Will you please turn to Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1? Just one verse: Ephesians 1:17.
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.
Hebrews, chapter 8, verse 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 to the greatest of them.
First John, chapter 1, verse 5:
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.
Verse 7:
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.
First John, chapter 2, verse 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 no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
Dear Lord, as we gather in Thy presence, we do realize Thy tremendous love for us in providing everything for us. Lord, wilt Thou not open our understanding, that we may not only see it, but that we may appropriate it?
We do desire, O Lord, that as long as we live on this earth, we may glorify Thee. Teach us how. Show us how. Bring us into the reality. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
We have been burdened with this matter of spiritual growth. Since we have believed in the Lord Jesus and have received His precious life, having His Holy Spirit dwelling in our new spirit, we ought to grow in our spiritual life.
By spiritual life, it simply means being alive in our new spirit—alive according to the Holy Spirit of God.
Why is it that we who have believed in the Lord Jesus, and have received all the precious promises and provisions that God has provided for us, do not grow as we ought? Why is it that we often remain as babes in Christ instead of coming into full growth—that is, being conformed to the image of Christ?
This is our pressing problem. This is our quest. We want to find out how we can really grow spiritually, be transformed, and be conformed to the image of Christ.
We feel that probably one reason is that we do not know how to exercise our spirit.
Thank God, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit came and quickened our dead spirit within us into a new spirit. So every saved person, within him or her, has a new spirit.
Now, why is that new spirit so important? Because God is Spirit, and there is no way to communicate with God except in and through our spirit.
But we know that our spirit within us is not a material thing. Yet, because it is not matter, that does not mean that it does not exist. As a matter of fact, our spirit within us is as real as our body—or, we may say, even more real than our body.
But how do we know that we have a spirit? We know it by its functions. We cannot see it, but we can experience it, because our spirit has its functions.
Mainly, it has three important functions. Number one: in our spirit, we have the faculty of conscience—a conscience that has been cleansed by the blood of our Lord Jesus, so that we may live on this earth with a conscience without offense before God and man.
Conscience tells us what is right and what is wrong. Conscience is the voice of God, and it is very important for us believers to pay attention to our conscience.
The Holy Spirit speaks to our conscience, telling us what is right before God and what is wrong before God. We need to listen to the voice of our conscience. If we can live a life with a pure, good conscience—not accusing us, but rather excusing us—then our walk on earth before God and man is accepted by God.
So we need to exercise our conscience daily. The apostle Paul could testify, in the latter part of his life, that he lived before God and man with a conscience without offense. That should be our testimony.
Conscience is not something that awakens only at the moment we are saved. Conscience is a law of life in our spiritual life. We need to pay close attention to our conscience.
Now, this morning, we would like to consider together how to exercise the next faculty of our spirit. We call it intuition.
By intuition, I simply mean direct knowledge. It is knowledge that comes directly from God. It is not from outside, and it is not by human reasoning. God directly speaks to our spirit. He tells us what is good and what is evil.
You know, there is a difference between right and wrong and good and evil. Good and evil in the Scripture are deeper than right and wrong, because good, according to the Scriptural meaning, means God’s will. Whatever is God’s will is good, and whatever is not God’s will is bad. It is not like the worldly concept.
So our intuition tells us what is good—the will of God—and what is bad—not the will of God. Is it not true that in our Christian life this is an important question? We want to know what is the will of God in this matter, in that decision, in this way, or in that way. We want to know what is God’s will so that we may obey and do His will. How do you know that? We know it through intuition.
If conscience is related to the righteousness of God, then intuition is related to the holiness of God. What do you mean by holy? Holy means that you are separated unto God. That is holy.
How can we be holy as He is holy? Through intuition. If we do not know how to exercise our intuition properly, we do not know how to be holy. What we consider good may turn out to be bad, and what we consider bad may turn out to be good. It may be the will of God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, this matter of intuition is very, very essential. We need to exercise it daily.
You know, there are two kinds of knowledge. One kind of knowledge we call acquired knowledge. How do we acquire knowledge?
When we are little babies, when we are children, we are innocent. But it is natural that as we grow up, we begin to gather knowledge. We begin to gather information from outside. Outside things begin to give us a certain kind of knowledge.
We gather this knowledge, store it, analyze it, and come to conclusions as to what we think is right or wrong, good or bad. That is the way we acquire knowledge. It is all from outside.
It is amazing. I often marvel at the human brain—just a little human brain, yet it gathers so much information, stores the data, and can do so many things: thinking, analyzing, and exercising. Marvelous! Our mind is a marvelous thing.
It is the exercise of our soul, because the mind is a faculty of our soul. That is the way we gather information, so we call it acquired knowledge. By acquiring all this knowledge, it gives us wisdom to live, to behave, and to act as human beings.
But there is another way, a higher way of knowledge. We call it intuitive knowledge, or revelational knowledge. You do not gather this information from outside. It is not affected by outside circumstances or information. It comes directly from God.
It speaks to your spirit, not to your mind. It is the exercise of your spirit, not the exercise of your mind. It shows us what is the will of God and what is not the will of God. It is all within your spirit. It does not depend on outside circumstances or information.
That is the way to know the mind of God, the will of God.
I may put it in another way. We have been fellowshipping on Genesis, and you find that when God put man into the garden of Eden, He planted all beautiful and edible trees in the garden—all kinds of fruits. Is that not wonderful, for the need of our physical body?
But in the midst of the garden, He planted the tree of life, and by its side, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Sometimes people think that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a bad tree. Not at all. In the garden of Eden, the garden of pleasure, God would never plant a bad tree there. As a matter of fact, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a better tree than all the edible, fruitful trees.
Why? Because the fruit trees were for our bodily needs, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was for the needs of our soul, for our mind, that we might have knowledge of good and evil. It was a good tree.
But in the midst of the garden there was the tree of life, and the tree of life was food for our spirit. So you find that there was provision for our body, provision for our soul, and provision for our spirit.
But why did God say, “Of all the trees in the garden you may freely eat, only that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die”? Why?
Because God loves us. He knows that without His life, merely having knowledge in your soul, though it is wonderful and makes you intelligent, can bring death. As the tempter said, it can make you as God, knowing good and evil. But sadly, such knowledge brings death.
You may know what is good, but you cannot do it. You may know what is bad, but you do not have the life to resist it. So it is death.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is for your soul. In your mind, you may be able to know what is the will of God and what is not the will of God. But unfortunately, you do not have the life to obey the will of God and resist evil. That is why God wanted to protect us from it.
But the tree of life has knowledge in itself. It is knowledge because it gives us the knowledge of God. Life gives us the knowledge of God Himself.
We often say that you can know about God by searching, but if you want to know God, you have to receive His life.
We can know that there must be a God somewhere. Where does the universe come from? By reasoning, you can come to the conclusion, “Well, there must be a God.” You can know much about God: He must be mighty, He must be wise, He must be lovely, or whatever it may be. You may have all this kind of knowledge.
But this knowledge condemns you instead of saving you. If you really want to know God, you have to receive His life. When His life comes, then you know Him intimately, not merely intellectually.
Before you believed in the Lord Jesus, you may have known about God, but there was no contact and no experience of God. God was billions and billions of miles away, and the knowledge of Him brought condemnation. If there is a God, then you are finished, because He is righteous and you are sinful.
But thank God, the moment you believe in the Lord Jesus, what happens? You lift up your head and say, “Abba, Father.” Immediately, you know Him—not merely about Him. He is your Father.
Children, as we find in 1 John 2, know their Father. You may not know much about other things, but you know your father. This gives us that intimate knowledge of God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we have these two different kinds of knowledge before us. Because of the sin of Adam, all mankind has is knowledge from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is all. We gather all this information and have all this wisdom, but all these things are of the soul.
But thank God, after we believe in the Lord Jesus, something happens. The inward knowledge of God gives life, and it is all in our spirit, in the intuitive faculty of our spirit.
I hope, dear brothers and sisters, that we will find according to the Word of God that there are these two different kinds of knowledge. The knowledge that you acquire may help you in this world, but the knowledge that comes from life will enable you to live before God and to please Him. That is the difference.
Now we would like to concentrate on this intuitive knowledge. As a matter of fact, dear brothers and sisters, we all have that experience already. It is not something totally foreign to us.
When you believed in the Lord Jesus, something happened. Intuitively, you knew God as your personal Father. But the problem is that instead of really developing this intuitive knowledge, we are led outside into acquired knowledge, because that is what we knew before.
What are the characteristics of this intuitive knowledge? Number one: we find in Ephesians 1 that Paul has a prayer for all believers:
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.
It is something given by God. That is to say, we do not have it in ourselves. You remember when Peter confessed the Lord Jesus: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That was tremendous knowledge. But where did this knowledge come from?
Our Lord Jesus said, “Simon Peter, this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by My Father who is in heaven.” So, from the very beginning, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, it does not depend on acquired knowledge. It depends on revelational knowledge.
This revelational knowledge does not come from outside indirectly. It comes directly from God to our spirit. So we can say, “I know. I see it.”
Revelation means that it is revealed to you. Thank God, He is the God of revelation. If God does not reveal Himself to us, nobody will know Him. He is the greatest mystery in the world. All we know of God comes from Himself.
He reveals Himself to us in many ways, and He reveals Himself in our spirit. There in our spirit, we know. We may not be able to explain it, but we know because He has revealed it to us. “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” That is God.
When we think of revelation, brothers and sisters, we may have some misunderstanding. We think of revelation as something tremendous—something that can only happen once or twice in your life, something that revolutionizes your life completely. Drastic.
Well, that is revelation. But revelation is also something that we can receive daily. It may be a smaller light, but it helps. It helps us to know Him. It helps us to know His will, because we have this need every day.
We want to know what is the will of God. Without knowing the will of God, how can we live? How can we act? So the spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to us through Christ Jesus. We should expect revelation.
I remember Brother Nee said that in your lifetime, you may receive one or perhaps two great revelations. That may be all you receive. They are so drastic that they change your whole being. But revelation is something that God is pleased to give daily, revealing His beloved Son to us.
Here we find the phrase, “the spirit of wisdom and revelation.” What is wisdom? Wisdom and knowledge are different. Knowledge is, we may say, information. Wisdom is the ability to use information.
Some people have lots of knowledge but not much wisdom. In other words, they know many things but cannot make use of their knowledge. They do not have wisdom.
We need wisdom and revelation. Wisdom, in one sense, is the substance and the ability to use the substance. But there are two different kinds of wisdom. If you read James 3, beginning with verse 15:
This wisdom is not a wisdom that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.
There are two different kinds of wisdom: wisdom from above and wisdom from below. When you have wisdom from below operating in your life, you will find jealousy, envy, strife, disorder, and evil things. It is not only earthly; it is natural and even devilish.
In this world, there is much such wisdom around us. People think they are wise, yes, but they are wise as serpents without being harmless as doves. That is wisdom from below.
But wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruit, without partiality and without hypocrisy. That is God’s wisdom.
We need to have God’s wisdom instead of worldly wisdom. People may have much worldly wisdom, but they are totally lacking in wisdom from above.
So, brothers and sisters, how can we live our spiritual life without the spirit of wisdom and revelation? Increasingly, we need to grow in this wisdom from above. Increasingly, we need to live in this revelational knowledge, that we may truly know God and know His will.
In John 17:3, He said that to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent, is eternal life. Eternal life has a kind of knowledge which is spiritual knowledge, and this is the knowledge in which we must grow before the Lord.
It will teach us how to live on this earth, to glorify God, to live a holy life, a life of sanctification. That is the first characteristic.
Now, the second characteristic. Let us turn to Hebrews 8. Hebrews 8 tells us what the new covenant is.
We all know that when we break the bread and drink the cup, that cup is the new covenant. The Lord said, “This is the blood of the new covenant. Drink it, all of you, and remember.” We have been doing that, and so we are constantly reminded that we are not under the old covenant; we are under the new covenant.
God has made a covenant, a contract, with us, and it is sealed by the blood of the Lord Jesus. It cannot be changed. What is in that new covenant?
If you read Hebrews 8:10-12, you will find that it is very simple. In the old covenant, you have ten commandments, but in the new covenant you have three articles.
Verse 10 is one:
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.
That is the first article. The law is not written on stone; it is written in our hearts. In the old covenant, if you kept the ten commandments, God said, “Then you will be My people, and I will be your God.” But here He writes His new-covenant law into our heart and says, “I will be your God, and you will be My people.”
In other words, He takes all the responsibility. It is not what you do, but what He does.
Number two is verse 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 to the greatest of them.
There are two kinds of knowledge. One kind of knowledge requires someone to teach you: “Know the Lord.” In Greek, the word know here refers to objective knowledge. You do not know, and someone must come and teach you, “Know the Lord.”
Under the old covenant, people had to be taught that there was only one true God and that, apart from God, they should worship no idols. Priests and scribes had to come and teach them. That is the way they received information and came to knowledge.
But He says that they shall not teach each one his brother or fellow citizen, saying, “Know the Lord.” We are fellow citizens of the kingdom of God; we are all brothers. If nobody teaches us, how can we know?
He says, “For all shall know Me.” The word know here is oida, which means intimate knowledge. You know it intimately within yourself. It is experiential knowledge. You experience it because there is something within you that you know.
Because you know it, you do not need someone from outside to teach it to you. It is an inner knowledge. That is the second characteristic.
You find that this is true from the very little one to the greatest among you. In other words, as long as you are born again, you already have that knowledge. It grows, yes, but it is there. Is that not wonderful?
As long as you are born again, you know your Father. But you need to know your Father more and more, until you really know what is in your Father’s heart, what is His will, and until you are able to share His responsibility. That is growth. That is how we grow in the knowledge of God.
When you read 1 John, what does it tell you? It says, “God is light, and there is no darkness in Him.” Here it does not say merely that God’s Word is light. True, God’s Word is light. But here it says that God Himself is light.
In other words, God’s very life shines. That is God.
Then, in verse 7, it says that if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all our unrighteousness.
Brothers and sisters, we have an inner light within us. It shines upon our path, and by that light we know what is of God and what is not of God. If we walk in that light, as far as we know, then we have fellowship.
Whenever we disobey the light within us, our fellowship with God is interrupted. We need to confess our sins and be cleansed with the precious blood of the Lord, that our communion with God may be recovered.
This kind of knowledge is inward. It is not from outside, and this kind of knowledge is always true. In 1 John 2:27, He says that you have the anointing within you. That is the Holy Spirit.
Every one of us has the Holy Spirit in our spirit, and His anointing is there for a purpose: to teach us in all things—big things and small things.
Oftentimes, in the big things of our life, we want to seek the will of God, but in small things, we do it ourselves. That is our problem. The Holy Spirit will teach us in big things and small things, in the great things of life and even in daily, mundane things. He will teach us.
Whatever He teaches is true, and it is not false. When men teach you, they may teach incorrectly. But when the Holy Spirit teaches you, it is always true. We need to listen to Him.
If we obey the anointing within us, we abide in Christ. Dear brothers and sisters, how do we abide in Christ? How do we make our home in Christ? Only by listening to the inner anointing.
You experience the Holy Spirit every day. You experience the Holy Spirit every moment. This is spiritual life. If you ignore Him, you have no spiritual life at all. How important it is!
Number three: intuitive knowledge is the only way to life and service. If you want to see your spiritual life really grow, that is the only way.
It is not outside teaching that really builds you up. It is inward teaching by the Holy Spirit that truly builds your spiritual life.
In 1 Corinthians 2, we are told that the natural man does not know the mind of God, nor can he appreciate it. Only the spiritual man knows all things.
So, dear brothers and sisters, this concerns our spiritual life and our spiritual service. We serve the living God, and unless we serve Him according to His will—not according to what we think is good for Him—then we are not accepted.
We may call Him, “Lord, Lord,” but we may not enter into the kingdom of God. We may say, “Lord, we preached in Your name, we did miracles in Your name, we cast out demons in Your name.” You find that in Matthew 7. The Lord says, “I do not know you.”
“I do not acknowledge you. I do not accept you. I do not recognize you, because you are not doing My Father’s will. You are doing your own will.” That is the only way to service.
You see how important it is that we exercise our intuition. Now the most important point is this: How do we exercise our intuitive faculty? How?
One day, the disciples came to our Lord in Matthew 18. They asked the Lord a question: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom?” This was something they had argued among themselves all along. That is natural and earthly.
You remember what the Lord did. He gave them a demonstration. He took a little child and said, “Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
In other words, a little child, naturally speaking, has very little informational knowledge. How does a child live? A child lives by intuition.
You will be amazed to see how a child knows how to draw close to one person and how to avoid another person. Naturally, a child may find himself drawn close to someone and have perfect faith in that person, but with another person, he withdraws himself.
How? On what basis? Intuition. Oftentimes, it works. Amazing.
But as we grow up, we depend less and less on intuition and more and more on information. We begin to live more and more by ourselves instead of living more and more by God. Our way of life changes.
What God has provided for us, we neglect. We begin to get information from outside, and we think that makes us wise and knowledgeable. That is how we behave. We do not use our intuitive faculty.
As a child, the intuitive faculty is still there, though it may not be absolutely correct because there is a lack of standard. But when we are saved, it is the Holy Spirit within us who teaches us. It is true.
Unfortunately, we neglect this and depend on all our mental exercise—our logic and our reasoning. We live by these things. That is how we lose the use of our intuitive power.
In Chinese, we have a proverb that is difficult to translate, but its meaning is this: the more worldly wise you are, the duller is your inward sense—your intuition.
If you are worldly wise, the wiser you are, the less will be your intuitive power. It is true. The Lord Jesus said, as you remember in Matthew 11, that He had done many things in Capernaum, yet they did not believe.
Our Lord said, “Father, I thank Thee that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes.” Is that not true? Unless we are converted as little children, we cannot see.
When we are worldly wise, we depend upon ourselves. We use our logic and reasoning to decide what we should do and what we should avoid. The wiser we are, the more pretense we have. We are no longer true. We have a facade.
But a little child does not have that kind of covering. Children are very true and simple.
Brothers and sisters, we need to be converted as little children. Before God, we are but little children—not childish, no, but childlike. That is what we need.
The more childlike we are, the more humble we are, and the less we depend upon ourselves and rely on our own logic. Then we will look up to God and allow Him to reveal His mind.
Brothers and sisters, that is the secret. You remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”
We do not see Him because our poor heart is not pure. We are so complicated by our knowledge accumulated from the world, from outside. We are not pure before God, looking steadfastly and fixedly upon Him. That is why we lose the power of intuition.
Very simple. But in order to arrive at that point, we have to learn, as we find in Matthew 11:29:
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me;
For I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
In other words, the way to really exercise your intuition, to set your intuitive faculty free from bondage, and to allow it to develop and grow is this: brothers and sisters, we need to take the cross.
It is the cross that deals with our natural man, delivers us from our natural man, and enables us to learn of Christ. That is the way.
I often think that intuition in our spirit is the most mysterious faculty. But not because it is mysterious is it profound. As a matter of fact, it is the simplest thing. It is simple, direct knowledge.
We make it so complicated. Because we are so complicated, our intuitive faculty is not well developed.
Finally, a warning.
The soul and the spirit are so intertwined that it is very difficult to distinguish what is of the spirit and what is of the soul.
In our soul there is the mind; in our spirit there is intuition. But these two things are so similar, even though their origins are as far apart as heaven and earth. In experience they are so close that it is very difficult to distinguish what is of the mind and what is of the spirit.
So, in learning, we tend to make mistakes. Sometimes we have an impression in our mind, and we take it as an impression in our spirit. We act upon it, and it proves to be wrong. In other words, you learn by mistakes.
Recently, I have been reading a two-volume biography of the greatest evangelist of the eighteenth century in England, George Whitefield. When he started, he was very young, in his early twenties. God greatly used him.
But he made mistakes. Why? Because he sought guidance through impressions. When he felt an impression within him—and he had such a nature that when an impression came, he could see it almost like a vision—he simply acted upon it because he thought it was from God. And he made mistakes.
But thank God, he was humble enough that when people pointed out his mistakes, he acknowledged them, humbled himself, and learned a lesson.
It is very easy to mistake an impression you find within yourself. You do not know whether it is in your spirit or in your mind, because they are so close, and then you act upon it.
This is a lesson we need to learn gradually. Where is the safeguard?
We have said that you do not need anyone to teach you. Does that mean that you refuse to have any teachers or refuse to accept any help or correction from other people? Then you are in danger.
That is why the Bible tells us this. Even in 1 John, when it speaks of this matter, it says, “Little children, you have no worldly knowledge yet; nevertheless, the world is full of antichrists. The spirit of antichrist is already there.” How do you know it is antichrist?
You know it because you have the anointing within you. I remember when I was in New York, there was a brother who was newly saved. He did not have any Scriptural knowledge, and he went to Boston and attended a meeting.
At the meeting, people taught something that he could not really explain. But he said that when he listened to that sermon, he felt within himself that it was wrong. He did not know where the error was.
When he came back to New York, I talked with him. There, you found people teaching, “We are gods,” just like Eve wanted to be God.
Brothers and sisters, as a child, you know it. But at the same time, you find in chapter 2 that it says, “You have heard the word.” In other words, the Word of God is important.
We need to check our impressions with the Word of God. If they do not agree with the Word of God, they are wrong, because the Word of God and the inward leading come from the same Spirit—the Holy Spirit. He cannot say one thing within you and another thing in the Word of God.
That is why we need the Word of God, and we need teachers. Teachers are not there to govern our lives. They are there to help—sometimes to correct, sometimes to confirm what the Lord is working in your life.
So, brothers and sisters, this is a warning that we have to take to heart. It is not because you are a child of God and the anointing teaches you all things that you do not need any help. You need help.
Brothers and sisters, the church says: when you have an impression, be careful. We need to be humble, to be corrected, to learn, and to repent. So may the Lord help us.
Dear Lord, we put these scattered words into Thy hands. If they come from Thee, Lord, bless them into our hearts, and let them be registered. Not only be registered, but may Thy Holy Spirit make them alive, that we may learn how intuitively to walk in Thy will. We ask in Thy precious name.