to be satisfied with average when you have available to you the wisdom that is from above, the guidance from the Holy Spirit. Have you ever in your heart you knew that just something could happen while others around you consistently said it can't happen? That's the spirit of excellence, man, and when you do it you're not just gonna just do it any old kinda way.
There is such an invasion of that excellence, I prophesy that, that's coming into your life. It's not average. That you and average don't go together no more. Oh, I feel something right now. I said you and average don't go together no more. And even where your Christian life is concerned, you're just not gonna be satisfied with a average Christian life. If it's available, you want it all. If you got a relationship with the Holy Ghost, you don't wanna just be talking to him. You wanna hear him talk with you. And the few successes, the ones that you'll have in the beginning, initially, will begin to blow your mind and reconfirm, reaffirm that the Holy Spirit is there.
He wants to lead you, he wants to guide you, and it's just a matter of a decision to let him go in front. My God, I feel like I was gonna take off running right now, but I'm a little sore from yesterday's workout. Let him go in front of you, praise God? And the Holy Spirit hasn't been given just to operate when you're in church. Holy Spirit is not a church thing. You know, we're privileged that he participates in our worship to God, and he's amongst us because we bring him with us.
But do you know the Holy Spirit wants to go home with you? He wants to wake you up in the morning. He wants to go with you when you decide what to wear. He wants to talk to you while you get dressed. He wants to deal with you and the relationships that you have amongst your family and your home. The Holy Spirit wants to deal with you on your way to the job. He wants to show you stuff. He'll be talking to you about things you pass.
I had a friend of mine who passed this land over and over again, and he said he didn't know why he was attracted to it. The Holy Spirit was trying to get him to, and he looked at the land, and the land was just dirt cheap, and God said, "Buy it". He said, "Why buy that for"? "Buy". He said he knew it was God, and it was so cheap. He bought it, and then the next thing to happen this big company came around and offered him a huge amount of money for something like that. That's the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and that's where he wants to bring you.
2020 is a year where a lotta revelations are gonna come forth. Not only you having clarity to see what's happening, but a lotta revelations are gonna come forth. And if you stay with that same old average, yeah, it's gonna be shaken. God don't want you to remain average. You can't be average with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in your life is a game changer. Are y'all listening to me tonight? It's a game changer and as you begin to approach him and pray, "Lord, what's my next step? Lord, what do you want me to do? Lord, how do you want me to do what need to be done?" and then you pray in the Holy Spirit, and then you're thinking about that. And he starts putting stuff on your heart, and you start writing down, and then each day it gets bigger and bigger, and it starts growing, and it gets bigger and bigger.
And now once it's big in you, then you begin to see things on the outside. Taffi talked about the outside life, the world, you know? Get that inside right, inside world right, then you'll begin to see the benefit of that outside world. And that's how God works. It's the inside first, just like a seed. A seed goes into the ground, and then that root goes out first, and then out of that you see the tree and the fruit and all that kinda stuff.
So, what happens in a seed you don't see. It's underground, but you see the tree and the branches and the fruit coming out, but you have to realize there is something that had to take place in the areas you couldn't see before you came to that place of being able to see. I describe your life that way right now. There are some things the Holy Spirit is working on right now you can't see. Oh, but you're about to, praise God. Hallelujah.
I just feel like prophesying over you right now. You are about to, praise God. Hallelujah. And you'll remember this day. I tell you, you'll remember this session. I tell you, praise God, you can't be a part of the crew and not understand that God is doing an extraordinary development in you so that he can do an extraordinary thing on the outside of you. My God. My God. My God. Lift your hands up. Just worship him just for a moment. How great thou art, Lord. We receive from you. We're ready. We're ready to move out of the place of average. We're ready to let the Holy Ghost go ahead of us. We're ready to let you lead us to the place called there. We give you praise for that right now. In Jesus's name. Amen. Amen.
So, there is a place of yieldedness. It's where God wants us, and if you'll flip to Acts 19:11 and 12, and then I'll get started with this series. This is my foundation for the whole series. I want you to know the Holy Spirit. I want you to have his ID, and I want you to be able to walk with him. To me, right now this is a pivotal time in history. Things have changed that you haven't seen yet, hallelujah. But you're about to. You're about to see the uniqueness of your existence, the uniqueness of your existence and your call and your anointing and your grace. Shoo, shoo. Hallelujah. Stuff that's been in you for a while is about to come outta you. You didn't even know you had it in you. You've been walking around pregnant with this all this time and the baby is about to be born. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
You're about to give birth to ministry. So, if you've been confronted with a lotta hell, confusion, weird stuff, those would be the labor pains that's trying to stop the birth of that ministry. And you're gonna have to do like everybody else do: you got to do what he tells you to do. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I feel the Holy Ghost in this place, amen? Hallelujah. Yeah, I'll say that. Some of you have been concerned about your age. I'm talking about the older ones. Oh, yeah, the Lord said and the younger ones. He says, "I'm not moved by age. I didn't use Moses until he was 80". You're just primed and ready for what he wants you to do in this season, so don't you use any of that for excuses.
There'll be people 80 years old that God will call from 80. There'll be people 15 that God will call to do some extraordinary things, and it might not go in line with what you used to, hallelujah, but he's gonna start using folks in strange ways. Remember, the end result is what counts. If they come to Jesus, brother, I ain't questioning the method. If the results is Jesus, then that's what we want, amen? So, be careful how you criticize folks 'cause they ain't doing it the way your pastor would do it. Boy, please. There are some extraordinary things, so when he speaks to you to do it, are you willing to step up and step out like a barefooted priest?
Every step as if you have no shoes on becomes very important, and you will only step where he tells you to step, when he tells you to step, and not before. Remember, to yield means he's ahead of you and that we're gonna step. And that's how this happens. That's the difference between the extraordinary that you see in some Christians' lives and the average that you see in Christian life: their decision to follow the unseen partner. Look at verse 11 and 12. "And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul". This is so cool. So, look, what did he do with Paul? Look at verse 12. He says, "So that from Paul's body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs and aprons, and diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them". "Okay, so why did you share this Scripture"?
Do you know you can spend so much time in fellowship with God, he starts rubbing on you? Do you know the word "anoint", anointing, the root word "anoint" means to rub on and rub into. Glory to God. That's what's gonna happen to you as your relationship with God becomes more consistent, more common. He's gonna start rubbing off on you. Glory be to God. And the anointing is gonna become more apparent, is gonna become more visible. Notice, handkerchiefs were on and aprons were on Paul's body, and he took what was on his body as he's fellowshipping with God, as he's yielding to God, as he flowing with God, and it had impact. It got to the point where it impacted his body, where it impacted natural things, praise God?
You see people playing with this, but you know, you put it on your body while you're sweating and preaching. I don't want your sweaty handkerchief. I mean, you know, you just preach the sermon. This comes from a relationship spent in daily presence with the Holy Spirit. I told you once before your presence is going to demand an explanation. When you walk into places, people are gonna realize something just happened to the atmosphere.
Listen, I'm trying to teach, but I'm prophesying to you tonight. I'm prophesying to you tonight. That anointing is going to increase. You cannot spend time in the presence of God and not have that anointing increase in your life. And the more and more and more and more and more it increases upon your life, praise God, and when you start praying for people, they're gonna sense things. When you come around people, they're gonna sense things. When you speak to people, you're gonna begin to speak words that came outta your mouth but didn't come outta your brain. "Shut your mouth, Creflo Dollar. I heard that".
Y'all understand what I'm saying? Coming outta your mouth but didn't come outta your brain. Has that ever happened before? You spoke it outta your spirit, and your brain had to go back and figure out what you just said. Oh, I'm feeling happy up in this place tonight. I'm feeling happy because God's got your back, amen. He's got your back. There is nothing about this year and nothing about this generation that should be a threat of fear in your life. All is well.
Now, let's begin this journey. In all you're getting, get clarity, get understanding, get clearness, get precision. And we need to get clarity, precision, and understanding about the purpose. I'm gonna now refer to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of grace, the purpose of the Spirit of grace. Go with me to the Book of Luke chapter 24, and verse 49, the purpose of the spirit of grace, Luke 24, and 49. "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you". This is awesome, the promise of my Father upon you. "But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power", or ability to get results, "from on high".
