Our heavenly Father, we do rejoice in Thy presence, knowing that we are the family of God. How we praise and thank Thee for Thy great love toward us, that manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God.
And we are truly Thy children because Thou hast given us Thy own life. We do praise and thank Thee because Thou dost tell us, “To know Thee, the only true God, and to know the One whom Thou hast sent—this is eternal life.” We praise and thank Thee for giving us this wonderful knowledge of Thyself.
We know this, and we want to know Thee more. We pray that this evening Thou wilt open Thy Word to us, and open our hearts to Thy Word, that Thou mayest be able to impart Thyself to us in a fuller way, that we may enter into the fullness of God.
Lord, together we look to Thee to give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation unto the full knowledge of God. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
For the past two sessions, we have been fellowshipping together over this matter of the heart and its relationship with life.
The heart is the passage through which the life of God enters into us and also flows out of us. For out of the heart are the issues of life.
Very often we find that the life of God is being obstructed or bound up within us. It is not because the life of God within us is not living or operating; it is because something is wrong with our hearts.
If we turn our heart to the Lord, then the veil will be taken away from our face, and we shall behold the glory of the Lord. We shall be transformed from glory to glory according to His image, as by the Lord the Spirit.
This morning we mentioned how God desires to be our God, and how we can be His people—not in a superficial way, but in a real way. The secret is that God is to be our God in the law of the Spirit of life, and we are to be His people also in the same law.
It is only as we learn to live according to the law of the Spirit of life that we find ourselves truly God’s people, and God is truly our God.
I think there is one thing that fascinates me. Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need.” My God. God is my God. In other words, he knew God in a way that made God his God, and he was truly one of God’s people.
We said this morning that this is God’s purpose. Now, this evening, we would like to continue on this. Will you please turn to Hebrews 8?
This morning we read Hebrews 8:10. Tonight we will read Hebrews 8:11.
And they shall not teach every man his fellow citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least of them unto the greatest of them.
In this translation it says, “All shall know Me in themselves,” because in the original there is such a meaning in it: from the little one among them unto the great among them.
Let us read it again:
And they shall not teach each his fellow citizen,
And each his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
Because all shall know Me in themselves,
From the little one among them unto the great among them.
Turn also to 1 John 2:27.
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you,
And ye need not that any one teach you;
But as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things,
And is true, and is not a lie,
And even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
You have no need that anyone should teach you. Why? Because the anointing teaches you in all things, and it is true and is not a lie. Even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in Him.
Let us read a few more Scriptures. Ephesians 1, Paul’s first prayer for the saints there, verse 17 and the first part of verse 18:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
May give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him;
Having the eyes of your heart enlightened.
Then Ephesians 3, Paul’s second prayer for the same thing, verses 16 through 19:
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
That ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
To the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
May be strong to apprehend with all the saints
What is the breadth and length and height and depth,
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge,
That ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
And Colossians 1:9:
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it,
Do not cease to pray and make request for you,
That ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will
In all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
We mentioned this morning that the reason God put His law in our heart is because by doing that He is able to be our God, and we will be His people. In other words, this is the only true way in which God can really be our God and we can really be His people.
His law is in our heart. This is the law of the Spirit of life. The life that God has put in us is the law within us. If our heart is toward the Lord, we will love the law of God and find that it not only gives us knowledge, but gives us power to do His will.
We are able to listen to Him. We are able to obey Him. We are able to honor and respect Him. We are able to worship and serve. He is truly our God, and we are truly His people.
But this evening we would like to see that the new covenant does not end with God putting His laws into our minds and writing them upon our hearts, that He may be to us God and that we may be to Him a people. That is not all. It continues with verse 11.
They shall not teach every man his fellow citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
Because they shall all know Me in themselves,
From the least among them to the greatest.
God’s being our God in the law of life is a purpose, but it is also a process toward an end. Why does God want to be our God? Why does He want us to be His people?
There is an end purpose toward that, and that end purpose is that God wants us to know Him. Because knowing Him is to be united with Him; to be united with Him is to be filled with Him.
The end that God has in view before us is that we may know Him. We may have the full knowledge of God, and in having the full knowledge of God, we will be filled with the fullness of God. That is the end.
You remember in the Old Testament, Moses cried before the Lord. There was a deep cry in Moses. Moses was not content just by receiving some revelation from God, although Moses received great revelation.
