This morning, as I spent communion with the Lord, I felt impressed to go back to the “School of the Spirit.” And I expect we will do so this morning, and also this evening. The other night, I gave one evening particularly to the “School of the Spirit.” We will also go back to Isaiah 50, and consider again this remarkable verse 4, but this time go beyond it.
I had mentioned that the prophet is speaking of Christ as though Jesus Himself was the speaker. So in your mind you can say, or can realize that here is Jesus speaking, for the prophet is here using His words.
The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, (the Revised has it “the tongue of them that are taught), that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; He wakens morning by morning, He wakens my ear to hear as the learned. (The margin of the Revised says “that I should know how to speak, to sustain, to uphold or to undergird with a word him that is weary) Isaiah 50:4
I mentioned that here is a remarkable ministry for all of us, available to us in the School of the Spirit, namely that the Lord too will give us a right word, at the right time for a soul in great distress to uphold, to undergird, to sustain.
“That I should know how to speak a word in season.” I had told you here that the Father taught Jesus how to speak:
What to speak - in “a word;”
When to speak - “in season;”
To whom to speak - “to him that is weary.”
I need to say here so you will get the right line of thought, that the ministry of Jesus, the remarkable words which He spoke, the great deeds which He performed, He, nor the Scriptures, attributed them to the fact of His deity. They are attributed by Jesus Himself and other Scriptures to the fact that He was filled with the Spirit of God, and to the additional fact that it was the Father who was working through Jesus, performing miracles.
It was the Father who spoke through Jesus, whom He had taught what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and to whom to say it. I made a notation of a few Scriptures to let Jesus speak for Himself. I cannot go into this in detail, which would take about an hour and a quarter and we cannot do that, but I will give you some Scriptures to think about in support of what I have just said.
Today we want to focus the attention on the “secret” behind the ministry of Jesus, and for that matter, the secret behind any ministry of the Spirit, by anyone who is learned in the school of the Spirit. Notice what Jesus said concerning Himself in John 7:46. The people said of Jesus, “Never man spoke like this man.” This was not said by Jesus. I will come to that, momentarily. But by some officers, some soldiers who were sent to arrest Jesus. The Pharisees, out of sheer envy for His success, had sent to arrest Him.
Any person who is successful in the ministry will be envied, maligned, and crucified. If any of you have any ambition to be signally used of God, there will wait for you a Gethsemane, and a cross from which there is no escape, for the simple reason that “the servant is not greater than his master.” Jesus said, “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”
In line with this, these officers were sent to arrest Jesus. Apparently, they had some decency about them. They did not barge in, and interrupt Him. Apparently, they had enough respect, or enough curiosity to wait till this man was finished. By the time Jesus had finished speaking, He had arrested them by His words. So they just could not arrest Him.
They had come to arrest Him. When they listened to what this man had to say, they were arrested by Him. So they came back without Him, and to give account of their failure to bring Him, they said, “Never man spoke like this man.” “That man had such marvelous truth, we could not take Him.”
Now the question momentarily is, Where did Jesus get these things that made Him so outstanding in ministry, both in word, and in deed? Now we will let Jesus answer.
“Then said Jesus to them, When you have lifted up the Son of man, (that is, the crucifixion), then shall you know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” John 8:28
Jesus said that the things He spoke were the things which the Father had taught Him. That is why Isaiah wrote, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned,” or as it is in another version, the Revised, “the Father has given me the tongue of them that are taught.” In other words, the tongue of the educated. He was able to speak as though He had had a first-class education in theology. He did have a first-class education. He did not get it in Bible school, in Bible college, in the rabbinical schools of that day. He got it in the school of the Father in the school of the Spirit. We will get back to that momentarily.
Notice what He said in John 12:49-50:
“For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said to Me, so I speak.” John 12:49-50
“...I have not spoken of Myself...” He did not say, “I have not spoken about Myself.” You see you could read this two ways. It has to be understood the way He understood it. He did speak about Himself. He came to proclaim Himself, His work. What He was saying is, “I have not spoken on My own initiative,” or “I have not spoken on My own authority,” or “I have not spoken out of My own resources... I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said to Me, so I speak.”
Jesus attributed the things He said to His Father. He ought to know. Notice that in Matthew 13:54, this question was raised:
“And when He was come into His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence has this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then has this man all these things? And they were offended in Him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, save in His own country, and in is own house.” Matthew 13:54-58
Now the people had asked what has been asked many times since, “Whence then has this man all these things?” Jesus had told them right along, but somehow, they did not believe what He said.
“And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Matthew 7:28-29
In other words, they recognized that Jesus had an authentic message. They recognized He did not borrow what He had to say from books, where He put things together in a nice way, but they recognized that this man had a message. He had a message from God, and He spoke as though He knew what He was talking about. He talked with authority. He did not equivocate when He spoke.
And so they raised the question, “When then has this man all these things?” Jesus had told them, “As the Father has taught Me, I speak these things.” He gave them the answer. They never believed the answer, and many a theologian to this day has not believed the testimony of Jesus Himself as to the secret of His ministry, which you have in capsule form in the Scripture we read in Isaiah 50:4, “The Lord God has given Me the tongue of them that are taught.”
I was speaking in one place on the “Treasures of Darkness.” And somebody came up and said: “Brother Beuttler, where did you get that message?” I said, “In the darkness.” They said, “I mean what book did you get it out from?” I said, “No book, the experience of darkness.” “You mean, you get it in darkness?” “Yes, that’s the only place to get it.”
I have two studies, “God’s School in the Wilderness” and “God’s Way in the Wilderness.” Where do you get a message on the wilderness? God has all kinds of schools, and where do we get the things of the Spirit? We get them in “The School of the Spirit.” The problem is that many, when they find out what this is all about, are no longer interested in the school, because tuition is too high. We can go to school without paying tuition, but not in the school of God, not in the school of the Spirit.
Each individual who wants to attend the school of the Spirit has to pay their own tuition, and not a living soul other than they themselves are able to pay that tuition. Maybe you would like to know what the tuition is, while we’re at it. I have it listed last, but I will say it now. Going back to Isaiah 50 again, and continuing to read in the same verse: “He wakens morning by morning, He wakens my ear to hear as the learned.” But He does not stop there - “The Lord God has opened my ear.” In the Hebrew it reads, “The Lord God has picked my ear.”
I took someone once to a doctor because the party could not hear out of one of the ears. So I took the party to the ear specialist. He looked into that ear and said, “I will have to pierce the eardrum to drain some infection out. Are you willing to have your eardrum pierced?” The party said, “Yes.” I was not there to watch it, but I understand that, as she described it later, the doctor took a little instrument and pierced her eardrum, and matter and infection came out.
This idea of God piercing our ears is deliciousmous. Do not stand up and say, “Brother Beuttler, that is not in the dictionary.” I know that, but I cannot help it. I have my own dictionary. That is why some things are deliciousmous. There is such a thing as a surgical operation performed by God, spiritually speaking. “My ear has You picked.” We have to give to the Divine Surgeon our spiritual ear to perform, so to speak, a spiritual operation to give us a hearing ear, or an ear that harkens.
Do you remember Solomon? God said to him, “Ask what I shall give you” What a thing for God to say to a man, “Ask what I shall give you?” Think of it! What would you answer? “Wait a minute Lord, I want to talk to my wife.” “Now sweetheart, what do we want. The Lord says, “Ask what I shall give you? How much can we ask? Let’s make a shopping list.”
I was speaking in the State of Virginia. There was a millionaire in the congregation, and he loaned Wife and me his Eldorado. That’s a $12,500 automobile. They put us up in a hotel on top of the mountain and said, “Use my Eldorado to drive anywhere you like. It’s filled up with gas.” I thought I was in a Pan American 747. I still don’t know how to drive the thing. Everything is electrified. I never learned all the switches and buttons.
During a morning service, I will never forget this, we drove in this Eldorado and stopped there. A man and his wife were walking by in front. The wife nudged the husband and nodded toward the car. We were just getting out. They looked at that thing, and they looked at us as though wondering, “My! They must be well-to-do.” They looked at that thing as they walked by. They looked back again. They took it all in. Well, we had to give it up again. Solomon did not ask for an Eldorado. What would we ask for?
The answer that we give to God will be a pretty reliable index as to our real relationship to God. Solomon did not ask for a Rolls Royce. Do not say, “Hey preacher, they didn’t have them.” I know that, but you have to understand; he did not ask for something material. Rather, He gave God a wonderful answer, “Give thou Your servant an understanding heart.” In the Hebrew it is variously translated. I use different translations and they are so helpful to me. “Give thou Your servant a hearing heart.” Another has it, “Give thou Your servant a hearing ear.”
And the very thought of it is, “Give Thou Your servant a picked ear ... an ear that has been touched by the Divine Surgeon, an ear capable of hearing from God.” And so of Jesus, Jesus Himself, in fact, said, “My ear has Thou opened.” How many of us would like to say, be willing to say, “Lord, pick my ear.”
Some ears simply need cleaning out, other ears need something more serious, or more radical. Some ears need piercing, but whatever the idea is that the Father had given His Son a picked ear, because He was a human being even though He was Divine. He was fully human. He was fully both, a mystery that we will never understand, which has never been explained. But He said, “Mine ear has Thou picked.”
When we have a picked ear, we cannot have an ear that listens to a lot of filthy communication, that listens to a lot of what you get on television. We get some of the rottenest programs. And one or two that I have seen here were not any better. We turned the thing off. The best thing about the television is the switch that you can turn the thing off. You wonder what these TV station people think. Well, maybe they know the public. Maybe they do know what the public likes, but some of it is such filth, both for the eye and the ear, that it’s nothing to be absorbed by the ear the Lord has picked and drained of the filth of this world for hearing from God. Some Christians need their ears drained of all kinds of putrid matter, the accumulation of filth we have almost forced to take in wherever you go, wherever you look.
Wife and I went shopping. She was buying a dress and I sat on a chair waiting for her. There was a little table there with a magazine, only one magazine - Playboy. Well, I did not know what it was like. I picked it up and soon found out. What smut! What smut! I said to the saleslady, “Is this the only magazine you offer patrons?” She said, “That’s the only magazine people are interested in.” If she spoke the truth, it was a sad commentary.
All right, the Lord has opened my ear. I’m talking about tuition, and it may even take an entrance examination, and it may take a surgical operation for our conditioning. “Mine ear has Thou picked.” I do not know how many of you understand my speech, but it is as though God is saying, “So you want to enter the school of the Spirit. We’ll have to do something about your ears. We’ll have to perform a little surgery. There is some worldly matter in there that does not belong there, that will interfere with your ability to hear the things of the Spirit.”
“The Lord God hath opened My ear, and I was not rebellious.”
Do you know why it says, “and I was not rebellious?” Why did it say that? Because the Father, so to speak, showed His Son the price tag. (I hope you understand my manner of presenting truth). He showed Him what the tuition was, so to speak.
Relatively few people are willing to enter the school of the Spirit because tuition is too high for them - not in terms of dollars and cents. It is as though you could say, “The Father showed me the cost, but I did not rebel ... and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.” When He saw the tuition fee, He didn’t run from the school of the Spirit, from the King’s College.
I got a number of comments, including some in writing, the other night about what the study of the school of the Spirit had meant. A number of people spoke to me, “Brother Beuttler, that was just for me.” Or, “That is just what I want.” This is wonderful, thank you, ... we would like more of it. All right, here’s more of it.
The tuition, or, the price tag.
When Jesus saw what the cost would be, He did not rebel. He did n0tt say “Nixcomarouch.” You know what that means in German? Nothing doing. He did not rebel. Not me, brother. No sir. “Nor did He turn away back,” and turn back to kindergarten. Tuition for kindergarten isn’t high. I guess it doesn’t cost anything.
Well specifically, what’s the cost? “I gave My back to the smiters.”
We took communion this morning. What do you suppose that means? It means far more than a mere form, well you know that. It means far more than the realization of the broken body and the shed blood of the Lord. That’s included, by all means, but do you know what it really means? Do you realize what it really implies? It means that when we put our hand to the cup and lift it to our lips to drink it, we are saying by our actions - though not in words - “I am willing to partake of the sufferings of the Lord.”
When Jesus said to His disciples, “Drink you all of it.” What did He mean? I suppose He meant several things. “All of you drink of it.” Surely he meant that everyone of you drink of it, but there is another meaning just as valid, “All of you drink all of it.”
“All of you drink of it,” yes. But, “All of you drink all of it.” The implications of the cup. When we put that hand to the cup again, and put it to our lips, we are testifying, we are affirming to the Christ of God. Not only do we recognize what He did, but that we ourselves are willing to be a partaker of His sufferings. “I gave my back to the smiters.” This is a part of the price tag.
When Jesus realized what it would mean, He did not rebel.
I remember a girl in Bible school, when I was a student in 1927. That is a long time ago. She was used in the gifts of the Spirit, tongues, interpretations and prophesying. She got criticized. Some of the students smote her with, “We don’t think that was the Spirit, do you?” She said, “I thought it was.” “That is not the Spirit. You are making it all up to draw attention to yourself.” And that girl eventually became bitter, rebelled. She did not want to be smitten anymore. Now people did not smite her with the hand, but they did smite her with the tongue.
If you have ever read the Apocrypha, it says there:
“The strokes of the whip make the marks in the flesh, but the stroke of the tongue breaks the bones.” In other words, the hurt done by the tongue is far more injurious than the hurt done by the rod. And this girl rebelled, and I told you this the other night. She said, “Oh Spirit, don’t bother me with these gifts anymore.” And He didn’t. As I told you a few nights ago, this girl begged God for the restoration of the gifts. I never knew that God did it. She was out after awhile, and I never heard of her again. But she rebelled and turned away the smiting. It was too hard to take.
I dare say that in this school of the Spirit, you have to be prepared to be smitten by your fellow believers, criticized, called names, like, “He belongs to the deeps. He belongs to those who are going off the deep end ... fanatic.” Smitten.
I was at a District Council meeting many years ago. The Lord had used me in some great revivals, some tremendous revivals. Wife can bear witness. They were tremendous revivals. Naturally, word gets around. I went to the District meeting and we had dinner. I put my food on a tray, and saw a little space between my brethren and sat down to eat with them.
No sooner had I sat down than the fellow in front of me was real hostile to me. I felt no hostility toward him, but he was one of the ridiculers. He picked up his tray, put his food back on his tray, picked it up and went somewhere else, sat down and ate there. You have to be prepared to be ostracized ... maligned ... smitten.
“I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” I know a young minister in the States, a fine fellow. The Lord has been using him in the ministry of deliverance. That boy had results in some cases that other people could not touch. A real ministry of deliverance and what a praying man. Then some ministers ganged up on him, and the last I heard, he was to be brought before the credentials committee. The question was whether his credentials would be withdrawn, and his pastorate taken from him because the Lord was using him in bringing deliverance to people.
He comes to our house for help and for succor. I do not know what happened. I would like to know. That man is just as sound as sound could be. They want to have nothing to do with deliverance. They would rather send people to the psychiatrist. “I gave my back to the smiters.” “And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” - People that “pick on you.”
I could tell you a story I don not think you will believe. “To them that plucked off the hair” - people will be picking on you. “I hid not my face from shame and spitting” - people will spit on you. The Lord calls you aside for a season of fasting and prayer. It could be a day, it could be a week, or, more than that. People look down their noses, “Fasting and prayer? He needs to see someone in psychology.
I am going to close. I gave you a little glimpse, only a little glimpse, into the tuition of these things. “The Lord God has opened My ear.” Has He done that this morning? So that’s what it means?
“...And I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint (here is your determination like steel to go through with the price...say “yes” to God, “I’m a candidate...I’ll pay the tuition...I set my face like a flint...I don’t care what it costs...I’ll pay the price of the school of the Spirit of God), and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” Isaiah 50:5-7
We have barely started. We will see what we can do for tonight.
“Believest thou this?” Can you say just the same, “I have set my face like a flint, for the Lord God will help me?”
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Walter Beuttler (1904 - 1974)
Walter H. Beuttler was born in Germany in 1904. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1925. In 1931 he graduated from Central Bible Institute. He served on the faculty atWalter H. Beuttler was born in Germany in 1904. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1925. In 1931 he graduated from Central Bible Institute. He served on the faculty at Eastern Bible Institute from 1939-1972. During a campus revival in 1951, God called Beuttler to “go teach all nations,” and for 22 years he travelled around the world ministering the word of God. He retired in Shaverton, PA with his wife Elizabeth. There he continued his ministry until he went to be with the Lord in 1974."Spiritual hunger presupposes a spiritual capacity. Such hunger originates with God (John 6:44). This hunger is, in fact, God Himself hungering for Himself through our spirit on our behalf. It is the call of God for the truth for which we hunger and is at the same time a divine guarantee of its satisfaction when this hunger is not diverted into other channels and thereby destroyed. “Blessed are they that hunger—for they shall be filled.” The earnest seeker after the God of the Word as well as the word of God, can expect to find in these notes “treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places” (Isa. 45:3)."