Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings friends and new listeners. Welcome to the show. I'm Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today on the Sound of Faith because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

In today's exciting message, Portal of Glory, I will be sharing the story of my recent breast cancer diagnosis and how the Lord sealed my heart with His supernatural, unsurpassed peace from the first day of my journey, during which God gave me a phenomenal dream of a portal of glory from which radiated streams of energy into my body. Stay tuned for Portal of Glory.

R. G. Hardy: He said this is the house of God and he named it. This is Bethel. Bait El, Bethel. Bait is house and El is God. This is the house of God and this is the gate of heaven. This is a portal into God's glory. He saw the connection between heaven and earth and God and man. God is not a far off. I hope if you don't get anything else from this today that you understand God is not a far off. Amen. He is very nigh unto us and many do not realize how real the heavenly realm is because they're so earthbound.

They're so carnal. They're so natural minded, they're so fleshly minded. They're caught up with the amusements of the flesh. I'm not talking about being sinners out in the world. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about living on a carnal natural plane. They that are of the spirit mind the things of the spirit and they that are of the flesh mind the things of the flesh. And he says if you want to mind the things of the flesh, well, that's death or separation from God. But if you mind the things of the spirit, it's life and peace. It's life and Shalom. Amen.

And so many people are so caught up in the natural. What am I going to wear? What am I going to eat? Let's go out here, let's go on this vacation, let's do this, let's go there, let's do the other. And their whole lives are consumed with that. I am not denigrating any of those things. The part of the dream I didn't tell you about was a place of vacation, a place where people had come. I knew in the dream they had come to get away from the stress of the world and to get some R and R. I think the Lord was telling me, you know you can't just go, go, go, go, go.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking. Sister Sharon doesn't even drive a car. How she go, go, go? You can't go, go, go if you don't drive, right? If I was still driving I'd probably be at the mall, I'd be at this store, I'd be at that store. We got to go to this store and get groceries here because I can save on coffee. But then I got to go over to this store because then I can save on sugar at this store. But no, if I go to this store I'm going to save on chicken. So we're going to go to all the stores. That's what I used to do.

Now I had a family of five and I used to do that. But you can't spend time in the Bible, in the word of God. You can't preach and teach and you can't have messages and all doing that. So my losing my ability to drive in the beginning was a bitter pill. But boy later on I saw I don't have that temptation to run all over and shop like a crazy person. So but the point I was going to say is this. Just because I don't drive doesn't mean I don't go, go, go.

I'm working on so many things all at once. I have a very multi-tracked mind and I thank God for it. I'll be working, I got to preach Sunday morning, got to get that message. Okay, now I got to get the message for the magazine. And don't forget you got to get the blog for the website. And don't forget when I was doing them, I've done 366 of them. You don't just pull them out of the air. Amen. And do the radio announcements, figure out what needs to go on the radio. Oh well we need to put that on a CD. Oh well then we need to give it a name. Oh we got to do the tracks and name them.

So it's go, go, go, go. It's a mental thing going, going, going. I'm not doing physical gymnastics but I'm going and going and going and that can equal stress. Not stress that I would complain about because I love to do it. I love every job I do with all my heart. I'm not stressed out that oh I don't want to do this. I love to do it but the fact is at some point you got to have R and R. Amen. But there are some people that that has become the focus of their lives. They've got more and more R and R and more and more amusements than they do time with the Lord.

Oh you like the glory part, don't you? You want the glory. You want me to tell you that the heavens will open and the glory will come down. But you have got to have a heart like Jacob did for the things of God. Amen. And he saw that staircase, that ladder, the link between heaven and earth and the link between God and man. And you know folks we know who the ladder is. In the time I have left turn with me to John the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Amen.

I love this story so Lord help me not to park too long on some of the points and run out of time. John 1:43. The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find Philip and said unto him, follow me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. And Philip findeth Nathanael and said unto him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. The son of whom? Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, can there be any good thing come out of Nazareth? Really? And Philip said to him, well come and see or come see for yourself.

Now Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and said of him, behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile. Nathanael said unto him, whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, before that Philip called thee when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. And Nathanael answered and said unto him, Rabbi, thou art the son of God. Hmm. Thou art the king of Israel. And Jesus answered and said unto him, because I said unto thee I saw you under the fig tree, believest thou? Ha. Thou shalt see greater things than these.

And he, that is Jesus, said unto him, that is Nathanael, verily, verily I say unto you, hereafter you shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man. Jesus said I am the ladder. I am the staircase. Let's look at this for a moment. Jesus had already called James and John and Peter and Andrew and then he called Philip and Philip right away became an evangelist. And he says, ah let me go tell my buddy Nathanael. And he went to Nathanael's house. Says it didn't say he went to his house there. Well I'll tell you that in a moment why I believe he did.

And he came and he said, I want you to come and see this man. He is the exact one that Moses prophesied would come, that all the prophets said would come. He this is the man. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. And with skepticism Nathanael said, really? Nazareth? What's going to come out of Nazareth? Very quickly let me just tell you that Nazareth was one of the cities on Galilee but it was up on the hill. So therefore you had to go there on purpose. You didn't just pass through it.

And the people that went and made that city was a clan of family members that were in the direct line of the kings of Israel. And so when they came back from captivity, remember that Israel went into captivity and her kings were taken off the throne and that was the end of that kingdom. When they came back from captivity which took place over hundreds and hundreds of years, this particular clan decided to found a city that was kind of off the beaten track. They did not want to draw attention to themselves basically.

It was a family they kind of intermarried amongst themselves because they knew by then that Rome had put Herod on the throne as the king of the Jews. And that man was insanely jealous. He killed his wife, he killed his sons because he was jealous thinking they were going to try to get his throne. The man was in- you saw what he did to the babies in Bethlehem. So they built this city up there because they did not want to put a target on themselves because Herod might get the great idea, I'm killing all of them because they're in the direct line of the kings of Israel, the line of David.

So he was like really? Nazareth? What's going to come out of Nazareth? In other words, it's a no-count place. It's very unimportant and you expect me to believe the Messiah, the prophet that Moses talked about is going to come from Nazareth? Amen. He asked a skeptic's question. But here's the difference between him and many skeptics today. He was willing to seek it out. When Philip said, well you just come and see for yourself, he came. There are skeptics today they don't want to know the answer. They just want to go around with their rhetorical questions and they don't want to know the answer. They won't take the time to search it out.

But Nathanael, though he was a skeptic, he came. And when Jesus saw him afar off, he said there is a true Israelite in whom there is no guile. And the word guile there literally means bait for fish. It means what you put on the bait on the lure to to catch the fish. Amen. And that's what skeptics are. They have these questions and they word them in such a way, they'll word them to try to trap somebody to make them look bad in their answer. And they do it because they don't want to give them a chance to speak freely and truly because if they do, then great wisdom and truth will come out of them. And they want to shut them down. So they're wise and they know how to manipulate people.

But God's got Apostle Pauls for them kind of folks. He's got some Pauls for them kind of folks. Today he's got some men that write books like Josh McDowell and others for those kinds of people and Lee Strobel. Amen. But Jesus said this is a true Israelite. He didn't mean, well he's really a son of Abraham, he's a Jew. No, he said what a true Israelite should be, the characteristics, the moral character of a true Jew or child of God is someone who's got a pure heart. He said he's asking this question but he's not doing it out of manipulation. He is genuine in his doubt.

Amen. He's got a pure heart and his questions and his doubts are genuine. And that's the difference between so many today. All that Nathanael needed was clarification. And when people ask you or you yourself for that matter have doubts, it's okay to go to God with your doubts as long as you're not doing it out of a hardened heart, a stubborn heart or a carnal heart. If you go with a truly humble heart, you can ask the Lord your doubts because he realizes you need clarification. You're not looking for a stumbling block, you're looking for a stepping stone.

And the Lord will oblige you just like Jesus did. And so Nathanael said, how do you know me? And Jesus said, oh before Philip even got to your house I saw you sitting under the fig tree. Now here's the significance of sitting under the fig tree. It's in the prophets that you could read yourself in Micah and some others but it's also in the Jewish writings. It meant that they were in their own house because God said I will bless you bring you into the land give your own house and you'll sit under the fig tree. Meaning you're on your own property, you're blessed, you have all that you need.

But it also was, this is in the Jewish writings, where the Jewish men, the Rabbis and such, would sit under the fig tree and read their Bibles, the Torah and pray. Remember these people lived in a tropical climate and they had no air conditioning. So the fig tree, as I've told you in other messages, is a tree with huge leaves. That's why Adam and Eve used it to make their underwear. They're big leaves. That means they're great shade trees. So the custom was for men to sit under the shade of the fig tree and have their private devotions.

And so Jesus said, I saw you sitting under the fig tree. Amen. I saw you there. Now what was Nathanael doing? I just told you what he might have been doing. It's a good possibility that's exactly what he was doing. Amen. So what did Jesus see and hear? Maybe he heard him when he said later about, uh how can anything good come out of Nazareth? Or maybe he saw him reading his Torah and he was reading Genesis 28 and he was reading where Jacob saw the heavens open up and the ladder from heaven come down and angels ascending and descending on it.

Think about that for a moment. And while that's incubating in your mind, let me throw this little tidbit out there that I read in the Syriac writings. It claims that when Nathanael was an infant he was an infant in Bethlehem. And when Herod put out the edict to kill all the babies under age two he was in the city at that time. But his mother went and hid him under a fig tree and he was spared. Now whether that was part of the equation I don't know. But one thing I know for sure is that Jesus said something and communicated something to Nathanael.

It had to be something specific because as soon as he did he said, oh you are the son of God. Now Philip had already claimed him as Messiah but he called him the son of Joseph. And now Nathanael went from skepticism to revelation. He was the one that said you're the son of God. That's why I say if your skepticism is genuine it's okay. God will give you revelation. Amen. Many times I haven't understood something in the Bible and then God will let me hear somebody say something or I'll stumble on something I'll say that's the answer. That's what it means.

Amen. And so he went from skepticism to revelation and he said you are the son of God. How quickly he turned about because when you're a true skeptic all you need is truth and you're hooked. There are some people that want to know the truth. They're the ones I want to talk to. And the Bible says a heretic after one or two times just dismiss them and don't bother to talk to them anymore. But now Nathanael realized Jesus is the true Messiah, not the son of Joseph but the son of God. You see Jesus did not rebuke him for his doubt.

And how many know if you read when he talked to the Pharisees and the scribes and others he rebuked them sharply because they weren't genuine. They were crafting their words, one verse even says they were crafting their words how they could take Jesus in his words. But Jesus did not rebuke Nathanael for his doubts, he removed his doubts with the truth. Don't ever run from your doubts. If you have a sincere heart you don't have to run from your doubts. Amen. The devil will try to use those doubts to make you think the Bible's not true. You need to face them and bring them to the Lord. Amen.

That's for somebody here today. So rather just express them from a pure heart and a clean heart and God will respond with the answers and the truth that you need. So we saw here that Jesus claimed to be Jacob's ladder. Isn't that what he said? He said I'm telling you that if you are impressed because I told you that I saw what you were doing under the fig tree and that impressed you, Nathanael, you haven't seen anything yet. Oh I tell you the heavens are going to open, the glory portal is going to open and you're going to see the angels of God are coming down and ascending and descending on the son of man because I am the link between heaven and earth.

I am the link between God and man. He said in John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, the life. And no man comes unto the father but by me. I'm the ladder. I'm the staircase. I am the ladder that bridges the gap to God. The gap to God there was a gap there. We were in the wilderness of sin but Jesus came to bridge the gap. And I would go so far as to say that on the cross Jesus became Jacob's ladder. Amen. The staircase to heaven.

So I hope you're encouraged today to know that when you're in your severest of trials and you're out in the wilderness, amen, that your trust is in the God of Jacob. Amen. And you don't cast away your faith and you hold fast to the hand of God and we have so much more advantage than poor Jacob had because we got the scriptures, we got the word of God. We've got David's Psalms, my God. We've got the prophets, we've got Isaiah's words. Hallelujah, we've got all of the record of what God did for them and brought them out.

And then we've got the words of Jesus. Hallelujah, that he said I will not leave you nor forsake you. And we've got the record of his life how that he came to bridge the gap. Amen. We should not be discouraged and we can't let things get us down. There will always be bad reports. There will always be trauma coming in your life. There will always be something going wrong. But we need to know there's a ladder. Hallelujah, like the little kids sing. I'm climbing Jacob's ladder, one rung at a time. And when you get in your prayer closet that's when you're climbing that ladder. Amen.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. I hope you're enjoying this fantastic look into the heavenly realm that I experienced in Portal of Glory. This occurred a few days after I had surgery for breast cancer which had been found on a routine annual mammogram. It was very small and had not spread so a lumpectomy was done followed by radiation. Now this process took over five months and there were several curveballs thrown at me along the way. But from the first moment I was given the diagnosis, the supernatural peace of God that passes understanding invaded my heart and never left, even in times of uncertainty and Satan's attempts to bring fear.

To sum up my dream of the glory penetrating my being in just one word, it would be ecstasy. And the unusual declaration I kept making in the dream, Gloria Santiago, led me on a Google search that landed me in the wilderness with the Old Testament patriarch Jacob and his angelic ladder between earth and heaven. Don't miss one glorious nugget from Portal of Glory. Order on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK191.

Mail to Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203 or go online to soundoffaith.org where you can also order on MP3s. And when you order SK191 Portal of Glory, we will send you a bonus CD about my journey through breast cancer. Mail to Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying Maranatha.