“Awake, O North Wind”

It’s really true… more beautiful. The thing that, as Helen said, was more beautiful yet—you would have to say in Spanish when you’d say in English “yet”—to experience just what Helen was saying. Because I have sons and daughters that, well, if I had them of my own, I wouldn’t be assured at all that they would ever be anything like the spiritual sons and daughters. And as John has said, “What is flesh is flesh. What is spirit is spirit,” and the spiritual family that have the marks of the love for their spiritual mother and I for my spiritual sons and daughters, praise God.

I was thinking here too about the bride—to keep on a minute—would be [Song of Solomon] chapter 4 and verse 12: The bridegroom is [speaking, you think of], “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” Well, that’s something too that the spring is shut up. She has the spring, the rivers, the fountains, [where she fetches the] fountains—it’s all shut up. Well, that’s something else, nobody can get to it.
So she realizes that. It says, “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.”

And then the 15th verse: “A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” So there should have been plenty of water, the streams from Lebanon, likened unto the streams of Lebanon. There should have been plenty of water, and plenty of water was running into that fountain, but it was sealed.
And I thought sometimes when there are certain places for parks, and they’re given, they belong to the city. But I have seen parks that are closed at times and especially at night in small towns. So you go there, you want to catch a cool breeze in the summer, but it’s all closed. [JP: We have them right here at Gramercy Park; it’s closed at night. A small park in Central Park is closed.]
And so the bridegroom… naturally the bridegroom wants to enjoy the spikenard and the cinnamon and the odors. But then she gets on to it—that’s the part I like. Verse 16: “Awake, O north wind.” So there she realizes that she is not doing what she should and probably can’t. But because it takes the Spirit of God, the wind of God, the supernatural—there’s where the supernatural comes in—“Awake!” she said, “O north wind.” Nobody else could do that. She couldn’t, she could only tend to the garden, tend the garden or have it ready. But when it came time to… for the spices, the odors going out, what was needed was… the winds were needed for the odors to just waft that, so the bridegroom could partake of those odors and be led right to that garden. But though she… it was shut up, [x].

It says, “Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.” Hitherto it hasn’t blown all that, hasn’t blown out. “Let my beloved come into his garden.” It wasn’t just her garden, and she wasn’t just the one to receive from that, but “Awake, O north wind,” blow, breathe.

And I liken that too to Ezekiel, where he’s taken to the grave, the cemetery, the graveyard, and told to prophesy. And the bones “were very dry.” (You remember that, don’t you?) And the Lord said, “Son of Man, do you believe that these bones will live?”

And as I have said often, he threw the responsibility over on the Lord. He said, “Lord, thou knowest I cannot do anything without that. I don’t know.” “How would anybody believe that those bones—they were very dry—will ever live?” he said. But the Lord told him to call to the wind. And that was by prophecy, what he’d… prophecy. “So I prophesied….”

He said, “Prophesy, son of man.”

“So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise.” So what part did he do? He couldn’t send that wind. The wind… Jesus said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth.” Nobody knows where it’s coming from.

[man: What part of Ezekiel? 37? People are looking and I think rather than they be looking while you’re talking, just tell them where it is.] Yes, well… Ezekiel 37. “Prophesy, son of man,” and he says, “as I prophesied….” So what did he have to do? [woman: He acted in faith.] Right? [man: He had to speak specifically in faith.] What did the Lord tell him to do? [others: Prophesy.]
He said, “And I did as I was commanded.” The obedience. Because he couldn’t do anything about it. He could stand there and look and say, “O Lord, you know. I don’t certainly know.” And the Lord put the responsibility right back on him again—he put it on the Lord and said, “Lord, you know.” And the Lord said, “Prophesy.” He put it right back on him, just like He’s going to do with some of us and has done with some of us.

There’s so many of us that pray, “Lord, help.” I hear so many “Helps,” “Help me,” “Help me.” And I always feel like saying—I don’t think I’ve done it yet, all true I think—but why don’t you sit and take what the Lord gives? You know, “Lord, help us.” I heard the children each one [said] as they prayed, “Lord, help me to do this, help me to do that and help me to do it.” And He’s doing all the helping He could possibly do.

And I’ll say you could liken it unto Moses when he stood between the devil and the deep blue sea. And he said, “Now, what am I going to do now? I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He said, “What’s that you have in your hand? Use it.”
It’s so wonderful when God’s servants not just so keep it going, “Well, the Lord help us,” or “Lord, help us, help us, help.” You have to know it yourself sometimes and see how many times you say, “Help me to do this, help me to get that, help me to do the other,” when He’s already helping—He’s doing everything he can.

And He said to some of them, “Well, look.” The wind was there, but he had to call to get it to stop to come down on those bones in the cemetery. And she had to call, “North wind, south wind, come and breathe upon my garden.” And it says that he came into his garden.

And here it says, “And I did as I was commanded, I prophesied as I was commanded.” “As I prophesied,” something happened. There was a noise and, behold, a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. There certainly had to be sovereignty in that and was there as he obeyed. “I did as I was commanded.”

So it all works in: sovereignty with meeting the will of man to meet the obedience of men. And then God does His—it’s a working together.

Well, I prophesied and nothing happened. But he said, “I prophesied as He commanded, He told.” “And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. It began the moving, but still, it wasn’t all finished yet. “Then said He unto me, again, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds.” Not only the south wind, the north wind or the south wind or the east wind or the west wind, but all four winds, north, east, south and west. “O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”

“So I prophesied”—perfect obedience, once, twice—“I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came unto them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” Praise God.

Thank God for and to know that when it’s flesh, it’s flesh. But when the wind came, that flesh was there all right, it came together. It was there was sinews, muscles, skin, all that that didn’t have any likeness.

And it’s just what happened in the beginning when God just took the same dirt, as I say, that we walk on and formed that. You have seen children making mud pies and they come out just whatever they’re making it in or out of, it’s that shape they made. “…And shaped man in his own image and the likeness,” because there he was: eyes, nose, mouth, perfect features in the image of God. “God… (what?) breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” [man: Which is plural.] Man became plural? A living soul. [man: But breathed into him the breath of lives.] Um-hmm, the breath of life. [man: The soul and spirit.] And that’s what can’t die, that’s everlasting.

And I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, people get cremated—those who don’t want to think they’re going to come up. So they think, well, we’ll settle that, we’ll be cremated. Then in India, they throw these ashes into the river, the Nile. [man: The Ganges.] Ganges, that’s right, there it is. They think about, well, if God made man in His only image and likeness out of the dust…. But it was the breath, that breath is the [life], either to live there or to live there, that breath goes on. That’s what is [instructive], just think of it. And the man can’t get out of it. Can’t get out of it.

Don’t ever make the mistake by saying, “Man, God created me.” He didn’t create you. He didn’t create me. He created two people alone, Adam and Eve; we are the result of that. That breath went on down and down out of [living]. But what is flesh? Still it’s flesh. But what is spirit is spirit.

Praise God, “a man became a living soul,” [x], an exceeding great army, just as many bones it took to make an army, they were all there. That part was supplied, the bone part, the structure.

And her garden was there: beautiful spices, cinnamon, saffron, frankincense, what aloes, all of that. And it was over here, but it didn’t do the bridegroom any good unless it got opened. The fountain had to be opened and the winds had to come and cause those spices to go out and…. Alright, call a south wind, north wind. She knew she couldn’t do it. So she called to the same wind Ezekiel called. She knew she could do it. She called, she obeyed. She called. Praise God.

Many people are very sealed. There are no spices, no odors going out, because they’re shut up, locked. I remember little Karen saying, “Oh, but it came to me first.”

I said, “Karen, this and that and the other,” I said, “Karen, you are just as Satan says, you’re shut up in a box.” And that day her… that animated her to want to get out of that box, and she got out.

And when she gets a little strange, she’ll say, “Lord, I don’t want to get in that box again. Lord, just keep me from that box, I don’t want to be shut up anymore.”

So we can ask ourselves, I don’t think we’d have to go very far to think about it. But it’s so wonderful to think of God’s breath, God’s wind. And Isaiah, is it?, the one that says that He measured out the oceans or the waters in the palm of His hand and He holds the wind with his fist? (Isaiah 40:12, Proverbs 30:4) Just think about in a northwester there and southeaster and it opens that northwester—very cold. That’s when we say, “A nor’wester has come, is coming our way.”

There it is, winds in His fists. And as we call God’s… we know that it can be done only by His Spirit. That’s what happened on the day of Pentecost. They were there as they were commanded. He said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel, but wait, tarry.” What good is having all that body and gifts of, say, talents and different things? It’s the wind of God, it took the Spirit of God [to blow] upon that. It has to be [done through that] as well. And as they did as they were commanded, the same as Ezekiel, they did as they were commanded….

I’ve often thought of how there are people—some different sects, denominations and, “well, we don’t have to think about it, about the day of Pentecost, that passed long ago. I don’t have to bother with that anymore. There was for the days of the apostles, the disciples there when they received….” Yes, it’s true, they’ll admit some of that part, but “We don’t need it or when you are saved you have it… everything. You have you have the salvation, sanctification and you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” But those disciples were surely saved.

When Jesus talked to them, He talked to them: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel, but tarry until you be endued with power from on high.”

What did James say? “This comes from above, what’s from below is sensual and deadly. And what comes from above is peaceable fruit of righteousness, just lovely. It’s from heaven, it wafts, it smells like heaven, has the earmarks of heaven and everything is of heaven; it’s from heaven. And when we are using the gifts, we know… you can… “Yeah, that’s the Lord, that isn’t flesh. Yes, I smell that wonderful scent.” It’s like some of the hymns. “Oh, that’s the Lord, beautiful.” Hallelujah. It’s so wonderful. What is the flesh? It’s flesh that isn’t… I often say, no matter how many pounds of it, it’s still flesh. Well, it could be so many pounds, but it’s all flesh. But thank God.

“And I did as I was commanded,” that He could come down to you. “And He came into His garden.” It was hers to begin with on earth, she’s doing the earthly part of it. Shall I say this plan of God, the only place that will ever be worked out, or can be worked out, is on the earth plane? And it would be all flesh. But then that wind of the Lord, that wafting, that breeze, that mighty rushing, the day of Pentecost when all fell, mighty rushing. The ear that could hear that in your ears. What was it? Just the wind around, doors being shut. But the wind from heaven came, thank God.

So we have the wind, oh God. “Bless this, bless the other”—Lord, let your Spirit be upon me, let your Spirit…. I started to say that different people would say, “How do you talk about something else? We’re satisfied with Jesus, salvation, and that and all of….”

You know those disciples did… they were just so hurt. They were so sorrowful and they just couldn’t take it that He had to go away. But He said, “I won’t leave you as orphans and I’ll send…. And, well, if I don’t go, He won’t come—that’s the plan. I have that all arranged with my Father and I—the promise of my Father. It’s my Father’s promise to me, He was going to send it.” And there was… they had that all fixed that “Now, Father, what will it be when I finish those 33 years and my ministry, what will it be?”

“I will send the third person of the Godhead.”
And I don’t think they ever ran to Jerusalem with long faces or trying to find out how they can change this doctrine. “What’s the best way to change it?” No! They wanted all they could get. And when they got through, then the Holy Spirit was down upon them and they spake with other tongues.

There were those in other days when you start to say anything about tongues, it was the worst thing in religious circles you could talk about—to speak in tongues. They obviously talk in tongues, they wouldn’t, say, speak nicely: “Oh, they talk in tongues, oh, that’s the greatest.”

I remember when I heard just that, that you speak in a language that you don’t have to learn. Not that I just wanted an easy way out, but the marvel of it. The marvel of it, that you didn’t have to take grammars or try to get to it as I did with the Spanish, one thing, wondering how I could ever get it at my age and no money to take classes, Spanish classes, to get myself a book.

Andrew was looking through some of my books the other day and I said, “There‘s my old grammar.” It’s all two pieces, it’s all in pieces. I just worked on that and worked on that, just couldn’t be there without doing something, “Where am I going to get the Spanish?”

There are people who think, well, if I go out to China or something, I’ll be able to speak right away. But they are figuring in the flesh. And the way they’re going to learn Chinese is like I studied the Spanish.

But thank God there is that wonderful language that the Holy Spirit gives. And when He comes in, He will speak for Himself. He doesn’t have to have some…. He doesn’t give an imitation. “If you ask for bread, He won’t give you a stone. And if you ask for an egg, He’s not going to give you a scorpion. You being evil know how to give gifts, how much more the heavenly Father gives to those that ask?” Isn’t that wonderful?

Have you received the promise? Paul is giving out something new when he goes to Ephesus. He says, “Have you here? Is this company of people?” I think they were about 19, was that right? [man: 12.] Twelve. He said, “Have you received all this since you believed?”

“We never even heard that there be a Holy Ghost.”

“Okay, pray.” They prayed and they received. It’s so beautiful. It just works like that and comes from heaven. So easy as you can do as you’re commanded and not get into the balkiness. Do you know what to balk is? (Everybody?) That’s when it’s hard. All this weighs on. “Yeah, you’re balking.” Something you don’t want to pay or some big price, you don’t want to do something or give up, you just… like there like a mule, you won’t get anywhere.

But praise God. “And this promise”—dear saint Peter to say that “this promise is unto you and your children.” Just think your children should have the same as you, baptism in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead—your children. And not only to your children, but all those that…. I can say, “Oh Lord, that means me.” And I did say that, “Well, that means me then, I can come in there.”

So here we are in this 1979, yes, we received the Holy Spirit, of Paul. And if we didn’t, we certainly would be seeking. We said, “How long do you seek?”

“Until. Tarry until.” That’s until you get the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord. …you receive the Holy Spirit. Beautiful.

So wherever we’re sealed or shut up and the aroma isn’t escaping because we’re so shut up within ourselves, the fountain is sealed and the aroma, the breeze isn’t wafting the right way. Well, there isn’t the right or wrong way, there’s just some aroma of bound conditions. Should that condition be that we’re bound? We have some bound, we can’t get anywhere. What are you going to do for anybody else? Jesus, the same as the bridegroom, He wants to smell the garden, He wants to eat of the garden. It’s His garden after all, it’s not ours. We’re doing it all for Him. Amen. Praise the Lord. It’s so wonderful. We’re doing it all for Him.

If we were just doing different things for people, well, you just know that you don’t get it. You can work your [finger ends] off, say, for your children or for somebody and they don’t appreciate it, but what you do for Jesus is appreciated. You never lose, it pays to be true. Thank God.

I love that, I love that verse where she said, “O south wind, please, I can’t do any more. North wind, come and blow and breathe upon my garden.” And that’s the love she had for him. Always the mutual love, he’s living for her and doing all her. She’s living and doing everything for him; the love is mutual. And then, well, it’s earthy, though, the aroma of the roots and all that of the plants, the spices. But thank God He puts that in you—it’s spiritual and it turns out it isn’t.

You have all… we heard beautiful prophecies tonight. These really have an odor, an aroma, sweet to our ears, to our nose and sounds to our ears and our senses were built up, praise God. It’s wonderful when that breaks and goes out.

You can make some good decisions here tonight: “I want my garden to flow out.”

“The least you do… if you do this to the least of my little ones, you’ve done it unto me.” And when He comes and we see Him in all of His glory, with all of His holy angels, and showing Himself to those that are looking, He says….
They said, “Come here to this side, come here.” “Well, what did we ever do?”

“You visited me or you didn’t.” There’s a company that He says, “You didn’t. You visited me in prison, you gave this, you did that, cup of cold water, whatever. This side didn’t.” So that’s the…

“When did we ever see?” You could think of such a glorious one, when did we ever see Him hungry?

He said, “I was hungry and I….”

“When did we ever see this glorious one hungry?” Or “When did we ever see him thirsty or naked or in a prison?” We never saw Him.

“Inasmuch as you’ve done it unto the least of these on the earth” is counted for Him. “As you do unto others.” Praise the Lord. It’s counted as unto Him.

“And when did I…?” I think I’ve such a thing when He said… when they say to him, “When do we ever see you in need?”

“You didn’t do it.”

“Well, when do we ever see you in need? Look at how glorious you are—when did you ever need anything? Tell us that.”

“Well, you did it unto the least of these, my little ones. Enter thou into the joys of your Lord.” Praise God. “Sit down with me on my throne. Make yourself at home. Only my throne.” Glory to God. Hallelujah.