Now, this is interesting because the Word to the disciples were the promise of the Holy Spirit. I'm sending him to you. Watch what he says, the word "tarry" means to wait, wait, wait. Notice, notice that, that place called there was the place of yielding, wait, wait here in the city of Jerusalem. When he say wait, wait. He says, "I don't want you to proceed without the necessary equipping". The Holy Spirit is going to endow you with power or ability to get the job done, or anointing to get the job done, and it's gonna be anointing from on high. This ability is coming from God. It's a God-given empowerment to get the job done.
So, the Holy Spirit, his desire is to make sure that whatever the call of God is, that you be sensitive to understanding that if you will be successful, it will be because of his empowerment, not your ability, but his empowerment, his ability, his anointing on your life. Now, look at Acts chapter 1, verse 4 through 5. Say this out loud, "The Holy Spirit is the one who empowers". And not only that, the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers us to live the Christian life. There's an empowerment to live the Christian life.
You know, some people think, "Well, we're thinking about empowerment, we're thinking about casting out devils. We're thinking about doing" - all that stuff is cool, but don't neglect the empowerment to live the Christian life, to be overcomers in the Christian life, to deal with the circumstances and situations in the Christian life. He's the one who empowers us to live the Christian life, I so depend on that. I'm human and you're human. I depend on the Holy Spirit to empower me to live the Christian life. I depend, and the more and more I believe that, the more and more I see him coming through. The more and more I see him, the less and less I see me.
Now, me human side want to pop up, but the more and more I spend time with him receiving empowerment, there becomes a restraint on me wanting to pop up. And eventually in certain areas of your life, it don't pop up no more. We're gonna always be dealing with something, but there's certain things you will see less and less of because he's empowering you to live the Christian life.
Now, look at these verses 4 through 5. He says, "And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, you have heard of me". Verse 5, "For John truly baptized with water; but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence", the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, the word "baptize" comes from the Greek word, I believe it's bapto, which means to fully immerse or to cover. And when he talks about being baptized with the Holy Spirit, the picture here is until the Holy Spirit fully immerses and covers everything about you.
So, the day you got born again, you received the Holy Spirit on the inside of you, praise God. But the Holy Spirit on the inside of you wants to baptize you until every part has been influenced by the Holy Spirit. And you see, we'll see in the Book of Acts, we'll see how the baptism of the Holy Spirit begins to cover, and they were baptized with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak in other tongues. See, it's gonna even impact your speaking.
Somebody says, "Well, I'm baptized. What's the difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit"? It's that total immerse, immersing of the Holy Spirit until you're even talking different. You're speaking different. You're exposed to something that goes beyond your mental capacity. Ooh, in other words, you're saying something and giving, and the Bible talks about your spirit is like a well of water, and a man of understanding knows how to draw it out. It's a superpower that Christians don't understand. It's your superpower. It's the stuff you can use and pray about stuff you don't even know about, and it happens. Glory be to God.
One lady gave a story of how she was praying in tongues in the kitchen, just all of a sudden she was led to pray in the Holy Ghost and it just was fluent, praying in the Holy Spirit, never knowing that her little kid was getting off the bus and he was just about to walk in front of a car. And the kid describes it like this, "It felt like a wind blew me back". Man, I said, this is God, this is God. So, when you start praying about things you don't know, what it means is you're praying about things you have no ability to know about in your mind, but the Spirit knows, hallelujah, and he'll use it and lead you and guide you, but we got to, you know, have you ever seen any movies and stuff by somebody maybe, you know, Marvel Comics or something, they had power, but they had to learn how to use it, and they had to learn how to discover it?
That's what this journey is gonna be. I'm gonna be showing you your superpower, showing you how to use it, showing you that whatever the devil throws at you, you can pull forth your superpower and praise God, what other people go through, you won't have to go through it like that. And even if you have to go through something, you're going through it differently than they're going through it because you're holy people, praise God, and holy people means that you're not common with the rest of the world. Praise the Lord. That was a mouthful, but amen. So, that's what we're going there.
Now, let's look at Matthew chapter 13. So, we can't live the Christian life without him, and we shouldn't try to. We can't live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit, and we shouldn't try to and I think we've been trying a lot to live life without the Holy Spirit. Now, Matthew chapter 3, verse 16 and 17, not only did he tell the disciples to wait here in the city of Jerusalem until you've been endowed with power, you know Jesus did almost similar the same thing. How come you don't read about Jesus doing miracles when he was three, when he was ten? How come you don't read about Jesus doing miracles when he was 15, when he was 12, when he was 21? He was still Jesus, why did we not see or have any record of Jesus doing any miracles when he was 27, 28? Are you following what I saying?
Now, look at this. Matthew chapter 3, verse 16 and 17, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water". So, Jesus was baptized in water, and let me say this about baptism in water. You know, that's kind of gone away. Man, if you haven't been baptized in water, sign up to get baptized in water. It's just something that marks your mind. It's pretty significant to be baptized in water. I was baptized in a swimming pool in an apartment complex. I got so fired up about baptism in college, I moved out of the football dorm and I stayed in a trailer. And I would fill my bathtub up and have a line of people in my trailer waiting to get baptized.
Now, the tub wasn't a real long tub so I had to do a part one, part two baptism. So, I baptized the top part first, and then finished at the bottom. And they would drip and go on out and somebody next. I tell you, we had people waiting in line. They got baptized in my tub in my trailer. That's how on fire we were, man. And each one of them, they would, some of them would come up speaking in tongues. They never spoke in tongues before. Baptism represents the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, it's a symbolic representation of the cutting away of the old and the walking away, not carrying that weight around, you know.
And somebody asked me, "Well, will you go to hell if you're not baptized"? No. "Well, why do you get baptized"? Well, if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me. Amen. But it's something very, very significant. If you hadn't had the baptism in the water, you want to you want that to be a part of your Christian experience. And so, "when Jesus, when he was baptized, he went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove". It was not a dove. You ever been to these funerals when they release these doves? They're birds. Somebody said, "Oh, there go the Holy Ghost". No, that's a bird. That's a bird.
So, obviously when they saw the Spirit of God, it was like a dove and it lighted upon his head. And John saw that. The Spirit of God came on him. And the Spirit of God is on you and is gonna come on you in a greater measure. Thank you, Jesus. There's something about knowing it when you have knowledge of this, you start walking into it in a greater, greater measure, you know it. "And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased".
Do you know God says the same thing about us? You are his beloved, and he is well pleased. God's not mad at you. He's not in a bad mood. He's not, you know, keeping in his memory all the stupid stuff we've done in the past. God loves you. You are his beloved and he is well pleased with you. Say out loud, "God is well pleased with me". Somebody says, "Well, how can he be well pleased with me if I did that"? He's well pleased with you because you trust in his Son Jesus Christ. All that other stuff's gonna line up and be what it needs to be.
Look at Matthew chapter 4 and verse 1. Matthew 4 and verse 1, this is gonna be a detailed teaching on the Holy Spirit. I want to I want you to know everything I can possibly teach you about him. I'm asking you to have a personal relationship with him. This journey that we're gonna go on is my introduction to you about a person that you've not seen with your physical eyes, about your unseen partner, praise God. Matthew 4, verse 1 says, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil".
That's interesting to me. He was led up by the Spirit. Jesus led him in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. If the Spirit of God led Jesus to a place of pressure. You know, temptation is pressure applied to the flesh. You've got to start seeing some of the stuff you're going through as preparation, preparing you. It's the fact that because you have visited this place that when something happens in the ministry, no problem, been there before, know about this, know who this is. Yeah. I am not out of the place where I'm ready to tell people that the Holy Spirit didn't have something to do with maybe taking you by that space. Everything's got to develop. There's development.
An athlete can have a gift to be an athlete, but his work ethic, ethics is what develops that gift. I look at things that I've gone through in my life and ministry to bring me to this place of the gospel of grace. A lot of that, if it hadn't happened, that was my development, that was my development. I went through every religious type of thing that I thought was okay, and I was well developed in those things, only to confront me with this, these questions and caused me to go deeper. And had I not visited that place, I would not have arrived at this place.
I don't know where you are today, but could it be preparation for where you're gonna be? I believe this is what the Apostle Paul was mentioning when he says, "I learned how to be content in whatever state that I'm in". I'm trying to figure that out like okay, I know that godliness with contentment equals great gain. But look at what the Apostle Paul went through. Do you understand this guy was thrown off a cliff?
I can't tell you the whole story, but I guarantee he wasn't thrown off a cliff and just jumped up and say, "See there, y'all didn't get me". I'm sure he broke some bones. In my opinion, I don't know until I get there, I know he died and he was just raised up. Paul went through some stuff. And yet, you see Jesus in the same similar situation. They wanted to throw him off the cliff when Jesus in the church service that day say, "I'm the guy. I'm the Anointed One. I'm the one that Isaiah was talking about".
And they got so mad, the religious people, the Bible says they were so angry at him, they wanted to throw him, the Bible says this, they wanted to cast him off the cliff. You know what Jesus did? He turned around and walked right through everybody. But there's a lot more to this story. My question is, did they see him? Did he transform? You have to look at the Scriptures real carefully. Jesus did some stuff that we've not really brought out. Like remember when he was raised from the dead and he bumped into Mary? And Mary didn't recognize him. Mary did not know who he was. And Jesus had to tell her who he was.
My question is, did he transform in looking like somebody else? Which is more, even more concerning. Like if he transformed, you remember he said to Mary, he says, "Don't touch me. I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father". All right, watch this now. I don't know how many light years away it takes to get from the earth to heaven, but I know that the heaven where the throne of God is, is past the heaven where the moon and the stars are.
So, there are three heavens. There's a heaven where the sky and the birds are here on this planet. The second heaven is the heaven where the moon and the stars are. The third heaven is a gigantic planet because the Bible says that everything that we have in the physical is a copy of what the real, what heaven is. And it's the third heaven past the second heaven. And man thinks that the second heaven is infinite in space. They'll never be able to test their theory. All right, so check Jesus out. He's raised from the dead.
Oh, my God, you gotta understand this is mind boggling. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. It takes so many light years to get from here to certain planets. Like how many light years does it take to get from the earth to the Pluto? You guys, and then there are planets beyond what we know, what we can pick up. Beyond all of that, then there's the third heaven. Let me show you how fascinating it is. Now, he got to be moving. He got to be moving.
All right, now watch this. And I didn't mean go there, but I ain't got about a minute left so let me fascinate you with how great thou art. So, Jesus said, "Don't touch me. I've not yet ascended to the Father and your Father". Present his blood and all that to the throne God. That evening, he was back at the house walking through doors, the door being shut, and sat down and ate some fish and honeycomb.
All right, now please understand what I'm saying. He's in his glorified body, and he's walk, the Bible says that, he walked through the door and the door being shut. And then he said to Thomas, doubting, "Handle me and see". He said, "For spirit has not flesh and bone". The blood wasn't there because he had presented that to the Father, so it's no longer operating as a physical body. He's operating in a glorified body that can walk through the doors, and the doors being shut and yet walked in there and sit down and eat some fish and honeycomb. That's what you gonna put on.
Whoo, and obviously quick as light. Go to heaven and then come back for dinner and opening the door without knocking. How great thou art. You understand that song, "Now then sing my soul". Oh, my gosh. When you die, you don't just cease to exist. You move from the physical realm into a spiritual realm and put on a heavenly body to exist in the spirit realm so you can have comprehension of spiritual things. For example, in the spirit world, you can see something like a chair, but it's not a physical chair, but you can comprehend it because spirit goes with spirit. Here, you have to have a body because physical things go with physical things.
There are a lot of people, when they cross over, don't even realize they crossed over because it's so similar. It's just now different forms. The issue is when you cross over, where you're gonna land? Only requirement to land where Jesus is, is to believe in it, amen. But that's not the glorified body. That's the heavenly body. Then the great resurrection takes place, and I don't know how he gonna do it. The sea gonna have to give up the dead, wherever they sprinkle your ashes.
So, you know the earth can't be quiet when this happen. So, if you're alive when it's come, that's gonna be a spooky moment. May I may I speak in my heart? You remember when Jesus was raised from the dead, read it in the Scripture, he wasn't the only one that got up that day. The Bible says that people saw their relatives who had died walking in the street.
I would not put it past God for a last ditch effort to try to get some of those stubborn relatives who still won't believe, I wouldn't put it past God is he sent some of those relatives to those folks house. Knock on the door, ah! What's going on? It's happening right now, bro. You need to get together because he love. You need to get it together. Some of them don't believe they gonna think, "Well, I'm hallucinating". This thing is amazing. And then you'll be given a glorified body that will have access to heaven and earth.