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And for this reason Jesus called these disciples unto Him.
So that they get closer. Brother, Jesus is calling you close to Him.
First of all to get to know the Lord.
Know His voice, gain His assignment.
Win being His beloved child.
If you don't possess this inner certainty,
you simply will be shaken.
Because during your ministry there will be situations...
...such scary, frightening ones where you will be shaken.
But if you know that the Lord is with you,
if you know that you're in touch with Him,
then even with a knife at your neck or you at gunpoint
you will not be overwhelmed because you know you're in God's hand
and nothing can happen to you but whatever He allows to happen.
And this is extremely important!
Brethren, in my ministry I did have situations like these,
I stood at gunpoint or with a knife at my neck
and it did not shake me at all,
because I knew: Lord, if this man finishes my life here I will only go but to your place.
I didn't know whether to be happy or not, or what to do.
But literally, when you are connected to the Lord
there is no fear, there is no worry.
You are simply walking in His perfect will.
And the Holy Spirit is working in you,
and you are not selfish, you're not self-involved.
You are busy with Jesus Christ; and simply His mercy, His closeness is working in you.
This is something very important.
And by being close to Him, what did they gain?
It says: He gave them power, they gained His assignment.
They are known, because He called them by their name, you can read those verses.
He called them by their name.
He chose them.
He called them by name and they got an assignment.
This is the important thing in ministry, my brethren,
in church ministry or whatever ministry God assigns you to,
it can be evangelism or whatever else
that you should have an inner experience in God's presence.
That you should have an inner chamber where you can close the door and you are
not only a believer and enthusiastic when you have to raise your hands in church
and perhaps jump up and down in front of the others - 'Oh, Lord, how much I love you!',
but you are exactly as much of a devout as much when you are at home alone,
when you lock the door and when you're all alone with the Lord,
and when you then jump up and down and praise God.
When you recite all your love poems to the Lord.
You can recite them in church...
...I'm not telling you not to do it in church, and I don't want to offend anyone,
am not telling you not to have your love poems to the Lord Jesus, but
they are really only genuine in front of Him,
when you lock your door and you're there with Him,
and you tell Him only, and you utter them only in His presence.
You tell Him: Oh, how I love you, Jesus!
How precious are you to me!
How I delight in being here with you, just the two of us!
And Thou are filling my heart, my soul with your dear Holy Spirit!
I'm so happy, Jesus, and thank Thee that I can be your witness!
And all these in your little inner chamber, in that locked up place where no-one sees you.
As devout I am toward God THERE, as devout I am generally.
Not as devout as I seem in church, brethren, don't think for a second!
Many a times brethren are scrutinizing my life, too.
I've been to Karlovy Vary, it's in the Northern part of the Czech Republic,
Carlsbad (Karlsbad) is its German name, I don't know how you call it here in Hungary,
and I was evangelizing there and my son was there with me, too.
My 25 year old son.
And the brethren pulled him aside
and took him to a place and started interrogating him.
All right, son, they told him, now tell us how things are in your family!
What he preaches, is it really how it works, or does your father
reserve his piety for the pulpit, or how are things really?
And you can imagine, they did this without my knowledge, they took my son aside
and interrogated him.
And then my son spoke and he told them:
Well, brethren, you know
I'm 25 years old.
I study at the University.
I have lots of friends because I have a friendly personality.
I love people and people like me.
But should I have a problem,
should I need to talk about something intimate,
I will not go to my minister, neither I will run here or there,
but I will go and talk to my dad
and we go to the Lord Jesus Christ together.
It was so uplifting when these brethren came back in tears and said: Brother Alex!
How is it possible?!!
A son this old... our children are criticizing everything!
They aren't capable of seeing any good but our faults.
How come your son can witness like this?
And I said: It is possible because he sees that I am in connection with the Lord Jesus.
And he knows I'm not a hypocrite, my ministry doesn't consist of
me being a nice brother on the outside and a whited sepulchre on the inside, as Jesus said.
He can see those affections inside are the innermost things
and when they start they are rooted neither in ego, nor in selfishness.
They don't burgeon from offence, they are Christlike emotions and impulses.
Brethren, this is only possible if I walk with Jesus, if I delight in Him.
If I stand close to Him. You know when you're close to someone,
when you're next to your wife and you hug her,
then your heart is right next to her heart,
your eyes are to her eyes, your mouth is to hers, your ears are to hers.
And so it is the same when the Lord calls you and tells you to 'Come to me',
He calls all those that are His and He doesn't only call you to get to know you,
but so that you can learn the beat of His heart.
Brethren!
Do you understand?
You'll know the sight of your Lord.
You'll know what pleases His ears and what doesn't, because your ears are so close to each other.
Can you comprehend this?
This is very important, to get to so close to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to be so close to Him, that His vision would be one with mine,
that His hearing would be one with mine, and the beat of my heart would be one with His.
This close the Lord Jesus calls us, I do not exaggerate.
After one sermon the believers became infuriated and told me:
This Alex overstates these things! Well, I don't, brethren, this is how I experience this!
I do delight in the Lord and I do love the Lord Jesus Christ!
And I ask you to delight in Him and love Him so much,
so that you gain His vision, His hearing, gain the beat of His heart!
And when you speak or minister to others, people will know it's not you speaking.
It's not John speaking, it's not Alex speaking but the Lord Jesus speaks through this man!
Amen?
This is why Jesus calls these disciples to Him
to be close to them mentally and spiritually!
Where do you stand? What is your closeness like? What is the God experience in your life?
Even without this things still can work, because whoever has faith...
The Lord Jesus said one could move mountains with faith
really move mountains! But you are still not known!
When someone discovers the secret of faith and says in Jesus' name:
In Jesus' name I cast you out, demon; in Jesus' name I heal you sickness,
you man of sickness; in Jesus' name let this and that happen,
and finally the Lord Jesus will still tell you: I don't know you, who are you?
But Lord, didn't I do these in Thy name?
You didn't come to Me, you didn't have communion with Me, you didn't have time for prayer,
you didn't have time to read My Word and you didn't let Me speak to you and you didn't praise Me.
You had no time for a relationship, for a connection.
There was no connection, you didn't progress,
your character didn't change to the likeness of Mine.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
But if you are close to Jesus, then you start to change into His likeness
and then, when He knows you and when your character is changed to a Christlike character
then the Lord Jesus will send you forth.
Where to?
To a very interesting place!
Into the midst of wolves!
Well I never! What a turn!
Is it not a mistake?
Let's see if it is a mistake.
Why in the midst of wolves?
Why in the midst of wolves? Why not, I don't even know, let's say amongst people that accept us?
Right?
They'd transport me in limos for I am the servant of God, I am the messenger of God,
why shouldn't they take me with limos??
Why won't they praise me?
You know why?
This has a profound secret!
They won't, because when the lamb-like spirit comes,
when you take the Christlike spirit into your life
then it will show what kind of character, what kind of spirit dwells in you,
it will show whether you have built on yourself, on your body, on your talents,
on your ego, on your fame, on your greatness, or whether you built on Jesus.
And when the wolves come and start biting you...
They start biting you,
and then...they tear into your flesh... What does the lamb do?
If it really is a lamb, then he humbles himself.
Bows down his head.
Cries to his shepherd.
And begs to his shepherd: Dear shepherd, save me!
My shepherd, you see that I'm incapable.
Come and help me!
The lamb begs his good shepherd.
But what happens if instead the Christlike spirit this lamb has a wolflike spirit?
He snarls. Arghhh!!
You can imagine.
Now imagine that the wolf comes and they are staring daggers.
And there are believers like that!
When they have it bad, they can give you shank eyes.
When everything goes wrong they can hate, they can even kill!
There are people saying: I am free, Christ freed me!
And they preach that whoever is freed by the Son is free indeed!
And he is free!
And then eyeballs his son-in-law.
How can you eyeball your son-in-law if you were indeed freed by Christ?
How come you hate your daughter-in-law if you are freed by Christ?
How come you have a lamblike spirit and you
claim to be Jesus Christ's lamb and yet you are snarling?
Snarling at one of your loved ones.
My brethren! Deceived soul are they, that weren't with Jesus, He doesn't know them!
They simply didn't acquire Christ's character, they didn't put on His personality.