The cry of Moses toward the Lord was this: “Let me see Thy glory.” He was not content with merely receiving revelations from God, even great revelations. He wanted to see the glory of the Lord.
This is another way of saying, “I am not satisfied just by knowing something that comes from Thee. I want to know Thee Thyself.”
Of course, Moses, being representative of the law, was not allowed to see the face of God. He could only see the back of God. God said, “I will go by thee and declare My goodness. Thou shalt hide in the cleft of the rock, and after I have passed, thou canst see My back.”
Why? Because that is law. The utmost the law can do is to see the back of God. It is only by grace that we can see the face of God.
The cry of the psalmist in Psalm 27 is similar. It is said, “My heart saith unto Thee, Seek ye My face.” The response of the heart is, “Thy face, O Lord, will I seek.”
Again, the desire of the psalmist was to see the face of God. That is simply the Old Testament way of saying that he wanted to know God—God Himself.
Of course, the cry of Paul is very clear:
That I may know Him,
And the power of His resurrection,
And the fellowship of His sufferings,
Becoming conformed unto His death;
If by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
Paul said, “I count all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.” His passion was to know God.
His prayer for the saints in Ephesus and his prayer for the church in Colossae were that they might enter into the full knowledge of God—not merely know God a little, but enter into the full knowledge of God.
Because knowing God is to be united with God, to be one with God, to be like Him, and to be filled with Him. That is the best, the real goal, that you find before you.
So, brothers and sisters, there is one thing God desires us to enter into in a whole way, because that is God’s purpose for us: He wants us to know Him, to know Him.
Nothing pleases God more than that we know Him. He is the most unknown Person, if I may say, in the whole universe. We long that we may know Him and know His heart.
By knowing Him, He is able to impart Himself to us in a fuller way. Do we know Him?
In Hebrews 8:11, it says there is no need for you to teach your fellow citizens or your brother, saying, “Know the Lord.” Why? Because everybody knows Him.
Now, you find here two “knows.” The first is “Know the Lord.” The second is, “All shall know Me.” In Greek, these are two different words.
The first word, “Know the Lord,” is knowing in general. In other words, it is an objective knowledge. It is knowledge accumulated through information. It is knowledge that comes through teaching and instruction.
How do you know a thing? You are taught. You are instructed at home, in school, and even in society. You gather all these data and all this information, and through the years you acquire much and become a man in the know.
That is one kind of knowledge. It is objective knowledge.
The second “know”—“because all shall know Me in themselves”—is another Greek word, oida. That word means a conscious knowledge, an intuitive knowledge, a subjective knowledge.
It is a knowledge that does not come from outside. It is a knowledge that comes directly from within, from God Himself.
So, brothers and sisters, you find there are two kinds of knowledge and two ways of knowing. One way is by absorbing information from outside. If you accumulate enough, you know. In other words, you know about it.
But there is another kind of knowledge that does not depend upon outside information. It comes directly from God within you. This kind of knowledge is real knowledge.
The first kind of knowledge—“Know the Lord”—belongs to the Old Testament, the old covenant. The second kind of knowledge—knowing Him in yourselves—belongs to the new covenant, the New Testament.
With the people of Israel, how could they know? The only way they knew was through the priests. These priests were not only those who served in the temple or helped offer sacrifices. Some of them were teachers and instructors.
The priests were to tell the people of Israel what the will of God was. The people did not know for themselves. If they wanted to know, they went to the priest. The priests knew the law of God and studied the law of God. Therefore, they told the people what the will of God was.
In their daily affairs, suppose Saul lost the asses. What should he do? He went to the seer, and the seer would tell him, “Your asses have already been found. Do not worry about that.”
So, in Old Testament times, the way to know was through instructors. If nobody instructed you, how could you know? That was the only way to knowledge.
But this kind of knowledge is external; it is objective. This knowledge of God is actually knowledge about God, not really knowing God as your God.
After Christ has come, after He has accomplished His work of redemption, it is different. Now God says, “You can know in your life. You do not need anyone to teach you, because you know.”
I wonder whether you sisters—and I include the brothers too—know, in the kitchen, the difference between sugar and salt.
Suppose you have two bottles here. One contains salt; the other contains sugar. You look at the two bottles. Can you see the distinction between sugar and salt? Suppose they are both refined, both granular, and both white. Can you tell the difference?
Have you ever made that serious mistake? If you try to know salt and sugar with your eyes, you may be deceived.
