Tony Evans - The Heavenly Broadcast Network (05/28/2017)
Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 reveals a «heavenly network» available to every believer. By accepting Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit as a «receiver» to download God’s wisdom, providing clarity for life’s decisions that human understanding alone cannot offer.
Tuning Into the Heavenly Broadcast Network
Most of us, if not all of us, use a satellite service to get our TV programming. The way it works is that there is a satellite 22,000 miles plus above the earth that sends a signal downlink to us. This allows us to see clearly a picture in color, often in HD, of the programming we choose to see. That uplink that produces that signal, that produces that picture, allows us to tune in and get a clear vision of what’s being programmed to us.
I want to introduce you to the heavenly network. This network is uniquely designed to allow you, if you will operate with a heavenly perspective, to tune into glory for a better life in history. It allows you to tune in to heaven to learn how to negotiate hell, to tune in to eternity so that we can steer better in time. It is a heavenly broadcast signal uniquely designed to steer your life and mine according to the will of God, to accomplish His purposes in your life and for your life.
Paul, in writing 1st Corinthians chapter 2, tells us about this network I’m calling a satellite feed that is available to you and me today. The first thing he wants you to know is that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then you have been granted the capacity to receive the signal. If you are a Christian, you own the receiver.
If you have DirecTV, that means you have a dish on the house and a receiver in the house. They combine to pull down the signal from the satellite so you can get the picture. The satellite exists whether or not you have a receiver. It’s just up there. But your capacity to tune in has to do with whether you possess a receiver. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, God installs a receiver in their soul.
First John chapter 2, verses 20 and 27, calls this receiver «the anointing.» It is the presence of the Holy Spirit deposited in the soul of the believer, quickening their human spirit in order to pick up heaven’s signal. It is designed for you to be able to draw down from the satellite up there—from God—into the life down here so that the screen of your life can come up in color.
What the Receiver Shows You
What does this receiver show you when you tune in? If it’s on, what will it show you? Verse 9 says it will show you things which the eye has not seen. It will show you things which the ear has not heard. It will show you things that have not already entered into your consciousness. And it is prepared—the receiver has already been prepared—for those who love Him.
Now, often this verse is quoted as a reference to heaven, but it’s not. It’s a reference to earth from heaven, because he says, «for God has revealed them to us.» So God has a download from the uplink to the downlink to the receiver in your soul to give you a picture of your life. That will show up on the screen of your mind to direct how you should live. If you’ve accepted Jesus Christ, you have the receiver.
If you have DIRECTV, you have hundreds of channels about a whole bunch of stuff for different programming. Let’s see what your heavenly receiver will show you on the channels it has available to you. He says, «for to us God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.» This is like a Google search.
This search engine, Google, allows you to pull up any subject and get information about it quickly because it has accumulated the world’s knowledge. The Spirit of God—the anointing, the receiver—knows the deep things of God. So you have a search engine tied to a satellite receiver that can pick up data from heaven and deliver it to you on earth.
The interesting thing about this «Google search» from God is that He knows everything about everything. He knows everything about anything. And only the Spirit can pick up that data because only the Spirit knows the deep things of God. He’s like a deep-sea diver who can go to the bottom of the ocean and pick up things off the ocean floor.
When you go on Google, Google has to be updated when new information comes. God never has to be updated because all data has already been pre-known by God, who is the author of all information. So this is better than Google. It’s also better than Google because of its purpose, which is about your life—how we are to live. The Holy Spirit’s job is to give you the data for life.
Choosing Your System
He says something important here in verse 12: «Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.» Let’s clarify which system. If you have DirecTV, you don’t have Dish Network, because those are two competing systems. You can’t use a Dish system on a DirecTV signal because they’re coming at this in two different ways. In fact, you hear them on television competing with one another.
He says in that verse that there is a system out there that wants your business. He calls it «the system of this world,» which you have not received. He says you have received a receiver that comes from God. What we have today are a lot of Christians who want to mix signals. They want to purchase DirecTV but use a Dish receiver. They want to come to God on Sunday to hear from God, but then they want to take the information from the world on Monday.
They wonder why the systems are confused and the picture is fuzzy. It’s because they haven’t decided which system they want to use. In creating conflicting systems, they wonder why a color picture is not showing up, not even in black and white. It comes on and goes off. There’s no ongoing clarity about life because there’s confusion about which system you are operating on.
He says if you want the information from heaven, you can’t be tuned into the system of Earth. If you are tuned into the system of Earth, all you’re going to get is Earth data. But if you want things that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and that have not entered into the heart of man, you must be tuned in to the heavenly broadcast network. You must be tuned in to a divine point of content.
God has made it clear that when you combine what He communicates in His Word with what the Spirit gives to the mind, it will lead you in life so that you are proceeding in the will of God. What God wants to do is give you clarity on how you should live your life, the decisions you should make at a given moment as you live, in order for you to live the best possible life under the rule of God.
