Hebrews 8:10-12
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
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 to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.
Ephesians 1:15-19
Wherefore I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints,
Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
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 hearts enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
And what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe.
1 John 1:5, 7; 2:27-28
And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
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 no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
And now, my little children, abide in Him; that, if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
Lord, as we gather here before You, our hearts are filled with praise and thanksgiving. Among thousands of people, You have chosen us, and You have chosen us to gather before You in peace.
This morning, if You have any words to speak to us, please speak. We are all Your servants, and we open our hearts toward You. Please speak to us. Please enlighten us.
Please allow us to enter and abide in You, that Your glorious will may be accomplished in these earthly vessels. We give You all the honor, glory, power, and the kingdom.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
We thank the Lord that He has given us another opportunity to gather before Him. I hope that brothers and sisters can still remember that, when we gather this time, we are not merely trying to hear some instruction. We want to enter into this exercise.
If we enter a school simply to listen, we can listen very passively. But when we enter into an exercise, we need to pay attention and commit ourselves into the hands of the Lord.
The Bible tells us that exercising our physical body profits a little. It is not that God despises the exercise of our physical body. When God created this amazing body, He wanted us to glorify Him in our body.
Therefore, we need to exercise our body so that we may have a healthy body to serve Him.
But the Bible also tells us that there is another exercise. Compared with exercising our physical body, bodily exercise profits only a little. First Timothy 4:8 says that exercising unto godliness profits in all things.
It has the promise of life. This life is a holy life. It is not merely physical life, because physical life is only temporal; this holy life is eternal.
That is why God promises that, if we exercise godliness, He gives us the promise of His holy life—not only for this life, but also for the life to come.
To exercise godliness, in other words, is to exercise being like God. We need to have the character of God, because it is the will of God that we should be conformed to the image of His Son.
Paul reminds us that the reason we labor so hard is for this. So, dear brothers and sisters, I do not know whether you are laboring hard to exercise this godliness.
This is to exercise the spirit that God has given us. Because God is Spirit, we need to worship Him in spirit and truth.
Spirit is not a material thing. We cannot see Him. But it is not because we cannot see Him that He does not make sense.
What you cannot see is more real than what you can see. The Bible says that what we can see is temporal, but what we cannot see is eternal.
The spirit that God has given us, even though we cannot see it, is real. The spiritual life of a Christian is all in this spirit. If we do not exercise this spirit, we cannot enter into the spiritual life of a Christian.
We have already said that, even though we cannot see the spirit, according to its functions we can know that it exists. When we speak of exercising the spirit, we mean exercising the functions of the spirit.
The Holy Spirit, dwelling in our spirit, teaches us daily how to exercise our spirit. He teaches us how to exercise the conscience of our spirit.
We always say that the conscience is the voice of God. God speaks to us by touching our conscience, so that our conscience can tell us whether something is right or wrong.
We need to have a pure conscience to live before God and before man. Therefore, conscience and righteousness have a relationship.
We thank God that He has washed away our sins with His blood, so that we are justified in Jesus Christ. This is our position.
Now that we have this position, in our daily life we have to walk righteously. How can we walk righteously? How can we tell what is right in the eyes of God and what is wrong?
The Holy Spirit touches our conscience. Therefore, we need to exercise. When the Holy Spirit touches our conscience, we need to have a response.
We cannot simply suppress the feeling of the conscience. We need to obey the will of God according to the feeling of the conscience. Last week, we spoke about this already.
This morning, we want to speak about exercising the second function of our spirit. In our spirit there is another function, and this function is called intuition.
What is intuition? When you hear the word intuition, you can tell that there is some knowledge here which is direct.
When we speak of knowledge in human terms, it is generally knowledge gained through the five senses. God has given us the five senses, and through these five senses we have contact with the world.
As we grow up, we collect different kinds of knowledge. Through our eyes, our ears, and our different senses, we collect many kinds of knowledge.
Our mind is amazing. Even though our head is so small, the amount of information and knowledge that we collect is tremendous.
Today is the computer age. We look at computers and feel that they are very amazing. This little thing can give us so much data. Yet the mind that God has given us is more amazing than any computer.
If you wanted to make a computer according to the brain that we have, that computer might occupy a whole block. Yet our brain is so small. Is it not amazing?
We collect information and data, we understand them, and we store them so that we can use them when the time comes. All this knowledge allows us to determine how to live as human beings in this world.
When we go to school, what do we do? We collect different types of information and knowledge so that we can become knowledgeable persons. Such knowledge has a great relationship to our human life.
But, brothers and sisters, how do we live the spiritual life? Spiritual life is not according to the knowledge of this brain.
The knowledge of our brain only allows us to know how to live as a person in this world. Now that we have spiritual life, we need to live spiritually.
This spiritual living is according to the inner, direct knowledge in our spirit.
There is a concept among brothers and sisters that if we want to live spiritually, we need a great deal of theology. We think that if we have more theological knowledge, we can become better spiritual persons.
But where does this theology come from? You may go to a theological college or a seminary. You may see more, hear more, and think about it more.
Yet this knowledge also comes from the outside. You still use your brain to store it, and your brain becomes filled with it.
The benefit it brings to spiritual living is very small, because this is still external knowledge. It is not direct knowledge. It is not inner knowledge. It is not knowledge from revelation. It is not knowledge of life.
If you want spiritual living, you need intuition.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians. When we read the Bible, we realize that Ephesians contains some of the highest teaching concerning God’s purpose.
Paul could not speak to the Corinthians in the same way, but to the Ephesians he could share with them the mystery of heaven. Yet, even in Ephesians, he did not simply give them more outward teaching.
Why was this so? Paul felt that these things were not something he could teach merely from the outside. They were not things that man’s brain could understand.
Therefore, he prayed to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that He would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that they might truly know God.
This knowing is truly knowing. It is the enlightening of the eyes of our heart.
The eyes of our heart are the spiritual senses within us. In the spirit there is wisdom and there is revelation. Then our mind can understand, and we can understand the greatness of God’s calling, the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the greatness of His power revealed to His people.
All this begins with the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
Wisdom is different from knowledge. Knowledge means that you know something. Wisdom is knowing how to use what you have obtained. The knowledge that God gives you can be applied, and this comes through revelation.
The Bible teaches that the natural man does not understand spiritual things. To him they are foolishness. Only spiritual men can understand spiritual things.
Therefore, when we touch spiritual things, we need to have an attitude: “This is beyond what I can understand.” We need such an attitude, and then we can understand spiritual things.
We should not think that every question can be settled merely by theology. When you read the Bible, are you merely trying to interpret it?
If it is not from revelation, all these things are vanity. They are not real. The Word of God is living, and it can be applied.
Why do we read the Word so much? If we cannot apply it, it will not have effect in our life. This reveals that there is a barrier between us and the Word of God.
We need to pray to God and ask Him for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. If we do not even have this attitude, we remain outsiders to the spirit.
We thank God that today we are living in the New Testament. We are not living in the Old Testament.
Unfortunately, much of Christianity still lives as though it were in Old Testament times. But we need to know clearly that God has already brought us into the New Testament.
The Old Testament is from God, but it is only a preparation. The New Testament is His goal.
Before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, during the Last Supper, He took the cup and said:
This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.
In other words, He brought us into the New Testament.
In the New Testament, God has done three things. First, He puts His law into our hearts. He will be our God, and we will be His people.
Secondly, we do not need someone to teach us that we must know God. From the least to the greatest, all shall know Him from within.
Thirdly, He has forgiven our sins and will remember our iniquities no more. This is the New Testament that God has made with us in the blood of our Lord.
What is the second point? We do not need anyone to tell us that we need to know God.
In the Old Testament, how did the Israelites know God? They needed others to teach them. They needed the priests and Levites to teach them.
The word know in the Old Testament has the ordinary meaning of knowing. But in the New Testament it says that you do not need anyone to teach you.
Are you living in the New Testament, or are you living in the Old Testament? Do you feel that if no one teaches you, how can you know?
What can man teach you? He can only teach you outwardly so that your mind may understand something about God. But knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.
True knowledge—truly knowing God—comes from within. From the youngest to the oldest, they need to know God from the inside.
This knowing God is experiential knowledge. It is not merely mental knowledge. This is true knowledge of God. This is the New Testament.
Why can we know God from within? Because in our spirit there is a function called intuition.
The Holy Spirit, dwelling in our spirit, teaches us. First John 2:27 says that we have the anointing in us.
We know that this anointing refers to the Holy Spirit. Everyone who believes in Christ has the Holy Spirit abiding within.
The Holy Spirit is like an anointing. The function of an ointment is to apply and penetrate. In the same way, the Holy Spirit anoints us inwardly.
What is the purpose of this function? He teaches us in all things.
If you already have a teacher within you, do you still need a teacher outside to teach you? Then can we cast away all teachers? You can cast me out!
Why, then, do we still need teachers? God has raised up apostles, pastors, and teachers. Why is this so?
Your spirit and your soul are very precious in the eyes of God. God has already saved you, and He will not put you into the hand of any person. He Himself will be responsible for you.
But because we are still young and ignorant, we are not yet sharp enough in spiritual things. Our inward feeling may not be clear enough, and sometimes we may be wrong.
Therefore, God uses people who know Him to help us. They can verify and correct us. But the Leader is God Himself.
Do not remain in the Old Testament. Today, Christians who remain in Old Testament living can easily be misled and led into heresies, especially in this last age.
If Christians can exercise their intuition and receive directly from God, we can avoid many heresies and wrong doctrines, and our spiritual stature will grow.
This anointing teaches us in everything. We may think there are many things for which we do not need the anointing, and only when important matters come do we pray to God.
But God cares for us to the uttermost. He is concerned even in small things. You may think He is too troublesome, but He wants you to be perfect as He is perfect.
Where can you see such love? He loves us to this extent.
If we obey the teaching of the anointing, we will abide in Him. Do we not always want to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ?
Sometimes we feel that we are apart from the Lord Jesus. What can keep us abiding in the Lord Jesus all the time? Obey the teaching of the anointing.
This is the goal and aim of His teaching. He is not trying to increase our head knowledge. He wants to increase the stature of Christ in us.
God has already prepared all this, but we do not exercise. If you do not exercise, you will not receive it. If you do not use what you have, it is as though you do not have it.
Even in the deep sea, some fish have eyes but cannot see because they dwell in darkness and never use their eyes. Because they never use them, they lose them.
Even our eyes need to be used. God gave us this intuition so that He may teach us through it. If we do not use it, we do not exercise it.
If you exercise it more, it becomes sharper. If you do not use it, it slowly loses its function. Brothers and sisters, do you exercise your intuition?
The Bible says that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Here, it does not refer merely to words. The Scriptures tell us that His Word is a lamp unto our feet, but 1 John 1:5 refers to God Himself.
He is light. In Him there is no darkness. What about us? We are all in darkness.
This light has already shone into us. Many years ago, a brother visited a coal mine. When he came out, he saw everybody else with dark faces and laughed at them. He did not realize that he himself was also dark.
This is man. We do not know our own darkness. But God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
This is the light of life. This light comes from the inside, not from the outside. When it shines on us, we know the light.
That is why 1 John 1:7 says:
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
We have fellowship one with another,
And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
We need to walk in the light. What is this light? It is the light of life inside us. Because life is light, as life grows, the light also grows.
When the light is small, the light we receive is also small. But when the light comes, we see our condition.
If you walk in the light that you have seen, then you walk as God is in the light. God may be one hundred, while you are only one; but if you have light, you know what is wrong and what is not pleasing to God.
If you know it, you need to walk in that light. Then your conscience is clean, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all our sins.
The light allows us to see what we did not see in the past. But thank God: if we obey and walk in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ washes our sins away, and in this way we become more like God.
As we continuously walk in light, this light increases. We increasingly obey the life that is in us, and there is no barrier between us and God.
This does not mean that we are perfect. We will not be perfect as God is perfect. But God can have fellowship with imperfect people because we obey and walk according to the light we have received.
If we do not walk in the light, our conscience will accuse us, and our fellowship with God will have a problem. This is the path of spiritual growth.
How do we exercise this intuition? We thank God that our spirit now has this function of intuition. The Holy Spirit is the anointing abiding in us. Everything is well prepared.
Do you remember what Galatians 1:16 says? God is willing to reveal His Son in us. Thank God, there is no problem with Him.
Do not think that if you do not receive revelation, God is responsible for the problem. No, there is no problem with God. God is willing to reveal His Son in us.
When I travel and visit a family that has just had a child, as soon as I enter the house, the parents immediately show me the baby. I do not even need to ask.
They are delighted to show their child. This is our God. He is happy to show us His Son. He values His Son, and He wants us to value His Son as well.
There is no problem with God. The problem is with us.
How do we exercise our intuition? How do we receive this spirit of revelation? Let me share a couple of things with you.
First, Matthew 5:8 says:
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
God is everywhere, but you cannot see Him. Why? Because our heart is not pure enough.
If our heart is completely open to Him, there is no problem that we will see Him.
When Jesus was on earth, He did much work in Capernaum and Chorazin, but they did not believe Him.
In Matthew 11, Jesus prayed that the Father had hidden these things from the wise and understanding, but had revealed them unto babes. This was the Father’s good pleasure.
God does not reveal Himself to the wise and clever people, but He reveals Himself to babes.
When the disciples argued about who was the greatest, the Lord brought a child among them and said:
Except ye turn, and become as little children,
Ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
If you humble yourself as a child, you will be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. This is a spiritual secret.
There is a Chinese saying: if you are worldly wise, your heavenly sense is destroyed. If we have too much worldly knowledge, our heavenly sense diminishes.
Children use intuition very naturally. They do not have much knowledge. In the beginning, they rely on intuition.
Some children are afraid of certain people, while with others they will go readily. What do they rely on? It is intuition.
The older we become, the more hypocritical we may become. According to our head knowledge, we think about how best to protect ourselves.
The more worldly knowledge we accumulate, the more our heavenly sense may diminish. The Lord does not want us to be childish; He wants us to be childlike.
To be childlike means to have a clean heart toward the Lord. “I know nothing else. I know my Father.”
If our heart is pure toward Him, He will teach us through our intuition. This is one thing.
Let me use another example. I do not know whether you have read the book My Utmost for His Highest, written by Oswald Chambers.
Oswald Chambers lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was a very gifted man—an artist, a psychologist, and a philosopher. He was an Englishman.
For about six years, outwardly he seemed to be a very ordinary Christian. But inwardly he felt a lack, and he prayed before God.
He found that he needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Though he sought for it, he did not receive it until one day when he was reading Luke 11:13.
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?
At that moment, he was enlightened. With simple faith, he accepted the Word of God. He did not have any special experience. He simply had the faith of a child to accept the Word of God.
From that time onward, his life was completely changed. In everything, he could use the faith of a child to trust God.
No difficulty was too great for him. He simply believed God like a child, and God truly used him in his generation.
What does this show? If we have faith that is pure as a child’s faith, God will reveal His will to us.
Often we do not receive because we are too wise. We think we know too much.
If you have read the book The Normal Christian Life, you know that Brother Watchman Nee gave this testimony.
He had believed in the Lord for many years and had already been serving God. As he pursued the Lord, he read many books.
He read many expositions of Romans 6, which teaches that our old man was crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be done away, and that we should no longer be in bondage to sin.
But how do we experience dying with Christ? Theoretically, our old man was crucified on the cross. But how do we experience that today?
Many people told him, “You have to follow Romans 6. Reckon that you have died in Jesus Christ—dead unto sin and alive unto God.”
So he reckoned and reckoned. Yet the more he reckoned, the more alive his old man seemed to become. The more he reckoned, the more alive his old man became. He was powerless.
Until one day, in the morning while he was reading the Bible, God opened the eyes of his heart and allowed him to see.
Why were we crucified with Christ? Because we are in Christ. If Christ was crucified, and we are in Him, then we were also crucified with Him.
When this light shone into him, he was filled with praise to God. He came down the stairs, saw a brother, and seized hold of him, saying, “Do you know that I am dead already?”
The brother asked, “What are you talking about?” This is real. This is revelation.
When the spirit of revelation comes, it has a result. You may have knowledge, but you cannot apply it. Revelation enables us to apply it.
I can tell you much more, but we are running out of time.
Secondly, if we are to exercise our intuition, we need to exercise obedience. If you obey the light you have already received, God will give you more light.
If you do not obey the light that God has already given, He will not give you more light.
Let me give you a real testimony. After I believed in Christ, I was very fervent—perhaps foolishly fervent—and I preached the gospel everywhere.
I went into villages and visited people with illness, even those with meningitis. At that time, I knew almost nothing, but I thought I was a servant of God.
When I was young, I was sprinkled because my father was a pastor. Some people told me that sprinkling water was not proper baptism. In the Bible, baptism means being immersed in water.
I was strongly against this. I said, “I was sprinkled as a baby, in the name of the Father. I cannot despise the name of God.”
But when I read the Bible, I saw what it said about baptism. When I was a child and was sprinkled, I did not know what believing meant. My father was there, but I was not involved.
The Bible says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Is sprinkling sufficient? My conscience said, “No.”
At that time, I was very fervent, but all this was according to how I felt.
Until one day, someone came and spoke with me about baptism again. I debated with him until my brother thought I was too stubborn and simply ignored me.
I sat there and said, “Lord, I know that one day I will be baptized, but now it is not convenient. I am still a student. My father is a pastor. I love my father, and I cannot disobey him.”
I said, “God, let me promise You that when I graduate and become independent, then I will be baptized.” It sounded very reasonable.
Then suddenly there was a voice within me. It was the first time I felt as if I heard a voice: “Do you love your parents more than Me? You are not worthy to be My disciple.”
Those words touched me. I said, “Lord, I want to be Your disciple.”
My friend lived next door to a brother. He was sleeping there. I came down from upstairs and knocked at the door next door.
Finally, he came down from the second floor of his house and asked, “What do you want?” I said, “I want to be baptized.”
He said, “Does your father know?” I said, “He does not. But I have found that God wants me to do it.” The next day, I was baptized.
Why do I mention this event? Because that obedience opened me up.
Of course, I read the Bible, and I also prayed to God. But inwardly I was not opened up. I read the Bible only with my head.
Why? Because within me there was disobedience. I was not walking in the light. If I do not walk in light, I am in darkness.
But that day, when I obeyed, my heart was opened. From that day onward, the light increased in me.
I am not saying that I obeyed completely. I fought with God many times, just like Jacob. But thank God, He never let go of me.
I learned this lesson: if we want revelation, we need to exercise intuition.
First, our heart must be pure before God. Secondly, when He gives us light, we must obey. Then our intuition will see more and more light, and we will have a part in His holiness.
I have always felt that conscience is related to righteousness, while intuition is related to holiness.
Our conscience tells us what is right and wrong, what is considered right and what is considered wrong. Our intuition enables us to discern what is the will of God and what is not.
This relates to holiness. Not only that, intuition also brings us into service.
Through intuition, God enables us to know how to serve Him. When we serve God, it is not according to what we think is good. When we serve God, we need to serve according to His will.
Dear brothers and sisters, may God have mercy on us. Through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, may we exercise our intuition.
Lord, we open our hearts to You. Please enlighten us, brighter and brighter, until the noonday sun. May glory be to You. In Jesus’ name, amen.