Let’s Go On To Perfection
Let’s read just a little bit over in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12:
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons" for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure" but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees" And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way" but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God" lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled" Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words" which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.”
Paul uses the terms, “The great cloud of witnesses,” being encompassed by the great cloud of witnesses. He says this after Hebrews chapter 11 expounds to us faith. The sixth verse says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” That is, without believing in the Word, you are never going to be a Christian, or you are never going to please God. You have to believe in the Word of God. Faith cometh by the hearing of the Word of God and to believe in the Word of God is faith. The only way that you can prove that you have faith is that you practice the things that the ministry is teaching you. When you practice those things, then you believe.
Paul, in pointing out these things, tells us how terrible it was as to what happened in the days of Moses. All through the Bible, Moses is spoken of as the one who saw the hinder part of God. All through the Bible we’re told that there is a day wherein we shall see face to face. We’re told of an age of imperfection and then we are taught an age of perfection. So, we’re living in the age of perfection. Moses was in the day that was not an age of perfection. Things were imperfect. You probably would say, “Well, Brother Pike, what makes you think that and how can you prove that?” The only way to prove anything is by the Scripture. If the Scripture doesn’t say it, you don’t want to use it. The Bible says to those that were under the law, “And the comer thereunto could never be made perfect by the blood of bulls and goats.” But the blood of the Son of God perfects forever.
So then, we are living in the day of perfection. We are not an imperfect people. We’re living in imperfect times as to the world, but as to the church ages, we are not living in imperfect times, but we’re living in the time of perfection. That’s why the Bible tells us to go on to perfection. Don’t turn again to lay the foundation of repentance of dead works and faith toward God, but leaving the foundation of repentance, let’s go on to build the building. We’ve laid the foundation for the building in that we have repented. Now that we’ve laid a foundation of repentance, let’s go on to build. Let’s don’t keep going back, as it was with Esau, repenting over and over, doing the wrong things, thinking the wrong things, saying the wrong things and going back over and over to repent. For the Bible says, “Therefore leaving the foundations of repentance.” Let us get to the place where we don’t have to repent over and over. Instead of repenting, we can testify to the victory and say that our faith is that victory and that we are overcoming the world by our faith. The Bible says that who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ.
My faith is my victory, for the Bible says this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith. Believe that what He did in your behalf put the world away from you and took you away from the world. You have the victory in Christ, and this is the victory, even your faith. The Bible says us not to cast away thy faith which hath great recommence of reward, for after ye have done the will of God, ye have need of patience that ye might receive the promise. Once we have done the things that please God, then do we have confidence toward God, that whatever we ask of God, He heareth us, and then we know that if He heareth us, then we have the petition that we desire of God. So then, let us go on to be perfect in the sight of God, not laying the foundation of repentance over and over, but let us go on. Someone would say, “To what?” To the doctrine of baptisms, to the laying on of hands, to the resurrection of the dead, and these things will we do if God permit.
There are people that preach, “Leaving the foundation of repentance, let us go on.” They say to go on from the foundation of repentance and go on from the laying on of hands and go on from the resurrection of the dead and go on to something. They don’t ever say what, but that isn’t what the Scripture says. It said to go on to the laying on of hands. Paul said not to neglect the gift that is within thee that was given thee by the laying on of the hands of the presbyters, which means the elders. It tells us to go on to the doctrine of baptisms because there is a lot in baptism. There are numbers of baptisms that have to do with your salvation. For instance, there is the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the baptism of fire, the baptism in water. There is a baptism of suffering and on and on. Jesus, on one occasion, said to the disciples, “Can you be baptized with the baptism I’m baptized with?” They said, “We can.” He said, “You will.” They wanted to set one on the right hand and one on the left. He asked if they could measure up to His stature. We can measure up to the stature of the Lord Jesus by believing in His righteousness, for the Bible says that everyone that would be perfect shall be as his master, and the Bible says God hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, and sanctified them once and for all by the offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. Jesus said, “He that overcometh shall sit down in the throne with Me, even as I have overcome and set down in the throne with My Father.”
