Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings friends and new listeners and welcome to the Sound of Faith program. I'm Sharon Knotts, thanking you for tuning in today, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today's message by my father Brother Hardy is "God Became Man." Truly, this is a message that will warm your heart and endear you to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ His son, as we discover just what a sacrifice He made when God became man.

R. G. Hardy: And then I just got a passion to see the Lord's glory. And all of a sudden, I felt that strange presence of God. You know how God deals with you when He comes down on you. Somebody said, oh, you haven't been there yet? Man, pray and fast and live spiritual. You got something to look forward to. Come on out of the world and give God some time. Put yourself at His disposal and give Him a chance.

And I felt that glory coming down, that anointing, and it knocked me all the way out into a vision. I felt just like Adam did. I know just how Adam felt when God performed an operation. And when God made Miss Eve, He said He blew on the face of Adam like a whirlwind and Adam went to sleep.

How many's ever had God to breathe on you like that? You don't know nothing. You don't know nothing. And I felt the breath of God breathe on me and here that fan got around me and my head got to flying. How many's ever had any anesthesia to put you out? You know how you go out? Well, that's the way it was, brother, my head started flying and I woke up into a vision and a revelation of the Holy Ghost.

And I was up in a high place, I don't know a mountain or what, I can't remember. The physical parts of where I was wasn't prominent in the vision. And I don't know if it was three dimensional, four, six, or seven dimensions. There's maybe only three dimensions in the natural, we don't know how many dimensions in the spirit. But I'm as suspended out here in space, so to speak, and the Lord is letting me see a panoramic vision. And I see this person on their knees praying.

And the person on their knees praying was me. I'm seeing me. And that person praying was me before the Lord breathed on me saying I want to see Your glory. I guess this vision has carried me through more tests than anything next to the Word. And before I knew a lot of the Word, the vision carried me through. This vision and I'm telling you a lot of places when it looked like it was hopeless and helpless and I'd never come out of it, this vision carried me through before I knew a lot of the Word to help me to carry me through.

The word should be the thing that carries you through, but a lot of times until you know the Word, God will give you a dream or a vision to help you. So here this person is suspended in space looking at somebody praying. And that somebody was me. And then the Lord let me go from suspended into space into me praying and look out the eyes of what I was seeing while I was praying.

And I saw just if you've ever been up in a jet plane and on top of clouds and it's just clouds like big snow? Well, that's the way it was, just clouds, a platform of clouds. And all of a sudden, I saw this person standing on the clouds with his hands out like this with his back to me. A long flowing white gown. And from the side of his head was beams coming out. You know, it's been a lot of cloudy here lately, if you looked up and saw the beams coming through the clouds. Well, that's the way it was, but these are shining beams like the sun.

It would be just like as if you looked at the sun and then took a circle and what they do, an eclipse, and just let you see the beams coming off. These beams were just shining off of this person who's blazing up there anyhow, like he's standing in a big white fire. And beams just coming out. And I felt myself thinking, "That's the Lord and His glory and I'm seeing the back parts like Moses."

But I wanted to see the whole deal. Somebody said you're going to die. Who cares if you die? What a way to go! Hallelujah! What a way to go! And all of a sudden, this person like a ballet, what do they call it, a pirouette when they come around, started a pirouette like this. And I felt the apprehension in myself, "If I see the face, I'm going to die!" and myself does this, puts the hands over the eyes.

In the meantime, the person still pirouetting around and myself, curiosity killed the cat. Myself wanted to see it anyway and this is what myself did. Sometimes God will make a dream comical. I did this number, I could see myself see, here I was back over here now seeing myself doing this. I'm jumping from seeing myself and in myself seeing this vision.

So, here I am seeing myself doing this number and all of a sudden I jump from seeing myself doing that number into me looking at it with these eyes. And you know what I saw? I saw the most beautiful creature in the universe. Man, almost 40 years ago I got this thing and it's been the anchor to keep me. And I'm going to fulfill it. Yes sir, I'm going fulfill it. See, because the Lord wasn't only showing me the glory of the Lord, He was showing me our glorified body at the same time.

And I saw this gorgeous, beautiful person. I can't find words to describe the beauty of this person. And I don't mean physical beauty, I mean you know, the nose is so pretty and the eyes. I don't even know what the nose or the eyes, the only thing I can remember was the smile. And I looked like the cat that ate a dozen canaries and got away with it. He was just smiling and the beams, the beams, the glory was just radiating and shining. I could feel it start to come out of my face now.

Now, if the Lord would have transferred the vision one more step and let me go into that person with the shining face and the smile and see what he was looking at, He'd have never got me back. I don't know how He has ever got me back now. I don't know. I do know I was looking at the city Heaven in that vision. Or this person was. Isaiah said the eyes not seen, the ears not heard, neither entered the hearts of men the things that God's prepared for them that love Him.

Paul brought it over in 1 Corinthians, second chapter, but God has showed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, the deep things of God. There's some people that's got out in the Spirit. Paul saw it, for he was caught up there. And John saw it and gave us a description, but still you got to get it in the Spirit and read Revelation with him and walk the streets. And you know who I saw? I saw R.G.H. with his glorified body standing at the entrance of the Golden City of God and looking at it in all of its majesty.

And I wanted to look back and tell that part of me on earth it's going to be worth it, boy, hang in there. No matter how tough it gets, how hard the battle is, this light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more and an exceeding weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen eternal.

Now, all the time that God has been communicating to Moses, He's been talking to him face to face. But not with the outward manifestation of His inward essence. And the Hebrew said He talked to him lip to lip. Moses and God were so close they would lip one another. God said, "If there's a prophet or a seer in Israel, I'll reveal Myself to him in dreams and visions, but not so with my prophet Moses. I will talk to him face to face as a man with his friend."

And that's what they told Jesus, we know Moses seen God, but we don't know whether you have. And Moses wanted to see God's face with all of His glory on it, because here he's been lipping with Him all these years. And God said, "No man can see My face," and I'll put the ellipsis in "with My glory on it and live." Because no man can go up to the sun, look at it without being disintegrated.

And when God turns on his seven times brighter than the sun, it'll burn your eyes right out of your head. In fact, it would atomize you. That's what Jesus does when He comes back, He destroys them with the brightness of His coming. And Zachariah said they're going to see Him and their eyes are going to consume in their socket and their tongue in their mouth and their flesh is going to melt off like an atomic reaction. No more than you could exist getting up lip to lip with the sun that close within a few inches and live.

No more can you in this natural body get that close to God and let Him turn on all that full candle power without being atomized. That's why we got to get a glorified body, not only to see the glory, but to contain the glory. I wasn't saved very long, probably about six weeks when God give me this revelation. I was reading this in Exodus about Moses wanting to see God's glory. I'd been fasting most of the six weeks.

Because when God saved me, I just knew you had to fast and pray. And I was so high in the Spirit and I read that Moses wanted to see God with His glory on. God said, "No mortal man, no man of flesh especially in his unregenerated state, fallen, can behold my face with my glory on and live."

He said, but there's a hollow of a cleft in the rock and I'm going to stick you in the hollow of the rock. I'll put My hand on you. How long is God's arm? Because He's going to have His hand on the rock and pass by and the more He passes by, the longer His arm gets. Is that right? Because He kept him covered. I mean, how can you pass by somebody, especially my little arm, me and Omar, we couldn't pass very far our hand would come off. So, the longer the Lord walked, the longer His arm got.

All right and let's read it now, I got you all set up. 33:18, "And he said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee." Now, what did God say? Now, what did Moses say? Show me your glory. And God said, I will make all my goodness, which is His glory, which contains His glory, pass by you.

Now, let me give you the definition of the word glory. In the Hebrew, it's kabod. Remember when the sons of Eli desecrated the temple and Eli died and God wrote one on the door? Ichabod, which meant the glory has departed. Kabod is the word for glory in Hebrew and in the Greek it's doxa, D-O-X-A, doxa. And the word glory means that by which a person or a thing is known, his reputation. So you're known by your reputation or that by which a person or a thing is known, his recognition.

So therefore, when we say give God His glory, we are saying give God His recognition. And when you recognize God as the supreme being, recognition of worship belongs to Him, so you worship Him. And serve Him. You see, when you give God His recognition, you recognize Him as God, which means owner and master. And two things you owe to Him: you owe to Him worship and obedience.

And if you do not obey God, even though you worship Him, you are not recognizing God. He's not your God or you would obey Him. Gods are to be obeyed and to be worshipped. And if you don't do that, you are not giving Him His glory or recognition. And Moses was saying, let your recognition pass by. You see, Jesus laid aside His glory or recognition as God. And nobody that He grew up or come in contact with could recognize that He was God. They were all called him a man. The Lord had no problem proving His humanity, He had a problem proving His deity.

Because He laid aside the outward manifestation of His inner reality. That's what He emptied Himself of. So I'm going to lead you up to it. So now, Moses says let Your recognition pass by. And if you ever saw God's recognition, you wouldn't have to say who's that that went by? "I will make all my goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy."

"And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away mine hand and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen."

Now, what was God's recognition? What was God's glory that He was going to make pass by? "I will make all of my goodness," because God is known for being good. In fact, good is a synonym for God, there's none good but God. That came out of the mouth of Jesus. When the Pharisee came up to Jesus and said, "Good Master," He said, "Wait a minute, are you attributing to me deity? There's none good but God, think what you're saying." He knew they weren't, but He was going to try to get them in the corner to make His decision.

Now, let's read this starting at His goodness. "I will make all my goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my..." Okay, now part of God's recognition is goodness and mercy and graciousness. That's what God's known by. As well as His outward glowing. The glory, the outward glowing is the secondary part of His recognition.

The inward part was He's good, He's merciful, He's gracious, He's kind, He pardons, He gives grace. And His name, how many say Amen? You see, God is known by His name, which we call Jehovah, which is Yahweh, which means I will be what I will be. I hope you're getting what God was making pass by here. You see, you can recognize God because He's always was God, always is God, and always will be God.

Better translation of that, I will be what I will be because of the fact I am. So God's recognition is not only in the outward blaze that would burn up Moses in his present earthly condition, but His recognition is His goodness, His mercy, His grace, and the meaning of His name, I will be what I will be. And I like to do it this way, I will be what I was because I am. And that means the same yesterday, today, and forever.

All right now, we're going to go back to Philippians. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus the Lord, that was in the essential essence of deity, which meant outwardly He shone and was majestic looking. And no human could look at him in the human form and survive His face, no more than you can look at the sun. But His inward essence was goodness, mercy, grace and from everlasting to everlasting. From everlasting to everlasting, thou art the object of worship and obedience, Thou art God.

Now, though He was in the highest order, to use this inferior word, the social strata, He was the highest. He was not only higher than the Greek and the Jew, He was higher than the angels, He was the highest of all. He was the most high and is the most high. He made Himself of what? Read the Word. He made Himself of no reputation. He laid aside what He was known by, reputation. He laid aside the outward manifestation of His inward deity.

If He'd have been born in that manger, they wouldn't have had to have a star to guide them. The manger would have been all lit up from His face. And whenever we see the heathen drawings of the Lord and the baby, what do they put on it? A halo of the sun god. That's really the sun god. His face didn't glow. He laid that aside. He laid aside His outward recognition. He laid aside His glory.

What was the thing that Jesus prayed for in John the 17th chapter and such after He got done interceding, fulfilling His priesthood? You see, He was starting His priesthood then. His prophetic ministry stopped now, His priesthood was starting in that He was going to have to offer up a sacrifice, which was going to be Himself. And being the High Priest as well as the Lamb, He began to intercede for all the people, His brethren in the 17th chapter of John.

And when He got done, what did He ask the Father? He said, "Father, return unto Me the glory that I had with Thee before the world was." Now, He wasn't talking about omnipotence and all that because for three and a half years He was demonstrating in that. John 3:33 said, "The Father loveth the Son and put all things into His hand." He wasn't talking about that. For the Father giveth not the Spirit to Him by measure. He wasn't talking about receiving the miracle power to do signs and wonders, He already had it and He was doing it.

He said return unto me my recognition, the world has not recognized me, they still haven't recognized him. Said the only ones that have recognized me and give me my true recognition of worship and obedience is those that thou hast given me out of the world and I've kept everyone and none's but lost but Judas that the scripture might be fulfilled. We knew that he would fulfill it and we chose him, we didn't make him, we knew he would fit it.

He wanted His outward expression returned. Jesus, the Word when He took on flesh, could not be any lesser God than He was before. In fact, Paul said that in His body dwelt all of the fullness of the Godhead bodily in the human manifestation. And what He was praying for was that outward manifestation of His inward essence.

And when John saw Him on the rocky Isle of Patmos, He had His outward manifestation of what He really was truly on the inside. And John wasn't laying on His bosom, John was falling down at His feet. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus the Lord. I know we got out of the surface and got in a little bit this morning. Who subsisted in the very essence of deity, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. He didn't think it was a big deal to be equal of God, that's what he was.

You know, I don't think it's a big deal for me to be equal with man, that's what I am. That's just my nature. And He didn't have to go around saying, "Hey, I'm a God!" that's what He was. And somebody said that Jesus was created. Well, if he was created, he created everything he created himself and this verse said, "And he made himself of no reputation." He took away His recognition as God and He looked like any other man.

Okay, let's go on to the rest of the verse and it shows you that taking away His recognition means to put on another recognition. You see, the recognition that He had in Heaven, He laid that aside and now He's taking on the recognition of a human and they recognized Him as a human. And made Himself of no reputation or no recognition and took upon Him, here's the same word again, but this time in a different form, took upon Him the form of a servant.

And also the word morphe means your essential form that never can be relinquished. He never could cease to be God. He just laid aside and relinquished the recognition of it. He laid aside His recognition. That's when they looked at Him, they didn't recognize Him as God, they called Him a man. Said, "If you've seen Abraham, you ain't even 50 years old!" She said, "Before Abraham was, what? I am Jehovah." They knew what he meant when he said I am Jehovah and they wanted to stone him because he's making himself God.

And Jesus, even in His exalted state, will never be anything but the servant of the Godhead. Did you know that? He never relinquishes it. What kind of love does He have for us that He would go to such a change? The Creator would become a servant. He never relinquished His form becoming man and when He added, see, He never gave up anything, He added things. He added a form of a servant.

He wasn't made like man, He was made in the likeness of men because man was a sinner. He took on the flesh like man, but the sinless flesh. In other words, He took on humanity, but it was sinless like Adam was before he sinned. He was made in the likeness of man. In other words, He was made a human being. And being found in a fashion of a man. The word fashion really means here the outward mode.

Or another words, the word fashion would mean like a nurse's habit, they could have translated being found in the habit of a man. A habit, you know what a nurse's habit is? Her uniform. A soldier's habit. That by which a soldier is known, that by which a nurse, you can tell who a nurse is can't you? You can go to a hospital and you can pick the nurses out from all the visitors can't you? Why? Because they got a habit on. You can tell a nun can't you? You can put one nun in the middle of a thousand people and you pick the nun out because she's got what? A nun's habit on.

And when you put Jesus amongst a million people, you couldn't pick Him out because He had man's habit on. He didn't shine. He just looked like any other human being. He was made in the likeness of man, which means He was human yet sinless, but yet He had their habit, their flesh and blood body. I'm going to put on God's habit! One of these days, I'm going to take and put off man's habit and I'm going to put on the habit that God walks around in.

So, Jesus made Himself of no recognition by taking off His God habit. And He was made like man, a human being, and He put on their habit. And He walked amongst men just like any other man. And He was the same lot as men: He had to eat and He had to drink and He got tired and He got weary and He longed for human consolation from when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And the battle got great, He went to Peter, James, and John for human help and they were sleeping. How many say Amen? The human side that was a battle in His natural man, not His spiritual man. He wanted to be understood, He wanted friends. That's what it meant in Romans, the eighth chapter about the third verse, let's ride right into it. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

No longer according to the law of sin and death, but after the law of the spiritual life in Christ. For what the law, what the Ten Commandments couldn't do because it was weak through humanity, God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Not like sinful flesh, likeness. So, here is this high majestic being whom we now know as the Son of God. He didn't become God's Son until 2,000 years ago.

And He didn't become Jesus until 2,000 years ago. He was always the Word. And He didn't become Jesus the man, His human side, until He took on humanity and God begot Him and He became God's Son. Because there's a doctrine going around that He's the eternal son. No, He didn't become the son till 2,000 years ago. He was the Word of God. He was never revealed before His incarnation as the Son, He was revealed as the Word. In the beginning was the Word because that's a dative past in the Greek, which means in the beginning the Word had always been.

So Paul is arguing with us to be humble and citing the classic case to humility of Jesus. And He said if Jesus was in the form of God, would humble Himself to become the lowest of all the social order, a servant, how much more should we who were nothing but vile, dirty sinners humble ourselves so that we can reverse the process. Isn't that beautiful?

And the thing that really, I mean, you need to get into these verses and check them in the Greek, you'll go crazy. Pray and fast, be sure you're high in the Spirit to get it and it'll blow your mind. You see the form is your essential nature and you never relinquish that. So when Jesus became man, He could not cease to be God, but He just laid aside the outward recognition of it by veiling it with the habit of flesh.

But then Peter, James, and John and John said, but we beheld His glory. Said we went up to the tent door and we looked in. Said, "This is more than a man. I see through this habit, I see the recognition. I recognize Him as my Lord and my Savior and my God!" Hallelujah! Because the 14th verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of John said, "And the Word was made," and a bad word in English.

He wasn't made nothing, He became. The Greek word said He became, He added something. And the Word became human. And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. It should have been translated tabernacled. And the Greek word for tabernacle is spelled S-K-E-N-E and in the English we take the E and make it an I and drop the E on the end and we make it skin.

And the Old Testament, God dwelt in goats and sheep skin in the tabernacle in the wilderness. In the New Testament, God dwells in human skin because God spread a tent of human skin around Him. In the Old Testament He spread a tent of goat and sheep skins around Him and put a veil so you couldn't see it. But in the New Testament, He put a human skin around Him and veiled that glory.

And if you got in the Spirit, because it don't hurt the spirit man, you could see that He was God and you could recognize. So we could translate the verse: "And the Word became skin and spread His tent of skin and we beheld, went up to the tent door and looked in and we beheld His recognition as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And over out of His grace have we all received and grace and there's a whole lot more!" Hallelujah!

So anything God asks you to do, even though you think it's below your position, you do it. Because even though it was below Jesus' position, He did it. And it wasn't a temporary thing, He is an eternal servant of the Godhead. That's the part that blew my mind. He loved me so much that He laid aside His equality and became an eternal servant of the Godhead. He's able to save to the uttermost seeing this is another verse that God blew my mind on, seeing that He what? Ever liveth to do what? To be a High Priest to make intercession. He ever liveth to make intercession. He's in that High Priest office, thou art a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. He's an eternal priest, so He's a servant. He's the servant of the Godhead forever. He ever liveth to make intercession.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. I trust you have been inspired by this beautiful message by God's servant Brother Hardy, "God Became Man." Truly great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh. This message can only cause us to love our Lord Jesus even greater, as we come to understand a little bit better what He did when He laid aside His deity, His equality with God, and made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and made in the fashion of a man.

This enabled him to become to us an able and merciful and faithful high priest. The one and only mediator between God and man is the man Christ Jesus. This wonderful message would make an excellent addition to your spiritual library. It is available on CD. And when you order "God Became Man," we will send you the bonus message "The Relinquishment and Restoration of God's Glory."

Ask for offer number 135 and send a love gift of $15 or more for the radio ministry. Our mailing address is R. G. Hardy Ministries, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Or if you prefer to order online at rghardy.org, that's rghardy.org. Once again, our offer is 135. It is a 2-CD set. You will receive both messages: "God Became Man" and "The Relinquishment and Restoration of Christ's Glory." Send your love gift of $15 or more to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. This is Sister Sharon Knotts saying until next time, Maranatha.