Establish The Kingdom Within You: The Secret Place Of The Most High
The Student Learns By Daily Increment
We should have a watchword. It’s a word we bear in mind when we need to be watchful. Anytime we need to be watchful, we turn to this watchword. One is found in the Bible book of Psalms 91: “He that dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty.” It is always good for one to be calm in the soul, calm in the mind, and calm in the body. The reason for the calmness is so that one can watch! The secret place of the Most High is the Kingdom of God that is within everyone. When one establishes this Kingdom of God within oneself, it becomes a place of safety, a place they can go as often, and from the safety of that place they can watch the changing scenes of this world. It’s a safe ground, which you must establish. No one will establish it for you. God will not establish it for you. You must establish that Kingdom of God within you. And then you will dwell in your secret place of the most high. Then you will be under the watchful eyes of the Almighty. That is the refuge. That is the higher ground. That is the place of safety for you in this world. The Sacred Word said, when you want to pray to the Father, that first you get into your closet. When you have shut the door, then you enter into a Secret Place and there you talk to your Father, which sees in Secret, and the Father which is in Secret, will reward you openly. So it is important for you to establish the Secret Place, to establish the Kingdom of heaven within your soul. The Bible said, you shall not say, “lo here or lo there, for the kingdom of heaven is within you. “ We are at the place in time where everyone needs to enter into his or her Secret Place. Another’s Secret Place cannot contain you; you must enter into your own. Your secret place cannot contain another; they cannot enter into you. Only you can establish the secret place of the most high in your body, in your heart, in the closet of the heart, in the place where God’s presence is felt. Only you can establish that. When you have established that, then run there for safety. Safety cannot be outside. There is nothing outside that can make you safe. The ‘Rock of Ages’ that will cleave for you is that Kingdom of God that is established in you, for times of difficulty. Therefore, the Lord told us, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
All is encouraged to establish the Kingdom of God in them. After, enter in. In God’s Kingdom, from that Secret Place, look at the world, with peace, with amazement, with wonder. Nothing happening outside the Kingdom can take peace from you. You are secure with God in His Kingdom. Therefore the Lord said, “my peace I give to you not as the world gives, give I to you.” That peace from God is not in the material things, “abundance of things you possess.” It’s not in any accumulation of material things outside the Secret Place. The blessing of God and God’s safety can never be outside. It will always be inside. And wherever you go, whether you are sleeping, whether you are at work, wherever you are, this Kingdom of God that you have established within yourself will always be with you; whether in life, whether in death, whether in sickness, whether in health. No matter what the outside circumstance of your life may be, if you have established the Kingdom of God as a Safe Place for retreat, as a place of rest, as a place from which you can watch the activities of this world, then you have established safety, which no man can take away from you. But when you have not established this Peace of Mind or Kingdom of Heaven, there’s no where for you to go, there’s no refuge, there’s no place for God to dwell in you or for you to dwell in God. Therefore, you have no safe place to dwell. There’s no protection for you. So, you need to make sure that you understand what is important for your salvation, and your peace, and that you work hard to do that which will give you peace. Nothing of the world will give Peace. Those who exist and operate and enjoy only the outside are empty inside. There’s no power outside that will give you salvation. There’s no activity that will prolong your life. You owe it to yourself to establish the Kingdom of Heaven in yourself.
Many of us are like mad dogs; anything that passes we chase it. We jump, we talk, and we grab any matter. Everything that happens you jump to look into it. Everything that passes the dog sniffs. Everything that rolls by you chase down and bite it into your mouth; you cannot establish the secret place of the most high if that’s your life. How much you keep, how you expand the kingdom, how useful the Kingdom becomes, that’s the only thing you take from here with you when you leave this world. But if at the end of your time on earth, you have not established that Kingdom of Heaven, remember, there won’t be any other heaven for you. That which you establish, is that which you will inhabit; that’s where you will dwell. If you build on the sand, your house will be destroyed, and you will have no house. But if you build in the Rock, if you cleave the rock of ages, then you will find safety. When the wind is blowing like it is blowing right now, there’s a spiritually wind blowing all over the universe. Only those who are anchored on the rock shall remain in safety. But those who have not cleft the Rock, those who have not built peace in their lives, those who have not established the Kingdom of Heaven where God dwells with them in their hearts, have no rest.
PLACE OF SAFETY
When the body is sick the mind is weak, the spirit is dull because the soul too has slowed down. You don’t feel like doing anything. Your favorite foods you have no energy to eat. Even if you eat, the body is not strong enough to digest it. You cannot concentrate. You forget things, you cannot think straight, you fall in and out of sleep and you have weird dreams. This is an example of a life that has not established the Kingdom of Heaven. When you are not sick, there is nothing physically wrong that you can point to and say well, this is the thing wrong with me, this is the thing killing me. And your life is restless like a sick person. Your mind is jumpy from one thing to the other. Your soul is slow. There is no energy. Your body is heavy. You feel like the whole world is resting on your shoulders and your mind is dull. You cannot think clearly. You cannot analyze, you cannot find the true reason for any question that’s posed to you by life. These are all signs that the Kingdom of Heaven is not established or that if it’s established you’re not in it. You’re outside the Kingdom of Heaven. Remember: “He that dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the Shadow of the Almighty. The noise of the world will greet your ear. If you’re outside the kingdom of God, you will accept in and react to and jump at any noise that greets your ear. But if you are in the Secret Place of the Most High and the door is shut, then you will not hear those things that make the mind and the body and the soul and the spirit of those outside react; so watch yourself. When you are not calm with things, when you cannot wait with things and you’re volatile, that should inform you that you are not dwelling in the Secret Place of the Most High. The times we live in now are stormy times. Spiritual storms are blowing. If you are outside the Kingdom of God, if you do not run into the Kingdom of God for safety, then the wind will blow you away. So brothers and sisters, we need to find out what is the Kingdom of Heaven? How to build the Kingdom of Heaven in our hearts? How to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; how to shut the doors to the Kingdom of Heaven, and how to dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven? The Lord hath told us, “You cannot serve two masters.” Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. The Kingdom of Heaven is not the kingdom of this world. Before you can begin the work of the kingdom of heaven, you must give up the work, all the works of the Kingdom of this world. All the activities of the kingdom of this world: its talks, its walks, its quarrels, its struggles, and all its activities; you must give them up. If you don’t give them up, then you’re trying to serve two masters. So if you are not sure then that you have given up the kingdom of this world, then be sure also that you have not started the work of the Kingdom of Heaven in your heart, in your soul. Religion, serving, being a good person, will not establish the kingdom for you. Many of us think religiously about our lives. We think that as long as we do well, that God will accept us. Remember that God is not a respecter of persons, that whatsoever a man builds, that he shall dwell in. So it is left for you to hear the truth about the Kingdom you need to build. Have you built the Secret Place of the Most High? Or do you assume that somebody else’s secret place will be where you will run to for safety. It does not happen that way. Each man has a heart inside their heart. Your own heart is where you’re supposed to build the Kingdom of heaven. Christ will not build it for you, Buddha will not build it for you, and Mohammed will not build it for you. You must build the Kingdom of Heaven in your heart. And having built it, you will dwell in it as your place of safety in the times of storm, in the times when the winds and the waves are blowing like these times. Then you will remain in that safety, in the Kingdom of Heaven you have built inside your body temple. When you have not built the Kingdom of God, that place of peace and safety in your heart, the only activity you have is to turn outside acting like a wild dog. Sometimes you act like a sheep but you pretend to be kind, but you are not. Sometimes you act like an innocent Chihuahua dog, but we know you’re not, you’re a bulldog and you’re a Rottweiler, a killer, and a murderer. Sometimes you act like you are so gentle and thoughtful, but you know you’re a poisonous snake. These are all the qualities of those who have not built the Kingdom of God in their heart. Each person will dwell inside the kingdom they build. The house you have built in your heart. The Kingdom of God you have built, that’s where you will dwell. If you have not built any house, you will dwell outside, you will have no resting place. So it is up to you to begin this moment to build the Kingdom of Heaven. Learn how to build it, learn how to go there all the time, learn how to stay there, and learn how to live and work from the Kingdom of God. The same way you leave your house in the morning to go out to work and in the evening you come back, and you go back to your house and shut your door. The house is an example to the Kingdom of God. So if you have not built one in your heart, from where you come out to interact with the world, and when you leave the world, you go to your own kingdom. If you have not built this kingdom, you are actually not doing yourself a great favor.
MAKE A WAY
In most coastal areas of this world, people build their houses on stilts; they lift the living areas up high. Sometimes eight feet, some up to twelve because experience has taught them that sometimes you might be sleeping and the water might rise. You don’t want to be on the ground when the water rises six feet or eight feet. By the time it will reach to the height of the living areas, day will break and one will have a way of escape. The Kingdom of Heaven is that which you build in this world for your safety. It is like a capsule on a rocket ship that the astronauts fly in. The rocket is big, huge; but the capsule itself, where the astronauts will stay, is very small. Before the days of the shuttle that flies like a plane, each huge rocket, bigger than an average house will have a small capsule where all the astronauts will be confined in; that’s how they ride into space. That capsule is the place of safety. It is built to detach itself once the rocket is spent. It will detach itself and the rocket and booster will fall back to earth and will only have a small propellant that will allow it to push itself back from space. Even that propellant also is dropped in the early days when rockets fell into the ocean. So it was a very risky operation. That’s why the astronauts are regarded as heroes because they have to sign away their lives because anything can go wrong and one could get blown up, and many got blown up either going up or coming down. There are no guarantees. The Secret Place of the most high is like that rocket! Think about it. That’s why all these examples are given so that you can think about it. You must enter into your capsule. Remember that’s the only place of Safety, and Peace dwells there. God dwells there. God is a peaceful Being, but your mind is agitated by the world. While outside in the world, you are worried, you are quarreling, you are arguing, and you are fighting; so you can’t enter into Peace. Those worldly things will stop you. God is kind and compassionate, but you are not kind and you are not compassionate. Therefore, you cannot go in. All the qualities of Satan, which you have, which you refuse to drop because in your head you think it’s acceptable to God, keeps you outside. Those things may be acceptable to the God of your imagination but they are not acceptable to the true God that dwells in you. Therefore, the God that dwells in you will shut you out of His Holy of Holies. Some of us who have read the Old Testament will remember that in the Temple of God, there was an outside court where anybody could come, Jew and gentile. Then there was the inside court where only those who wanted to sacrifice came. There was also the Holy of Holies, where only one man could enter. In the inmost part, the Holy of Holies, only the purified Priest goes there to commune with God. Your body is the open court where the Jew and Gentile, the demons and saints, come. Your mind is the place of sacrifice of all the thoughts that fly in, up and down. Your soul is the Holy place if you allow the righteousness of God to dwell in you. Your Spirit is that, that is used to commune with God, because Spirit must talk to Spirit. That Spirit will dwell in the purified soul. That soul will operate in the calm mind. That mind will operate in a cleansed body. But when your spirit is wrong, then your soul becomes confused with inordinate ambitions and lusts of all kinds. Then your mind will become deranged with thoughts of the devil and then your body will be wrecked by the activities of forces that you cannot control.
You want to build the Kingdom of Heaven? Start to control the body. Your body is the Temple of the living God. God had said, “I will dwell in it, I will walk in it, I will be your God, ye shall be my people.“ Do you want to establish the secret place of the Most High? Remove foolish thoughts from your mind. Allow only good thoughts to come in. The talk that does not help the Kingdom of Heaven should be quickly dropped. If not, in the other life you will live in a thatch house. Many of people have not seen thatch houses. Houses with straw, thatch houses, cannot keep out the cold or rain. The straw is all those strings that pull your mind. So, when it rains it will rain in, the flood will come in, you will live in a swamp, because your mind is tattered. A tattered mind is not at rest. The soul is the wall. Your house will have no wall; it’s just a stick with a thatch on it, like you see in the movies, in the old westerns or some God forsaken places of this earth. You will live in ruin because that’s what you have built in your mind. There will be no wall for safety, no beauty, and no form, because the soul becomes the playground of all evils in your thoughts. Only devils gravitate to that soul, murder, revenge, cruelty, and hate.
So, how do we build the Kingdom of God so that we may dwell in safety? We change from our wicked ways to the way of love, compassion, mercy, and kindness. We leave everybody in the outer court and forgive all they have committed against us. You forget them. You come around to those who are sacrificing in the inner courts, and leave them alone. If that’s what they want to be busy with, let them sacrifice and eat flesh, if that’s what they want. You come to the Holy place, you see those who are doing their rituals and their work, you leave them alone because they feel that’s how to be happy and see God; but you know God is not there, they will never see God outside the Holy Place. You want to see God! So, you purify your thought, you purify your mind, you purify your body, and you purify your soul. You quicken your spirit, and you wait at the door of the Holy of Holies. You will not come to God suddenly; God will come to you. You relax, and you wait at the gate of the inner Kingdom. It may take a million years, it may take a thousand years, there’s no limit. God does not have a clock; He does not work with human time. At His good pleasure He will look for you. Suddenly, the Bible says, “The Lord will appear at His house.” Suddenly, unannounced, He will come like a thief in the night; He will just show up. It doesn’t matter when He shows up because you are ready. You have prepared the house, you have cleansed it, you have garnished it, you have chased out all the demons in your life. But while you are in that preparation, He has been watching you, and keeping you in safety. Remember what Jesus told His disciples and Mary, “What, know ye not that I must be about my Father’s house?” “I must be building the house of the Father.”
When we love the selfishness of the body; we love the selfishness and attachment of this world, we love whatever the world gives us; in our hearts, we do not love God. How do we know that we truly do not love God? We are occupied with everything that will disappear one day. Everything that occupies our daily lives will disappear one day. You also will one day disappear. But guess what? The Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the place of safety in times of storm, the peace that passes understanding, that which the world can never know, will abide forever. If you do not enter in, you will not abide in safety forever!
PEACE ON EARTH
April 2nd, 2024Topic: Uncategorized Tags: None