We see that we can go on to be perfect. I have brought out a number of times what it means to go on to be perfect and it’s not at all the way some people think, as to going on to perfection, because to them, going on to perfection is trying to work their way into an atmosphere, or a condition, where they are very holy and godly and because of this God will accredit this to them and they will be saved because they have been such good people. But I tell you, there won’t be anybody in heaven like that. The Bible says that no flesh shall glory in the sight of God, and the Bible teaches, as to keeping the law, that even though the Lord Jesus, Himself, kept every jot and tittle and Paul, himself, said he was blameless as touching the law, yet they could not be justified by the law or by their dos or don’ts or works, or whatever. If you are trusting in that to get to heaven, then you are sure to miss heaven. There’s no possible way, and I challenge anybody in the world, it doesn’t matter who they are or how long they’ve been in religion, to give me any Scripture to prove that they can get to heaven by doing good works, or by the things that they are doing. All of your works, in the sight of God, are like filthy rags. The very best you can do has nothing to do with life. Life is a spiritual thing. God is life and without God there is no life. The Bible says that if you have not God’s Spirit, then you don’t have any life and you’re none of His.
You’re none of His because God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are not alive if you do not have God’s Spirit. We find that being one with God, to have God’s Spirit, is to have life, and to have life is the seal of our new birth. We have been born again and we are not to grieve that Holy Spirit whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption. That is, Christ’s Spirit has become interwoven with my spirit and it has sealed my spirit so there will never be a stain within my angelic being. My body is now dead by the body of the Lord Jesus, and like a great angel with wings, I flew away into the heavenly places and there I abide with the Lord. I don’t ever return from that place. I’m always, day and night, in the heavenly places with God, for I am hid with Christ in God whom the heavens have received until the time of the restoring of all things.
So then, I am in heaven. I am with the Lord. I’ve passed from death unto life. My sins are gone. They are underneath the blood on the cross of Calvary, as far removed as darkness is from dawn. They’re in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. Praise God, my sins are gone. He that is born of God cannot sin, for Christ, the hope of glory, called the seed of God, remaineth in you and you cannot sin because you are born of God. He that is born of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not. There is no experience you have that gives you a new birth. I don’t care how good you try to be. I don’t care how often you go to church. I don’t care how many years you’ve tried to live for God. That has nothing to do with it. As God looks at it, it’s all filthy rags unless it is done as unto the Lord and if it is done as unto the Lord it is accepted. But not as works unto salvation. There are no works unto salvation except the works of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we speak of salvation, we speak of salvation by faith because this is the age of perfection. I have salvation by faith, and that faith is not my faith. I have salvation by His faith. The Bible says to contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints of God. That is to say, the Bible teaches that we were all children under tutors until the time appointed of the Father, shut up under the law, Paul said. All are shut up under the law until you come to your Christ experience, your Calvary experience. Shut up under the law unto the faith. Not until the faith, but unto the faith which afterward should be revealed. Not unto your faith which should afterward be revealed, because there has always been human faith from the foundation of the world. Adam and Eve had faith. You are not shut up unto your faith which afterward should be revealed. The human faith has already been revealed. The Bible says that sin had dominion over mankind. Though men had not sinned after the similitude of Adam, yet sin and death reigned over them even unto the law. The Bible says this continued until the seed, to whom the promise was made, came, and that seed, of course, was Jesus, for the Bible says, concerning Abraham, “In Isaac,” speaking of Jesus, “so shall thy see be called and all nations shall be blessed.” Not as unto seeds of many, as Brother Pike, Brother Taylor, and of you. Not as unto that, but as unto one, even Christ.
So, Christ is your hope of glory. It is Christ in you the hope of glory because Christ alone was made heir to the glory of God. If you don’t have Christ in you, you don’t have hope of that glory of God. The Bible says that God is the great light. God is a Spirit unto which no man can approach. No man has seen Him at anytime. The Son of God alone dwells within that light. That light means understanding, knowledge. He dwells in that light and no man can approach unto that light. So then, unless you can become bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, you don’t dwell in the light. It is unto Him that the promise is made. Therefore, for me to be a partaker of it, I have to be Him. He became me in death that I might become Him in life. He died out of the presence of God that I might live in the presence of God and He was made my sin that I might be made His righteousness in God. So, I find myself holy and godly and pure in body, in soul, and in spirit. Paul said, “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So then, I find myself holy in body for He said, “Be holy in body and spirit.” I find myself holy in spirit. I find myself holy in my soul, all because of the faith that was to be revealed to me after Calvary, the faith by which I’m sanctified.
I find myself with that faith that’s been revealed to me, by which I am sanctified, and this wonderful faith, having sanctified me, I am perfect forever. The Bible says that God has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. And He hath sanctified them once and for all by the offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus. The Scribes and Pharisees and others, always having done the works of the law, they asked Jesus, “And what must we do to work the works of God?” He said, “This is the works.” That is, I am the works. It was finished from the foundation of the world. Paul brings the costiveness to this, speaking in the affirmative by saying, “This faith needs no works, for this faith is without works. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith.” What faith? The faith of Jesus Christ. By faith, without works. The Bible says that blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. The Bible says that to wit that God, who is a Spirit, was in Christ, who is flesh and bone. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world back to Himself, as the ministry of reconciliation that He has given unto you and I in the time of His absence as a human body, to reconcile the world back to Himself. That is, through His works, through His atonement, through His efforts, reconciling the world back to Himself and not imputing their trespasses unto them. That’s why we can go to Jesus, our high priest, and we can pray, “Father, forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those that trespass against us.”
So then, we find ourselves free from sin. I know when I say this to people who have been brought up in church, they think that’s sacrilegious. But folks, if your salvation is dependent on your works, then let me inform you today, of all that I’ve ever seen in the religious world, in the Pentecostal world, in the Baptist world, in the Catholic world, and in the Methodist world, and I’ve preached around the world at different places, I have never found one godly, holy, pure person, ever! The Bible says that there are not any. All of them have gone astray. Every man has turned to His own way and the Bible says that God has laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all. He was bruised for our transgression, and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, by whose stripes we’re healed. So then, there is none good. He said, “No, not one.” All of them have gone astray. Every man has turned to his own way. The Bible says their thoughts are continually evil and their throat is like an open sepulcher. The Bible says their heart is continually thinking the wrong things. So then, I thank God that through Jesus Christ I’ve been redeemed. I’ve been redeemed by love divine, glory, glory Christ is mine. All to Him I now resign because I have been redeemed. I am waiting to wit the redemption of my body, but it isn’t because it hasn’t been redeemed, for the Bible teaches that Jesus redeemed it at Calvary, and speaks of it as the purchased possession and that the coming of His Spirit into our heart is the earnestness of our inheritance.
We’re being taught and tutored that we might comprehend the height, depth, width and length, to comprehend or to wit the redemption of our body. You were shut up under the law until you came to the faith, unto the faith. Paul was a Jew, and he’s speaking to the Jews and he’s says, “Brethren, you were shut up under the law unto Calvary, unto Christ Jesus, the perfect one, unto that which was perfect that was to come, unto that which is called the faith.” You were shut up under the law unto the faith, unto the faith of Jesus Christ which was coming, by which we were to be sanctified. Having been sanctified by that faith, then are we made perfect forever, and that not of works lest any man should boast, but it is the gift of God. We find out that there are no works required to have salvation. Someone would say, “Well, I have to repent to get salvation.” The Bible teaches that the gifts of God, which takes in the gifts of the Spirit and the gift of eternal life, that they are not given through repentance. If they were given through repentance, then millions of people in the world today who don’t live right would have eternal life, just like Esau would have gotten the birthright. Though Esau repented, he did not find the birthright. Though Judas repented, he did not find the birthright. If it was given through repentance, Judas and Esau could have repented and found those things.
So it’s not given through repentance. It is given by foreknowledge. The Bible says that ye are God’s elect by foreknowledge. That is to say, God foreknew what you would do in your lifetime as He looked down through the telescope of time, beholding your life before you ever came into the world. Like the prophet said, “I was called to be a prophet before I was ever formed in my mother’s womb.” As it was with Judas before he ever came into the world, the Bible says, “Let another his bishoprick take,” before he ever had a chance to do any good or evil. The Bible says, concerning Jacob and Esau, the children not yet being born, having done no good or evil, it was said, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” God foreseeing, even before you came into the world, the kind of attitude you would take when you heard the Word of God, or when you were confronted by the Word of God. He sent forth His Spirit crying, Abba, Father” into your heart. Today, everyone that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ can be saved. The Bible says, “Say not within thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven to bring Him down, or who shall descend into the heart of the earth to bring Him up?” It is nigh thee even in thine heart. If you shall confess with thy lips the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that God hath raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the lips confession is made unto this salvation. What a man speaketh cometh from his heart, and when he confesses, it is proof that the Spirit has taken up its abode within the heart.
That’s why the Bible says blessed is the man unto whom God will not impute sin. God, within Christ, imputing not their trespasses to them. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, whose iniquities are covered. Blessed is the man unto whom God imputeth faith for righteousness, without works in his life. We find that salvation has nothing to do with your works. Then the question arises again, “Then why is it that the Bible tells us to go on to perfection?” It does not tell us to go on to perfection that we might perfect our work so that we can be a Christian, or that we can have salvation. I want you to understand this clearly, brothers and sisters, that when a little child is born into the world, this little child does not have to go on to be a human being. He does not have to go on to have life. He does not have to go on to belong to your family. He is a human being. He has blood. He has life. He has eyes. He has hands. He is altogether a human being. He doesn’t have to go on so that he can be born into the world. He’s already born into the world. When God said to go on, He wasn’t talking to the world. He was talking to those that had been born again, who have been born again, the children of God, who are caught up to the throne when we’re born again. Immediately, the kingdom of God comes into our heart, our inner man is within the throne, or in the presence of God. The body is dead. The spirit goeth to God who gave it. There is a new birth, and the new birth is that angelic one that went to God who gave it, to live in the body of Jesus. So then, the Christ is born and it’s not you living but Christ, and the body of death and sin, even the devil’s image, as to the bastard child, is dead, buried, gone and taken away. You are then cut off from sin and any occasion from Lucifer is cut off from you.
When you are born again, you are just as much a Christian as you’ll ever be. You have eternal life just as much as you’ll ever have eternal life. You are a son of God as much as you’ll ever be a child of God. The Bible says that though we are a son of God, yet we are under tutors and differ nothing from a servant. We’re like a child that’s under guardians until the time appointed. We are under the tutors until the bar mitzvah, and then when the bar mitzvah comes, we are changed into that wonderful glory of God and we begin to be about our Father’s business, to take over all the wonderful things of God. In this world, you are still sons of God. You are still born again. God so loved you while you were yet in your sins that He gave His Son to shed His blood for you.
I ask again, how much more does God care for us now that we’re making an effort to serve Him? If the devil could not hold us when we were in our sins, in that the blood and love of God was so strong it just took us out of his hands, how much more should we be convinced as to the strength of the preservation and protection of God now that we’re born again and now we’re serving God? Nothing can separate you from the love of God. No one can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect. You are without spot, without wrinkle, and without blemish. What can separate you from the love that was so strong that it gave it’s only beloved Son, the dearest thing that heaven could afford? What can separate you from love like that?
So, we see that when God says to go on to perfection, He is not speaking of any of your works, as unto salvation, but of being sanctified daily. I say this again to you: sanctify yourself daily, not for salvation, for you’re sanctified once and for all for salvation by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the faith of Christ. I sanctify myself daily, by living a perfect life before God to the best of my ability, the blood taking care of all my staggering and stumblings, which we all do. I’m trying to perfect myself before God and sanctify myself daily by pulling away from the world, to come out from the world, to be a separate people, going on to be perfect, to the full measure of the full stature of Christ Jesus, to the full reward. I’m trying to do that to bring about the change of the church, as to bodily redemption, that which is already purchased, to bring it into harmony with God, to be able to hear the Word of God, to get the understanding that I might wit the redemption of my body, that we may come to the generation that will not be put into a casket. Death is conquered by you and for you through Christ Jesus, and yet it is the last enemy to be conquered, as to the world. When it is cast into the lake of fire, as to the millennium, then it is conquered. That is what it means as to the last enemy.
But think! A thousand years before this happens, death doesn’t have any power over you and over the sanctified. The wicked dead live not again until the thousand years are finished. Death is not conquered for them. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, over which the second death, which is the lake of fire, hath no power. I tell you again, there is but one death, because the first is a sleep, and the last is into the lake of fire. That is death. The first is separation of spirit from body, the second is separation of spirit from God. So then, death is when your spirit is separated by sin from God, and a middle wall of partition comes in as to iniquity. Thy sins having separated between thee and thy God. But when your body is separated from your spirit, it is because Christ has rent the veil in two, took your bodily sin, crucified the body of sin, did away with the body of death, buried that thing in the watery grave and your spirit went back to God who gave it, sealed by the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God within you and thus you have salvation and life eternal. So when you’re born into the world, you are just as much a human as you’ll ever be, but we’re going on to grow in the grace and knowledge. We’re going on to the full measure of the full stature, to the full reward.
So, we are perfecting our body. Let us go on to perfection, not turning again to lay the foundation of repentance, saying, “Oh God, forgive me! Oh God, I’m sorry.” Someone would ask, “Brother Pike, do you feel that we should not repent? Do you feel that we should not say that we’re sorry?” Of course we should repent. Of course we should say that we’re sorry, but we should understand the Bible enough to know that all of that has nothing to do with our salvation. Salvation doesn’t come through repentance. It doesn’t come by saying many words. It doesn’t come by praying all night. The scribes and Pharisees prayed, they fasted, they sought the salutations in the market places with long prayers, but that was an abomination in the sight of God. I’m saved once and for all. I’m made perfect once and for all. I’m free from sin once and for all. I’m sealed once and for all unto the day of the redeeming of my body, the change of the body.
My sins are gone. They’re taken away. They are there no more. Christ made an end of sin. I’m not repenting and asking Him so He will forgive my sins. He’s already forgiven my sins in Christ. For Christ’s sake, He forgave my sins. How can I be perfect and still be a sinner? Someone might say, “Well, Brother Pike, everybody sins.” Everybody that is of the devil sins, for the Bible says he that sinneth is of the devil. If you sin, then you can number yourself with the devil. But the Bible says he that is born of God cannot sin. It doesn’t say he may not sin. It says he cannot sin, for Christ Jesus is the seed of God that has perfected him forever. On the inside is that faith that sanctifies him and makes him perfect forever. I’m repenting because I do that through humility, through submission, through letting my heavenly Father know that I’m not in harmony with mistakes. I’m not in harmony with stumblings, staggerings, gossiping, backbiting, and all these evil spirits of whatever thoughts might assail my mind. I’m not in harmony with it. It’s detestable to me. My repentance, coming to my high priest, that is the purpose I come to Him. I don’t come to Him and say, “Oh, my God, You saved me yesterday and Your blood was sufficient,” and the following day I say, “Here I am. I’ve sinned against You and now I have to have another blood atonement.” I don’t do that. I go to Him because the blood is sufficient. I go to Him to say, “Lord, I’m sorry that I did wrong. I repent, heavenly Father, but I know the blood covers it.” I’m not going to condemn myself over that thing which I allowed as I stumbled, when I was trying my very best not to. The Bible says happy is he that doth not condemn himself over that thing which he allows.
I’m not going to condemn myself over that and throw my faith away and let Satan tear down my faith so he can come in on my life like a roaring lion, for the Bible teaches that we’re not to cast our faith away that hath great recompense of reward. We are to take the shield of faith that we might be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. I am an overcomer by Christ, and this is that which overcometh the world, even my faith. The Bible says to be strong in Christ. Let the weak say, “I’m strong.” He is the high priest of our confession. Though I be weak in body, yet I confess I’m strong in Christ by His works, thus I draw the strength of God. So then, I’m going on to be perfect. Perfect in what? I’m going on to be perfect in faith. Paul said, “We wish this, even the perfecting of your faith, for the ministry is set here for the perfecting of your faith.” I preach this to you so that you can hear all of it in detail, believe all of it so you might have a perfect faith and unwavering faith, a faith that cannot be penetrated.
I go to the heavenly Father and I say, “I’m sorry, Jesus. I’m sorry. Heavenly Father, I ask in the name of Your Son, Jesus, that You forgive me for my trespasses. Lord, I come to You, for Jesus said pray, ‘Father, forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us’.” To the world it is sin. To you and I, we may use the term “sin”, but it’s a trespass. And the Bible says that God was in Christ Jesus, not imputing our trespasses unto us. And here’s the high priest of my confession and I go to Him and I say, “Father, I stumbled. Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. Forgive me. Forgive me.” Not that I’m asking Him to forgive me in the sense that I’m going to hell. Not that I’m asking Him to forgive me, because I went out and sinned against Him because the Bible says where these things are there is no conscience of sin. How could I sin against God when I cannot sin? How can I sin when I have no conscience of sin. I’m not even conscience of sin. I’m conscience of life, eternal life.
I go to Him and I pray these things to Him, letting Him know I love Him and I respect Him, that I know that righteousness is of God, that His blood is sufficient. Would I go to Him if His blood wasn’t sufficient? The fact that I go to Him proves I believe His blood is sufficient. God cannot save you today by the blood, and then you sin tomorrow, and when you come back, save you again. He makes it very plain. The Bible says let us go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance of dead works and faith toward God. It is impossible for those that have once come to the knowledge of the truth and been made partakers of this divine presence of God -- the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, the rain upon the just and the unjust, coming into that atmosphere of grace, as to that time appointed -- once you come to this, if ye shall fall away, then that is sin against God, and it is impossible to renew you again to repentance. God cannot renew you again unto repentance, seeing that you have crucified unto yourself Christ afresh and put Him to an open shame. That is to say, you would have to have another Christ. You would have to have another blood atonement. God won’t do that. You have atonement for your sins one time and that atonement is sufficient once and for all, for He hath perfected forever, once and for all, them that are sanctified. That blood is sufficient forever.
Once you are born of God, then you cannot sin. You can come to God before you’re born of God and come to the knowledge of the truth and reject the knowledge of the truth. You can come and be a believer like Judas. You can become numbered with the church like Judas. You can walk with the Lord just like Judas did, and the rain can be upon you, and come to the knowledge of the truth and still not have God, still not have salvation, and come down to the end of the trail, like Judas, and the Bible says that though he had obtained part of the ministry, he fell by transgression. The Bible says that when the Lord gave him the sop, the devil entered into him. If Judas had been of God and had the Holy Ghost, the devil could not have entered into him. The Bible says that coming into this knowledge you can be sanctified, but after that you are sanctified, seven other devils can come and force their way in, for the Bible says that when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it wanders through dry places, seeking rest and cannot find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house from whence I came.” It goes and finds it clean, sanctified, and can’t enter in because it’s an unclean spirit. But when it gets seven other spirits, and all these spirits start harassing the mind, harassing the mind, and harassing the mind. If you don’t have the Holy Ghost, you don’t have resistance, you don’t have strength to overcome. One would say, “Smell the aroma of that cigarette,” and another would say, “Look at that man or look at the woman,” or one would say, “Money, money,” and all the time these things are saying all kind of things to you until you get weary, and the first news you know, you’ve taken took a puff, or you’ve said a word you ought not, or you’ve gotten your mind where you ought not, and immediately all of them, like a covey of birds, flies right inside. Judas never did get the Holy Ghost, so at the last supper, when Jesus gave him the sop, Satan entered into him and he went out into the darkness, into the ignorance of being cut off from the light of Christ Jesus.
Remember, we are going on to be perfect. I am confessing my sins to the Lord Jesus. I’m confessing my wrongs to the Lord Jesus, because when I was out there, I faltered and I did wrong and that was sin. When I was born again, I still falter, but I have no will to falter. I have no desire to falter. I have no conscience of sin. I am in this world, and devils and demons are pressing me, and it’s like walking in the night and somebody sticks their foot out and trips you. You didn’t mean to fall. There is a difference between jumping off of a cliff and somebody tripping you and you fall. That means that as Lucifer said to Jesus, as from the Scripture, “Cast Yourself down from here, for it is written He will give His angels charge concerning Thee and they shall bear Thee up in all of Thy ways lest Thou should dash Thy foot against a stone.” I’ve had the Lord to take care of me. I’ve been going down the road, and my car was hit in the rear, and it flipped around and turned over, lying in the ditch. It’s been where they’d have to take us out the side of the car. I’ve been going down the road, skidded off on the ice, turned all the way around in the field, and not turn over. I’ve been going down the road, skidded off on ice, go over and flip over on the ground and hit the side and the car flip back up. I’ve been going down the road and hit a bridge and skid and go off into the creek. I’ve been in all kinds of mishaps. I could go on and on. I’ve been right on the verge of going off of the mountain, but the Lord would take care of me.
He gave His angels charge concerning me. They bore me up in all of my ways and kept me all down through the years, lest I should dash my foot against a stone. I have never even had a stone bruise since I have grown up to be a Christian. Perhaps you haven’t either. So the Lord takes care of us. He watches over us. I say, “Lord, forgive me.” I say “forgive me” because He has the power to forgive me, because His blood was my atonement. Since He’s my high priest, after I prayed I believed. Someone might say, “Well, Brother Pike, what you do is sin, then go back and ask God to forgive you and then go your way and you are all right.” That don’t make any sense to me, because if I go to the Lord Jesus, and I’ve sinned against God, and I get down and I say, “Lord, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,” and I’m so heavy hearted, so tore up. “I’m a sinner. Oh Lord, forgive me. I one time was a Christian, but now Lord forgive me because I’m a sinner. I’m a wretch, forgive me, forgive me.” Fifteen times, He forgives me. Twenty-five times, He forgives me. Then I get up and I say, “Well, it’s all right. He forgave me.” Let’s give the Lord a hand.
That doesn’t make any kind of sense at all. You’re in the same kind of condition when you get up as you was when you went down because eternal life is not given through repentance. If you didn’t have it when you went down there to ask Him forgiveness, it’s for sure you’re not going to get it when you get up from there. Somebody would say, “Now, wait a minute, Brother Pike.” I don’t have to wait! The Bible says it was given to me in Christ before the world ever was and brought to light at Calvary, and when I went down, I had it in the mind of God before the world ever was. I was elect according to what He foreknew. I came down to the altar, I came to the high priest of my confession, to acknowledge my salvation and my election in my sonship. The Bible says to make your calling and election sure by checking, or confirming, your flight.
So then, when I get down there and I ask Him fifteen times to forgive me, I’m no better than I was when I started. I was saved by grace. I was covered by the blood. I went down there to show my humility and my repentance, asking my heavenly Father to forgive my sins in that I’m communicating with Him and He’s my high priest. I’m saying, “Father, forgive me my trespasses. Take these trespasses away.” I’m vexed because of the devil, and I’m asking Him to move the devil away from me. He’s aggravating the life out of me, and Lord, I believe in the power of God and I believe I’m strong in Your name and by Your Spirit. Lord, I believe I’m holy and just and righteous and cannot sin because You said so. That’s my faith in the Word, and that’s what saved me. When it said that I could not sin, I believed it, and my sins were gone. So I only go down there to strengthen my faith, to have fellowship, to encourage myself with the Lord, and let the Savior know that He’s the high priest of my confession. I do not go down there to start begging repentance. God doesn’t want you always coming to Him to beg repentance. He wants you to do all that you can to stay away from sin. And when the devil attacks you, He doesn’t want you to condemn yourself. If you stumble, He wants you to believe in His faith and His righteousness and His blood and continue on to keep the devil out of your life, and keep praising God and magnifying God and singing hallelujahs to God to let Him know that you are an overcomer every day, every minute, twenty-four hours around the clock.
Do you understand what I’m saying? We are waiting for the redemption of our body" that is, to wit the redemption, and that will not come until the Jews come in because adoption must come by law. I’m born again of the Spirit in my angelic inner man, but my body is contrary to it and I’m waiting for the Jews to come in. When the Jews come in, at the Thessalonian change, in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, the adoption will take place, because it takes the law and they bring the law in. The body went out when the law was folded up and laid away, and the body will come in when the law is thus revealed again, when perfection comes, as to the manifestation of this within you and I. The Bible says that this life of Christ will be made manifest in our mortal genes, when the Jews, who keep the law, come in, they that believe in bodily redemption, those that believe in the dos and don’ts of life.
So then, what am I trying to do? I am a Gentile over here, saved by the grace of God in the spirit, and I’m working my way down through the transitional changes of the ages to get over here to the Jew, who represent the body, that I, as a spirit, may enter into him and that body then comes to life because he’s been dead in the presence of God ever since Calvary, and as this message enters into him, he comes to life. The Bible says then Zion shall be saved, the same way you are saved, by grace. But when I work my way over to that Jew, over to the perfection which they believe as keeping the body holy, then it indicates that the time of the redemption has come. The Jews come in, the resurrection of the dead comes, and the change of the body. Paul said, “If the casting away of the Jews be the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of the Jews be but life from the dead?” So, let us go on to perfect this body. Let us go on to perfection, sanctifying ourselves daily that we might be used of God, and the utilization of the membership of our body might be great and mighty as God, Himself, through the surrender of every thought and every deed, may show forth the more as it seeps forth out of this inner most being to be made manifest as the life of His pleasure, which is Christ within the genes of this body, until we go to the full measure of the full stature, to be filled with the Spirit that it might be Christ living and not us living. If you seek to save your life, you lose it. If you give your life to God, then you save it.
Here we are in the day of perfection. Are ye then born again? Paul, on one occasion, had a dispute with Peter and with the Galatian people, and this was the contest. He asked them, “Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Peter had pulled away from the Gentile people and then went back to the Jews when the Jews came up to where he was fellowshipping the Gentiles. This upset Paul. And Paul said, “Why did you do that Peter?” He said, “I blame Peter to his face because he was to be blamed. Peter, I ask you: did righteousness come by the law, or by Jesus Christ?” Whereas the Bible says the law came by Moses, but righteousness by Jesus Christ. Paul said, “If there had been a law, Peter, that could have saved the people, then Jesus Christ is dead in vain, and God would not have given His Son. I’m not going to frustrate the grace of God.” He turned to the Galatians and said, “Oh, foolish Galatians, weren’t you saved by the grace of God through the preaching of the Word? The miracles that happened among you, weren’t they by the act of faith through the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, now you think ritualistics and the formalities of the Jews are going to make you perfect, going through what you call your holy works and all these kind of things?” Jesus said, “Depart from Me, thou that are more holier than Me.”
Remember the two men that prayed in the temple? One man, who was a publican, said, “Lord, forgive my sins. I’m a sinner. I’ve nothing to offer.” Jesus said that he went down to his house justified. The other man, a Pharisee, said, “I pay tithes. I fast. I’m not like this publican.” God didn’t even notice him. The rich man threw into the treasury out of his abundance, but God didn’t even notice him. The little widow gave her two mites, and she took the heart of God. So then, let us go on, brothers and sisters, to believe in this perfect love, this perfect grace, this perfect righteousness, to understand it, to love it, and to go on and perfect it in our lives, to put away everything that’s unlike the Lord Jesus. Let us never, in our entire lifetime, rest upon the shifting sands of theology, ideology of mankind. Don’t let your faith rest upon anything that you do at anytime, whether it’s fasting or praying or whatever, because it has nothing to do with your victory. Your faith is in His righteousness, which is your faith in His faith. It takes works with your faith, because you have to do the things that please God to assure your conscience that you are walking in harmony with God. Then you have confidence, which is your faith toward God, and we know that if we have that confidence, we have the petition we desire of Him. Why do we have the petition that we desire of Him? Because we do the things that please Him. Is that the reason that we have the petition? We know that we have the petition because it’s already granted to us in the foreknowledge of God from the foundation of the world, and it’s already there and He has already given us all things that pertain unto life, to give us life and that more abundantly. Because our faith is working, then we go away enjoying it, because it’s already there. It’s already given to us, and the only way we can go by and pick it up is by true believing.
Why do we have to believe? It’s a shield of faith to keep iniquity out of our lives, because if iniquity comes by non-submission, and God cannot look upon iniquity, then we are separated from God, for thine iniquities have separated between thee and thy God and kept thee back from good things. But when the middle wall of partition, as to thine iniquities, has been taken away, which it has been in Christ Jesus, then you believe in God through the rent veil, as to look through it, saying, “My sins are gone. My iniquities are gone because of Him,” and you sing praises unto Him and you worship Him because your sins are gone.
I praise the Lord because He took my sins away. I praise the Lord because He didn’t impute my trespasses unto me. I praise the Lord because He’s tender and kind and merciful. I praise the Lord because He’s everything to me. I have a right to praise the Lord because He’s done all of this for me. That’s what it’s all about, praising the Lord! You might stumble, you might stagger, you might be weak, you might have failed to pray and fast the way you should, you might have oppression of mind, you might run into problems, but you aren’t going to sin. You aren’t going back out there in the world. You’re not going to mess with the world. You’re going to come out of the world, and anything you do is going to be without a conscience of evil, without a desire of evil. You’re not going to put yourself in a position to be in that place where the wrongs are. You are not going to go out there to practice the things of the world. You’re not going to have the love of the world in you, whether it’s being at ball games, money, the lust of the flesh, whatever. When you do stumble into something, when you do find yourself at a place like that and Satan crosses your path to cause you to stumble, when you didn’t know that you were going there, you are there altogether accidentally and unawares, and when you stumble, just go right on believing.
Why is it that I want you to believe that you don’t sin? Because I’m trying to perfect your faith so you won’t be going back for repentance over and over. I’m wanting you to go on to believe in the perfect works of Jesus Christ that your faith may be perfect. I’m wanting to bring in a perfect faith so it will transfigure your body, translate the church, as we say. Let’s go on to perfection.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord