Now Are We The Sons Of God
Introduction
The question could be asked, “What is greater than being a son of God?” Is there anything more preeminent to mankind than this? Prepare yourself, as Brother George L. Pike brings forth, in this godly edifying sermon, an in-depth study on the sons of God. If you are a person who hungers and thirsts after the things of God, then this booklet will be a great source of spiritual understanding and encouragement.
It seems that in the last little bit, many new faces have been seen behind the sacred desk. Yet, many who were seen in the great places that they were in, suddenly are seen in the mires of the lowest degree. It seems that more and more are falling, resembling the falling stars in the book of Revelation, which was to occur in the end time. Were these fallen ones really ministers of God? Or were they only reflectors of the true God men? It is without question that God has not left this Earth without a witness through these past ages, men filled with the Holy Ghost who would not succumb to the beggarly elements of this world, being untouched by Satan to do the Heavenly Father’s will, even as the Paul the Apostle, who said, “It’s not I that lives but Christ,” and wrote of the things that if we did, we would never fall.
Brother George L. Pike has stood in the presence of God and in His council, and has turned many a soul from sin unto righteousness. He has withstood the fiery bombardments of Satan with unwavering faith in Christ, and has been a living beacon of light in a world of gross darkness. We are so grateful for his love and devotion to the children of God, giving his life as a living sacrifice, to the extent that Christ might have access to His body to perform His will and desire in the Earth.
This message is truly inspired of the Holy Ghost. We beseech you to earnestly desire for the Spirit of revelation that the eyes of your understanding may by enlightened to comprehend with all the saints, that now has come power, even the third power to become the sons of God.
Now Are We The Sons Of God
Reading in the book of Revelation, the 17th chapter: [“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”]
When you think about this great church that has been untrue to God, you’re reminded of Israel, where the Bible said that she played the harlot under every green tree. I was thinking about the time when God redeems Israel, and brings Israel back to her homeland. He purges her, puts her through the fire and purifies her. I was thinking about our ladies in the long dresses. What a beautiful sight it is! They look so much like the people of Israel.
You know, the Lord won’t let them modernize Israel. Now, America has become modern, Russia, Germany, and the other nations; but God won’t let them modernize Israel. He keeps old Israel primitive. He keeps them in their primitive type clothing, and when He sets up the millennium, He’s going to bring them back to their primitive days. They will take their swords and their warfare, and the Bible says they will beat those things into plowshares. They will go back to the old method of plowing. The Bible says every man will sit under his own fig tree, his own vine. It tells how much milk one cow will give. It’s unbelievable! Just in that day, when the curse is lifted. And everybody will have a wonderful time, and everything will be back in the old way, for the Bible says to ask for the old paths and you will find rest for your soul. I noticed over in Canada, they took the old time wood stove, took the back out of it, ran a pipe up in it, and turned it into a gas stove, and when you walked in and looked at it, it was still the old fashioned wood stove. People are trying to go back to the old paths. Old grandma’s rocker, her old stove. The Lord Jesus will bring everything back to its originality.
Now, in the teachings of the great whore that sat upon many waters, most of you realize that the whore is the church world. Now, a lot of people would say, “Well Brother Pike, that’s the Catholic Church.” No, that’s not what it is. It’s the church world. You might could have blamed that on the Catholic Church in many years gone by, but today, the whole church world is a whore. She has denied the name of Jesus, and she has brought bastard children into the world by every show boy that ever came through. She rejects the name of Jesus. The very thing that God said He did was to bring a people into the world to make Himself a name, and the very thing that she rejects is the name of Jesus. The Lord allows her to reject the name because she is a whore to begin with, and He doesn’t have any part with her. He said her children shall be cast into great tribulation, and He will cast her into a bed of adultery. It is just like Solomon in his day. He got mixed up with every kind of woman that there was, even the heathen women. He wasn’t satisfied with wives of Israel, but he wanted to marry every woman out of every tribe. He wound up taking God’s money and building temples to those heathen gods, and brought the anger and wrath of God upon him and upon Israel, and God cut them off. The church world has done the very same thing.
I know that the Catholic Church is the whore. I realize that. We say that she is the whore that sitteth upon many waters, and I know that, today, she sits upon seven hills as the Scriptures give it, or seven mountains. The Bible speaks of the mother of harlots, and she is the mother of the abominations of the earth. She is behind every spiritual doctrine of the devil. She has hatched it out. Everything from counting beads to her paganistic Easter parades. She’s done it! Her little seasons that she calls Christmas, all of her paganistic practices, committing fornication with the merchants of the earth, and the Bible says they are drunk off of the wine of her fornication. Spots and blemishes! But the harlots, the daughters that have sprang off from her through Martin Luther’s teachings, are in the same idolatrous practices of witchcraft and rebellion that the mother whore practices. She is drunk off of the blood of the martyrs. So many hundreds and thousands on the martyrology, where she killed them in the Dark Ages. John said she was decked out in such a way that he marveled when he saw her, and then he saw the ten horns, the seven heads, and saw the beast that came up out of the bottomless pit. He stood and heard the voice as it said to him, “The beast that was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and the beast that thou sawest was, that is, it was in power in the days of Babylon. It was, and it is not in power now,” he said, “but it will come back into power. It was, it is not, and it shall ascend.”
About 96 AD is when John began to see these things. Shortly after Pentecost, he began to see them, and the angel said, “John, it doesn’t have any strength right now, but one time it was a great power, and it will come back into a great power, for this beast that was, and yet is not now, shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and the whole world,” he said,” shall wonder after it.” He said to him, “Five kings are already fallen, one king is reigning, and another king shall come, and then the eighth one that shall come shall also be counted with the seven, for he shall be one of them.” John couldn’t understand the things that he saw, and for many years, things have been a continuation of mystery to the people that have studied and read until we’ve come down to the age in which we live. We’ve had some men that would dare to dig into the book of Revelation, to pray, seek God, and ask God to show them the truth of the things that are taking place.
The Lord has unveiled many mysteries, and I’ve made this statement before, that a mystery is a revelation within the veil. That is what a mystery is. A mystery is a concealed truth, a revelation within the veil, and a revelation is a revealed truth or a mystery unveiled. That’s what a revelation is. So then, the Bible says the mysteries of God would be finished. That is, that everything would be revelated, everything would come to a certain place to where we could understand it, and through the understanding of the mysteries, we would develop the mind of the Almighty God, and in developing the mind of the Almighty God, the Shekinah glory of God that is relative to that mind will automatically break forth within our hearts and lives and translate us into an eternal existence or security.
Now, I’d like to back up to Calvary, as we always do, and start talking and see if we can collect your thoughts enough to where you will be thirsty for the things of God. If we do, then the Lord will come and say something. If we don’t, then He won’t. Many things are in my heart that I would like to say to you, that I’d like to share with you, but there’s no way that I can do it. It takes Jesus to do it. The virtues of Christ come to the hungering, thirsting soul. That’s what it comes to. He that hungers and thirsts shall be filled. But concerning the great whore, if we get far enough along, I’d love to say a few things about it as we try to get into a thought here tonight. Going back to Calvary, always back to the cross! Back to Calvary, because everything starts at Calvary. Calvary is the great dividing line that stands between the Old and the New Testament, between the old world and the new world. It is the great place of division. In this, God has hid many mysteries, and if we can get into the mind of God, then the veil comes off and we see clearly.
First of all, how many of you believe there’s some invisible things of God? Let’s remember, that Paul in his teachings tells us that all of the invisible things of God, from the very creation of the world, from the first time that God ever created, are clearly understood by the things which do appear, even to the eternal Godhead, to show that there was a beginning and that when things had come to the stages of a beginning, that it was altogether different from that which was without beginning. Now, somebody said, “In the beginning was God, the Word. The Word was God! In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.” That’s good! But, if you read the Bible right, you’ll find that the Bible tells us that God had no beginning, and He has no end! In God’s beginning, there was no Word, because there was no beginning with God! God is without beginning, He is without end! God is from everlasting to everlasting. So, when the Bible says in the beginning was the Word, it wasn’t speaking about in the beginning was God! God was here before the beginning, because there is no beginning with God, but it said in the beginning was the Word.
So then, if there is a beginning, there is an end. The Bible tells us that the things of God have an end. The things of God have a beginning, and the things of God have an end. I was trying to impress upon the Christian people, that if you had a beginning, then it is for sure that you are going to have an end. If you are a creature by creation, then you are going to be completely eradicated from the face of the earth. Yet, if you had no beginning, then you don’t have an end. How many of you understand what I am saying? I never had a beginning, therefore I can’t ever have an end. If you ever had a beginning, then you’re bound to have an end, because everything that has a beginning has an end. But those that had no beginning, it is most assured that they will have no end. Now, what is it that had no beginning? God! If God had no beginning, and if we are the attributes of God, then we could not have any beginning.
Now, somebody would say, “But Brother Pike, back there when God created the world, He created us.” All right, if that is true, then what do we do with the Scripture where the Lord said, “Job, gird up your loins and answer Me like a man. Where were you Job, way back there when the morning stars sang together, way back before the world ever was, when the sons of God leaped for joy? Were you there, Job?” I wasn’t in the beginning, in the creation of the world. A son of God wasn’t created! God never created a son of God. Sons of God are not created, they are begotten. Paul said, “I’ve begotten you in the Spirit.” Beasts are created! I’ve made the statement that God said to the sons of God, to the angelic forces, “Come and let us make a man, and let us make that man in our own image.” It’s like the power of evolution that I spoke of the other night. Evolving from one stage of life to another stage, Darwin said, starting with the tadpole, or something a little less, and coming into a stage of evolution until you come on up to a man. A lot of people say that isn’t true, but I believe it is true. I believe the sons of God had a spiritual evolving from God, unto the fullness of the stature of God’s own image, which was Jesus Christ in the earth. There’s been a spiritual evolving, even in the time of the tutoring, from the time you’re baptized, burying the old beast part, coming out as a son of God, and even from that time, you still go into an evolving. You’re under tutors until you come to the fullness of the stature, coming from one stage of the mind of Jesus Christ to another stage, from one part of the growth, to another part, changed from glory to glory, coming on. I believe that God has taken what we believe to be a man and has created, by the process of heavenly evolution, or eternal evolving, a creature, a son of God, from the dust into an eternal existence by merely breathing the breath of life into a human body. Come and let us make man. How will we make him? Let’s make him in our own image.
How many of you know that Jesus Christ was the beginning of the creation of God? Somebody would say, “Adam was the beginning of the creation.” The Bible didn’t say that Adam was the beginning of the creation of God. It said that Jesus Christ is the beginning of the creation of God. Why? It is because a son of God cannot die. How many of you believe that Jesus was created by hands? If Jesus was the first Son of God, and the Bible tells us that the Son of God was back with God before the world ever was, then that answers the question, “Where were you, Job?” Jesus said, “Father, restore unto Me the joys that I had with Thee before the world ever was.” Now, He never created a man until He created the world. He created the world, and the last thing He did was create a man. Yet, the Bible says that Jesus was the man, Christ Jesus. He was a man. Jesus was a man, born of a woman, just like you were born. Jesus was a man; yet, He had no beginning, and He has no end. Are you listening? Though He was a man, yet He had no beginning, and He doesn’t have an end. He is from everlasting to everlasting; for the Lord said concerning Abraham, when he met Melchizedek over in the valley of Shaveh where the priest of the Most High God was given a tenth of his spoil, He said to Jesus, “I say unto thee, O Son, for Thy kingdom and Your priesthood and Your office shall be likened unto the office of Melchizedek.” The one who had no beginning of days nor ending of years. Jesus had no beginning of days, nor does He have any ending of years.
No son of God has a beginning of days, nor does any son of God have an ending of years. We had no beginning; therefore, we have no end. Then you say, “Who are we?” We are sons of God; born of God, and begotten of God. We are the attributes of God. We are the Spirit of God born in human bodies, manifested in human bodies. God, just like any father, reproducing His image. The life, the spirit that’s within that father, is reproducing his nature and his characteristics. Inasmuch as the nature causes a conformity of an image, watch the nature of that daddy or that mother and see if the image doesn’t come out exactly like that. We are the image of God. He said, concerning the beast image, the man image, “In the morning (that is, on the resurrection), I will despise thine image, because it is the image of the beast.” But, being sons of God, we are the attributes of God. We are God made manifest in the flesh. We are the reproduction of God. It’s God making man in His own image. God is making man in His own image! A spiritual evolving! God is making man in His own image! He said, “Come.” Who? You, sons of God, come and work with Me, and we will make man into our image. Man without God is a beast.
I’ve said before that the nearest thing to man in the garden of Eden was a beast. What was the man in the garden? The Bible says Adam was the Son of God. Is that Bible? So the nearest thing to the Son of God was a man. That’s what it was. The nearest thing to a son of God today is still a man. If this world is a garden, and if both man and the sons of God are in this garden, and if God is in the midst of us, and if the last thing that God created was man, then we are in the end of the world, for God worked six days and on the seventh day, He rested. Peter said, “A day is as a thousand years with God,” and here we are, coming down to the end of the sixth day. The Bible says, in the beginning of His work, God created everything, but toward the latter end of the days, He created man in His own image.
Somebody said, “Where do you get that?” I’ll tell you what, if you don’t think this is revelation, and if you don’t believe that this is absolutely thus saith God, take your Bibles and check back and see on what day He created the man, and go back to Calvary and check and see if Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God. See if He started to creating man in His own image, and see if the sons of God came to work with Him, and that ever since that day, God has been creating man in His own image and bringing man to a fullness of stature, a many membered body that will make up the true image of God that’s called the man child, through the revealing of the mysteries of the sons of God! God manifesting Himself in a human being. The eternal Jehovah, walking around in human form in the midst of His people. God from heaven saying, “I’m in the midst of you!” Who are we? What are we? We are gods! Somebody said, “You are gods, but ye shall die like men.” Why do you die? Because you don’t recognize that you are gods. Gods are not supposed to die. That is what a god is, something that cannot die! Why then, if you’re gods, do you die like men? It is because there is a sleep that’s called the first death, and then there’s a separation of the soul from God that’s called the second death, and God does not refer to the first as being a death, but Jesus said, “Lazarus sleepeth.” You die like a man. You go to sleep. Why do you do that? He said, “Because you don’t understand.” You don’t realize that here at Calvary, God tasted death for every man. God looked down from heaven and heard the groaning of the prisoners and loosed them that was appointed unto death, that He might taste death for every man, that man might not die.
That’s why, when Paul the apostle received the revelation, Peter couldn’t understand. The disciples couldn’t understand. Why? Because they were sent to the Jewish people, and God had blinded the Jews in part. Paul said, “I show you a mystery. I’m one that’s born out of season, but I’ve got a mystery, I’ve got a revelation. I have found the key that could unlock death.” He said, “I know what we’ve got to do.” Somebody said, “Well, why did he die?” Because he said, “The things that I’ve got are unlawful for me to speak.” Yet, isn’t it a true fact, that just like Jesus, where He was transfigured on the mountain, Paul also went up into the heavens? Isn’t that true? Isn’t it true that Moses went up into the heavens? Isn’t it true that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, found the key, and was translated that he should not see death? Isn’t it a fact that the Bible tells us today, that by faith, we are translated into the kingdom of God, and we wait for the redemption of our body? We’re waiting to wit the redemption. We’re waiting for the knowledge to be unveiled. We’re waiting to where we can understand and grasp the fact that we don’t have to die. You understand what I’m saying? Let me tell you, we don’t have to die! We don’t have to die! You say, “How do you get that, Brother Pike?” Because the Bible tells us that we have passed from death unto life. I’ve already died. I died with the body of Jesus here at Calvary. That was my death! It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. I died, and I’ve passed the judgment, and I’ve found grace, and through the grace, I received eternal life. I have passed from death over into the world of life! Then if I am eternal, if God has made me a god and I can’t die, then why do I have to die as a man dieth? There is only one thing. We’ve got to come to the knowledge of it, and then we’ve got to believe it.
I’ve said this before, first it’s got to become an indoctrination in your intellect. It’s got to be preached by the ministry. It’s got to be put up here in the head of the church, and then after it gets in the head of the church, the Holy Spirit has got to transfer it down in the heart and turn it into faith. The ministry’s job is to take a message: the last enemy to be conquered is death. But He shortened the days for the elect’s sake, and we are the elect. We’ve passed from death unto life! We don’t have to die. Paul said, “I show you a mystery. There is going to be a group of people that’s going to come to an understanding to where they will not die!”
I made the statement the other day, a lot of people go around with the feeling that what we are doing is waiting for the coming of the Lord, and just as quick as the Lord comes back, that the dead are going to come out of the grave, you know, and all we’ve got to do is sit down and wait for Him to come. But that’s not right! What we’ve got to do is bring Him back into the earth. He’s coming after a church without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish, and the fivefold ministry is commanded to bring the church to that place. It’s up to me, as a minister, to perfect you, to bring you to the place to where Jesus can come back. Paul said, “We wish this, even the perfecting of your faith,” which faith cometh by the hearing of the knowledge of the revelation, by the Word! Do we then say we’re waiting for God? God’s waiting for us to move up into the place where we are supposed to move up into! God is waiting for me, He’s waiting for you, that we might discover the knowledge of God. Solomon said to keep searching. Keep looking, and you’ll discover, you’ll find the knowledge of God. God is waiting for us to uncover the knowledge of God.
