Canaan Land

God’s plan was to get his people into the land of Canaan. He never wanted them to die in the wilderness and have to come through the Jordan again, which was typical of another water crossing. So many people think that crossing the Jordan is typical of coming into the fulness of the Holy Spirit and forget that there are two types, because the parents came through the Red Sea and the children there in the wilderness had never been through the Red Sea. God had to take them through Jordan.

The experience of the fulness of the Holy Spirit is always Canaan land. The road is direct. God intends you to go straight through. He never intends a Christian to walk in the flesh. There is no need of a Christian converted in these meetings walking in the flesh at all.

The Conversion Of My Brother

Many of the converts whom I know have come into the fulness of the Holy Spirit in a few days. My own brother came into the fulness of the Spirit almost immediately after God saved him. After God led me to the light, I began praying for my brother. When I started to pray for him he was in Honolulu and then in San Francisco, and then the next letter I got from him he was in Portland. He went home and asked my mother to go to church. Mother was delighted, and so one Sunday morning they went to church. The fellow was preaching about “The Inside of the Cup” and not about salvation at all. Mother said to herself, “I will take him some place else at night.”

That night, at the church to which they went, they were preaching about something else—perhaps it was “The Outside of the Cup”—but at any rate it was not a Gospel sermon. Mother thought to herself, “He will never go again.” My brother said: “Well, I am quite sure I don’t know what I do want, but I am certain that it isn’t this.”

She just kept on praying because she had never seen him anxious for church before. Well, they went from church to church, and finally came to a church where the Gospel was preached. My brother felt it in the atmosphere and he said: “This is the place where I am going to get salvation.” The preacher concluded his sermon with these words: “I don’t generally give the invitation in the morning, but if there are any here who want salvation, will they come forward?” And my brother went forward and was saved, and has been walking in the Holy Spirit ever since.

How To Deal With A Backslider

You don’t have to wander around in the wilderness for years. Just the moment that you see that anything is hindering you, you had better take another dip. If you are really saved and born again, there are new desires springing up within your heart and a new song within your mouth. I believe in an old-fashioned change of heart. Even if you went back to the old ways, they would not taste the same. I have met men who told me that even the whisky did not taste the same. The Holy Spirit mixes it with awful conviction. If you are away from Jesus this afternoon, you had better come back to Him.

Whenever you get hold of a person who hates the Lord, that person is a backslider. You will find that once he was converted. You have to know me to have something against me. You can’t go around talking about me unless you know something about me. So when you find a man or woman hating Jesus, you had better find out why. You will find it is because the Holy Ghost has them under conviction, and it makes them mad. The Shepherd is right after them, even though they go to Europe or Africa. Deal with them as if they had something against the Lord.

It is like trying to make up a case between a man and woman who have been married. You invited them to supper together. She gets there about ten minutes to six and he gets there about five minutes to six. You send them both into the parlor and leave them alone together. That is all. It won’t take them long to straighten matters up because they have lived together and once upon a time they loved each other. After a while, get them down on their knees and talk to God. When you get a person who has backslidden, don’t argue with him. Get him down on his knees and talk to God. The first thing you know, the face of Jesus will come and smile at him and he will have to smile back.

The Fulness Of The Spirit

You don’t have to have that “going out” experience. When you come to the first battle between the flesh and the Spirit, if you will walk in the Spirit the fight will be over. Otherwise you will have to go through the wilderness. It is the duty of a Christian to walk in victory. It is more than a privilege. God says He brought them out of Egypt to put them into the Canaan land. If your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then you have no right to live any other kind of life than a life where the temple is filled with the presence of God, and where He will have his way in your life.

If you do not come right into this Canaan land, it is because you walk in the flesh. You nullify the work of the Spirit and He cannot give you any revelation. You will have to find out by waiting on God in prayer just what this is. It is as if you went to the dentist. At first he might say that you had a good set of teeth, but after he had examined them with his instruments he would in all probability find a cavity. You may not know that it is there, but he will know it.

The reason I recommend that you as a Christian go and wait before God is not that you have to plead with Him for the Holy Spirit, but to have God search your life to find out what is the hindrance to the Spirit working in you. When He finds what it is and shows it to you, your pride will likely be hurt. That is the spot where self has its headquarters in your life. When you settle that thing and have confessed then you will receive the Spirit in His fulness.

Some people preach about waiting for the Holy Spirit because the disciples were all together in one place. They might have waited 150 days, but the day of Pentecost—fifty days after the death of Christ—had been appointed as the date of the manifestation of the Spirit of God. It is not a question of your going aside to wait. It is a question of meeting conditions. No man can call Jesus Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His. You can have Him in His fulness if you refuse to walk in the flesh. He will lead you right into Canaan land.

It is the privilege and duty of every believer to live in the fulness and power of the Holy Spirit. I tried to show you yesterday that walking with anyone else grieves the one you love. If you want the fulness of the power of the Holy Spirit, it is a life of separation, but you will have full compensation. We are told in the Scripture that the land of Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey. Honey is a cheap name for the joy of the Spirit. Milk is a poor comparison for the satisfaction of a life in the Spirit. Oh, the wonder of it!

God With You In Every Trial

I hope that you will be led to this new life in Christ Jesus. You will find that it is not just emotion—it is life. You are becoming conscious of the power of the world to come. You know your Lord and He knows you. It is much more than joy or peace: God want to bring you into this satisfaction. He says He brought you into a net, and caused you to walk through deep water, in order to bring you to a wealthy place, so that you would trust Him. He brings you into a hard place and shows you that the reason why you are not filled with the Spirit is because you are trusting someone else.

The minute most of us get into a tight place, we think that God has forsaken us. The devil tempts you to think this, but Jesus has said: “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” He has tasted bitterer gall than He ever asked you to taste. Life does not hold a single situation that Jesus cannot light up with His presence. This is the beauty of life in the Spirit. He can go where you are, and even if it is like hell itself, He will light it up with His presence. If you are in such a place this afternoon, don’t turn your back on Him and believe the devil’s lie and say that God has forsaken you. It was not only Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were in the fiery furnace. Christ was with them.

You may say to me, “Mr. Rader, I am in the furnace.” You mean that Christ and you are in the furnace. The devil will say that you are all alone. He is a liar and the father of lies. Are you going to believe the devil or the One who died for you? Is it any wonder that we wound the precious heart of Jesus.

I remember I telegraphed my wife of my decision for Jesus, and it was months before I could send for her. She didn’t understand it, but she would write me and say: “Whatever you do and wherever you settle, it is all right. I will be with you.” Surely if you can find a human love that will stick even when it does not understand, you can do the same thing yourself for the Lord. If the Lord be for us, who can be against us? Trust Him. He is for you. Everything else in the world may fail, but Jesus cannot fail.

Do you remember that trial that you went through and looked death in the face? Do you tread the wine press alone? Jesus loves you enough not to shut sorrow entirely out of your life. He wants you to enter the new life of the Spirit. He had bitter sorrow Himself. He was alone. Some of the dregs of His cup are given to you so that you might understand and know this Jesus whom you are to walk with. Men walked roughshod over Him. He could have called on a legion of angels, but He did not. There are times in your life that you have got to let people walk on you. Ye are not of this world. Let them have their way—for their own good. It is not a question between you. When they do, the Spirit of Jesus Christ has a chance to glorify Himself in your life. It has happened so that you would walk right through and let Jesus take care of you. The flesh would exalt itself. The Holy Spirit has to watch it.

I remember a certain incident in my church when one of my members called me down for something I had said in the pulpit. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to have squelched him with a nice little piece of sarcasm, for there were two little things that I knew about him, and all I had to do was to mention those other little things in front of those two men who were present. He didn’t know that I knew. He had stabbed me to the heart. He had tried his best to ruin my ministry. For about two minutes I had to keep my mouth shut….But in those two minutes, the Holy Ghost said: “Let him ride.” I would have failed if I had trusted myself for a moment. But, my friends, when a thing like that is past, it unites men to Christ. If we are going to preach Christ, we must not only preach, but we must stand the fire. We must let God show Himself in our lives.