Preached at the Bradford Convention, Easter 1918.
Published in Confidence, April-June 1918.

It is a settled thing in the glory that in the fulness of time the latter rain has to be greater than the former. Some of our hearts have been greatly moved by the former rain, but it is the latter rain we are crying out for. What will it be when the fulness comes and the heart of God is satisfied? Acts 2:4: “And they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” What a lovely thought that the Holy Ghost had such partiality that the word was all His! We are having to learn, whether we like it or not, that our end is God’s beginning. Then it is all God, and the Lord Jesus stands forth in the midst with such Divine glory and men are impelled, filled, led so perfectly. Nothing else will meet the need of the world.

There is something beautiful about Peter and John when we read that people took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. There was something so real, so after the order of the Master. Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled, and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” May all in the temple glorify Jesus; it can be so.

The one thing marked more than anything else in the life of Jesus was the fact that the people glorified God in Him, and when God is glorified and gets the right of way and thought of His people everyone is as He is, filled with God. Whatever it costs it must be. Let it be so. Filled with God! The only thing to help people is to tell out the latest thing God has given us from the glory. There is nothing outside salvation. We are filled, immersed, clothed upon; there must be nothing felt, seen, spoken about, but the mighty power of the Holy Ghost. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus, baptized into a new nature. John 7:37: “He that believeth on Me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.” The very life of the risen Christ in everything, moving us to do his will.

There is something not touched yet, but praise God for the thirst to be in this meeting! Praise God, the thirst is of God, the desire is of God, the plan is of God, the purpose is of God. God’s plan, God’s thought, God’s vessel and God’s servant. In the world to meet the need; but not of the world or of its spirit.

God incarnate in humanity. Partakers of the Divine nature to manifest the life of Jesus in the world. Acts 2:13: “Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.” That is what we want, you say? “Never man spake as this Man.” “New wine”: a new order—new inspiration—new manifestation. A power all new of itself, as if you were born, as you are, into a new day, a new creation.

It has a freshness about it! It has a beauty about it! It has a quality about it! To create in others the desire for the same taste. Some saw! But three thousand felt, tasted and enjoyed. Some looked on! others drinking with a new faith never before seen—a new manifestation, a new realization all divine, a new thing—straight from heaven, from the throne of the glorified Lord. It is God’s mind to fill us with that wine, to make us ready to burst forth with new rivers, fresh energy, no tired feeling.

God manifest in the flesh—that is what we want, and it is what God wants, and it satisfies everybody. All the people said, “We have never seen anything like it.” The disciples rejoiced in it being new; others were broken-hearted, crying out “men and brethren, what shall we do?” Acts 2:38-40: “Then Peter said, ‘Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.’ And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this untoward generation.’ ”

What shall we do? Men and brethren, what shall we do? Believe! Stretch out! Press on! Let there be a new entering in, a new passion to have it. We must be beside ourselves; we must drink deeply of the new wine, that multitudes may be satisfied and find satisfaction too.

The new wine is to have a new bottle*—the necessity of a new vessel. If anything of the old is left, not put to death, destroyed, there will be a rending and a breaking. The new wine and the old bottle will not work in harmony. It must be new wine and a new wine-skin, then there will be nothing to drop off when Jesus comes. 1 Thess. 4:16-17: “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we be for ever with the Lord.”

The body being so operated by the Spirit in the process of changing until we are like unto Him. Phil. 3:21: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” I desire you to be all so filled with the Spirit at this Convention; so hungry, so thirsty, that nothing will satisfy us but seeing Jesus. Getting more thirsty every day, more dry every day, until the floods come, and the Master passes by, ministering unto us and through us the same life, the same inspiration, that as He is, so are we in this world.

He was straitened, but it was accomplished. It meant strong crying and tears—the cross manward, but the glory heavenward. Glory descending on a Cross! Verily, great is the mystery of godliness. He cried, “It is finished.” Let the cry never be stopped until the heart of Jesus is satisfied, until His plan for humanity is reached in the sons of God being manifested and the earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Labels: 1918, Confidence