Why Are You Following Jesus? Kathryn Kuhlman Part 2

Again today, you and I are going to continue our heart -to -heart talk from the last heart -to -heart talk that we had. I didn't finish. It seems I just got started. And yonder behold, I looked up and it was time for me to leave you. And so we begin today talking about something that I... feel is vitally important and it's something that we need to face. We need to give a conscientious answer to. Why are we following Jesus? I've looked myself directly in the face. I cannot give you more than I have experienced myself. I never ask you to do more than I am not willing to do myself. I have looked myself directly in the face and have asked myself the question, why am I following Jesus? What is the motive in my heart? What is the motive in your heart? Behind every action. There is a motive. Now consider something. Do you know that the greatest miracles of God have not necessarily to do with the physical life? Such miracles as the healing of the physical body and you and I have stood in the great miracle services and we have witnessed limbs that have loosened. We have been in services where literally the blind have received their sight. Those of you who are now reading my book, God Can Do It Again, have written and have said that book means so much to me, a thousand times more, because I was in some of those services. And I saw these miracles take place. placed before my very eyes. I know. They're marvelous. But I want you to see something. The natural man desires to hear, to see, to feel, and consequently, the spectacular has a wonderful fascination for him. Because... it excites a sense of wonder. Now, this condition is not only common today, where we see the Lord pouring out of His Spirit in the working of miracles, but it was also true in the days of Jesus. The same effect was produced. Why? Because the people got their eyes upon the things seen. They sought to please and gratify their sense life by the use of miracles. And then they rejoiced in the power and the use of the same. And that was the reason the Lord was led to rebuke them and give them words of correction. I reminded you in our last heart -to -heart talk when it comes to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There are those who associate just one thing with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that is the speaking in an unknown tongue. Because that is the one thing that appeals to their senses. That's the one thing that appeals to the natural mind. That is the one thing of that experience that excites their sense of wonder. and amazement. When we're speaking in an unknown tongue, beloved, means very little when you come to analyze that glorious experience of the feeling of the Holy Ghost. Ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses. We have lost entirely that glorious vision of using that experience to witness. We have lost that glorious vision if we ever had it. that the Holy Spirit gives this glorious experience for one purpose and one purpose only, for service. But because the speaking in an unknown tongue appeals to our senses, we make it such an important thing. Then may I refresh your memory regarding something else that I said. Jesus himself knowing how weak, how fickle the frailty of human nature. After having fed the 5 ,000, then they continued to follow him the next day. He knew that they were not following him for spiritual bread. He knew very well that they were not following him because they were hungry for the spirit. spiritual food. No. Christ rebuked them because he knew that they were following him for the loaves and the fishes. Ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles. but because ye did eat of the loaves. There it is. In the beginning in the Garden of Eden, it was through the sense life that Satan made his appeal to Eve. Of course, it was not primarily the physical act of Eve's eating the forbidden fruit which caused the fall. We all know that. Eve consented in her will, and the moment she thus consented, Satan triumphed in the surrender of her soul. The literal act of eating the forbidden fruit was merely the outward expression and enactment of the moral and the spiritual failure that was The sense life was the approach. She saw, she heard, and she tasted. Now I want you to see something. In the deliverance of the cross, the victory consists in triumph. over the sense life, so that we're no longer moved by its reports, no matter what its messages may convey, be they pleasing or threatening. If we're to walk in the new creation and maintain a spiritual life with its proper development, we are to be blind to the things seen. deaf to the voices of earth, and dumb as far as speaking our words of judgment are concerned. And this is why God seeks to make us, as it were, deaf, dumb, and blind. What leaps and bounds God's people would make in this glorious new life were they to yield to God's will. wonderful will and suffer the crucifixion of the old life. This is one of the hardest things in the world to get Christians to see. This life of full surrender. This life of complete consecration. Where literally one becomes dead to the things that appeal to the that appeal to the flesh, that appeal to the hearing, that appeal to the senses. We're all so human. Sometimes I think the most spiritual are so human. Sure, God knows our frailty. But if there is to be spiritual growth, and if we... are to enjoy the deep things of the spirit. If we are to receive God's best and nothing less than his best, then there must be the surrender of the natural and the seeking of the spiritual. Oh, I wouldn't tell you for a moment that this was easy. Because, you see, we're still in an old body of flesh. This is still corruption. This is still mortal. One of these days, this which is now mortal will have put on immortality. This which is now corruption will have put on incorruption. But that day has not yet come. As long as we're still in the old flesh life, as long as we're still a part of humanity, there'll be temptations, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life. You know exactly what I'm talking about. But I want you to see something that is one of the most precious portions of God's Word. And perhaps this is a different picture of Christ than you've ever seen before. It's in Isaiah. Oh, of course, we all know the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the picture that was given of Christ, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. You know it well. But there is another picture of him as given in the 42nd chapter, the 19th, the 20th verse. This type of the Lord is so suggestive in connection with this which I am giving you in the heart -to -heart talk. I shall read it to you. Who is blind but to my servant? Or deaf as my messenger that I send? Who is blind as he that is perfect? And blind as the Lord's servant? Seeing many things. but thou observest not. Opening the ears, but he heareth not. I hear the Lord is presented to us in a most unusual character. The perfection of the servant lies in the fact that he has suffered the stroke of God and no longer sees or hears from the human side of life, never would the Lord Jesus Christ have lived the life of victory and of faith. Filled with its pressures, its pain, its disappointments, its burdens, and its tragedies, had he not been blind to the many things seen by the natural eye. Remember, When Jesus walked this old earth in the flesh, he was as much man as though he were not God. Please never weary me reminding you that if Jesus could not have yielded to temptation, then those temptations were a farce. God in the flesh. as much man as though he were not God, know that he could have yielded to temptation. That is the reason one day he's going to be our great judge. It is not God the Father who's going to judge man. Jesus is going to be our judge because... You cannot judge another unless you've had the same feelings, unless you have gone through the same thing as the one whom you're judging. You cannot be touched by the sorrow of another unless you have gone through great sorrow. Jesus had every temptation that any human being has ever known. That is the reason he can be a righteous judge, the perfect judge. And time is too short to rehearse the different incidents in his life when he saw many things but observed them not. Think of him in the wilderness, in those hours of stress and temptation, when the enemy showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. He could have yielded. But there was victory. He was blind to the appeal of the flesh. And with the eyes of devotion, consecration and faith, he looked beyond. Way beyond. Where his vision was filled with the glories of the kingdom to... He was not living for just that hour or just that day. He saw the ultimate purpose of his earthly life. He looked beyond that moment of temptation. Struck blind that he might see beyond time into the heavenlies. gazing continually at eternal values. Oh, if somehow the Holy Spirit could only make that real to your heart. You and I are not living for just this hour. Sometimes I think this generation knows nothing about what I'm talking about. Every man lives just for today. We live today for tomorrow we die. That's the common thinking of this generation. We live for this hour, so what? Let tomorrow take care of itself. We live just for the moment. It seems a very atmosphere is filled with this kind of thinking. Beloved, the things of today are so temporal, so fleeting. Out there. Out there beyond today or the tomorrow after that day. Out there, there's eternity. We live not just for the temporal, we live for the eternal. I will mention another time when I am sure that Jesus was blind to the things seen. It was at the hour of his departure from the little group of disciples and followers. He had finished his work, poured out his life, and now the only means left to carry on the tremendous work of evangelizing the world was just a little group of helpless, uneducated, and fainting disciples. from the political world. No one with money or material schemes. But there they were, a little group of outcasts, despised, rejected, scorned. Already they had shown signs of failure and That's all that he had. That's all that he had, and he knew he was going to leave. But again, there's victory. Blind to any material hopes, Christ lifts up his eyes. Blind indeed, but most powerful in penetration and vision, he was. able to leave them in faith because he saw God in the power of the Holy Spirit coming with heavenly life. That supernatural power. He saw the coming of the Holy Spirit, the one who had been his strengthener, the one who had been the power in his life. And he knew that through the Holy Spirit. there would be power and victory he saw not the weaknesses of that little group that he was about to leave he looked beyond the natural his vision was what they would be through the power and the person of the Holy Ghost. The one through whom he offered himself to God the Father to be given before he ever came to this earth. He saw that supernatural power of the Holy Spirit possessing his followers. He saw them no longer as weak creatures of flesh, but now transformed by the grace and the power of God. They were the torchbearers of the light of heaven. He saw them scattered, persecuted, but as flames burning their way down through the centuries. He saw the material nations rising, falling, perishing, but the light and the life which he had wrought continued. continued to burn and blaze and triumph in unspeakable glory. Blind indeed, but piercing the darkness of centuries. Christ, the true and faithful servant, was deaf indeed. Day, beloved. Be deaf. Be blind. To the natural. But keep an ear attuned to the spirit and eyes open to the supernatural. God bless you.