When Paul received the revelation, though, he couldn’t give it to the church. He said it’s unlawful, but he spoke of it in this way, that a time and a season was involved. He said, “For now is made known unto the church the manifold wisdom of God.” Is that right? “Even into the heavenly places!” Somebody would say, “Well, what’s the use of getting so excited just over the wisdom of God, just over the mind of God? Why do you get so excited over that?” Well, the reason I get excited over it is because the Bible says He created the world by His Word of wisdom! He created a man by His Word of wisdom. He made the diamonds and the pearls and the rubies, and the stars and the sun and the moon, and the babies and the mothers and the fathers by His Word of wisdom. He conquered death and He conquered hell by His Word of wisdom. That’s why I get excited over it. You’re going to hell unless you find His Word of wisdom! You’re going to die unless you find His Word of wisdom! Diseases are going to eat you up, earthquakes, storms, pestilence, problems, heartaches, devils and demons, unless you find His Word of wisdom! Somebody said, “Well, I’m not worried about it. I’m doing all right.” The rich man was doing all right until he lifted up his eyes in hell. There’s a time when you won’t be doing all right. Now is the time to find what you are looking for: the pearl of great price! The mind of God! The Bible says to let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. The mind of God! The mind that can translate you!
We’ve got to wit, to recognize, to come to understand, to grasp the fact of bodily redemption. We’ve got to get a hold of bodily redemption! We can’t do like the world did back there. Somebody said, “Well, Brother Pike, why worry about it?” Because I don’t want to go through the tribulation period, and if I can’t get a hold of bodily redemption, I can’t be translated, and if I can’t be translated, I’ve got to go through the tribulation period and I don’t want to go through the tribulation period! You can’t die out and miss it! When the thing gets close enough, the Bible says death will be lifted. You can’t even die! Why? Because the sons of God are going to conquer death, and when the sons of God conquer death, even in the tribulation period, it won’t be able to kill. So then, what are we trying to do? We are trying to conquer death! How do we conquer death? By faith! Faith in what? Faith in the fact that we have passed from death unto life, and that we don’t have to die, because the Word said we don’t have to die! Just like disease: how can I conquer disease? By faith in the Word, for the Word came and healed them. He sent His Word and healed them. How can I be rid of devils? By faith in the Word, for the Bible says the Word came and cast out the unclean spirits. Faith! How can I have salvation? By faith in the Word that says if you believe, you’ve passed from death unto life.
The Bible says that in the latter times, the knowledge of the Lord would fill the heavens, fill the earth, fill the sea, and fill everything! How can it do that? Because everything in the world, including the world itself, is the knowledge of God wrapped up and concealed in a veil, and when the mind of God comes, it unveils the world. It unveils the trees. It unveils every hidden thing to let you know that it is the mind of God in a veil. That’s how the stars stay up there, because it’s the mind of God hanging up there. You say, “How does the sun stay up there?” The sun is nothing more or less than the mind of God hanging up there. Why does the tree live? Because it is the mind of God setting out there. It’s God in a veil. Everything is God. It’s God in a veil! God has veiled Himself in the form of the needs of humanity, and we feed from God all the time, and we go through our childhood conditions, that through our evolving stages we might come to the great understanding of God that God is everything, and when we unveil it, then we see God! We unveil the water, like He said, the beast came up out of many waters. What do waters mean? Waters mean people! Then where does the devil come from? He comes out of the great mass of humanity. When the devil comes, where will he come from? He’ll come out of the mass of humanity.
Somebody said, “He’ll come from the bottomless pit.” What is the bottomless pit? It’s that tree of knowledge mind. Go way back to the garden, way back to the tree of knowledge. The Bible says they are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. It’s a bottomless pit that you fall into. You never find the answers. You never find your way out of it. The devil lives in that. And when he comes, he’ll come right out of the heart of mankind. Just like we’re the gates to heaven and herein is the kingdom of God, and from the kingdom of God, from the throne through our lips and through our bowels of compassion, comes Jesus to the world. But to them, they are pits. Jesus said, “You’re whited sepulchres,” you’re pits that don’t appear. Men walk over them and fall into them. You’re the gates to hell. And when they open up, out of the pit and abyss of your intellectual understanding and the tree of knowledge comes forth Satan, himself, through his wicked conversation, evil seducing spirits and deeds because he shall ascend out of the bottomless pits.
Someday he will be chained. Brother Branham used the terms, chains of circumstances. And that is true. He’ll be bound by chains of circumstances. The Bible says that the angel that came down out of the heavens had a great chain. He wrapped it around Lucifer, bound him and cast him into the bottomless pit. Is that right? Have you ever heard of a chain talker? You know what a chain is for? There is an old rusty chain, and then there’s a silver chain. God will bind him in more ways than one. One thing that He will bind him with is the chain of His Word to where he can’t escape it. Brother Branham said bound with chains of circumstances. But if you will read in Peter’s writings, he also speaks of a chain. Bound! You say, “What kind of chain?” The writer said in chains of darkness. Bound! You can get bound! God said, “Turn My people from darkness to light.” Chains of darkness; understanding of satanic power and evil. Bound with chains of lust and evil.
Many are bound with chains of evil, chains of lust, chains of evil conversations. Darkness denotes thoughts, thoughts denote words, words of darkness. Thoughts of darkness. Bound for a thousand years and cast into the bottomless pit. He can’t find his way out anymore. How many of you know that when you get into the wilderness, and you get into the mind of Satan, that there’s no way out of it? You wander all your life, and you never get out of it. You’re in a pit of darkness. You are a pit, and anybody that walks over you falls into the same pit. Your spirit is sunk down into a pit. It’s got into a thing to where there is no end. The Bible says the things of God have an end. But you are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Always studying, always learning, always bewildered, always filled with fear, frustrations, anxiety, problems, heartaches, insanity, trouble, and sickness. Why? Because you’re out of the mind of God. You’re in the mind of Satan, which is the pit. You’ve gotten into a pit.
But we’re sons of God today. We’re sons of God. We have no end. We’re sons of God! We had no beginning, therefore we have no end. We were, we are, and we shall be because we are God made manifest in the flesh. We have never sinned to begin with. There never was a sin against us. You say, “Well, what in the world are we doing down here, Brother Pike?” Like I said the other day, the lamb among the goats. What are we doing down here? God created the garden, put us in it, and let us fall among thieves. Is that what the Bible says? The good man fell among thieves. And who are the thieves? Satan is a thief and a robber. Jesus said, “I’ve come to give you life and that more abundantly.” But the good man fell among the thieves in the ditch. Is that right? And they robbed him of his raiment. They bruised him and took everything that he had. They robbed him, Jesus said, and left him in the ditch. Is that right? Robbed us of our virtue, robbed us of our health, robbed us of our title, robbed us of our prosperity. Adam, I gave you the garden, but you fell into the hands of the robber, and he’s taken the garden away from you; taken everything you ever had away from you!
But one day, the good Samaritan came along, and the Bible says if a man’s been drinking old wine, he won’t straightway say the new is the better. But if you let him sip on it awhile, he’ll develop an appetite for it. So then, the good Samaritan came along, and he saw the bruises, and he saw the wounds, and the Bible says he poured in the oil and the wine. How many of you remember in the book of Revelation, a measure of wheat for a penny, and a measure of barley for a penny, but see to it that ye hurt not the oil and the wine? Wasn’t that the charge? Through the Dark Ages, when the trouble came, it said you might bruise the wheat: that’s the outer man, that’s the crust; you might bruise the barley: that’s still the outer man; but it said the inner part, which is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, the wine of God, you can’t hurt that! See that ye hurt not the oil and the wine! Satan, you can do what you want to his body, but you can’t take his life.
So then, he fell among thieves. What has God done? He has let us fall among the thieves, the demons, the devils. Why? That we might learn the sufferings, the heartaches, the woes, the problems. Somebody said, “Well, God put us down here.” The Bible says that death came by man. Is that right? Death didn’t come by God. Death is God’s enemy! The Bible says death came by man because of Adam’s carelessness. Somebody said, “Well, life’s just got to come by God,” but the Bible says if death came by man, then life must come by man. Is that right? If death came by a man, then life has got to come by a man. We say we’re waiting for God. God didn’t get us into it! Is that right? Now, I know it’s the overall plan of God. The Lord has subjected us to vanity through the extensiveness of His plan. He has suffered us to be in this world. But listen, because we are in the world, it doesn’t mean that we are of the world. A sheep among goats! That doesn’t mean that the sheep is a goat. He might stay among them so long that he might smell like one, but he’s still got a lamb nature on the inside. Take him and clean him up, get him away from the goats, and he’s just as precious as ever. We are sons of God. We fell among thieves. We fell into the world. We’re down here in this world among the people. We’ve lost our identity. They said, “Jesus, what are you doing down here” He said, “I’ve come to seek and save that which was lost! I’m sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” They’ve wandered out there among the goats. Someday I will separate them, and I’ll put the sheep on one side and I’ll put the goats on the other side. He said, “I’ve come to seek the lost sheep, to find them, to search them out.”
Somebody said, “Well, I’ve been looking for God.” The Bible teaches that you didn’t search for God, He sought for you. You never came to God, He came to you. The Bible says no man can come to God except God draws him! God’s got to draw you. God came to you. You didn’t seek the Lord. He said, “I came to seek and save that which was lost.” You had your mind on the frolics of the world, because Satan caught your attention through Adam’s fall by the tree of knowledge, but Jesus came to catch your attention back to heavenly things. That’s why the preacher preaches to you. God and the preacher are trying to catch your attention and turn your attention away from the tree of knowledge and carnality and death and turn it back to the tree of life, the Word of God! That’s why he does what he does. To be carnally minded is death. To get over the carnal mind is to cross Jordan. To get into the mind of Christ is to be in Canaan land.
So then, where are you at? You are down here lost. You’ve lost your identity, but you are still lambs. Somebody said, “We are just a bunch of sinners.” We’ve never been like that! God’s people have never been a bunch of sinners. Somebody said, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” The Bible says he that sins is of the devil because the devil sinned from the beginning, and a son of God has never been of the devil! Through justification, God came into the world; He died as a man; spilt His blood for the purpose of proving your justification, to prove that you never have been wrong in your life. Never! Never in your life have you ever sinned or been wrong. Never! You say, “How can that be?” Because the Bible says that he that is born of God cannot sin. God’s seed remaineth in him. Somebody said, “Well, I came to the altar, Brother Pike, then I was born of God.” But the Bible says that we are elect according to God’s foreknowledge. Peter said, “God elected us unto grace by what He foreknew, before the world ever was,” and when Paul preached his message over there, he shook his raiment and said, “You Jews won’t have it, so I’ll go to the Gentiles.” But the Bible says that as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed. Is that right? As many as were in the foreknowledge of God, that have been ordained to eternal life, believed the message when Paul preached it. What did they believe? They believed they were justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. Is that right? Somebody said, “What do you mean, justified?” It means you weren’t guilty. You weren’t the one that nailed Him to the cross. You weren’t the one that took His life. You weren’t the one that was guilty of the sin of Cain back there in the garden! But the Bible says to you that are guilty, comes the blood down upon you, all the way from the garden, even from righteous Abel. Is that right? It means you never were guilty of any of the wrong. You were the attributes of God in the earth. You were a holy people, a righteous people. Lost! You say, “But Brother Pike, how could that possibly be, as wretched as I’ve been?” Because where there is no knowledge of sin, sin is not imputed. Somebody said, “But Brother Pike, I knew better than to do what I did!” Then you’re on your way to hell, because there is no forgiveness for willful sin. If you went out here and trampled over the blood of Jesus Christ, the Bible says there remaineth only a fearful looking for the judgment, and a fiery indignation that shall devour God’s adversaries, for there is no forgiveness for willful sin.
But, when we were out in the world, we had something that made us feel bad when we did wrong, but we couldn’t distinguish between wrong and between good. We didn’t know what wrong and good was. All we knew was that our depraved nature called for a satisfaction and we were subject to the appetites, but God didn’t charge it against us. It wasn’t sin. Paul said, “I was alive until the law came. When the law came, sin revived, and I died.” Paul was just as guilty before the law ever came, as far as doing his wrongs, but he didn’t die! It wasn’t brought down upon him as a penalty, but when the law came, and the knowledge of sin was revealed, then he knew that he had done wrong, and that killed him. God suffered man to walk in his own ways for many years. That’s how Enoch got translated. By faith! Four hundred and thirty years before the law ever came, the Scriptures spoke to Abraham and Abraham was justified by faith. And then I say, as Paul did, that the law was added because of the transgression. God sent the law into the world because of the transgression, or that is to say, because man had transgressed and he didn’t know that he’d transgressed, then God sent the law in there to give him an understanding that he had transgressed. And of course, they that understand and love the Lord, when they found out that they were in transgression, they turned around and said, “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
So then, they were not guilty of the transgression, because as quick as they received a knowledge of it, they proved to God that they were not guilty. They showed Him that they didn’t understand, that they would never have done it if they had known it was contrary to Him, which proved that they were justified, that they were not guilty, for where there is no knowledge of sin, sin is not imputed. If sin can’t be imputed, then it is impossible for a man to die. Death, even the penalty of death, is upon the wicked. The soul that sinneth shall surely die, but he that is born of God cannot die because he can’t sin. He that sinneth is of the devil. He that is born of God can’t sin. I know we use this little theme a lot of times, we say, “Brother Pike, what about all them people that used to live so holy, and they went back out in the world?” I know the church ritualistics, I mean I understand that, where we have a group of people that snuff, and dip, and huff, and puff, and cuss, and in every revival they get straightened out, and live that way for three months, and then they go back into the hog pens of the world. Somebody said, “What about all of those precious people?” I’ll tell you about all those precious people. The Bible says that if they’d been with us, they no doubt would have continued with us, but they went out from us, that it might be made manifest that they were never of us. Even when they were in there with you, they were never of you to start with. Spots and blemishes in your feasts of love and charity. They never were of you to start with, or they never would have gone back into the hog pens of the world. He that sinneth hath never known God. He’s never seen God. Is that right?
So then, we are sons of God. Jesus came to die for our sins here at Calvary. What sins? What the world has termed as sin upon us, numbering us with the transgression of the beast, but we weren’t numbered with them in the sight of God, for we were sons of God in the foreknowledge of God. He has never seen a spot upon us. Never seen a wrinkle, never seen a blemish! You think God is going to marry a wife that’s been a whore? No! Somebody said, “Well, if the wife has been a whore and she’s defiled herself with every man that comes along, you could forgive her.” Don’t you ever think that God’s going to marry anything like that! The one that He marries is a virgin. She’s a holy thing that’s never had a spot, never had a wrinkle, and never had a blemish upon her. Never, since the day she was created! Never! The Bible teaches she is a spotless virgin. Now you say, “Well, what the Lord is trying to do is get the spots and wrinkles out of me.” That wasn’t what the Bible says. Somebody said, “The five-fold ministry was sent here to perfect the saints, because God said He was coming back after a church without spot, wrinkle, or blemish.” When God said He was coming back after a church without spot, wrinkle, and blemish, He didn’t say that there was a church full of spots, wrinkles, and blemishes, did He? He never said the church was full of blemishes. He said that the church I’ve got doesn’t have any blemishes. Somebody said, “Well, isn’t the five-fold ministry here to get the spots and blemishes off?” That wasn’t what the Bible says. It said they were there to perfect the saints. You say to perfect what? Paul said, “We wish this, even the perfecting of your faith.” Your faith in the unfeigned wisdom and knowledge and understanding of the words of eternal life.
That’s why Jesus’ words healed them. That’s why Jesus’ words resurrected them from the dead. That’s why Christ’s words is eternal life. He said, “My words are Spirit, and My words are life.” What I say to you is an understanding, and the understanding that I say to you is the understanding that takes away the bondage, and feelings, and fears, and frustrations, and ideology that’s gotten into your minds and hearts that tell you that you are contrary to God. My words are to correct your mode of thinking. My words are to tell you that you’re holy. My words are to tell you that you’re free. My words are to tell you that you’re justified. My words are to tell you glad tidings of great joy. My tidings, my words, are to tell you that you’re sons of God, that you have passed from death unto life, that you can’t sin, that you’re holy, righteous, pure, without spot, without blemish. “My words,” He said, “are to tell you that God has sanctified, once and for all through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ, the believer. My words are to say to you that God has perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
Now, if you claim to be sanctified, then why don’t you claim to be perfected forever? Why do you go around talking about being full of spots, wrinkles, and blemishes? How can you be full of spots, wrinkles, and blemishes, if you’ve been perfected forever? How can you be unholy if you’re sanctified, when sanctification means to be holy? Jesus said, “My words are life. If you can listen and believe them, they will translate you and they will transform your thinking. They’ll change your way of understanding. To lean to your own understanding is death, because it is the carnal mind. It’s contrary to life, but My mind, My words, My understanding,” Jesus said, “loves the Spirit, holds to the Spirit, draws the Spirit, and that Spirit purifies you.” Every man that has this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure, by bringing the Spirit of God into his own spirit, and through that Spirit coming into the body; like Moses, it glowed in his body; like Jesus, it glowed in His body; like Brother Branham, it glowed in his body.
I believe that is why God took William Branham off of the scene, because he was getting too close to the translation. They took some pictures of him where he was aglow, and Brother Branham wasn’t fooling anybody. Brother Branham was trying to get translated. He was trying to reach that place of translation where he could bypass the grave like Enoch did. God took him off the scene. I believe that’s why He took Paul off the scene. Paul was caught up in to the heavens. I believe that’s why He took Moses off the scene. I believe that’s why He took Elijah off the scene. He hid them away. Now Elijah and Moses will come back, but God took them off of the scene, because Enoch was the only one of that time that was supposed to be translated until the end of the world! Then, that same thing was to come back again, and a whole church was to be translated, the body of Christ, that it should not see death!
Now, listen real close. The dead that are in the grave, the dead that are laying in the grave — I want you to get a hold of this. We are not sitting around waiting until Jesus comes. That’s not what we are doing. The Bible didn’t say sit around. It said a cry was given. It said for you to get up from there. Trim your lamps. The bridegroom’s coming. You go to meet Him. Don’t wait for Him to come get you! It said you go to meet Him! Is that right? We’re not waiting for Jesus to come. That’s not what we’re doing. A bride is not standing around waiting for the husband to come. She’s powdering her nose, combing her hair, spraying some perfume on her, doing every little thing she can to show that it’s time for her to go out there to meet him. And she’s got a set place that she’s going to meet him. He’s not going to come in there and get her. She’s going to meet him at a certain spot, and they will come together.
Now listen. What will bring the end? What is going to bring the end? When we get the knowledge that we have conquered death. Somebody said, “But how can you do that?” All right, tell me this: when a person is dying with cancer, and they believe God and they’re healed, how did they do that? They did it by faith! If they can defeat death through cancer, how come they can’t defeat death through the rest of it? If they can defeat it for a few days, why can’t they defeat it all together? Somebody said, “Well, it’s appointed unto man once to die.” The Bible says He met the appointment right here at Calvary; loosed the prisoners, and broke the appointment with death. He looked down from heaven, heard the groaning of the prisoners, and since it was appointed unto man once to die, Jesus said, “Father, I will go down there and die for them, and that will take care of the thing. Then I will try to get a group of men to go out there and tell them that they are free from the thing and that they don’t have to worry about it any more.” Delivered for our offenses at Calvary, raised for our justification, and preachers have been screaming down through the church ages to try to get you to see that you’re free from death!
So then, what will bring the end? Listen, when the Lord Jesus comes in the clouds of heaven — not Christ, which is coming within us, the Christ within us suddenly appearing within His saints — but the Jesus that will come back to the Jews, where every eye shall see Him, that’s to the natural, right? How many of you understand what I am saying? Surely you understand that! When the Christ gets through with the office of the priesthood, which is the intercessory work within our heart, then Jesus will come back. You follow me? When Jesus comes back, that doesn’t conquer death and cause the people to come up out of the earth, because death came by man, and that means that man has got to conquer it. Man is the one that gave place to it. That means man has got to be the one to do away with it. That’s why God couldn’t intervene. That’s why Jesus had to die as a man. If it had not been that, He could have come as God, and just said, “Away with it.” But because man gave place to it, man had to conquer it, and man conquered it right here through Jesus Christ.
That means by faith in Jesus Christ, death is conquered, for Jesus said, “I have destroyed him that hath power over death.” All right now, if my body and your body is subject to death, and that’s what caused death, and it’s appointed unto you to die, then Jesus became you in death that you might be the body of Jesus Christ in life, members in particular, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Not bone of the crucified flesh, but bone of the resurrected flesh. Somebody said, “Now what are you talking about?” When Jesus came up out of the grave, He said, “Feel of Me. A Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see Me have.” Bones of the resurrected Christ. We are the body of the Lord. Old things have passed away, now everything is new. We buried that old man in baptism by acknowledging Calvary. He’s dead, he’s gone, he’s passed away! And this is the Son of God that must live forever! Death hath no power over Him. The Bible says when He came out of the grave, death had no more power over Him. He conquered death. So then, by faith in those facts, by faith in that knowledge, by faith in that understanding, by faith in that revelation, we ought to take our stand against death just like against sickness. Are you listening? And then man acknowledges the conquering of death at Calvary. Remember, I say again, instigated in the mind of God before the world ever was, manifested at Calvary, and comprehended by the saints of God in the end time.
Now Paul said comprehend the heights, comprehend the depths, comprehend the widths. To wit the redemption of your body; to recognize, to understand, to come to know that we will not die. I show you a mystery, someday the mystery will be revealed: man will not die. Now, what does that mean? It means that when the sons of God shall conquer death (the last enemy the sons of God shall conquer is death), when the sons of God, by faith in the revealed knowledge of God, accept the fact that they are alive eternally and they’ve conquered death, when they do it, then Jesus will come back from heaven, because when the sons of God conquer death, the dead people will get up out of the ground, because when the sons of God conquer death, death can’t hold the dead people any more. Jesus will come back and pick them up. It’s your job! The world is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. We’ve got a job to do. We’re sons of God! It’s up to us to conquer death. We’ve got to do it by faith in the revealed knowledge of God in this end time. We’ve got to do it! Wouldn’t you like to free your dead father out there? Somebody would say, “Brother Pike, are you crazy?” No, I’m not crazy! Didn’t Elijah go over there and raise the dead? Didn’t Peter go over there and raise the dead? Hasn’t it been that all down through the ages, the sons of God had power over death and raised the dead and brought them out of the grave? Well, why is it a strange thing to think that, collectively speaking, the whole church will conquer death all together and turn them loose? I’d love to go out there and turn my daddy loose. Your daddy too! I’ve got a brother laying over yonder in the grave. I’d love to go over there and turn him loose. Death can’t hold him any more.
Now, I hope you understand what I am saying. We didn’t have a beginning; we can’t have an end. We’re eternal, from everlasting to everlasting; before the world ever was, we are. I’ve said this so often, that when the angel sets one foot on the land and one on the sea, raises his hand to heaven and swears by Him that lives forever and ever that time shall be no more, then take your calendars, take your almanacs, take your clocks, and throw them into the middle of the ocean, because that little time element that was involved, that dropped down there from the time God created in the garden, those little old six thousand years of the time element that dropped down there in that great eternal space of eternity, from everlasting to everlasting, it’ll just become extinct, it’ll be gone. There will be no remembrance of it. That little old time element that God dropped down in the middle of eternity, it’ll be gone. Time will be no more. No more time markers; no more six o’clock, and seven o’clock and eight o’clock. It’ll all be gone. No more ten years and thirty years, and somebody said, “I’m twenty-five years old.” It won’t make any difference if you’re seven hundred thousand years old. That doesn’t have anything to do with it. There is no time out there. We’re eternal creatures. We’re not time creatures. The old time mind came from the tree of knowledge. That’s where that thing got in to start with. But we’re not time creatures. We’re from everlasting to everlasting. How many of you believe that’s the truth? You’ve got to be, or you couldn’t be gods. Gods can’t die. Gods are made to live and to worship. They can’t die. That’s what makes them gods. If they could die, they wouldn’t be gods.
There’s a lot of things that we’d like to try to explain and say, but it seems like it’s so hard to find the vocabulary expression to where it could form a real genuine continuity in your mind or sequence in your mind to where you can grasp and understand what we’re saying. The Bible says the Spirit of God searcheth out the deep things of God. That’s where the mysteries are. But, you don’t realize who you are. Really and truly! Somebody said, “Well, I know that I am a son of God.” Don’t forget, that up here in your head, you hear it. Abel hears it up there. Cain hears it up there. Esau and Jacob hear it up there. Everybody will hear the message, when it comes forth, up here in the head. But that’s not what translates you. That’s the ministry indoctrinating you, getting you ready for the change. But it is when the Holy Spirit of God takes it from up here to that special twin, that Abel, that Jacob, and moves it down here into the heart, then it turns into Spirit and into faith, and when it turns into Spirit and into faith, then it translates you, because Enoch was translated by faith. So then, up here, it’s an intellectual indoctrination of the Word, the veil, and the veil is over your mind, which veil is taken away in Christ; but when it drops down here, it becomes a spiritual revelation, which is faith, the unveiled mystery, and it will change you!
We’d better start believing, we’d better start listening. The Bible says take heed how you hear. Better start listening, because faith cometh by hearing, and the Bible says Enoch was translated by faith. That means that one day, somewhere, you are going to hear something, and from that hearing is going to come forth a faith, and that faith comes from the knowledge of the hearing, and that faith is going to translate you! Take heed how you hear, for the things that are to translate you, you might miss it. You might miss it! He sent His Word and did everything, and when the church is raptured, I’ll guarantee you, it’ll be raptured by the Word. In the beginning was God the Word, in the end, it will be Alpha, it’ll be Omega, the Word, in the end! That Word is going to speak the world out of existence, and I believe that you believe this, that if God by His Word spoke the world into existence by creating life in a veil, then today by unveiling, through the means of revelation, He is speaking the world out of existence by taking away the veil, for the veil is the world. When the veil of the carnal mind that was in the garden of Eden is taken away, then this won’t be the evil world any more. It’ll be the world that God so loved. It will be the millennium.
So then, we’re speaking it out of existence, for He has set the world in your heart. It’s a mind, and we’re speaking that mind out. We are eradicating that mind by transforming you. Be ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your mind; changing you from earth to heaven. Changing you from the old world into the new; from death to life; from sorrow to joy. “Turn My people from darkness to light,” God said to Paul. If thou canst believe, be sure to believe, because every one that can’t believe will pass away with the world. Believe! What ever you do, believe! Jesus said, “Beware that at My coming, lest there be found within you an evil heart of unbelief.” Believe, for if thou canst believe, all things, even the translation, are possible to them that believe!
What an opportunity to believe. It thrills me when I think about it. I say, “Lord, do you mean that all of heaven and the splendors and the joys and the eternal life and the glories, all of that, that I can have it, if I just believe?” That’s all I have to do is just believe it’s mine. He said, “When you pray for anything, or ask God for anything, just believe that you’ve received it, just believe that it belongs to you, because the Word said that it belongs to you.” God has given us all things that pertain unto life! That’s temporal life and eternal life, that’s health, that’s happiness. God’s already given it to us, and all He tells us we have to do is just believe it and start enjoying it. Somebody said, “Well, I can’t enjoy it.” It’s because you don’t believe it. Go ahead and enjoy it. Somebody said, “Well, if He’d give it to me,” but He’s already given it to you. Somebody said, “Well, you know, if I could just believe that it was me.” Well, if it wasn’t you, who was it? He said, “What I say to one, I say to all.” That’s you! Go ahead and enjoy it! Wherever you set your foot, I’ll give it to you. Whatever you want, He said, you could have it. It doesn’t make any difference. It belongs to you. Heirs and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. The throne that belongs to God belongs to me, too. Somebody said, “Well what are you going to do with it?” I’m going to sit down up there with Him. He that overcometh shall sit down in the throne with Me. The throne belongs to God; it belongs to me. The gates of pearl belong to God; they belong to me. The walls of jasper: they’re mine. Beautiful streets of gold: they’re mine. Do you want to enjoy them with me? Come on! They belong to me. Somebody said, “You’re crazy!” No! They’re mine! Somebody said, “You’re just saying that.” No I’m not. I’m just saying it because it’s true, they are mine; they belong to me! God didn’t lie! He said He gave them to me, and they belong to me. I might sound like a silly boy, but I believe it. They’re mine! He gave them to me! You want to enjoy them with me? Come on! Hallelujah!
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord