Platform Your Anointing and Assignment Reference Part2

		Platform Your Anointing and Assignment Weekly Audio/Text Suggestions Note there is only one message. I have provided different links to the same message. There is a free text, audio, and video. Part 2 Now He rubs their noses in the dust. "You’re looking to sit on My right hand and My left in My Kingdom." He could have said, "Are you prepared to go through Hell to get there?"…You can’t show me a revival in history that hasn’t been born of travail, pain, loneliness, and dark weary nights. In Scotland, nine miles out of Glasgow, there’s a great big house, a national memorial to David Livingstone. In it there is a model that shows the room where he died, where for years and years he prayed. It’s like some of those houses in India that are made of bamboo and leaves woven in. And there he is, kneeling over a bed, if you can call it that—two bamboo rods with some leaves on it—and a candle flickering there. They said every night he would kneel at that bed and you would hear him crying with his hands raised, "God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?" He fought the Portuguese slave traders. He did many, many marvelous things. Why? Because he had a Gethsemane of his own. His precious wife died and he buried her in the jungle. And the baby she bore died. He buried the child at the side of its mother. Another child he had died—he buried that one. But the grief didn’t change his zeal for God. It added fuel to the fire. "The devil’s trying to rob me. The devil’s trying to hinder me." And he worked with greater zeal. He prayed more than ever he had prayed. They said that night after night his voice would echo through the forest, "Oh God, when will the wound of this world’s sin be healed?" Dear God! all our pastors are concerned about is adding one or two members! Or getting another bus to bring the people in! I say again, there can be no revival without travail. "…I want my son to sit on thy right hand…" Well, here’s His answer. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant (Matt 20:24-27) Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it? They wanted to sit on his right hand. He said, "The way into My kingdom is: If you want to go up, you must go down. If you exalt yourself, I’ll abase you. Be abased, and I will exalt you. Save you life, you’ll lose it. Lose you life, you’ll save it." It’s reverse logic. Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life… (verse 28) Not to give His theology; not to declare, "I have a mandate from the Father to instruct you." He gave them all He had. He gave them the Sermon on the Mount. He gave them evidence that He had dominion over sin, death, disease, and devils, and everything. And yet, they were unbelieving! "I’m straightened. I’m tied up. I can’t do anything yet." That’s what He said in Luke 12. "I have no release. I have a baptism to be baptized with. Before that word of John that startled you when he said, "When he comes, he’ll baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire…", but he didn’t do that. Not immediately. He said, "I have to go through the Father’s will. The Father’s will is Gethsemane. The Father’s will is the Cross. The Father’s will is that I go down into the depths, lead captivity captive, and give gifts unto men." As I said, there are two great reasons we don’t have revival. We’re content to live without it, It’s too costly. We don’t want God to disrupt our status quo. The Christian life can only be lived one way, and that’s God’s way. And God’s way is that I leave all and follow Him. God’s way is that, in that hour when I think I am going to have joy or something, suddenly that cup turns into a cup of bitterness. When I think I’ve "arrived" at something, the Lord shutters that. We think, "If I had the privileges of Mrs. So-and-so, I’d be a real saint." And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (vs 27-28) I was reading a couple of pages in the Marechales life yesterday. I like to turn to that book. She was the oldest daughter of the founder of the Salvation Army. Even when she was 85 years of age she could preach up a storm. "One night," she said, "I went to Brussels. I went to a large mansion loaded with antiques and costly things. It was beautiful. It was owned by a Christian. I noticed a sweet girl there, at about 9 o’clock each morning she would come out of the servant’s quarters radiant. I said to her one day, ‘My dearie, I want to ask you a question. I’ve noticed the last few mornings while having my breakfast, after coming out of your servant’s quarters, you are so radiant!’ She replied, ‘I begin at 5 o’clock in the morning.’ ‘5 o’clock?! To what time?’ ‘Well, breakfast is at 8. Usually I have the last fire going by about half past 7.’ ‘How do you do it?’ ‘I just kneel in front of it. I sweep all the ashes on one side. I put them in a bucket. I get some paper and some kindling wood.’ (And boy, getting coal to catch fire is a job!) ‘I go in that room and get that fire going. I go in the next, I go to the next. I go back and the first one’s gone out, so I do it over again. But eventually I get to breakfast a minute or two before 8 o’clock. I’ve lit my 12 fires.’ ‘Don’t you get impatient?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, you say the fires have gone out?’ ‘Yes, they often go out.’ ‘Well, do you get up early for devotions?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘Not very early.’ ‘Well, how do you maintain you spiritual life?’ She said, ‘Every time I light a fire, I say, Jesus, while I’m kindling this fire, kindle a fire in me!’ Kindle a fire of Your love afresh in me this morning! Kindle a fire of Your devotion in me! Here’s this precious little girl talking to one of the most powerful women in the world. A women who, at 21 years of age, went to Paris and turned the city upside-down preaching to all the prostitutes. The queen of the underworld was there. Men came from the Sorbone, the greatest intellectuals with their long beards and their pipes, and listened to her. And yet the Marechale said that young lady taught me more than most sermons I’d ever heard. She had to light the fire,get bellows, blow the things up and try to get them going. She said, "At every fire place, I never missed one morning saying, ‘Lord as I’m kindling this fire, kindle Your fire in me.’" The fire of love for Your will. The fire of love. The fire of joy. The fire of peace. The fire of compassion. If this fire came back to the Church, we’d turn America upside-down in six months. Ours is all theology. We get a starving man and give him a cookbook. Does it help him? He looks in the cookbook and sees there a dish with potatoes, beef, etc. What do you do? You tantalize him! You say, "Oh, I hope one day you can come to our place We’re going to have this dish, this beef, this turkey, and something else." And yet the poor man is ravenously hungry! We give him a picture, but we don’t give him the goods! At the average church on Sunday morning, they give you the menu, but they never give you the meal. They give an outline of theology: ‘This is our precious doctrine." So, most people will be reciting doctrine in Hell. As I’ve said before, if you say "where two or three are gathered in His name…," if the living Christ is in your meeting, how in God’s name can you have a dead service?! It’s totally impossible? I remember talking once in Carnegie Hall with Miss Kuhlman. We were talking about the Church, as it is, and various other things. She said, "I talked with some young students the other day. They said, ‘We go to a certain church. We have a wonderful pastor, and a marvelous choir, and he’s a great teacher, but nothing ever happens. We come to see your meeting and there’s a power of God there.’ I was in meetings there where billows of power went over the place! All kinds of miracles were done. ‘What does the pastor say?’ He says, ‘Well, of course, where two or three are gathered, He’s in the midst…’ Do you know what I said to them? ‘Well, if He’s in the midst, and you believe that He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, why doesn’t He do in the midst ‘here’ what He did in the midst ‘there’?" We try and bail God out! The pastor has been to a seminary (or as I say, a cemetery). Our pulpits are full of dead men preaching dead sermons to dead people. But there’s going to come an awakening. God Almighty doesn’t care if He sends America bankruptcy. He doesn’t care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn’t care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline. That could happen very easily. But again, you see, it is so "expensive." We have to more than believe in the Lord. We have to believe on the Lord. We have to more than have a blessing just because we feel better, we feel inflated, or we maybe get a gift or something. You know, I’ve found that when someone gets a gift of the Spirit, they’re more proud after they get the gift than they were before. They’re proud of the gift! The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, to me, is the most majestic thing this side of eternity. The Holy Ghost produces holy people. Holy people live holy lives, producing holy fathers and mothers So here’s a question. Answer it for yourself. Do you want to drink the cup that He drank of? Between here and there is a Gethsemane, a cross. There was a young man in 1904, in a town called Newcastle-Emlyn, Wales. He had about 35 people in the meeting. He put his big hands up and prayed "Bend us, Lord, and then break us." Bend us. Bend the Church. Break the Church. One night in a crowded meeting, with more than 1200 people, suddenly God came upon him. The writer puts it very beautifully, I think, though terribly. That great preacher who had been captivating crowds and turning cities on fire had a public Gethsemane. He suddenly crumbled to the ground, as though somebody had squashed him downwards. It wasn’t a spectacle. It wasn’t a demonstration. It was a personal visitation of the Holy Ghost. He writhed. He groaned. He travailed. Some men at the front said, "Let’s go help him." And somebody else said, "Don’t put a finger on him." When he got up his face was transformed as though he needed a veil over it. From there he moved into a new sphere of power, a new sphere of authority. We’re not going to gather people together and cause them to repent. Only God can do that. Read again Joel 2 today. We quote it so often "He’s going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh…" But wait a minute! The price is tremendous: Lay all night between the altar and the doorpost. I’d love to see a couple dozen preachers who would get together and lay between the altar and the doorpost, two nights a week, for the next three weeks, with the Holy Ghost coming upon them. Not "speaking in tongues" in the sense that so many people think, but speaking with a tongue we’ve never heard: speaking of travailing. What you’ve got in Romans 8 is beyond language. It cannot be uttered. It’s God the Holy Ghost groaning through us. It groaned in Jesus so that He travailed. Are you going to suggest that He didn’t groan? Of course, He groaned at Gethsemane. I believe that Jesus, right now, is groaning in heaven. If He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, don’t you think he groans over the Church as it is today? Poor, misbegotten thing that it is? Powerless, lifeless, without authority? Most of our people can’t keep victory themselves, never mind cast out devils. We can’t pull down strongholds. But I’m convinced that it is going to come. There’s going to be a great turnaround. It won’t be inside the denominations, as far as I’m concerned. Oh it’s nice to read Hebrews 13:12, "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify…," that is, "purify, edify, release, transform." That He might do that, "he suffered without the gate." But the next verse says, "Let us go with him outside the camp." Let’s be cut off from everything that is organized, manmade, and supervised. People say, "Ravenhill is a radical. You shouldn’t take any note of him. You know, he has no covering." Well, I didn’t know that. Poor me! I’ve been going around the world for the last fifty years without a covering! I didn’t know! But the Lord knew I had it, so He kept me. Who was John the Baptist’s covering? People knew when John the Baptist came. He did no signs, no wonders, no miracles. But when he spoke, the words were like fire. They burned in the hearts of the people. If a thing doesn’t burn in me, why, in God’s name, should it burn in you?! I wouldn’t listen to a preacher who didn’t kindle something in my heart. You see, I backed away from that rotten cup that woman had. Then forcibly she said, "Drink it." At that moment I remembered a man in a garden saying, "Father, this is the most degrading thing in the history of the world. If it’s possible, please…" The Lord let Him do it. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. When it pleases the Lord to bruise you, what do you do? Ring for help? Phone for somebody? Call the church? Or do you get alone with Him Who alone is able to heal? With Him Who alone has the balm of Gilead? You see, God isn’t training Boy Scouts. He’s training soldiers! No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. (2 Tim 2:4) There’s a smart advertisement that you see on television and other places. You see these smart boys, these cadets: "We’re looking for a few choice men." Come and be one of the specials. That’s exactly what God does. "I have chosen you and ordained you," so you don’t need any other ordination. Out of the twelve He chooses three: Peter, James, and John. People say that you shouldn’t be selective. God is selective. He always was. He always will be. Out of the three he chose one. God has a process of elimination. He doesn’t ask you to drink a cup a week or a month after you’re saved, but you gradually move into that area where you realize that this is what He’s after. He’s after me going to the cross! And not just to go to it, but to get on it! "Oh, I’m glad He died for me." Have you died for Him? Isn’t that a fair exchange? I remember when I was little boy that they announced that an American was coming. He had just written a hymn that was, I think, one of the sweetest hymns ever written, and he played it for us that night. Out of the ivory palaces and into a world of woe Only his great eternal love made my Savior go. Out of the ivory…angels bowed down, and seraphim bowed…and men spit on Him He had all the glory of heaven, but He had no where to sleep at night... It would take eternity to unveil to us what it meant for Jesus to come. He drank: A cup of separation from His Father, A cup of separation from the glory in eternity, A cup of separation from the worship because it says in Hebrew that angels are commissioned to worship Him; men didn’t worship Him—they spit on Him! He laid it all aside joyfully. He took up a cross to be battered and bloodied. I love that hymn, My Faith Looks Up to Thee. It was written in the old North Church in Boston Common. (I preached there once, and I had them sing that hymn.) The second stanza says: May thy rich grace impart Strength to my fainting heart, My zeal inspire; As thou hast died for me, So may my love to thee, Pure, warm, and changeless be, A living fire! Suppose God were as fickle in His attitude to you as you were to Him? What would happen? The little servant girl says, "I’m on my knees two and a half hours every morning. Every time I strike that match, I say, ‘Lord, as I kindle this fire, kindle Your fire in my heart, the fire of Your Spirit, oh God!’ I’ve been here for years. I must have lit hundreds and hundreds of fires." She wasn’t at thetable serving meals with all the celebrities. She’s up at the crack of dawn. She’s carrying a heavy bucket of coal. She’s cleaning up the dirt. It’s a ritual most people wouldn’t have. But she’s turned it into a sacrament! She’s turned the tables on the devil! When he says, "Well, you could be praying. You could do more than that." She says, "I would bow there some days. I would just worship. I would see the flames go up and think of the sacrifice that has been made. No, don’t pity me. I’ve got a wonderful job! They pay me to have my devotions! They pay me to sustain my prayer life!" I wish we had a lot more people like that. Look out. He might bring you up this week and ask you drink of the cup "Can you share my baptism?" "My baptism is a baptism of sorrow; a baptism of desertion, a baptism of pain, a baptism of loneliness, a baptism of darkness." It’s all combined. Well, can you drink it? Or do we try to make some excuses? All He’s asking for is obedience. Obedience is the key to everything. This is serious business. Time is running out fast for all of us. The greatest revival that swept America wasn’t staged. It wasn’t advertised. It wasn’t financially backed. It didn’t have broken down film stars and ex-footballers. It was in the ordinary course of a meeting, when Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon, "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." There was nobody advertised. There was nobody projected. Jesus says, "How can you receive blessing of God when you receive honor one of another?" "He resisteth the proud and saveth such as are contrite and of a broken spirit." There are many who say, "Come down from the cross and save yourself." If you see somebody else saving his neck, and you follow him, you will lose your blessing. You will lose your reward. You will lose your power. Nobody stood by Jesus. Maybe nobody will stand by you. It’s a lonely life, but it’s a glorious life.