The Faith
The first thing I would like to ask you who are reading this tract is, are you a Christian? Christian means to be Christ-like. Do you do the things in life that Christ did in His lifetime? He went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil.
What is your goal and motive in life? It is very important that your motive is right, or the thing you are doing is wrong, no matter how good it may seem. Is your goal to have a home, perhaps a car and a bank account? Or is your goal to have a business, prestige, fame, or power in this world? My friend, this is a very poor vision. If you were the richest, the most famous, and the most powerful man in the world, it would be only vanity and vexation of the spirit. King Solomon of the Bible had all of these things, yet he called them vanities.
To obtain favor with God is the only real, lasting treasure. To be educated to the highest peak of perfection concerning all things in life is but nothing, for all that is in this world shall perish in a short while, and there shall be no remembrance of anything.
When we speak of preparing for the future, where is the future? Is it not with God? He holds the king’s heart in His hand, and turns it whithersoever He will as the rivers of waters, the Bible tells us. He creates the good, and He creates the evil, and He has His way in both, according to the Scriptures.
There is no future in this world or the next without God. I spoke to a minister one time about his future. He was planning to work for God as soon as he finished paying for his home, but just about the time he was making the last payment, one of his children drowned in a lake behind the house. It would have been better if he had surrendered his all to God in the beginning.
A man came to one of our services one night, and while the Spirit of God was drawing souls to repentance, he was given an opportunity to accept salvation, but he refused it. The next day at about noon, at the nearby funeral home, I looked on his dead face in a coffin. Death struck very quickly after he rejected God. He wasn’t prepared for the future.
In another service, I made an appeal to two men, and they rejected. Shortly after, both men died. It would take much space to relate the things that have taken place in my own ministry, proving that there is no future without God.
There is no peace to the wicked, the Bible tells us. There is a dreadful sound in the ears of the rich that never ceases. To be plagued continually by the fear of losing loved ones, sickness, insanity, and calamities along life’s highway, is a poor form of living. To struggle and strive, trying to avoid bankruptcy or loss of our goods that we work so hard for, and to mistreat our fellow man by unjust transactions, is not life. A religious life of hypocrisy, deceiving ourselves daily by intellectual reasoning, assuring ourselves of a faith and hope that doesn’t really exist down in our hearts: would you say this is life?
Our deep motive of service to our fellow man should be one of integrity, and should be very conscientious, always feeling the responsibility of our position as our brother’s keeper. Each of us are dependent upon one type of service or another from our fellow man. God has set it up this way so we are our brother’s keeper. Cain slew Abel and refused to be his brother’s keeper by his deceitful desires for himself. God will reward a person accordingly. He that gets riches deceitfully shall be cut off in the midst of his days, and in the end, shall be a fool, the Scriptures tell us.
Don’t just consider the fine homes, apparels, and cars you see people occupy. Do not consider the prestige, fame, and position of life only, but consider the mental institutions, the tuberculosis sanatoriums, the hospitals, the daily reports of the newspaper, and all the calamities of life, such as the screaming sirens heard frequently in the cities. These terrifying impacts, along with fears and frustrations, tell me that this is not all there is to life. There is a higher plane of living where there is an atmosphere of joy, peace, and righteousness. Serving God brings this atmosphere.
The same pleading voice that has called through the centuries still beckons to you and I. It is the voice of God through the ministry and the children of God, pleading with the people since the world began. This voice of Christ lifted itself up in the generations gone by. It pleaded in Noah’s day before destruction. It pleaded in the day of Christ, just before the great calamities befell Jerusalem. It spoke to the settlers in early United States history, as they rode the prairie, fighting Native Americans, seeking cover from the storms of life in their adventurous conquests. From out of the past comes the gentle echoes of the words from that lonely Galilean who lived a life of suffering for you and me. Today, that same voice is pleading, making its greatest appeal to a world of socialism. I ask you this question, my friend: why don’t we heed this call to repentance, turning away from our social trend of life, and condescend to men of low estate?
Christ said this last generation would be heady, high-minded, presumptuous, self-willed, and lovers of self more than lovers of God. Paul said that these are the people upon whom the ends of the world are come. Many of you to whom I speak have already seared your conscience with a hot iron and are past feeling, having given yourselves over to the spirit of Satan to work all manner of ungodliness.
Seeing that everything shall be utterly consumed, and the world shall be burned up, Peter asked, “What manner of person should we be, in all holy conversation, looking for, and hastening unto, the coming of the day of God?” This same Peter, to whom was given the keys to the kingdom, stood on the day of Pentecost, when the church was first established, and opened the door to all generations. Three thousand immediately made the entrance. Of the billions of people that populate our earth today, how many will regard the words of this great leader of simplicity, as the voice of Christ echoes through his lips, ringing out to all generations?
The call is to repent, to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, that you might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for it is unto you and your children, and to as many as be afar off, even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call. Are you among this calling?
The Bible says that these people continued daily, steadfast in the apostles’ doctrine. Remember, there is no other way.
By grace through faith are you saved, not of works, lest any man should boast, but it is the gift of God. They heard the Word as Peter preached, they believed the Word, and the faith that comes by the hearing of the Word was made manifest in their lives by the act of obedience to the Word of God that Peter spoke. They received immediately the baptism of the Holy Ghost, God’s Spirit of eternal life, the salvation and power of resurrection.
The promise God made to Abraham, in Christ He fulfilled at Pentecost, when Peter said, “This is the promise, unto all that the Lord, our God, shall call.”
We are told to make our calling and election sure. How can we know that we were among those that were in the foreknowledge of God? I Peter 1:2 tells us we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
God has given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, and has called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these, ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. In the fifth verse, where it tells us to give all diligence, to add to our faith, virtue" and to virtue, knowledge" and to knowledge, temperance" and to temperance, patience" and to patience, godliness" and to godliness, brotherly kindness or charity. If these things be in you, you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful, but he that lacks these things is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Charity suffers long and is kind, it envies not, vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Jesus said we would know a Christian by the fruits they bear. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. God is love. He that abides in love abides in God.
The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance, goodness, faith: against such there is no law. These things prove that you are one of the called and chosen if they show forth in your life.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived" neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, nor extortionists, shall inherit the kingdom of God. Paul said not to defraud one another.
Preach the Word! Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts, shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables.
If any man shall teach other than this, or teaches any doctrine that is not according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, doting about questions whereof comes strife and evil surmising. There is none that does good, no, not one. Like sheep, they have all gone astray, and every man is turned to his own way, and God has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him. I am speaking of the faith once delivered unto the saints. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today, and be saved. May God bless you is my prayer.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord
This message is published for free distribution. For more copies, write, in English if possible, to the address below, stating how many you can wisely use.
ENG9915T • ENGLISH • THE FAITH