“Unto Every One of Us is Given Grace”

That reminds me of Ephesians 4:7. It says: “7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ,” to be ordered, isn’t it? We’re given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

“8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” Praise God.

Well, so we know what the will of God is—it’s written here. And it took Jesus every drop of his precious blood and death to get this for us. And we’re still playing and we’re still wasting time. I don’t just mean we, I mean we don’t see this in action. If we knew where we’d see this in action, we’d be there. But we know it is in action.

We know there are people that are moving in this ministry, and they’re coming to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man—that’s what we heard in the prophecy today. We come in to be perfect, to perfection. “The knowledge of His Son unto a perfect man of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

We know he measured up to all God wanted and all God expected as a man. And we are to measure up. And we just sort of eke it out and get a little bit, a little way through and go home and just let things slide by. Or we can give it out to others and don’t live it ourselves. None of this will mean anything.

Not only did it cost Jesus Christ the work on Calvary, his death, it wasn’t even enough. He that ascended… Before he ascended into heaven, he descended. Where did he descend? He descended below the earth. He was in the earth, as the Son of Man would be, he said, like Jonah did in the belly of a whale, so he would be in the bowels of the earth. We know that he was there three days.

As Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost, repeated the Psalm. Also Paul preaching: he said that God did not suffer His Holy One to see corruption. He didn’t corrupt, thank God. But that would have been the next thing. He was a man, he was born of a woman and he was human. So all of that. But he didn’t pass through the corruption process, thank God.

If he had passed through that, then Satan would have had him. Because death reigned and the enemy could hold death. The enemy had death under his control all that time. There was no man released from death until Jesus, the firstfruits of them that slept.

He not only saved us from our sins and healed our bodies and sent the Holy Spirit—because he said if I don’t go He won’t come, and as he went up, the Holy Spirit came down. But he that ascended, also descended into the very lower parts of the earth, down there—Satan’s region, where we know that Satan hithertofore had taken hold of everyone that had died. He had complete control, that is, of corrupting their bodies, of holding them under death’s control until the time He died and was taken into you could say the earth there; he was in the tomb those three days. Anybody else was … was it Mary or Martha that said, by this time he stinketh—Lazarus—he’d been dead now four days. “If you had been here,” the other one said, “he wouldn’t have died.”

But he said, “Doth thou believe he can live?”

And she said, “Yes, in the resurrection.”

He said, “I am in the resurrection and the life. If the man, even though he were dead, believe in me, he shall rise.” Praise God.

Because he was light and he was powerful and he could cut through anything. He was a quickened spirit. But that didn’t let anything attach itself to him, the darkness. And though it would look like the awful night had come, and the destruction that the enemy so wanted to see of that body, a human body; yet praise God He was the Spirit of God. The same Spirit with which Jesus rose from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies. (Romans 8:11)

He said that… “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive.” Whose captivity? What was captivity? To be captivated, to be taken as captive all those that had gone on before him. Never was there any way, not only for those upon the earth at that time. With some of them, they could even say, “Surely He was the Son of God, surely He did these wonderful things.” And the elements were witnessing and also confirming what was going on.

The people came out of their graves, some of them, walked upon the earth as He gave up the ghost. Because of that quickening, because of the eternal life that was in Him. Because in Him was no darkness and no darkness could hold Him captive. He took hold of darkness and turned the whole tide for all humanity and for all those that had died before. And gave hope in the midst of all the darkness that had held the earth under its power since Adam and Eve sinned. That’s when it started.

“If you eat this fruit of this tree, you shall surely die.” No death it seemed was upon them then, but death had set in. It had set in. The end had set in. And they were captivated descendants. He came to set us free, not only from sin but also from death itself. “And he led captivity captive.”

And as he, there in the bowels of the earth and the enemy there holding his own region under his own control seemingly, would have taken Jesus also captive. Taken Him in the same way he had taken everyone else that had dropped into such an eternity, corruption because of Adam, corruption because of Eve. They went to their graves. Felt like they lived, but they went to their graves and saw corruption.

“He suffered not His Holy One to see corruption,” the psalmist said. Praise God.

Well, if He went down into those very bowels of the earth and those souls that had been captivated for the thousands of years, He could cry out through the whole realm, the underground realm of Satan, “Victor. I am victor.”

Not only of heaven, not only of the earth but hell itself, that had been made for the devil and his angels. But God is that powerful and that much light, that just like Jesus came into a world of sin, and sin was all around him, but sin could not enter Him.

He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Every sin that could come upon man came upon Him, but He never fell. He never sinned. “Apart from sin,” the Word says. “Apart from sin,” He never knew, He never sinned. Praise God.

So He could go into the vilest places, to go into the deepest hell, and there He was victor. Under every situation, over every storm, over every power of the hatching of hell, everything, He is victor. And He could go there and declare. And as Satan would have come to have—not only on the cross—pulled him off and tried to tell him through human lips, “Come down and save yourself and then we’ll believe you.” He could meet there in that lower world, the most vile place the enemy lives, you might say, and through those corridors of all of hell and say, “I am victor.” Hallelujah. And could set the captives free, those that were some time held in his bondage. And take hold of Satan and lead captivity captive. Praise God.

“He led captivity captive.” And those things that had been held by the enemy throughout those years, he could take them away. And it says, “He led captivity captive,” and gave those things that had been held in bondage for years, gave those to men. He “gave gifts unto men.” Why? Because he that ascended… My, what a day to have those angels, as we have that Psalm (24) that says that: Who is this? Who is the King of hosts? Who is the Lord of glory? So that…. But the psalmist tells of Jesus coming back into heaven again. His place was never taken over by anyone else. He asks God in the 17^th chapter of St. John, “Give me back that glory that I had with you in the beginning.”

Because He had emptied Himself of the glory. He had emptied Himself of all the power of heaven and all of the being able to have every desire fulfilled. And knowing that without Him, nothing was made that was made; He was there when everything was brought into being. Without Him, nothing was made that was made. Praise God.

There He taking off of that, emptying Himself and coming into this world as a babe. And conquering all that was round about Him. Every man that came to Him, it says, was healed: “So that all that came were healed.” The conquering, the making, the Creator. And then not only the Creator, but the taking it back from where the enemy had so… where Adam and Eve had sold it to the enemy. And getting it back into His hands through authority. And then going and piercing to the very depths, not only some lives to the depths. Not only to this world here but underneath, and crying out “Jesus is victor, I am victor!” And Satan would have taken Him under his domain and have caused His body to have corrupted. But God did not see His Holy One to see corruption. Thank God. No contamination upon Him on this earth. No corruption upon Him after death. Always holy, holy, holy. Praise God.

“So that He gave gifts to men.” “(Now that He ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?)” The very bowels of the earth, He was there. David said, “If I make my bed in hell, he’s been there, he is there.” He knows all about it.

So we find him there, as he is about to ascend—what a day, what a wonderful day! “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” Who is he? “Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” (Psalm 24:7-8) Hallelujah!

Lift up your head. Well, the lifting up of that. He had spent the 33 years and then the most horrible part at the end as we know. And then piercing that very hell with his life, the very present light, and coming back to earth before He ascended.

Because there was Mary at the tomb. And she cried and thought, where could they have put him? And there He is. It was between the time when he came out of the lower parts of the earth and was piercing through his way to heaven again that she would have reached for him. He said, “Don’t touch me. I have not yet ascended to My Father and to yours.” That’s why we can say “Our Father,” “My Father and yours.” “Our Father, who art in heaven….” Praise God.

And as he went through there to that place where… “and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting… and the King of glory”—what an entrance! What a state after the actions of that second person of the Godhead to come back to His rightful place.

No wonder he says, “There’s one mediator between God and men,” there can be no other. He is the only one that came back, was not corrupted and went through to glory again. He has now sat down on the right-hand side of the Father. He ever lives to make intercession for us. And he is the one that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities because he knows what it is to be a man.

If we have a God up there that says, “Do thus and so; go here and go there,” and he’s never been through it himself, He wouldn’t understand. But He made it so that he would understand.

So we have the Creator, we have the Savior. We have all of these in one. Praise God. And we have a Man in Glory. And He sits there. He ever lives so that if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.

“He that descendeth is the same also that ascendeth up far above all heavens, far above all principalities.” They’re there. Many times we are going to pray and the heavens seem as [glass]. But there’s an opening there—He made it. You have to beat them back and get your opening again by faith. It all gets clouded in again, and your answer doesn’t come. Praise God.

As you by faith rise, you can beat all that back where he has taken up and raised up and made us to be seated with him in heavenly places, far above principalities, powers, rulers of darkness and wicked spirits in the heavenlies.

Yet the name above every name that is named: “So that at the name of Jesus, every knee must bow and every tongue confess that He is Christ, to the glory of God.” This is the authority we have. And these gifts are given and give authority, so that we need not be first on one foot and then on the other and “I wonder” and “I don’t know”—this is all shakings. It’s all just what the enemy wants. This is all doubt; it’s fear, it’s unbelief. It doesn’t belong to this realm here that He conquered for us.

And “as He came up, He gave gifts.” And so we have these gifts: “Some, apostles; some, prophets; some, evangelists; some, pastors and teachers”—they’re there. They must be there, they’re here—all He did to get them. He loved His church, He died for His church. And He descended to the bottomless pit to get the gifts and to give them out to men, so that men would come into their places with God. And while we doubt and we fear and while we’re filled with unbelief, these are here for our taking in His name.

“For the perfecting of saints.” Why would he have them? Very plain: “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” And if it’s always “you know, would you do something?” and encourage this one and encourage that—you cannot see the signs. You cannot see the signs of what Jesus has done and put into this world and bringing forth at these late days.

Because we know that there’s nothing new under the sun. These were bought and descended for 2,000 years ago. And thank God it worked. We have a Peter and a Paul and a John and all of those that worked. And then the Dark Ages and the putting of it all down. But there is nothing new under the sun. We bring it out—the treasures brought out; we polish it and we shine and let it come forth again.

For the church must go and must be into effect and must be a perfect church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. We have these for the edifying: “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man.” It makes it singular—a single man out of “till we all.” “Till we all come to one”: one man, Christ Jesus, “perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

When you see this, say, recipe or this that God has put down, we are to have “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” We are to be anointed, fully anointed. We hear Paul write to the Philippians and saying that we should be filled with the knowledge of His will. Many people make a stress, put a stress on being filled with the Holy Spirit. Well, that’s absolutely necessary.

But to be filled and—it seems that’s one of the things where the enemy is allowed to play so much upon us—not know His will. What do you think of His will? What is His will? And what about the will of God? Well, I just don’t know. Well, there’s always that on one foot and on the other not saying this is the will of God concerning you.

If you will to know of the doctrine, you shall know it is of God or of man, if it is of God or man. If you will to know the will of God, you can know. You absolutely can know the will of God for your lives. For your life. And it’s not right to be going around and round and round. You can take it for a little while when somebody starts and they’re just coming into it. But after so much of a time and you find the same thing.

I tell you, there’s not much hope. There’s not much hope. And I say to the younger ones here, get going on it, get going on the will of God, get moving on it. Start out, believe it, stand on it, throw it out as your platform, step on it. And you can go forth, you can do things for God, because this is His will concerning you.

“Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children”—the main aim.

That you don’t play around, that you’re not taken in by false reverence, you’re not taken in by false doctrines, you’re no more “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

They’re there, they’re agents of the enemy. We have somebody into the reconciliation and all of that. And there are some agents there that are waiting for you to say, “Well, I had better investigate this.”

I grant you that when you first start you have to know. I took what you would call a course in personal evangelism. Because in that course, they had what’s wrong, what’s false doctrine and the names of those things, because I didn’t know. And I was so glad to know. And what these false men believe. Because you have to know how to intelligently handle it. But I would not advise anybody just to go in, you know, let’s say, because you can then be overthrown. If you don’t know enough to stand and if you don’t have strength enough, you can go into something and it can seem… “Should I [hold] off…?” If you haven’t made up your mind, you could say, “Well, look, this says so-and-so and I just better believe this and close off the other.”

So you have to be of a strong mind and you have to have said, “This is the way for me,” and believe this. Other than that, you would not examine all false things.

Because I remember when I first started, some people came to our door and they were Mormons. And I said to this lady with what she had said, “Well, I think I should look at this.”

She said, “Not now. Later you can look at it. But you don’t know enough now to look at it. And this will cause your mind to become chained.” She told me that, she said, “Your mind will set like it has chains on it and you won’t be able to get out.” This is so you know what you’re doing before you examine all these things. If you’re not convinced in yourself, and you can say, “I’m looking into Mormonism” or something, and you don’t know whether it would convince you or not, you better stay away from it, because it will overpower you.

It says, “So that you don’t be any more children, tossed and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”

We have one head and can never change it. We don’t have any popes, we don’t have any people at the top and giving out the orders. We have one head, even Christ, and “from whom the whole body…” “From whom”—not that you fit together and then ask him to set his head on you: “well, screw that on right.” But you are formed by the Head, and you are “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

So we know the Holy Spirit is the one that is of the Godhead that is working in our days to do all of this. God the Father is there on the throne. No one has seen Him at any time. He’s a spirit. “They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Jesus is at the right hand of God, the man in glory.

Since Jesus ascendeth, the Holy Spirit descendeth. And He does all this work that is being done today. He doesn’t speak of Himself, He is never forward. He is never bold, He never pushes Himself upon anybody. But somebody has said, “He is a perfect gentleman.” The Holy Spirit does not, has no blood to shed. He applies the blood. He’s the one that applies the blood of Jesus to our hearts. He’s the one that convicts of sin and convinces of righteousness and of judgment to come. He’s the one that saves us. He’s the one that lets us know that Jesus was more than an historical figure, but that He was the very Son, the very Son of God. He does all this work.

As I’ve said before, we don’t pray to the Holy Spirit. We don’t say, “Holy Spirit, do this,” to make another intercessor. He directs you to Jesus, and Jesus to God. Praise God.

And He’s the one that is moving today throughout the earth. He’s the one that is teaching us; we’re taught by Him. By these: prophets, apostles, teachers, evangelists; He moves through them.

He said at Antioch, “Separate unto me,” through the mouth of a prophet, “Paul.” So He can say, as He did with Paul, who would have gone to another place, and Silas. The Holy Spirit spoke and forbad them from going, doing their own plan. He saw a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, “Come over and help us.” So it is possible. We don’t believe just in visions and dreams and all of that, and just visionary people that just get visions for the sake of getting them, and chills or thrills because of those visions or that the Lord had some [test] people. It was entirely possible, praise God.

So that this of us, the church, must be built up to the stature of the perfect man, Jesus. He’s our measuring rod, Paul says in another place. And you know when you have the tape measure or the yardstick and you have to use every inch of it if you want it to be right. Jesus is the standard, and we see… we measure ourself in this cup, we find how short we are. We hold up the cup and see if there are so many ounces or so many pints or whatever we’re using for liquid measure.

But we put ourselves into His mold and we find where we are, first doubting, fearing, unbelief—can this be?—and always, “I wonder when.” God wants us into the place by the power of the Holy Spirit to have authority. In His name is power, to use His name. We must not use it lightly in any way.

We must not keep saying, like we should learn to not all of this “Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ”—it’s on the line of fanaticism. But you have to think when you are praying and you don’t try to fill in with “Lord, Lord, Lord,” “God, God, God,” “Lord Jesus Christ.” You have to think that you’re speaking to God. Now I’m speaking to God and I don’t just repeat myself and reiterate and reiterate. Saint Paul says there are those that use their lips a lot and the Lord’s far away and their minds mainly. Because if you have your mind, you’re not going to speak to someone and say, “Hello, hello, hello. Would you get me a drink? And hello, hello, hello.” They then still go on, “Hello, hello.”

You think and you’re respectful with all in great respect. “Oh Lord… my God.” You know, I’m not just to fill up something or in the youth or in just the flair of excitement, let it go. It’s for your own good that I tell you. It’s not right. And that you don’t know or you’re just coming in to know the Lord. But get it right from the beginning. It’s like a person that stutters. You have to tell them. Or a person that says “Ah, ah.” Some people speak and they say, “Now, Lord, ah. You know ah, that we’re going ah.” And I’ve heard preachers of 40 years for “ah”, and they’re all with this “ah.” And I’ve heard preachers that all in the meantime they say “Hallelujah.” (You have never heard this, some of you?) And as they talk, they say, “Well, Lord, we praise Thy name, hallelujah. We’re going through with Thee and friends and I’m telling you and brethren and hallelujah.” I heard one of them say one time, “And these souls are going to hell”—well, he didn’t know—“hallelujah!” It was at the wrong time. But he didn’t mean it like that, you know.

But it’s just the habit, you get into habits. When you see them—children—when they’re young, the quicker you can correct them, the quicker you can get them out of those things, the better men or the better women they’ll be. They start with this ah’s. But then somehow they start to talk and then some kind of passivity comes in, and you just hang there, waiting for them to [sing]. And they just “ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.”

We are supposed to be… have the measure of the stature and also to the effectual working in the measure of every part. Here he’s talking about the increase of the Body, unto the edifying of itself. So that’s what Jesus did, and we as the Body of Christ are to have this increase of the measure of every part, the full measure of every part. That’s why we keep on saying, “Come up to your place; get into the place. How are you going to make a certain thing if you don’t have the measure?”

Because I remember we knew this couple in Baltimore, rather poor people, and they were very, very kind. And this man—he lived in a basement really, but it was all right—they had the little place down there. And rather sort of older people. And they used to clean out our church. We had a hall then and they used to clean our church. He never would take anything for it, neither would she. But we’d always try to give them something, but they would say, “No, it’s for the Lord.” And they didn’t want anything for it; they just praise God that they could do something. They couldn’t preach and they couldn’t do this, but they could have that church perfect for us and that thing done. And I remember my husband used to go off into them. He liked them very much and spent some time with them in, I suppose, edifying them or whatever was needed.

I remember her daughter had come to make a cake, from her home to make her mother a fruitcake around Christmas. And while my husband and the lady were talking, the girl said, “Mom, it says two pounds of raisins.”

She said, “Don’t bother with it.” But they didn’t have the raisins, you know, and you’re supposed to make a fruitcake. And then she’d go on a little while and she was busy talking to my husband.

She says, “And, mom, it says a half a pound of walnuts.”

She said, “Don’t bother with it.” You know, they didn’t have it. But she wanted to give her [a loaf] or whatever it was.

“And, mom, it says you should use currants in this.”

“Don’t bother with it.” And then all the things.

“And some few cherries.”

“Don’t bother with it.”

So my husband, he didn’t say anything, when he came home, he said, “I wonder what kind of fruitcake they would ever have.” Now how could that be a fruitcake, because everything that was needed in it was “Don’t bother with it; we don’t have it”?

And sometimes I feel that that’s the way with the Body of Christ: for the most part, you wait for this—don’t bother with it. And I wonder what kind of a Body we’re going to have, we don’t have the ingredients. We don’t have what it says here: “that which every joint supplieth.” So you just have to supply [on the hinge]. You wouldn’t have to say, “Oh Lord, I can’t bother with it,” because He supplies what’s needed.

“Joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth.” Every person. One that can be one kind of the bone, and the other one, another kind of a bone, and an eye and… “which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.” It’s according to how you’re effectually working, that that oil is supplying. That that is coming forth in the measure of “every part maketh increase.”

So what are we doing about that [admonition]—“increase”? So while you’re sitting there mulling it over, and while you’re going home and not doing the will of the Lord, and you’re letting things pass, and if the child is going, “Don’t bother with it, I’ve done all I can. Don’t bother with it.” While you’re letting things go, then the measure of every part… “maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

Wonderful Scriptures there, Paul. Thank God he ever could get through. It’s just like he said, “O the depths and the mercy and the wisdom of the Lord. And His ways are past finding out.” You would never know how he ever got hold of this. Because he knew how Jesus got hold of it, of the power of the Holy Spirit, that’s how he knew. And he knew He not only died but that He descended and went into the thick of it. And there declared and pronounced throughout all those corridors of hell, “Victor!” Hallelujah! And take away from him when… when the enemy would have grasped Him, “He took captivity captive” and took away from him that which had been dormant, you could say, for all those years. Praise God. And brought it into being.

Because he brought in… Paul tells us they’re the church age. Because we have people that were moved upon by the Spirit in the Old Testament, but they were for certain ones. But we have a church to be made up, where God’s Spirit should be upon each one, and every member supplying, every member building up and edifying the church. And not just some little snatch here or a little hymn there—all is good in its place. And it has to be something that is effectually working and edifying that Body. Edify. Everything is done is to edify. Everything is done is to build up the church for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Body of Christ, hallelujah. And He’s at the head and we are the members. And we’re fitted in as He moves upon us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah.