12. Until His Word Came 

12. Until His Word Came - for Notes

12. Until His Word Came - PP

This lesson is about Joseph. Nonetheless, we will not spend much time with the story lines, for they are so very familiar to us. Instead, we will draw from those story lines to know Christ in us now.

When I was twenty-one years old, I heard a word preached on a woman clothed with the sun and on those whom God was making ready to provide a place for her. And I heard a word on Joseph storing up food for God’s people in preparation for times of great famine.

And in those two words, I heard my calling from God, or, at least, what I wanted to be with all my heart.

God Spoke to Me. It was December 23, 1975, when I first heard the voice of my Father speaking English words to me. I was nineteen years old. That first time, it was just two words – “My son.”

And I have heard that same voice speaking short lines of English words to me in my own heart and out from my spirit, every now and then, from then until now, I would guess maybe fifteen to twenty times.

These words were my treasure, yes, but I never considered any significance by them, not until writing my life story and seeing the hand of God from beginning to end.

And I Believe What He Said. I have never thought about it until this moment, but no thought has ever run through my mind to question that it was God speaking those things to me.

It was God – and I knew God by those words in all quiet acceptance. It is only now, however, that I realize that I know the same thing Abraham knew.

Every time God spoke to me, He was looking for one response only, and every time, He energeoed that response in me, to hear and to believe. I have never known “hear and obey” in my life, and the two times God has told me to “do,” the task was so impossible for me that “doing” never entered my mind.

Hear and Believe. The first thing God commanded me to do was, “Give My people hope.” “Doing” such a thing never came to me because I had neither idea nor ability. The second thing God commanded me to do was, “You provide for them.” Sorry, but I have nothing outward to give, and I’m no good at outward giving anyway.

Nonetheless, in both instances, I hear, and I believe, and I KNOW that God Himself does what He speaks in and through me.

To hear you say to me that I have given you hope is a mind-blowing miracle, one of the greatest we have known.

To Teach Word. Here is the line concerning Joseph that has meant the most to me for forty-two years now.

Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread. He sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him (Psalm 105:16-19).

Then, look at what else it says. The king… made [Joseph] lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, to… teach his elders wisdom (20-22). To teach Word forever would be a reward beyond all.

Joseph Had a Dream. But let’s look at that prison cell and those iron fetters – Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. Here is the beginning of that word – Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers.

Wow – I also have had a dream since I was a boy, but every time I have tried to share that dream, my words were struck down. I have dreamed of being part of a community of Christ, and I have dreamed of teaching God’s people Word inside such a community.

Yet to believe that God is with me has been the great barrier of my life, for I cannot believe in myself.

Years in a Prison Cell. Joseph sat for years in chains in a prison cell, incapable of “doing” what God had spoken to him.

Yet in all those years, never once did it enter his mind that it was anything other than God who had spoken those words to him, and that God was telling him the truth.

Now, I share concerning myself for one reason only, and that is to give you an example of knowing the same calling and dream inside your heart as well. Because you hear your Father speaking to you through my little bit, I suspect you share a similar calling and dream. Nonetheless, each is unique, and God has many callings.

Humiliation Is Safety. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.

In the next lesson we will look at the humiliation of Moses. There is another gift God has given me through all the years of my life, second only to the gift of knowing His Word by the Spirit. That second gift is the life-long humiliation of Asperger’s.

There is only ONE safe place for us ever to consider God-with-me, and that is inside of “no sufficiency in myself,” matched at every point by running into Jesus. The word of the Lord tested him. – What do you do with the Word God speaks? Mary is our ONLY example.

The Heart of Identity. What we are getting at is the heart of identity, the calm and certain knowing of God-with-me. This is critical for each, regardless of specific calling, for each one of us is a different and unique room for God.

As I wrote in my autobiography, it is only now that I dare to know outwardly that the Word always arising in me has always been God-with-me, for I never have and do not now “believe in myself.” Yet God’s Salvation is always the opposite of human conniving, for now that I can state publicly “Father-with-me,” I now know and “believe in” myself as well.

– And both statements remain true.

Because You Have Honored My Word. For You have magnified Your word above all Your name (Psalm 138:2). This is actually one of the many good things Buddy Cobb preached into me, God placing His Word above Himself.

In 2012, while we were driving up to Canada to see our daughter, Johanna, as I was driving along somewhere in Missouri or Iowa, God spoke English words to me out from my heart. “Because you have honored My Word, I will honor you.”

It was a quiet word, and nothing outward from it has happened from then until now. Yet it remains.

Storing Up Word. When the Son of Man comes will He find faith in the earth? – Let it be to me according to Your Word. – We believe that God is telling us the truth. – The words of the Bible become Jesus inside of us.

The other part of Joseph’s story that we will consider is his storing up food for the time of famine so that God’s people would have food to eat. And we apply this metaphor to our storing up Word inside our hearts, what God actually says.

Yet storing up Word in our understanding comes second. Believing that God is telling us the truth through years of difficulty and outward emptiness comes first, not in time, but in importance.

Learn of Me. The more I write, the more beautiful the words of the Bible become to me, for they are Jesus written all through my heart. They are my words and I live by them.

Yet I am very zealous over the speaking and teaching of word by others, that there be no serpent seed anywhere near, nor anything that triggers such thinking.

Bill shared with me that the need to be a much more serious student in studying the Symmorphy texts has arisen recently in his heart. This is the calling of Joseph, that we might have stored up inside of us a true word, a pure word, a complete Word.

God-With-Me. Let’s bring this thought back into Jacob REFUSING to let go of God.

The normal human life is to live in the consciousness of Father-with-me, a God who is meek and lowly of heart and who always lifts others up. Inside that consciousness is NO thought of God-NOT-with me.

This utter and certain knowing of God All-Carrying sharing every particle of my life with me and sharing every particle of His life with me, is our only reality. And we know it every moment as the weak humans we are.

The Hell of Satan. Satan has one goal and one power, and that is to thrust words into that space binding God with me and me with God as one person together. Those false words cannot actually separate us from God, unless we call them our own and believe they are true.

Since the bond of that space is Jesus, driving Jesus away is always the first casualty of the darkness. Both hades and Gehenna, then, are that state of mind in which a human imagines a self without God, or as Christians like to call it – HELL!

To overcome is never to let go of God as sharing our lives.

Being Normal. Our continuous and settled connection with God, making us normal humans, then, is Jesus as every Word God speaks.

It is by Word that we know both God and ourselves. And it is sharing pure Bible Word with others that is the dream and motivation of our lives.

Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it (Amos 8:11-12).

Famine by Serpent Word. Feed My sheep! – Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? – And they shall nourish her there.

Let me define famine. Famine is the entrance of serpent word into the preaching of the gospel, using Bible verses to separate between a believer and Father-with-them.

It only takes one serpent word – God is; you ought – to cause that mental separation God calls famine. And thus I have taught you the critical importance of a pure word. KNOW only the pure Word of God.

Gathering Much Grain. So he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; he laid up in every city the food of the fields which surrounded them. Joseph gathered very much grain, as the sand of the sea, until he stopped counting, for it was immeasurable.

I do not write endlessly to know God’s Word because I “copy” Joseph; I do so because I am seized in the same determined grip of God as Joseph was, and as you are.

And all through my writing you see the agony of my heart that I might know the distinction between the false word and the true, that I might see the famine end.

Who Will Speak for God? I have rarely known more emotional agony than those twenty-five minutes of sitting there listening to John Gray preaching the purest form of the serpent’s word I have ever heard into the Lakewood congregation. That was just a couple of years ago, the last time we went.

FAMINE! Famine – famine – famine. – Yet this is God’s precious woman, clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, since I was nineteen years old, the crying agony of my own heart has been – Who will speak for God? So many study and teach the Bible, but only by the serpent’s line, studying Christ and not-Christ together.

Until the Time. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.

Pete shared with me about a man he knew personally who teaches a word of Christ and not-Christ mixed together and who has gained thousands of followers on the Internet.

My subscription is lower than it has been in years, at 96, of whom less than half actually open my letters. And always the question is there in my background. If what I am teaching is really the Word of God, then why do so few hear? – Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.

Our Glory. Yet I would never imagine trading you few for his many. For you do the one thing that matters, you contend with God concerning His Word.

I was coming under a bit of weight regarding what I “might be called to do,” in the leading of God’s people. I was becoming pressed and things were becoming difficult. Then I realized that I am free to remain as I am. I never have to be some sort of “man of God.” What a relief!

We are little in every way, and our littleness is our glory. We have one job to do, and that is to believe that God is telling us the truth.

God Meant It for Good. There is one more critical point I want to bring in from Joseph’s story, a line I use often, merged with Romans 8:28.

Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.”

We know what Joseph did not yet know, that we do synergeo with God, turning all things towards goodness. Those things might have been meant for evil, but God means everything for good, if He can find faith in the earth.

Proving Jesus. Do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones. There are few lines that bring tears to my eyes more than this one. – And they shall nourish her there (Revelation 12).

GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD! Wow, let that line just sink deeply into your heart.

And that again is my purpose in this lesson, to write the character of God’s word upon your heart, that it might sink deep into you. Let God prove Jesus to you in darkness and loneliness now, for God does what He says He will do.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “The Man Who Broke the Law.” In this first lesson on Moses, our purpose is to place him inside of God and into our own stories.

Read Exodus Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 32.

And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand… and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.