Let’s read Isaiah 26:
1: “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.
2: Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.
3: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
4: Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:
5: For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.
6: The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.
7: The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.
8: Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
9: With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
10: Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
11:Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.
12: Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
13: O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.
14: They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.
15: Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.”
I’m going to stop there. It’s talking about a special people in this chapter: A righteous nation. What did he start with? “In that day shall this song be sung…Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.” You see sometimes we talk about it but we don’t keep it. “…he that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.” (Jn. 3:21)
“…He that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.” He has this people, a righteous nation that He is making today. It’s made up of a peculiar people, a people that have learned to hear His voice. They have learned the flow of His spirit. They want to be free to worship Him by the spirit of the Lord. So this people the Lord had formed for Himself to show forth His glory. He told me one time I was called to preach the gospel, “They are not doing it; but I have a people I’m forming for myself. These people will show forth my praise and they will give me the glory.”
So this righteous nation is this strange but wonderful people that have allowed the Lord to show them the revelation of Jesus Christ. Christ revealed to us through Ezekiel 1 and through the gospels. Then the Lord said, “I have ordained peace for you.” This nation is singing forth the praises of God; not a fleshly thing but by the spirit of God. Amen. God is saying open your gates, your heart, and your life and let Him put that righteous nation in us. Let him put it there getting rid of everything except that which Jesus has for us that we may see and know and understand that His kingdom is within us.
I think for years all I heard was the kingdom was in heaven until the Lord sat me down and He began to tell me Christ is in you the hope of glory. Jesus said the kingdom of God is in you. Is He going to put His kingdom in there before He makes us righteous? He’s going to make us righteous and then He’s going to build that kingdom in us; a kingdom of love, peace, joy righteousness and holiness. He said now I have this righteous nation that I’m going to take to the ends of the earth and here comes Ezekiel with his wheel. He’s going to ride us to the nations of the world by the spirit of the Lord. Ezekiel did nothing until Jesus was revealed, then He moved by the spirit of the Lord. He had a lot to say and it wasn’t good because the Israelites weren’t doing good, but thank God we are living in the day when God said, “If you will do all these things then you will ride on the high places with me and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” That’s plenty for me. That’s what I believe.
We have to let Him make us that righteous nation. Now we’re one and we add up to a lot of people. It isn’t for us to say we’re baptized in the Holy Ghost. It’s up to us to say we are filled with the fullness of God and His commandment to us is, “…love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, strength and all that is within thee.” What are we going to love Him with? His love! We are going to love Him through Jesus who lives in us because we don’t know the Father. What Jesus put inside of us is God’s love so that we can love the Father. We can’t love one another unless it’s God’s love through us. He said, “Give me this righteous nation and I will fill them with my love and glory and I will lift them in the high places of the earth and I will send them all over the earth.
We are living in that age where we are seeing the fulfillment of it if we learn to let Him have his way and change our lives. I don’t know why people want their stinking lives. Why don’t we let go of it? We’re afraid God’s going to take something important away from us; afraid He’s going to clean us up. The funny thing He does when He cleans us up, what does He do? He gives us His perfect peace. Our hearts and minds are stayed on Him. He’s cleaning out all this stuff that prevents us from having this perfect peace and also, “…thou will keep us in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee” because ye trust in me. He says, “Trust in the Lord forever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” The poor and needy are going to trouble the city. But He said, “This people I form for myself and they shall show forth my praise.” We are going to praise Him by the spirit of the living God because out from our being comes the praise to almighty God. We are going to praise Him because He has taken all these things out of us and given us righteousness in Him, a love that comes from the Father that we might walk in the righteousness and holiness of God.
When He takes all these things from us we are going to start singing a song we never sang before. We realize God is opening the gates of our heart to take out everything that isn’t of Him and His peace will come and fill our temple. Why doesn’t He take us to heaven? That isn’t the purpose. He said in John 17 make this righteous nation one, I in them and they in me that the world might believe who Jesus is.
Who cares about the world? We are all going to heaven waiting for the Lord to come. That’s the attitude of the church is it not? It’s not God’s attitude or plan. So He said, “Father, give me the glory I had with you before time was.” The Father gave it to Him. Verse 5: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Verse 21: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Now that’s what we have had down through these generations that something is going to happen very quickly. Let me read it to you. Verse 22: “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:” Verse 23: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”
What is the difference? In the beginning the church thought that they might believe. In this hour God’s love is going to be the measuring factor. The world doesn’t know that there is a God who loves them. The church world hasn’t persuaded them that there’s a God that loves them. But according to God’s word He’s going to declare to the world who He is, not for the world to believe, but for the world to believe by the love of God. The glory which the Father gave to Him He gave to the disciples and to us not for us to use, but for this same Jesus who came to bring His kingdom inside of us to perfect us in Him so that His love and glory shall prevail across this world. It’s by that love and glory that the heathen is going to come to know Him.
People have believed and it’s good. But they are coming into where they are going to know who He is. His love and His glory are going to be manifested to a world that doesn’t know Him. I see a picture here that is being put together to fulfill the jot and tittle of this work, not any of it left out. There are millions out there who are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and everything; but we as Christians have folded our arms and said even so, come Lord Jesus. We have failed to remember he died for all he did not just die for us.
There’s a very serious situation in the world today if you look around you and you read the papers and know what is happening in the world around us. It’s what is expressed by Psalm 2. The heathen are raging and they imaging a vain thing because they don’t know God. They aren’t privileged to know Him because the leaders of their nations have said you can’t know God because we aren’t going to allow God to come into our country. That’s by the millions.
But the Lord said something. He’s sitting in the heavens getting ready to move, getting us ready. Get out of your garbage and your filth and let Jesus do His work. Let it go because He wants to fill you with His love and glory. He’s not going to put it in a filthy vessel. We have to empty it out and say, “God here I am an empty vessel for you fill with your love and glory.” He said these nations have decided they aren’t going to let these people know God or His Christ, but God said He sits in the heavens and He is laughing at them.
Wait a minute! All Christians are ready to go to heaven folding their arms ready to take off. I’m telling you the truth. Bless God, we are going to heaven! The heathen are raging and imagine all kinds of vain things because they don’t have the truth. They don’t know God or Jesus. The ruler said, “We got them now!” Satan said, “I’m going to move in and take over the world and I’m going to destroy God and I’m going to become God.” God is sitting in His heavens because He has a final play on this earth that He created for His glory and His purpose.
He says in Psalm 2:
4: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.”
6: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” Jesus said this.
7: “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.”
8: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
“Call unto me and I will answer thee and I will show thee great and mighty things, that thou knowest not.” (Jer. 33:3) That’s God’s telephone number. ‘Call upon me and I will answer.’
Then He goes on to speak to the kings and rulers. Psalm 2:
10: “Be wise therefore and instructed ye judges of the earth.
11: Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12: Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
This plan which God has now has never been before. It’s recorded. Yes, and it shall come to pass; but God has to have a people, a righteous nation that’s going to be filled with the love and glory of God and they will do the truth. They aren’t going to preach the truth they are going to live and do the truth to let the world know that it is God. They are going to know the truth. If they receive the truth they will be free. If they reject the truth they will be in deception. The spirit of truth is very exacting because it’s truth. Therefore we have to be exacting in what we believe and stand in that which God has given to us that He might accomplish what He has purposed to accomplish.
Remember He did His part but here is our part that we must do; but not without Him doing it through us. We can’t do it except Christ in us brings it to pass. So this part which has never been done in this world before, He’s preparing to do now. He’s preparing this nation to bring it back to God. The leaders are going to crumble. Satan has his plan. You know it is right at our doorstep. But with God it’s never too late. He’s always on time.
Those who are going to escape it are going to ride in Ezekiel’s wheel while the anti-Christ thinks he’s taking over the world. God has a nation that’s going to do it. We can be a part of that nation if we are willing to let Him strip, purge, cleanse and purify us and remove everything out of us except His love and glory. I know this isn’t the world kind of preaching; but it is the word of God. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling because the Lord of Lords and the king of Kings has come to us.
A man said to me on the phone one day, “The people at Sommer Haven don’t know what God has given to them. Week after week, month after month and year after year and we sit as though we have never heard a word. They don’t know what God has given in this place” because God is preparing a nation to fly in Ezekiel’s wheel. It isn’t a pipe dream or a fantasy. It’s a reality and the finish of this kingdom of man. God gave Jesus the responsibility of bringing this kingdom back to Him. Jesus gave up the responsibility; but He’s given us a part that we are going to have to do if we are going to see the fulfillment. He’s going to do it with or without us. It doesn’t matter. We have the privilege if we will let Him do it, if we will let Him have this glorious part that we can delight ourselves in the Lord and move into the high places with Him because He has spoken it.
God’s has given us Isaiah 58 and everything that is in it is exactly what God laid out in the four gospels and what He did in the four gospels. He has brought us into His love and glory so that we can fit into that plan of God in these last days where the Lord can take us by His spirit and take us anywhere and send us anywhere on the earth He wants us to go. He has the control over the nations. Satan thinks he’s got it made. America he has taken down. There’s a President that he is very happy with because they are doing his bidding, but God is causing the people to rise up filled with His spirit perfected in Him and filled with His glory. They are gone, not into heaven, but out there to do warfare against the anti-Christ, the kingdoms of this world and leaders of darkness.
There’s only one way. That is Jesus! Only one thing we can do is submit our selves unto Him, a living sacrifice, so we will know His perfect will and do it. God’s way is perfect, but He has a righteous nation that He’s building right now. He speaks the word, “When you delight in me…” There are three things that He requires of us before we can delight in Him. One is not doing our ways but doing His. Not finding our pleasure but pleasing Him and not speaking our own words but speaking His words. “Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord and I will cause thee to ride on the high places of the earth and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” I didn’t say it. He did. It takes all the worry and anxiety when we dedicate our life unto Him and let Him have full control.
All of the people who are determined to get a theological education to take to the jungles of Africa or Borneo or these countries where they can’t understand simple English. They are wasting their money. If they take the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost will minister through them and they will understand every word of it. Their lives will be changed because God will do it. We need to quit playing games. Give up and let God do it. Believe me you will be happy. You will be filled with His joy, that righteous nation that can go ride on the high places of the earth with Him.
Mighty God I ask you to drop into the innermost part of our being the revelation of Jesus yourself, that we may know the power of the resurrected Christ. We may have Jesus in us, the hope of glory. Jesus, impart the revelation of yourself into everyone of our hearts and beings that we may have your plan and perfect will in our lives. That Isaiah 58 will become that part of your word, Mighty God that will enable us to keep that word and bring it to pass to a dying world. God, we thank you. You said you would be with us and cause us to have the light and the light would get as bright as the noon day. We thank you for the glory of the Lord, for your word and the spirit of God and the power of the Holy Ghost that strips us, purges, cleanses, and purifies us that we may stand holy in the presence of God. Even this night impart to us the vision which you have purposed for us; the kingdom of God in demonstration and power. I thank you for this righteous nation that the enemy can’t touch or defeat. But God let us realize that, in order to be a part of it we have to come under the training of the Holy Spirit.
July 24, 1996
