THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED

 

Jesus told the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. So they tarried and the power came. And when it came there was the sound of rushing wind, there were flames over their heads and they spoke in other tongues.

 

Many people have taken it to be a principle that if you want that power from on high you have to tarry.

 

"Lord - I'm tarrying....

 

Lord - I'm weeping and waiting here at the altar for you to send me the Holy Spirit....

 

Lord - we need revival in our church, we need life, we need power, and we're going to tarry for it until you send it....

 

Lord - we're going to fast and pray until we hear that mighty rushing wind...."

 

On the surface, this sounds very good. Surely the Lord will honor such desire. Surely God will answer such prayers. If we ask our Father for bread we're not going to get a stone.

 

And yet it happens that there are believers who tarry and tarry on and on, weep until there are no tears left, and the sound of the mighty rushing wind doesn't come. No flames appear. Nobody even speaks in tongues.

 

It seems that it's just a long weary wait for nothing until some opportunist comes along, when everyone is confused and discouraged, and starts passing out stones that look like loaves of bread.

 

And all the while the promised Holy Spirit has indeed come in answer to their prayers. He's in their midst.

 

But he is clothed in such lowliness,

   attached to such humble things,

   connected with such unimpressive people, that nobody notices him.

 

They're waiting for that blazing light,

                    that awe-inspiring sound,

                                that spine-chilling feeling to come to them. Whereas the Holy Spirit is speaking to them in the voice of a gentle stillness.

 

The revival that they're asking for is right there. Power from on high is in their midst. But it doesn't look or feel or sound like anything. It's wrapped up in two bloody old beams of wood and a dying Jew that the Jews don't want:

 

The stone which the builders rejected.

We're tarrying and praying and panting and gritting our teeth straining to hear the thunder and feel the earth­quake. And all the while the Holy Spirit has raised up a cross in our midst, with Jesus on it, and is saying to us,

 

"Here is your power from on high take hold of this."

 

The mighty rushing wind the believers heard on Pente­cost and the flames on their heads and the strange languages they began speaking were external to the inner miracle.

 

The inner miracle was that for the first time since it happened those people saw and understood the Cross of Jesus for what it really was. They saw Jesus Christ and him crucified as the source of all life and power.

 

The power from on high that came to them that day was the Power of the Cross.

 

Speaking in tongues was not their power.

 

Flames on their heads were not their power.

 

The sound of wind was not their power.

 

Their power was the Cross of Jesus which had now been put inside them by the Holy Spirit. Now they are cru­cified to the world and the world is crucified to them.

 

Now they are, in fact and experience, nailed up there with Jesus, dead to this world and all its garbage. Alive only by the Spirit that raised him from the dead.

 

When they go out into the street they do not say,

 

"Look at us - we speak in tongues!"

"You should have seen them flames sitting on our heads!"

"Man, that mighty rushing wind sound was far out!"

 

---None of that. They go out into the street and proclaim the wonderful works of God done by Jesus of Nazareth. Delivered up according to the definite plan and fore-knowledge of God. Crucified and killed by 1awless men. Raised from death and from this earth to the right hand of God.

 

The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

 

The builders rejected him and put him on the Cross so they could go on building their own temple. But God has made him the head of the corner in the Temple that remains forever.

 

When the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and shows you that Jesus is the head of the corner,

 

When the Holy Spirit builds you into the Christ - then you have power from on high.

 

God knows our churches need revival! They need that power from or high! They need a Pentecost! They need an out-pouring, a cloudburst of the Holy Spirit!

 

All the gimmicks and programs and experiments we have tried have brought nothing but more death. And the promise is clear: If we want the Holy Spirit in full­ness, we can have the Holy Spirit for the asking.

 

We don't have to tarry. We just have to ask.

 

If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

 

But the answer to this prayer is not in the externals. If God wants to send wind, flame, and strange tongues, fine. If God wants to shake our building, fine. But he can give the Holy Spirit without any of that.

 

The answer to the prayer for the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit fills you with the presence, the mind, the power and the love of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

 

If you insist on the wind or the flame or the tongues, as if these were the essentials, when God gives you his crucified Son in power through the Spirit, you'll miss him.

 

Then Satan will come along with his own special super wind, flame and tongues, and you'll grab hold of them and think you've got something.

 

God didn't cheat you - you cheated yourself.

God didn't give you a stone instead of bread - you ignored the bread he gave you and bit into Satan's counterfeit.

 

The externals don't matter,

it can be wind,

it can be the sound of rain,

a rumbling in the earth, it can be utter stillness.

it can be a dove plunging out of the heavens,

it can be a little girl singing to her doll,

or a boy whistling on the stairs.

 

The externals keep changing, but the inner miracle of power from on high is always the same: the stone which the builders rejected - Jesus Christ and him crucified.

 

If you have asked for this power from on high - and who hasn't asked - you can be sure that the answer has already come. Look, and you will see that broken, beaten, bleeding, dying Jew, and you will hear the Spirit saying to you,

''Go up there and take hold of that Cross – let go of the spiritual garbage, lay aside your phony life, suffer the loss of everything - count it as refuse, and take hold of that Cross with both hands, cry out to that Holy Victim­ Jesus - die with Him."

 

And instantly you will receive the power of the Spirit of God.

 

I'll never forget the night I reached the end of my search for the fullness of the Spirit. There was nothing spectacular going on in that room - just a man on his knees praying for me. And when he finished his prayer heard him say, ''Jesus, Jesus.''

 

Suddenly the veil of my own flesh, that had me cut off from the holy of holies all my life, tore, and there he was. The crucified Son of God was in that room making himself known to me! Jesus became real. His blood became real. His Cross became real.

 

The external things that happened that night are unim­portant. The important thing was that for the first time in my life I really saw the stone which the builders rejected as head of the corner. Jesus Christ and him crucified as the fountainhead of all life.

 

I know there are people reading this today who are craving more life, more power. Who know that to do the job that's got to be done, to live the life that's got to be lived, they need power from on high that up to now they have not experienced.

 

This power is given to all who ask. You don't have to wait around for years to receive it.

 

If you will get your eyes off the externals, stop look­ing for sights or sounds or feelings, you will find that the answer to your cry has already come. The Spirit is here to fill you with all the fullness of God anew today.

 

But the Holy Spirit has not come here bearing witness to Himself - He never comes bearing witness to Himself, The Holy Spirit has come bearing witness in your heart to the Stone which the builders rejected - giving you the power to see what that man is doing up there on that Cross! - Who he is!

 

He has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him,

There is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men.

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him.

 

But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, And with his stripes are we healed.

 

A stumbling block to the Jews,

foolishness to the Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, he is the power of God - the wisdom of God.

 

Christ crucified living in you is the Power of God in you.

Are you willing that he should live in you as Lord? Are you willing to carry that Cross and its sacrifice around inside you the rest of your days? If you are, I tell you in the name of Jesus that you have now come to a Pentecost. You're now being filled anew with power from on high. You are going to rise up with an anointing on your life that will give you authority over all the power of the enemy and will move your heart with a love it never had before.

 

You will speak as the Spirit gives you utterance.

You will bind and it will be bound in Heaven.

You will loose and it will be loosed in Heaven.

 

And when the fire of suffering falls, as fall it will, (any genuine baptism of the Holy Spirit is always attended by a baptism of fire) you will walk through that fire with a song on your lips and will accept persecution, afflictions, hardships, calamities, with­out complaint.

 

You'll let them take from you everything you have until they've taken it all, except the one thing they can never take: JESUS.

 

The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.

 

And your life - rejected by this world for His name's sake –

is now being built with his into a Temple which shall stand forever.

 

 

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