But there is one way to know, and I believe you must have done that. The moment it touches your tongue, you know. That knowledge is real knowledge.
You know the difference between salt and sugar well enough. They are so different. One kind of knowledge is deeper and more accurate than the other kind.
That is why Scripture says:
Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.
You need to taste Him. It is not enough merely to hear of Him. You do not really know until you taste Him. Then you know Him in a real way.
Now, brothers and sisters, how do you know the Lord? Is your knowledge of God of the first kind, or is it of the second kind?
Is your knowledge of God knowledge accumulated through the years by being taught, or is your knowledge a direct knowledge?
People may accumulate a great deal of knowledge about God and not know God. Other people may not have the ability or opportunity to accumulate much knowledge, and yet they may know God very well—perhaps better than many who have great stores of so-called knowledge.
As a matter of fact, we know God, as it were, in three steps. In Psalm 103:7:
He made known His ways unto Moses,
His acts unto the children of Israel.
The children of Israel knew the acts of God. That is the first step of knowing God. But Moses knew God more; he knew the ways of God.
Under the new covenant, there is a third step: you know God in His very nature.
The first step in knowing God is to know only the acts of God. What are the acts of God? When the people of Israel were in Egypt, they saw how God plagued the land of Egypt with ten plagues.
These ten plagues were the acts of God. By seeing these acts, they knew how powerful God was.
When they crossed the Red Sea, God divided the waters and they walked through. When the army of the Egyptians followed them, God closed the waters and they were all drowned.
Israel looked back at the acts of God and could sing the song of victory. God was great. God was powerful. God was mighty.
In the wilderness, God rained manna for their daily food. God gave them water out of the smitten rock. These were the acts of God. By seeing these acts, they realized that God was powerful, mighty, and great.
In the New Testament, when the Lord Jesus used five loaves and two fishes to feed the five thousand, immediately the people realized something of the acts of God. They wanted to make the Lord Jesus their king, because then the problem of food would be solved.
That is the act of God. Many people know God by His acts. They notice things God does—miracles and powerful works—and by seeing these things they bow down and say, “Oh, God really is God.”
But do you know God by knowing His acts? Look at the people of Israel. They observed the acts of God many times.
Perhaps you would say, “If I had been among the people of Israel, surely I would not have reacted as they did. How could I not believe after witnessing such mighty acts of God?”
But the Lord said they could not enter the promised land because of an evil heart of unbelief. They saw so much, yet they rebelled against God. They did not believe in God. They refused to follow God.
They did not know God. They knew God only superficially. When they saw the mighty acts of God, they worshipped; but after a while, they forgot.
That is not knowing God.
But Moses was different. Israel knew the acts of God; Moses knew the ways of God. What does it mean to know the ways of God?
It means that Moses did not need to wait until God did something and then believe. No, he knew the ways of God—the principles by which God works.
Before God did something, he already knew how God would react to certain situations. He knew the principles by which God works.
You remember Numbers 16. After the rebellion of Korah and his company, the judgment of God came upon them. The earth opened and swallowed up the households of Dathan and Abiram, and fire came out and burned the two hundred and fifty who offered incense.
The people of Israel saw the act of God, yet their reaction was to murmur. They said that Moses and Aaron had killed the people of the Lord.
While they were murmuring against Moses and Aaron, the glory of the Lord appeared. Moses knew what that meant. He told Aaron quickly, “Take the censer, put incense on it, and run into the midst of the people, because the plague has already begun.”
How did Moses know how God would react? Because he knew God by the principles by which God works. When the glory of the Lord appeared, he knew there would be a plague. Immediately he instructed Aaron to make atonement for the people.
Aaron rushed into the midst of the people. He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped. That is knowing God’s ways.
Those who do not know God must wait until God acts and it becomes apparent. Then they know. But those who know God a little better do not need to wait until God moves. Before God moves, they know the direction in which He will move because they know the principles—the ways of God.
Consider Abraham. In Genesis 18, when God revealed to Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because their sins were grievous, Abraham began to intercede for the city.
Abraham said, “Wilt Thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? If there were fifty righteous in the city, wouldst Thou spare it?”
The ground on which Abraham interceded was the way of God. He knew God’s way. Being a just God, God would never destroy the righteous with the wicked.
Abraham knew that God would keep the righteous in safety when He destroyed the wicked. On the basis of the righteousness and justice of God, Abraham interceded.
Unfortunately, there were not ten righteous in the city. But even so, God delivered righteous Lot out of it. That is according to the principle of God; it is the way He works.
Another example is 1 Samuel 15. God told Saul to destroy Amalek completely—man, woman, child, sheep, cattle, and all.
But Saul kept the best of the cattle and the flock, and he spared Agag, king of the Amalekites.
Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said, “I have done everything that the Lord commanded me. I have destroyed the Amalekites completely.”
Then Samuel asked, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” Saul replied that the people had kept the best to sacrifice to God.
Samuel said:
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to hearken than the fat of rams.
That is the principle. Because Saul did not obey God, even though he wanted to sacrifice, God rejected him. How did Samuel know? He knew because he knew the way of God and how God would react.
Another instance is David. David numbered the people of Israel out of pride. He wanted to know how many people he had. He did not trust in God, who had promised to bless His people as the sand by the seashore.
After he had done that, he knew he was wrong. The angel of the Lord came upon the city of Jerusalem with destruction, and stood by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
David went to Araunah and said, “I want to buy your field. I want to sacrifice to the Lord.”
Araunah said, “The field is yours. The oxen I give to you. Everything is free. Take everything and offer your sacrifice.”
But in 2 Samuel 24, David said, “No. I will buy from thee the field and the sacrifice, because I will not offer unto God that which costs me nothing.”
What is that? Knowing the way of God. God will not accept something that is without cost. You cannot borrow something or receive it from others. It has to come from you with cost.
Brothers and sisters, you can see clearly that knowing the ways of God is much more advanced than knowing the acts of God. The people of Israel knew the acts of God; Moses knew the ways of God.
There were certain people in the Old Testament who knew the ways of God. They knew God. But, dear brothers and sisters, even knowing God by His acts and knowing God by His ways are still external knowledge.
Thank God, His grace is great. Today we are supposed to know God more than the people of Israel, more than Moses, and more than those giants of Old Testament times.
Is that not wonderful? We may think we can never know God as Moses knew God, but God has done a great thing for us today.
If today we know God only as the people of Israel knew God, that is too bad. If today we know God as Moses, David, Samuel, and Abraham knew God, it is still not enough. That is Old Testament knowledge.
In the new covenant, God says, “You shall know Me in yourselves.” In other words, we know God; we know His very nature. That is different.
We often feel that we can never know God as Abraham knew God or as David knew God. Well, we ought to know Him in that way too. But even if we knew God only as they did, we would be going backward, not forward.
God wants us to know Him. To know His ways and to know His acts is to know about Him, but to know Him is to know His very nature.
If you know the nature of a person, then you really know him. If you only know a person by what he does, you know a little of him. If you know his habits and the principles by which he lives, you know him more. But if you know his very nature, you really know him.
Knowing the nature of God is real knowing.
That is why you find that eternal life is to know God. John 17:3 says:
And this is life eternal,
That they should know Thee the only true God,
And Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.
Do you know that the life God has given you has a nature? Because that life is in you, you are able to know the very nature of God. In knowing the very nature of God, you really know Him.
You have life in you. Because the life of God is in you, and that life has a nature, therefore you know in yourself. You do not need anyone to teach you, because you know Him in yourself.
The trouble with many Christians these days is that, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, we tend to think, “Well, I am just a newborn baby. I know nothing.”
Thank God if we take that kind of attitude. But because we think we know nothing, we feel that we have to ask everybody to teach and instruct us.
In one sense, this is a good thing. If a person thinks he knows everything, he knows nothing. But on the other hand, if you know nothing, how are you going to know something?
We all make a mistake. We think that if we know nothing, then the only way to know something is to get instruction. Therefore, we go to this teacher and that instructor.
Whenever we have a problem, we go to someone who seems to know more than we do and say, “Tell me, what should I do? What is the will of God for me? You are more spiritual than I am. You ought to know. Just tell me, and I will do it.”
Sure enough, you find there is a natural craving in human nature to be teachers. I have never met so many teachers in this country. Everybody likes to teach.
If you do not help them, they will teach you. If you ask them, that is a good opportunity.
Because of this, it results in producing a certain kind of Christian who always clings to men. They are not able to know God directly. Their whole way of knowing God is external.
They know about God, but after ten years they still do not know God. They do not know God’s nature. When God’s nature is holy, they do not know it. They only know by instruction.
The Bible says, “You shall not need anyone to teach you, Know the Lord.” Yes, if you want to know God externally, you need teaching and instruction. But today your knowing God is of a different kind.
You do not need anyone to teach you merely to know about the Lord, because you can know God better. You can know God by the life within. You can know God intuitively.
God has given us a new spirit, and this new spirit has a function: the function of sensing God Himself. We call it intuition.
Why? Because intuition is direct knowledge. It does not depend upon the environment. It comes directly from God. The life of God speaks directly to your spirit.
In 1 John 2, this is called the anointing. Why is the word “anointing” used? Because the operation of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of life living in us—when it operates in your spirit, is called the anointing.
It is like when you have a wound and put some ointment on it. When you apply ointment, you find that it is soothing and sweet.
The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life, teaches you in all things. It is like applying an ointment upon the wound. It is very tender, very gentle, very soothing, and very sweet.
That is the way the Spirit of life works in your spirit. Dear brothers and sisters, we have to use this. The Spirit of life lives in our spirit, and He is there to teach us in all things.
In other words, your teacher is not outside. Your teacher is within you. You have a private tutor who follows you everywhere you go. He never leaves you nor forsakes you.
Why do you have to travel a mile to find a brother and ask, “What is the will of God?” Your private Tutor is with you. He is ready to teach you in all things.
All things? Yes—big things and small things, even very small things. He is ready to teach you. The anointing is very diligent.
Does the Spirit speak in you? Is He alive within you? He is the Spirit of life. He is living. He is operating. He is working all the time. He is a ready Teacher. He will teach you in all things.
How do you know? Deep down in your spirit, when the Spirit of life begins to move and teach, intuitively you sense something. It is difficult to explain, but you know.
Sometimes it is a restraint. Sometimes it is a constraint. Sometimes it is a check. Sometimes it is a little feeling. Sometimes it is a little encouragement.
It may be a still, small voice; perhaps it may be otherwise. That is not important. But you find that the life God has put in you, as it operates, reveals its nature.
By its nature, you know. You know God. You know what is of God and what is not of God.
Sometimes your conscience is involved, especially in a moral matter. If you do something wrong, your conscience bothers you. Under the conviction of your conscience, unless you repent and look to the blood of the Lord Jesus, you will not have peace.
But, dear brothers and sisters, this is not enough. Learn to follow the life within you, and you will find that life is holy. It gives you a sense of holiness.
Anything that is not holy, you immediately retreat from. It may not be sinful. Other Christians may be doing it, but strangely, though others may do it, you cannot. You shrink from it. You avoid it.
Why? Because it is not according to God’s nature, not according to godliness.
It was so with Peter. After he had followed the Lord for some time, he went back to fishing. The Lord came to him and performed a miracle.
What did Peter say? Peter knelt before the Lord and said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
He knew the nature of God. Knowing God’s nature is knowing God.
How does God express His nature to you? Through the anointing.
When the anointing teaches you, it does not teach you merely according to right or wrong, good or evil. It teaches you according to whether something is of God or not of God.
Many Christians always ask, “Is it right or wrong? If it is right, I will do it. If it is wrong, I cannot do it. If it is good, then of course it must be God’s will. If it is bad, I will not do it.”
That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You do not live by that. You live by the tree of life.
When the anointing teaches you, it does not teach you merely according to right or wrong, good or bad. That does not mean there is no right or wrong, or no good or evil. Of course there is. But this is far beyond and above that.
The question is: Is it God, or is it not God? If it is not God, even if by every consideration it seems good, it is not God’s will for you.
Brothers and sisters, this is the way to know God. The Bible says that the anointing is true and is not a lie.
Any knowledge accumulated from outside may not be accurate. Only the anointing is truth.
We who have the life of Christ must learn this. This is not only for mature Christians. From the littlest to the greatest, no matter what you are, you have to start.
The moment you believe in the Lord, you have to learn to know God by the teaching of the anointing. If you follow the teaching of the anointing, you abide in Christ.
You will come to know God’s nature. You will come to know God directly.
Very often, you go here and there asking questions about whether you can do this or that. You go to one person and are not satisfied. You go to the next person and are still not satisfied. Then you go to a third person, and he tells you what you wanted to do all along.
Then you are satisfied. Before you asked the question, you already knew inwardly what you should do, but you did not want it. Therefore, you looked for some teacher who would go your way.
Just as the Bible says, in the last days people will have itching ears. You will find someone who will scratch your ears.
It is the teaching of the anointing that enables us to know God by His nature. That is truly knowing God.
But perhaps some brother or sister will ask, “Is that the case? We have no need for anyone to teach us? Thank God, then I can throw the teachers out. I have no need for teachers anymore, because the anointing teaches me all things.”
But if you read the Bible, you find many places where Scripture speaks of teaching and instruction. Paul himself was a great teacher of the nations, and he exhorted Timothy to teach others also.
There is a place for teaching. There is a place for the Word of God in your hand. How do you reconcile these things?
Basically, every believer must learn to know the teaching of the anointing within him. That is the direct knowledge of God.
But sometimes our spirit is not pure. Sometimes our heart is not right. If our spirit is not pure and our heart is not right, the teaching of the anointing is there, but we are not able to hear.
It is not that God is not speaking, nor that the anointing is not working. But as Scripture says, God has spoken once, yea twice, but man perceiveth it not.
Your heart may be heavy. You may not understand. God has a word, God is speaking, but you miss it. Why? Because something is wrong with your heart toward God.
If your heart is not open to God, you will not hear God. Or, if your spirit is not pure, you may hear wrongly.
For this reason, God sends teachers to us to instruct us. These teachers serve the purpose of repeating what God has spoken to you, or confirming what God has spoken.
Remember one thing: in the New Testament, you have prophets for the church, but you do not have individual prophets for individual believers.
In other words, in New Testament times, you have prophets who tell you the principles of God in a general way. They are not supposed to tell you personally what you should do. You should find that from God yourself.
They may confirm what God has told you, but they cannot substitute for the teaching of God.
We need to maintain a balance. On the one hand, we should seek to know the Lord intuitively. On the other hand, because of our weakness—and because we may be mistaken, and often are mistaken—we need teachers and instructors whom God has given to the church.
They correct us, repeat what God may have spoken to us, and confirm God’s speaking within us. That is the reason we need instruction.
But instruction can never substitute for the teaching of the anointing. It can only confirm; it cannot replace.
The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is accurate. But if you go to the Bible without the Holy Spirit making it alive to you, it becomes letter—accurate, but dead.
The teaching of the anointing within you is living. But sometimes, to you, it is not very clear. Therefore, you need the teaching of the anointing together with the instruction of the Bible.
They serve as a check and balance. Teachers are necessary. The Bible is necessary. You have to check what you feel within with what the Word of God says.
If it is from the teaching of the anointing, it always agrees with the Bible, because the Bible is Spirit-breathed. The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself.
If we remember these things, then as we learn to know God inwardly, we will not be led astray.
Otherwise, some people say, “All right, I do not need anyone to teach me. I will not ask anybody. I will simply be led by the Lord.” But they mistake their own ideas for the teaching of the anointing, and because of that, they go astray.
How we need the Word of God. How we need one another to serve as checks and balances. But at the same time, you have to see that this is something you must go to the Lord about yourself.
That is knowing God inwardly. As you know God in this way, you will find that God will impart Himself to you more and more, until you are filled unto all the fullness of God.
Thank God for giving us a new spirit and for giving us His Holy Spirit to dwell in our spirit. This is the way that we can receive wisdom and revelation unto the full knowledge of God.
God has taken away our stony heart and given us a heart of flesh, that our hearts may be turned toward Him. When God reveals something to us, our hearts may understand, our hearts may know, and the life of God may flow from us. Then God will be increased.
This is the way God will lead us as we follow Him.
Our heavenly Father, we do thank Thee, because everything comes from Thee. Thou hast given us a new spirit, capable of knowing Thee, and Thou hast given us the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, who will teach us in all things and lead us into Christ.
Oh, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou art teaching us all the time. We only pray that we may have a pure spirit, that we may hear Thy voice, and that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened, that we may know what Thou hast said.
Lord, that we may obey and do Thy will. We ask Thee that we may really grow in Christ, that God may be increased in us.
Lead us in the way everlasting. And Lord, do balance us by Thy Word and with Thy church, that we may not go our own way, but may be kept in the way of God.
Again, we commit one another into Thy keeping. In view of Thy soon return, we pray that Thou wilt make us ready, because Thou art looking for a people prepared for Thy return.
We thank Thee for all Thy mercy and grace. Thou art our God, our Father. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.