SCHOOL OF THE SPIRIT
Walter Beuttler

Comments:

1)       All scriptures are from the KJV except where noted.

2)     This message has been transcribed word for word (from Walter Beuttler's own teachings) as accurately as possible (due to the quality of the recording).

3)      Walter Beuttler had his own dictionary of favorite words that he used throughout his messages, and they have been transcribed and spelled out accordingly.

4)     Spelling on certain proper names, airports, hotels, locations, etc. may not be exact.

5)      Messages were spoken late 1960's, early 1970's.

6)     Walter Beuttler was a Bible teacher at NBI (a.k.a. EBI, Eastern Bible Institute) for 32 years traveling worldwide since early 1950's until a year before he went to be with the Lord in 1974.

TUITION

Now then, 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’ll be going back to that thought this morning and also this evening.

You remember the other night I gave you one evening particularly on the school of the Spirit.  We’re going to go back to that.  We’ll also go back to Isaiah 50, and take again this remarkable verse 4, but this time going beyond it.

Now you recall that I had mentioned that the prophet here is speaking of Christ as though Christ Himself was the speaker.  So in your mind you can say, or can realize that here is Christ speaking for the prophet is here using Christ’s words.

The Lord God hath 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 wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine 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.”

Now 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.”

Now again 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 that, in fact, 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 here of a few scriptures to let Jesus speak for Himself.  Now I cannot go into this in detail.  That would take about an hour and a quarter and we can’t 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 Christ, and for that matter, the secret behind any ministry of the Spirit by anybody that 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 spake like this man.” Now this wasn’t said by Jesus.  I’ll come to that momentarily.  But some officers, some soldiers were sent to arrest Jesus.  The Pharisees, out of sheer envy for His success, had sent to arrest Him.

Any man 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.”

So here in line with this, these officers were sent to arrest Jesus.  Apparently, they had some decency about them.  They didn’t barge right 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 couldn’t 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 spake like this man.”  “Why, we couldn’t arrest Him.  That man had such marvelous truth, we couldn’t 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’ll let Jesus answer.

“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, (that’s the crucifixion of course), then shall ye 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’s why Isaiah wrote, “The Lord God hath 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.  Well He did have a first-class education, but 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’ll 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 unto Me, so I speak.”  John 12:49-50

“...I have not spoken of myself...”  Now he didn’t 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.  Of course He did.  He came to proclaim Himself, His work.  What He was saying was, “I have not spoken on my own initiative,” or “I have not spoken on mine 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 unto me, so I speak.”

Jesus attributed the things He said to His Father.  Now really, He ought to know.

Notice Matthew 13:54, that 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 hath 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 hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.  But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”  Matthew 13:54-58

Now the people had asked what has been asked many times since, “Whence then hath this man all these things?”  Well Jesus had told them right along, but somehow, they did not believe what He said.

Now we come to Matthew 7:28-29:

“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 didn’t borrow what He had to say from a lot of books where He put things together in a nice way, but they recognized 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 didn’t equivocate when He spoke.

And so they raised the question, “When then hath this man all these things?” Well He had told them, “As the Father hath 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.  And that secret you have in capsule form in the scripture we read in Isaiah 50:4, “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of them that are taught.”

I was speaking in one place.  I think I did it here already in Auckland, but I spoke in one place on “Treasures of Darkness.”  And somebody came up and said:

“Brother Beuttler, where did you get that message?”

I said, “Oh, 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 I use, “God’s School in the Wilderness” and “God’s Way in the Wilderness.”  Well, 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 trouble is a lot of people, 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.  There each individual that 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’d like to know what the tuition is while we’re at it.  I have it listed last, but I’ll take it right now.

Going back to Isaiah 50 again and continuing to read in the same verse:

“He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.”  But he doesn’t stop there - notice here, “The Lord God hath opened mine ear.”  Whew!  In the Hebrew it reads, “The Lord God hath picked mine ear.”

I took someone once to a doctor because the party couldn’t hear out of one of the ears.  So I took the party to the ear specialist.  He looked into that ear and said, “Uhm, I’ll have to pierce the eardrum to drain some infection out.  Are you willing to have your eardrum pierced?”

The party said, “Yes.”

So the doctor took her.  I wasn’t 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.

Now look here folkses.  Don’t stand up and say, “Brother Beuttler, that isn’t in the dictionary.”  I know that, but I can’t help it.  I have my own dictionary.  That’s why some things are deliciousmous.

There is such a thing as a surgical operation performed by God, spiritually speaking.  “Mine ear hast thou 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 harkeneth.

Do you remember Solomon?  God said to him, “Ask what I shall give thee?”  Whee!  What a thing for God to say to a man, “Ask what I shall give thee?”  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 thee?  How much can we ask?  Well, lets make a shopping list: a Rolls Royce.”

I don’t know.  Do you have these cars down here what we call in the States, the Eldorado?

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, “You use my Eldorado to drive around anywhere you like. It’s filled up with gas.”  Whewee!  I thought I was in a Pan American 747.  I still don’t know how to drive the thing.  Oh, I drove it all right.  All right?  I was scared stiff.  Of all the gadgets in that thing, everything electrified.  I never learned all the switches and buttons and what have you.

We drove up to the hotel one day.  We had a morning service.  I will never forget that.  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.”  I don’t know, but that’s what they looked like.  They looked at that thing.  They walked by.  They looked back again.  They took it all in.  Well, we had to give it up again.

Solomon didn’t ask for an Eldorado.  What would we ask for?

Look here.  The answer we give to God will be a pretty reliable index as to our real relationship to God.

Solomon didn’t ask for a Rolls Royce.

Don’t be smart and say, “Hey preacher, they didn’t have them.”  I know that, but you have to understand; he didn’t ask for something material.

He gave God a wonderful answer, “Give thou thy servant an understanding heart.”  In the Hebrew it’s variously translated.  I use different translations and they are so helpful to me.

“Give thou thy servant a hearing heart.”

Another has it, “Give thou thy servant a hearing ear.”

And the very thought of it is, “Give thou thy servant a picked ear...give thou thy servant 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.”

Now some ears simply need cleaning out, other ears need something more serious or at least 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 we will never understand, has never been explained.  But He said, “Mine ear has thou picked.”

Oh you know, there is a lot to that, folks.  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’ve seen here weren’t any better.  Now we don’t watch it.  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’re 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.  Oh yea!  Well, I didn’t know what it was like.  I picked it up and soon found out.  What smut!  What smut!  I said to the saleslady, “Say, 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.  Aren’t you glad you’re in New Zealand?  You didn’t get that one.  Never mind.

“Mine ear has thou picked.”

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’s some worldly matter in there that doesn’t belong there that will interfere with your ability to hear the things of the Spirit.”

“The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious.”

Whew!  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.  Oh that’s just what I want.  That was wonderful.  That was, that was...Thank you...We like more of it.” All right, here’s more of it! (Laughter) - The tuition!  The price tag!

When Jesus saw what the cost would be, He didn’t rebel.  He didn’t 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.”

Say, we took communion this morning.  What do you suppose that means?  Folkses!  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 ye 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.”  That’s part of the price tag.

When Jesus realized what it would mean, He couldn’t rebel.

I remember a girl in Bible school when I was a student in 1927.  That’s a long time ago, isn’t it?  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, “Well, I thought it was.”

“Go on you.  That’s not the Spirit.  You’re 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 didn’t smite her with the hand, but they did smite her with the tongue.

If you’ve ever read the Apocrypha, it says there:

“The stroke of the whip make the marks in the flesh, but the stroke of the tongue breaketh 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 it was 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’d 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 and to the cookoo house.

“I gave my back to the smiters.”  Whew!

“And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.”  People that “pick on you.”  Oh yea.

I could tell you a story I don’t think you’d 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, it could be more than that.  I know what it is, at least for a week.  People look down their noses, “Fasting and prayer?  He needs to see someone in psychology.  That’s obsolete, fasting and prayer.”

I’ll have to close.

I gave you a little glimpse, only a little glimpse, into the tuition of these things.

“The Lord God hath opened mine 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

That’s it for this morning.  We’ve barely started.  We’ll see what we can do for tonight.

Understandeth thou this?  Believest thou this?  Believest thou this?  Can you say just the same, “I have set my face like a flint, for the Lord God will help me”?