Why the Signal Gets Blocked
That will not happen if you insist on using competing systems. Verse 14 says, «But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.» The natural man is the non-Christian. This is the person who doesn’t have a receiver because they’ve not yet accepted Christ.
Because the Spirit of God does not dwell in them, they cannot pick up the heavenly frequency. Not only do they not pick it up, he says in verse 14 they *cannot* pick it up. But there’s also the carnal Christian. Look at chapter 3, verses 1-3: «And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?»
Now he introduces us to Christians who don’t get the signal. The natural man is a non-Christian that doesn’t possess a receiver. But the carnal person is the Christian who has a receiver that’s not on. Just because you have a receiver doesn’t mean you get the picture unless the receiver is turned on. You might as well be the natural person because you’re not getting the picture.
The person who doesn’t have the receiver and the carnal Christian whose receiver is not engaged both have a blank screen. They’re still operating naturally, out of their own human understanding. And you know what? If you go to human wisdom, man’s point of view, to guide how you live your life and make your decisions, no wonder you’re confused. No wonder we make so many bad decisions.
Human wisdom is limited. The tragedy is that believers keep combining or flipping networks and wonder why the one that’s supposed to work is not working when it comes to your life decisions. He says only the mature get the wisdom of God. James 1:5-8 talks about asking God for wisdom. Any attempt to operate on both systems for your life at the same time is called being double-minded.
Operating on two systems simultaneously, God says, «let not that man, that woman, that boy, that girl think they will receive anything from the Lord.» God is not obligated to show you a picture if you’re double-minded. So the natural man has no receiver. The carnal, or fleshly-oriented, man-centered believer does not receive the signal. He says you cannot receive it. The signal will not come through.
You can pray all you want. You can go to church all you want. There will be no picture on the screen if you’re operating with two competing networks.
The Power of a Single Network
Then it comes to verses 15 and 16: «But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.» The Christian who’s operating on this one network when it comes to life’s reality and life’s decisions—he says the spiritual person in verse 15 is able to «appraise.»
The word «appraise» means to evaluate or make the proper judgment or decision. Life is full of decisions. We’ve made our share of bad ones; we’ve made our share of good ones. God says if you want to be able to evaluate, you must be spiritual. The carnal will not have that ability. That’s why Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14, says that the spiritual, mature Christian will be able to discern good from evil.
Malachi chapter 3, verse 18, says when you fear the Lord you will discern between the righteous and the wicked. First Kings chapter 3, verse 9, records Solomon praying, «Lord, give me an understanding heart that I might be able to discern good from evil.» So that I know what’s good, what’s bad, what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s up, what’s down—so that I will perceive things clearly and therefore make the best decision possible.
So if you want a life for the rest of your life that’s guided by heaven, you must tune into this one network.
From Revelation to Transformation
One of the ministries we love and are committed to is the right to life—that everyone has the right to life from conception, from womb to tomb. We have girls who come to our Pregnancy Center at our church. Many come and want to know, «Am I pregnant? I’m concerned I might be pregnant. I want to know if I’m pregnant.» So they come for information. We’ll call that *revelation*. They want it to be revealed.
Many of them have decided that if they are pregnant, they’re going to abort because their life situations won’t allow them to take care of the baby. So they come, some with a mind to abort if they are pregnant. The process of revelation starts to reveal if they are pregnant. But then, once it is determined that revelation has revealed they *are* pregnant, we graduate them to *illumination*.
Illumination is where you get something you can see. They are given a sonogram, and the nurse practitioner gives them a visual of what they already know. The revelation has declared, «You’re pregnant.» The illumination lets you *see* what the revelation has revealed. When they have the revelation and move to the illumination, then they get further *clarification*.
The nurse practitioner will then say, «Oh, this is the baby. You see this, depending on how many weeks it is. This is where the head is, this is where the legs are.» And so this list begins talking to her. She’s gotten the revelation; she’s moved to illumination—now she can see it. Now there is further clarification. So now she’s got to come to grips with the fact that she is bearing life and not just the idea of life.
When she’s gotten revelation, and now it’s graduated so she can see through illumination, and now with someone speaking to her validating it, strengthening it, clarifying it, she gets further clarification. Our goal is *transformation*. We want it to change her mind about the abortion. In most cases where we run into this today, when she’s had revelation and now gotten to see illumination with somebody spiritual talking in her ear giving clarification, we wind up with transformation.
She changes her mind. God wants to see a change of transformation because you’ve gotten revelation. Hopefully, you’ve gotten enough of it so that some illumination occurs, and you’ll hang out with some folk who will give you clarification. So that now when you make your decisions, there’ll be transformation. So that the rest of your life is lived being able to distinguish, being able to judge, being able to appraise, and being able to make the best possible decisions because you’ve been tuned in to the heavenly broadcast network.