- Heavenly greetings in Jesus mighty name.
Yes, the Lord be with your spirit.
Thank you so much for joining us here
on "The University of God."
You know, The University of God
is all about getting the Word into your heart
because it's there that it becomes effective in your life.
So, how does the Word get into the heart,
and why does it need to get into the heart?
Well, today we want to actually look deeper into this
in a practical way, looking at the process
of our believing the Word of God.
The Bible says in Luke 8:11
that the Word of God is the seed of divine life
that comes into our hearts and causes faith to grow.
How does that seed cause faith to grow?
Well, we know that a seed can't just do any good
without it being planted, watered,
and left until the right time of harvest.
So, let's look at that in the relation to our life
as believers in this world, navigating this world.
How do we go through the process of believing,
and how does that Word of God go into our heart,
and how can it actually become that seed of divine life
that grows?
So, Racine, what can you say about the seed of divine life?
- Thank you.
So, we are every day humbled by the Spirit of God
because the scripture says, we know a part.
That's why anytime we read this Holy Bible,
the Spirit of God always unfold something new,
because knowledge of God is deep, deeper, deepest,
that's the grace of God.
So sometime, we should not think that we know everything.
We know a part.
That's why the wisdom of God will take us
to deeper, deeper level of understanding of God every day,
for His ways are not our ways.
What we are saying today is foundational.
As He said, the Word of God is a seed of divine life
that comes into our heart and causes faith to grow.
What's the purpose of faith?
Only faith pleases God.
Whatever we receive today in the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, the Son of God,
is a pure product of God's grace.
Grace, grace, grace.
We all say grace, grace, grace.
But grace is not automatic, we have a role to play.
What is a role to play to enjoy that grace?
That's where faith comes from, because Jesus and the cross,
He laid down His life as a living sacrifice
to all human beings,
He shed the blood of the new covenant, He died for everyone.
The question is, the fact that Jesus died on the cross
for all humankind,
doesn't mean that everybody embrace the truth
of the Gospel of Christ.
That does not mean everybody is saved.
- For whosoever wills.
- Absolutely.
The question, how one can be willing in ignorance?
- Mm.
- How can one receive what he ignored, or even ask for it?
There's one biblical truth,
no one can achieve and obtain what he's unwilling to pursue.
- Because if you don't know you need something,
you won't look for it. - You will not.
If I'm not thirsty, I'll not reach out to the water.
I don't see any meaning for that.
That's why the Bible says, "We come to God by faith."
For me to come to God by faith,
I must come to God with a purpose,
with the right motivation of heart.
What do I need God for?
What's my greatest need?
If I don't discover myself or my need for God,
nothing will push me to God.
Now, what is the need?
You may not know it, but you can discover a need.
One day, a special man came on this Earth, called, Jesus.
He begin to say, "The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent.
The Kingdom of God is at hand."
He begin to say, "I enter the synagogue
where everybody share the Word of God,
the scroll of the book of Isaiah.
They will read it every sabbath,
waiting for the Messiah to come."
And He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me."
While Jesus was saying those words,
all the people in the synagogue were just thinking,
he was just reading the scripture that everybody knows.
But Jesus was fulfilling the scriptures.
That scriptures were bearing witness to the one talking.
He said, "The Spirit of God is upon me.
He has anointed me."
He was the living word, the Word was talking to them.
He was not gonna letter,
but words of life was talking straight.
- Naturally, they couldn't understand it.
- They could not.
The identification between the letter
and the Word speaking to them, they didn't see it.
Exactly, you are just reading that everybody read the book,
means we can read something without really believing it,
without really understanding, without applying it,
just for the sake of reading it.
But Jesus was that promise that one day,
this is the Messiah, He will come this way
and this will be the way He will talk.
They said, "No, it can't be Him, ah.
Okay, He's another person reading that every Sabbath."
But He said, "He has anointed me to preach good tithing
to the poor.
He has sent me to bind the broken-hearted,
to open the eyes of the blind."
Oh my Lord.
- To proclaim the day of salvation.
- The blind He's talking about is not natural blindness.
Spiritual blindness, which is ignorance, darkness.
If I'm spiritually blind,
how will I be able to recognize the Messiah when He comes?
(indistinct)
- Yeah, you won't be able to.
- Don't forget what Moses said in Deuteronomy 29:4.
He warned his people in advance.
You have seen how God took you in the wilderness
and the great signs and wonders God did
through the wilderness,
but God has not given you yet eyes that can see
and perceive, ears that can hear.
That's what Moses said, mean,
you don't have eyes of faith yet.
To when the day Jesus came and said this verse,
the Spirit of God is upon me.
He has anointed me to preach, to guide
and good tide into the poor,
to proclaim liberty to the captive,
to open the eyes of the blind.
He finished reading.
Everybody expect him to comment,
but they used to comments, the scriptures.
He only said, today-
- The scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
- That's what he said.
This word I've just read is fulfilled, and trouble started.
It's supposed to be joyful.
"Hey, the Messiah has come!"
"Huh?"
"Hey, we waiting for you, guys, come,
let's go tell the whole world."
I say, "What? What are you saying? You."
They look at him on the outside, human nature.
This mean they never believed.
The promise of God has a time.
When God give you a promise, faith starts, right?
But faith is expecting God to fulfill that promise.
If we do not understand the promise in the Bible,
how can you have faith?
Faith is not real without a promise.
- It's true.
- But the question is,
do we have a real spiritual understanding
what the promise is all about?
Because I may understand the promise in my own way.
They thought if the Messiah come, we'll be a warrior,
we'll raise the army, and begin to set the country free
from the dominion of the Romans Empire.
They were waiting for the battle in the natural,
but they never understood
that this Messiah came to fulfill a specific promise.
That promise, they were reading it every day in the Bible,
but they never understood what the promise is all about.
They forgot what God said to Abraham, that,
"In your seed, all the nations of the earth,
all the families of the earth will be blessed."
They never, they forgot that one.
They never saw the correlation between Isaac sacrifice
and how the Messiah will offer His life.
They read the Bible every day.
Isaiah chapter 53 says it.
They read it, but never understood what it means.
David preached Psalm 22, that he would be pierce,
but nobody saw the correlation.
That's why we say knowledge deals with what?
The explanation, the unfolding,
and the correlation of the Bible facts.
That's why Jesus came to fulfill the scriptures.
- You mean the first step in that process is knowledge?
- Absolutely, that's what we are talking about today.
The right knowledge of God settles peace.
The right knowledge of God brings spiritual faith,
real faith.
That's why Jesus said in John chapter 8,
while teaching at the temple,
"If you abide in my words, you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free."
- Free from ignorance.
- Absolutely.
The greatest darkness is ignorance.
Let me take you back to Genesis chapter 1.
The Bible says in the beginning, the world was informed
and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
And God said, "Let there be light."
And there were light, why?
Because they said the spiritual God was sovereign
over the face of the watches, and God say,
"Let there be light," and they were light.
What was that light all about?
Don't forget, in the synagogue, everybody has capacity
to read the word and interpret it.
But what was that light really, really,
really, really meant for?
Which light are we talking about?
Is it the natural light of the day?
Is the light of the sun?
Certainly not.
Because when we look at the progress of creation,
the sun and the moon was created on the fourth day,
and God said in the fourth day,
"This will be light to mark the time, the seasons,
et cetera."
Paul Apostle led by divine revelation explained to us
in 2 Corinthians 4:6,
that God who said in the beginning, read it for us, Ruth,
that will help us.
- 2 Corinthians 4.
- Yes, verse six, (indistinct) apostle Paul.
- "For it is the God who commanded light
to shine out of darkness, who was shone in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ."
- You hear what she says?
She said, "The light of the knowledge of God."
That's the key.
The light of the knowledge of God
on the face of Jesus Christ.
This mean darkness as rightfully said, is ignorance.
Darkness stands for ignorance.
Light stands for the truth, spiritual understanding,
spiritual truth.
That's why Jesus say, John 8:12,
"I am the light of the world."
Now, when Jesus came and say those words,
they did not understand it spiritually.
They say, "Ah, trouble started."
That says, bless for me!
And Jesus immediately, in Luke chapter 4,
they wanted to get rid of Jesus and throw him to the cliff,
it was 'cause of the word he said.
Why is it we think we believe until we face real situation,
we know who truly believe.
We can have the word in our mouth and confess it every day,
but believing is really from the heart.
When Jesus was speaking,
why could they not understand that this is the Messiah?
Isaiah said it clearly.
Let's go to Isaiah 6:9, and then we unfold the message.
Isaiah 6:9.
He saw, he, Isaiah foresaw how they will react to Jesus
the day He comes, in the midst, and begin to say,
"I am the Messiah."
Isaiah chapter six from verse nine.
- And He said, "Go and tell this people,
keep on hearing but do not understand.
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.
Make the heart of this people dull and their eyes heavy,
and shut their eyes."
Oh sorry.
"Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy,
and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears and understand with their heart,
and return and be healed."
- Hallelujah, He has said it all.
Wait, you're going to take it one by one
'cause this will be the backbone of our message today.
What did Isaiah say first?
Let's take it one by one.
- "Go and tell this people, keep on hearing."
- Keep on hearing.
- "But do not understand."
- Let's wait.
Means you can hear, they heard Jesus preach the message,
and Jesus say, "Today, this word of the scriptures
you have heard from prophet Isaiah is fulfilled."
They could not what?
Understand it.
How?
Understanding is not kennel, understanding is spiritual.
Why?
Let's listen to next sentence.
- "Keep on seeing, but do not perceive."
- That is it.
There's a difference between to see and to perceive.
Ruth, I see you, you see me plainly, right?
But perceive is to look through a veil.
I can see you through something.
So, our kind of knowledge, our sentence,
our senses at a veil,
because we want to filter spiritual things through our mind.
Our mind, our current mind cannot perceive spiritual things.
They're spiritually descend.
So, we need help to be able to perceive
through the fact if they were able to perceive,
they will look beyond the appearance of Jesus
and see who is talking.
If God give him the grace
to perceive beyond the human appearance of Jesus,
they will see in him the Lord, the promised Messiah.
But they could not perceive.
Continue reading.
- "Make the heart of this people dull."
- Make the heart dull.
Mean, we perceive with the heart.
To perceive is with your heart.
Heart means spirit.
Continue.
- "And their ears heavy."
- Their ears heavy, mean the heart has ears, not this ears.
The heart has eyes, and heart had ears.
Your conscience sees and perceive the Word of God
in your heart.
Continue.
- "And shut their eyes."
- Shut their eyes.
- "Lest they see with their eyes."
- Lest they see, mm?
With their eyes and what?
- "And hear with their ears."
- And hear with the heard my words in their heart.
If the word of Jesus is planted in your heart,
that's where Ruth said, the Word of God
is the seed of divine life
that comes into our heart and causes faith to grow.
Now, how can the word enter your heart
if your heart is dull?
The word could only enter my heart by revelation.
Revelation mean I'm able to see what is beyond the veil.
Revelation sees beyond human appearance.
Revelation sees who is talking,
this man is the ordinary man, He is the messiah.
It takes revelation to know who Jesus is.
If the heart is dull, if a heart is heavy, mean our heart,
our spirit is the instrument of God to bring revelation,
spiritual understanding, spiritual conviction,
and faith comes from the heart.
You can see the importance of the heart.
This mean, the Word we speak are not ordinary words.
For the word to give birth to what we call faith,
a spiritual force, the word must alight
into the right ground, not the human mind,
we can reject it, but the heart that is opened
to perceive the truth and to receive the word say, yes,
this is the Messiah, it's my heart.
With our heart we believe, not with our head.
So, we can read the Holy Bible with our head, it's not bad,
but that's not the real soy.
That's why Jesus gave us the parable of the sower.
When we preach or teach, we are planting the seed of life,
that seed with alight on different grounds.
Maybe Ruth will help us again to go to look chapter eight,
and let's listen to what she says.
- From verse 11?
- Yes, start from verse, even verse five, six.
- "Some fell on the rock, and as soon as it sprang up,
it withered away because it lacked moisture.
And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it
and choked it.
But others fell on good ground."
- Thank you very much.
This is what Isaiah was saying.
When the heart is dull, you can never see
and perceive the hidden truth.
What makes the heart dull?
That's what Ruth is reading now.
Some fell on rocky what?
- Rocky ground.
- Rocky ground, when the heart is so hardened
that you cannot perceive the truth.
Some fell among thorns.
- Thorns.
- When our heart is full of mindset bad feelings,
that heart cannot see, it become dirty,
it damages the heart.
It cannot hear and understand anything,
it become dull in comprehension, dull in revelation,
completely dark.
Continue, Ruth.
- But others fell on good ground, sprang up
and yielded a crops-
- Some fell on good ground.
Which is good ground?
The good ground are those are able to perceive the truth,
to perceive the revelation.
Not only to perceive it, but to understand it,
to be convinced, to believe it and act on it.
And salvation become real.
Why are we saying this?
We can see when it comes to spiritual things,
we cannot understand them with our kind of mind.
We need revelation to see beyond the facts,
beyond the ordinary,
the hidden truth Jesus was talking about.
- And that's why the disciples even asked Him,
what does it mean?
- Thank you very much.
That's why when we hear the gospel, the word of the truth,
we need to know that the soil in which the seed is planted
is our heart, not our mind.
Only God sees the heart, mean, only God can open the heart.
Only God can plant the seed.
Ruth, that's go to verse 10.
- And He said...
- He said...
- "To you, it has been given to know the mysteries
of the Kingdom of God."
- Oh my God.
- "But to the rest, it is given in parables, that seeing,
they may not see, and hearing, they may not understand.
Now, the parable is this, the seed is the Word of God."
- That's it.
Jesus said, the seed is the Word of God.
Who plant the seed?
God.
Only God can plant the seed in your heart.
And He said to them, for you, verse 10,
it has been given the grace to see the mystery
of the Kingdom of God.
Mean, God has given the eyes that can see,
ears that can hear, heart that can understand and believe.
That's why when Jesus called Peter, "Follow me,"
they left everything, they follow Him.
"Matthew, follow me."
He left the tax booth and follow Jesus immediately.
The sons of Zebedee, "Come!"
They abandoned their father,
they walk and follow Jesus immediately.
Why?
- Because their heart responded to the call.
- Thank you.
God given the gift of eyes that can see,
that this man calling them is the Messiah.
God give them grace beyond the fact
the human nature of Christ,
to see the divine nature of Jesus.
Their heart wrong, conviction came, this is the man.
It takes the grace of God to have revelation.
It takes the grace of love to understand.
It takes the grace of God to believe.
That's faith, is a gift from God.
We are talking about real faith, divine faith,
produced by God, through the mighty works
of the Holy Spirit.
Not faith in faith with our mind, intellectual faith,
but real faith.
That's why Jesus say, "Have faith in God."
Now we understand what Paul said,
that these are spiritual things that we only receive
by revelation.
So today, the first step of this knowledge
we're talking about is not a normal knowledge
if call it divine knowledge or spiritual knowledge.
- To turn the light from off to on.
- Absolutely, from darkness to the light.
- Yeah.
- And we are able to perceive.
That's why the Bible say, we walk by faith, not by sight.
Means we have sense knowledge
and we have spiritual knowledge, revelation knowledge,
the (indistinct) you receive truth
when the spirit of Father reveal it to you.
Saul was a Pharisee who knew the law
very well in the letter.
Later he received grace and mercy as he himself said
in the book of 1 Timothy chapter 1:11-13,
that God gave him grace and mercy because he was ignorant.
That's why he persecuted the church.
In Galatians chapter one from verse 10 to 11, he said, 12,
that is gospel he received by a revelation from God.
We need revelation because these are things of the spirit.
When it comes to the things of the spirit, we are all weak.
You want to understand
we should approach the Bible with humility.
I can learn this Bible, I can read it by heart
and quote it by heart as a Pharisees did,
I would just read it.
But is the Bible meaningful for you?
The truth hidden in the Bible, is it true for your life?
And that's the question.
Or when you read story book, that story, Ruth,
is only concern the character you are reading.
But if what I read, what I'm reading, it's true for my life,
I begin to ask myself, this can affect my life?
And I begin to appropriate the truth for my life.
It can only happen if I have a spiritual understanding
and say, "Hey, I'm convinced this is true for my life.
I will apply to my life, it will change my life."
And that's what faith is all about.
There is a truth in the Bible.
The Holy Spirit revealed the truth to us first.
He opened our eyes to see what is promised in the word.
And number two, He will come and guide us
into an understanding of that truth.
That understanding is saying, this is true, this is true,
this is true.
When understanding came, you asked the question,
"Wow, can it be true for me?"
And then Holy Ghost will come and help you.
We call it conviction.
Yes, it is true for you.
Once your heart has the conviction of this,
that it's true for me, I say, "I want to be like this man.
I want to be like Jesus.
This is my trouble, this is the answer, this is it."
And that work is a work of Holy Spirit.
No human being can give you persuasion.
Nobody can force this truth to you,
you have to go through the process.
Revelation, understanding, conviction.
And then conviction means faith, belief has started,
this is true for me, and you apply it,
you walk towards it and you receive it.
But it'll start with the right knowledge of God.
The right knowledge, God means the divine meaning
of the scriptures you are reading.
When the divine meaning came to be fulfilled that day,
those in the letter rejected it.
The one they were waiting for for so long
did not come in the way they wanted to be.
It did not come from where they expect Him to come.
God's ways are not our ways.
This means the state of our heart,
the kind of knowledge we have can resist the truth.
Our heart can resist the truth,
we have different types of heart,
we'll talk about it later on.
But today, we'll talk about knowledge.
- So, that will affect the way that the seed planted?
- Absolutely.
- The state of your heart can affect how that word
enters your heart, and whether it grows or not.
- Thank, you have said it.
You say seed, and you say grow.
Can you plant a seed today and reap the harvest today?
- No.
- Or can you take the seed in your hand
and the food will come off of the seed?
The seed must first be planted in the ground, normal seed,
and then inside the ground
there's a process of transformation, right?
And one day we saw something come out of it
like this one behind me.
(indistinct)
The seed, the trunk, you saw the leaves and the fruit,
but it has to be planted first.
Let's go to John 12:24, and we are gonna talk about, today,
of how the seed is planted.
That's today's message.
- "Most assuredly I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies,
it remains alone.
But if it dies, it produces much grain."
- Who say that? Jesus.
What is Jesus saying this?
He said, say it again.
- "Most assuredly I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies..."
- Wait.
Falls into the ground, mean planted.
When you fall to the ground, He say he dies.
That's what Jesus said.
Mm-hmm?
- "It remains alone.
But if it dies, it produces much grain."
- It has to die to produce much grain.
Mean, the seed you see has to be decomposed
like a human body, and will bring something new.
Life will come from the death of the seed.
Jesus is telling us the seed we're talking about
need to be transformed, change in nature,
from the ordinary seed to spiritual seed.
It has to seize in the natural, and to be in the spirit.
That's the death he's talking about.
Now, where is the seed planted?
That's the question, we talk about the heart.
She said the word is a seed that comes into our heart.
Now, we know only God sees the heart.
Only God can plant the seed.
Now, how God will be able to plant the seed
in the heart of a person?
We're going to take an example.
We're gonna take the example of the Ethiopian Eunuch,
which many people know, but today, we're gonna break it
to see there's a difference of reading the Bible
or memorizing the Bible, and when the seed is planted
in the right soul of the heart, what is the effect,
what it produce?
Let's go to the Book of Act, chapter eight.
We take it one by one from verse 27.
- "So, he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia,
a eunuch of great authority under Candace,
the queen of the Ethiopians who had charge
of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship,
was returning.
And sitting in his chariot,
he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
Then the spirit said to Philip,
'Go near and overtake this chariot.'
So, Philip ran to him and heard him reading,
the prophet Isaiah, and said,
'Do you understand what you are reading?'
And he said, 'How can I, unless someone guides me?'
And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him."
- Thank you.
Let me just pause you one second.
You listen to what Ruth just read today,
this is what we read every day.
We are going to take it step by step.
The man was reading, but what he was reading
was difficult for him to understand.
He said, "Who is talking to me?
Is it the book?
It's so real what I'm reading?
Is it the prophet himself talking,
or he's talking about somebody?"
But don't know these words was bringing his heart.
Who is he talking about?
Who is this person?
We suffer for others who took away our sickness,
our infirmities, who would die because of others.
Who is this person?
I want to know this person.
He wanted to know the truth, but it was hidden for him.
So, anytime we read with the heart to understand,
then we receive help from the Holy Spirit.
We can see here that the man was reading
but he did not understand what was a real divine meaning
of those scriptures he was reading.
He needed help.
When we read the Bible and we want to know the truth,
and we realize that that truth we can never get to it
if we are not helped,
then we'll be going to pray for help.
If God sees that we have generous to know the truth,
to understand the truth for salvation's sake,
then the helper from above called the Holy Spirit will come.
Just come before, start from verse 24.
- "Then Simon answered and said, 'Pray to the Lord for me
that none of the things which you have spoken
may come upon me.'
So when they had testified
and preached the word of the Lord,
they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel
in many villages of the Samaritans."
- Good.
Now go to verse 29.
- "Then the spirit said to Philip,
'Go near and overtake this chariot.'"
- When the man was reading, he could not understand.
But the man did not give up.
This is the clue of genuineness.
Sometime you read something,
"Oh, it doesn't make any meaning for me."
Drop it, "I'm all right."
- But he continued reading.
- Let's continue reading because I want to understand.
I want to know what this man called Jesus is saying.
I read the Bible, I don't understand, I read what this man,
he looks strange for me, but this man did not give up.
He knew this, there is something he could not understand,
who will help me?
So, when he was continued to read, to read, to read,
to read, God who is invisible, immortal, omnipresent,
located the heart of this man.
Holy Spirit saw him.
When you're reading in your dark, in your house,
whenever you are, if you read with sincerity
to know the truth, with humility!
Asking God with forgiveness,
"Lord, this I can't understand it, please help me,
I want to know this, I don't want to reject it,
but help me to understand it."
Holy Ghost saw it, and immediately (indistinct)
will say, 29.
- "Go near," then the spirit said to Philip,
"Go near and overtake this chariot."
- Then the Holy Ghost instructed Philip, the right person,
to go and help this man to understand what he was reading.
The revelation can come by you alone,
but God can send somebody to give you the word of life.
God sent Jesus to enter the synagogue.
When He was preaching, we saw people's heart was hardened.
But this man, his heart was not hardened.
- His heart was a good soil.
- His heart was a good soil, he was ringing,
he wanted to know, he wanted to understand.
When we are humble, revelation is a language
that only humility can understand and receive.
If we say we know everything,
we can never get to the state of revelation.
That's why Jesus said in John chapter five,
"I came here for two sorts of judgment."
- That those who are-
- That those who cannot see.
- So, can't be see-
- If they're humble.
But those who say, "I can see, I'm not interested."
They will remain blind forever.
Continue reading.
- So, Philip ran to him
and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said,
"Do you understand what you are reading?"
- Thank you.
This means, the work of the Holy Spirit
in the process of salvation, at first,
begins with the understanding.
The fact that you heard something
does not necessarily mean you have spiritual understanding
of it.
They heard Jesus in the synagogue clearly,
but they never understood what it meant for them.
They have their own interpretation of the scripture,
or their own mindset, but Jesus came for a purpose.
They forgot that man,
He came to establish the Kingdom of God in our heart.
He came to strike the roots of our trouble.
The promise God made to Abraham was not the land,
that promise was the older families of the earth
will be blessed in the seed of Abraham.
What was that blessing?
They never understood what that blessing mean.
The blessing of Christ, as Paul, we explained late
in Galatians 3:14-15, is the promise of the Holy Spirit,
the promise of eternal life,
the Kingdom of God in our heart,
but they never understood what it mean.
And they bring, look at Jesus in natural and to fight Him,
blasphemy, this is not what we're waiting for.
This not what we expect.
That's what we need to humble for God to reveal to us
the divine meaning of the Bible
because no one can apply rightfully the Word of God
if you don't have revelation understanding of it.
Now we ask Him, do you understand what you-
- Are reading?
- What did he say?
- "How can I, unless someone guides me."
- What humility.
He never said, "Yes, I understand."
"How can I, unless I receive help?"
That's humility.
- That means it's not our education or our mental ability
to understand or read that can help us
divinely understand the Word of God.
- That is, we presume to know whether we know nothing.
That's why the Bible says,
in the book of 1 Corinthians 2:10,
"The things of the spirit are indistinct.
It takes the spirit of revelation to receive it."
The natural man, the cannily might person,
1 Corinthians 2:14,
"Cannot receive the things of the spirit
'cause there are foolishness for him.
They can only be spiritually discerned."
What we are saying here, why do we need revelation?
Facts, we can see, but truth, spiritually truth,
need to be spiritually discerned.
- And that's how we can become mature as believers.
If that's what the University of God is all about.
- We need to have faith in the divine meaning of the Bible.
We all know we are humans, we are human beings,
we have different kind of denomination,
different types of interpretation of the Bible.
You just go to internet and types of,
you see different interpretation.
You dunno in which one to take, which one to do.
But the Bible says,
"The Holy Spirit is the spirit of understanding."
Isaiah 11.
Is the spirit of revelation, Ephesians verse 17,
is the one that revealed the gospel to Paul.
It is the Holy Spirit that opened the hearts of Legia,
Act 16:14, to hear the message,
this is what I'm gonna talk about.
I'm not talking about personal revelation at this time,
I'm talking about somebody's preaching the word of life.
Your heart must be opened by God
to receive the word straight into your heart.
They're going through the process of personal revelation.
Jesus was speaking directly, but they rejected Him.
They looked at it natural, they did not receive His words.
In this case, this man was reading,
he needed revelation by himself, but God say,
"I will send Philip to speak to him."
Philip say, "Do you understand what you are reading?"
Why do we need understanding? I'm asking that question.
- If we don't have understanding,
what we know cannot actually sink into our heart.
It can't remain there, it will just remain in the mind.
- Okay.
Now...
- It will not be a benefit to us if we don't understand it.
- Right?
If I come and say, "Ah, Ruth, wow, the good news,
I heard that tomorrow there's a free ticket
to go to America for everybody who order this product.
You freely go to America, don't ask you visa,
you go there for free tomorrow."
I give you that news.
The question is, do you believe what I said
or do you want to find out what I said is true?
Will you act on what I said immediately?
Will you?
- I probably have to find out if it's true.
- You need to find out the truth.
- Yeah.
- I mean everything we have,
we need to find out the truth from God's point of view.
There's fact and there is truth.
There are conditions to be met.
Everything we hear on earth has conditions.
What are the conditions to qualify for that?
That's the knowledge we need to find in the Bible.
The condition for salvation
are clearly stated in this Bible,
and one of the condition is faith.
Romans 10:6-17, "And faith comes by hearing the message
and believing the message with our heart."
Now the question, how can I accept a revelation,
a knowledge, if I don't understand it?
They couldn't accept Jesus saying
because they couldn't understand it.
This man say, "I'm reading it, I'm trying to understand."
That's why we say faith comes when the word prevails
over the thinking processes.
Faith is not an intellectual acknowledgement.
It is a spiritual things to be discerned spiritually.
Now, for the word to prevail, in our mind, we try to think,
we cannot find it, it's difficult to understand
by intellectual faculties.
That's why we need revelation to come.
When revelation come,
it comes directly into the right ground of the heart.
So this guy, Philip, came and spoke to his heart.
Now, the word can enter your heart,
and if you don't understand what happened, it would what?
- It would not grow, it will not produce roots.
- Very good.
Why?
That's the question.
The word can enter the right ground and never produce,
that's some seed you put in the ground,
but you never base it.
Why?
It lacks something necessary.
It need to be watered.
- Mm.
- We water the seed when we meditate on the seed
in order to understand the divine meaning
hidden in that seed, the divine meaning.
That mean I don't reject something I heard,
I want to find out whether it is true or not.
- And that's what the Ethiopian eunuch did.
- That's what he was doing.
He did not reject it, he was loudly speaking, meditating,
trying to find out, and meditation attract the attention
of the Holy Spirit of revelation.
When the Holy Ghost saw this man, he instructed Philip,
"Go and speak to this man."
That's the same thing that happened to Cornelius,
a foreigner who in this heart was hunger for righteousness.
God located him and sent an angel to him.
The angel said, "We have heard your prayers and your arms,
you give to the poor.
Call for Simon, Peter, to come and tell you something."
This means when a preacher come,
he's preaching the word of life
sent by the Holy Spirit to you,
and he's the only one that can speak words of light
that will enter your heart straight.
When an anointed person is speaking to you,
God is speaking through him, and that word is life
will enter your heart straight.
The question is, will you receive it as such,
being the word of God?
The question is, do you understand the meaning of it?
I can never receive what I do not understand.
So first, knowledge must come.
After knowledge come, understand he must come right.
And he ask him, "Do you understand?"
"How can I understand unless somebody help me?"
What did he say after?
- And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.
- Now, to show his willingness, "come."
Philip never forced himself to enter, he say,
"Please come and explain to me,
maybe you are the one to help me."
Knowledge has come with explanation
or unfolding by revelation.
But he stood by reverend explaining to him what happened,
let's read.
- The place in his scripture which he read was this,
"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent.
So, he open not his mouth.
In his humiliation, his justice was taken away.
And who will declare his generation
for his life is taken from the earth.
So, the eunuch answered Philip and said,
'I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this?
Of himself or of some other man?'"
- Can't you understand?
Who is he talking about?
He understood, but who is the person who he's talking about?
Continue.
- "Then Philip opened his mouth,
and beginning at the scripture, preached,
'Beginning at this scripture preached Jesus to him.'
Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water,
and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water.
What hinders me from being baptized?'
Then Philip said, 'If you believe with all your heart,
you may.'
And he answered and said,
'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.'"
- You see the connection?
Do you understand?
And after he said, do you believe?
No one can understand.
No one can understand what he has not received
by the revelation.
And no one can believe what he does not understand.
- So that's the process of believing.
- That's the process.
Knowledge must come first,
then understanding must come first,
and that understanding will give birth to conviction,
and yes, it is true for me.
And then you can believe it to act on it.
What did he say after?
- Then Philip opened his mouth
and beginning at this scripture preached Jesus to him.
- Yes.
- Now, as they went down the road, they came to some water,
and the eunuch said, "See, here is water."
- Wait, this is where I want to come.
Who told him the meaning of water baptism?
Philip must have told him about Jesus.
Philip must have laid down the condition for salvation.
And when the man saw the water,
he was the one that asked for it.
Philip never said, "Do you want to be baptized?"
The man said, "I want to be baptized."
Because he was convinced that this is true.
Continue, Ruth.
- See, here is water, what hinders me from being baptized?
Then Philip said, if you believe with all your heart,
you may. - Thank you.
The only thing that can hinder you from being baptized
is lack of faith, it's act of faith.
Faith is a conviction of the heart,
for that baptism to have a meaning before God,
you must mean it by faith and believe with all your heart.
What hinders me?
He say, if you believe, say it again.
- "If you believe with all your heart, you may."
- With all your heart, you may.
That's what he said.
The question is, who sees the heart of the man?
God.
This means baptism of water with Holy Ghost baptism,
all baptism must be act of faith.
You must have the revelation of the truth
necessity to your baptize.
You must believe it is true for your own life.
You must be convinced, and then faith comes.
It's the act of faith.
And when you do it, God will fulfill the promise
of salvation.
That's the process.
We are seeing the importance of knowledge,
revelation knowledge.
Two people can hear the same message,
one remain indifferent, another person will say,
"Huh, I want to receive salvation."
- 'Cause the state of their heart is different.
- Absolutely.
An evangelist may preach a message,
and call people to embrace Jesus.
Some people stay in the seats.
Some people heart are cut by the message in they heart,
and they run, Jesus, that's by faith, and salvation comes,
and the spirit of God comes.
The life will never be the same,
it's the state of our heart.
There's a veil in our heart, the veil that hinders us
is the veil of ignorance.
It can only be pierced by revelation.
You can see through the divine meaning.
When you perceive the divine meaning and understand it,
and then with act of faith,
and then we'll receive the promise of God in our lives.
So knowledge, spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding,
and then conviction.
Ruth, can we read 1 Colossians 1:9.
This simply means the Bible will not make any difference
to you unless you have spiritual understanding on it
to act on it.
When a pastor or a man of God preaches a message,
you just see a nice message, it will not make any difference
unless your eyes are open to have a spiritual understanding
of it, and apply it in your life.
Yes?
- "For this reason, we also since the day we heard it,
do not cease to pray for you
and to ask that you may be filled with a knowledge
of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."
- You hear that?
That you be filled with the knowledge of God's will,
with what?
- "All wisdom and spiritual understanding."
- Wisdom and spiritual understanding.
The will of God comes by revelation.
That's the divine meaning in the Bible,
that's the promise of the Bible.
You must have a spiritual understanding of it.
And when the spiritual understanding come, conviction come,
and wisdom will lead you to apply it to get salvation
and to receive the promise of God in your life.
So, what are we saying today?
There is perfect knowledge, complete knowledge
in the Holy Bible.
There is a hidden truth.
There are facts, there are stories, there are letters.
But the Word of God, when it comes into a heart
at the point of revelation, the Word becomes spiritual.
The spiritual meaning of the Bible
comes to our heart by revelation.
And that's the life, the life of the seed in that Word.
When it becomes revelation spirit,
only then the Holy Ghost will use it
to bring spiritual understanding.
Will give you light, the light of understanding will come.
But you have the light of understanding, say yes,
it is true for my life.
That's why the Bible says in Romans 14:5,
"Let everyone be convinced in his own heart,
that conviction is an opinion from your heart called belief,
that's where belief starts.
And only what you believe you can express by faith
and to receive the promise of God in your life."
- That's why it has to be planted in your heart
because it's only when it's planted in your heart
that nothing will change your mind about what you believe.
- Absolutely.
- Because your belief is not based on how you feel
or the circumstance around you, but it's based on something
that's planted deeply in your heart,
you believe because you understand a spiritual truth.
- It can only planted in your heart
by revelation for the Holy Spirit,
and that will lead you to spiritual understanding
and conviction on your act of faith.
Thank you.
So, what does this compel in our lives?
You should approach the Bible with humility.
We should not be quick to take something for granted
or to reject it.
We should look deep enough.
Discovery is for forward lookers.
The Ethiopian eunuch was a forward looker, beyond the facts,
he want to know the hidden truth.
He continued to dig deep, to ask until Holy Spirit came,
revelation came, and the veil were removed from his heart,
and he perceived the truth that this was not the prophet,
this is somebody who come to die for him,
to bring salvation, to take over his curse
and bring healing and salvation.
And Peter, that person you don't know is Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, the Son of God.
He came, went to the cross, took away all our sins,
all our curses, and died for every human being
by shedding the blood, redemptive blood of Jesus.
Everyone who believes in Him,
will receive the forgiveness of all his sin,
and receive ever-lasting life.
He was convinced, he believed, and he embraced salvation
forever in Jesus' name.
So, our earthly understanding knowledge must give way
to spiritual enlightenment revelation
to come to maturity of faith.
Not faith in faith in my mind, but divine faith,
faith in God.
And that faith can only happen with the working power
of the Holy Spirit.
At the first stage, Holy Ghost will bring revelation
by opening our eyes to see the promise.
And when we, eyes are open, He will take us to next step,
understanding.
Take us to other step, conviction, faith.
So, we are going to talk about this, the next step,
spiritual understanding.
- So, stay tuned for this series.
This is part one in the series, all about knowledge,
which is the first step of the process of believing.
So, make sure that you stay tuned
for the rest of this series.
Why are we talking about this?
Because we want to make sure that the light is turned on
in your heart, because it's that light
which needs to be there for you
to understand the Word of God,
and for the Word of God to go deep into your heart,
to be planted, to be watered, to be steadfastly trusted,
and that's when the fruit will be evident in your life,
and that is what will make a difference.
- Amen. - Amen.
- Thank you, Jesus.
Stay blessed.
Whatever you read in the Bible, continue to ask God,
what's the meaning of it?
If you read a parable of Jesus,
which seems difficult to understand,
like the Ethiopian eunuch, look deep enough,
continue to meditate.
Meditate, asking God, what's the meaning?
Help me, Holy Spirit.
As Jesus said in John 16:13,
"When the helper will come, Holy Ghost,
he will guide you into the fullness of the truth."
In John 16:12, "I have many things to say,
but you cannot understand them now."
But when he come, the spirit of understanding
will take you to spiritual understanding of my words.
Stay in faith, remain in faith, and be blessed.
In Jesus' name.
- Amen, God bless you.
- The Lord with our spirit.