Keys To Having Faith
Introduction
At this very moment, you are holding in your hands an exclusive account, derived from the actual ministering of Brother George L. Pike, which clearly erases any doubts as to the mystery of faith, which has baffled great religious leaders for many centuries.
Within these pages, the honest hearted will, most assuredly, discover the key to unwavering faith, as we learn to differentiate between believing and actually having faith in God.
Should you search, with diligence, for a true and wholesome understanding of these basic tenets of Christianity, our Lord will amply reward your earnest efforts with His revealed spiritual insight, which is abundantly provided to the spiritual ear.
Let us invite you into the vastness of the immeasurable realms of genuine faith, as Brother Pike expounds clearly and distinctly concerning its entirety until we envision new horizons in our Christian journey that heretofore have not been fathomed. To our knowledge, there is no other treatise on this subject that even comes close to revealing these positive keys of faith in the magnificent way that they are disclosed in these writings.
Truly, many ministers and lay members across the world have already been stirred with this internationally acclaimed writer, who has unselfishly proclaimed the Revelation of Jesus Christ, having not only preached the faith of Jesus Christ, but also living it daily, proving God time and again with an overcoming life, resulting from years of conditioning his heart toward a steadfast, unmovable confidence in God.
In closing, we trust that God will open your heart in all sincerity, with His precious Keys To Having Faith, until your cup shall run over with unyielding faith, free from all condemnation, and totally immune to the fiery darts of satanic influence, until we all come to the unity of the faith in Christ Jesus.
Keys To Having Faith
Jesus said so many things until His life was fascinating. To many people, Jesus is something of the past, and what has been done is done, and they think, “Well, it’s great, you know, as to what it was,” but even in the day that we’re living in, His life is so fascinating; to read the Scriptures concerning Jesus, and to read what He said. Jesus said so many wonderful things. To read it is so exciting and so deep. Just the words that He said are so alive; such great, mighty meanings even for the day that we’re living in and for the future that we’re looking forward to. People who have never come into those realms don’t know what I’m talking about. Jesus said things like, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” How exciting! How deep! How thrilling! How astounding those words are! “My doctrine is not Mine but His that sent Me. If any man will do His will, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of Myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him.”
Jesus said, “Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me, and where I am thither ye cannot come. Ye are from beneath, I am from above. Ye are of this world. I’m not of this world.” Can you imagine that? What if I looked at you and said, “Hey folks! I’m not of this world.” Somebody said, “Yeah, there you go, trying to be just like Jesus.” Isn’t that wonderful? Praise the Lord!
So then, to be like Jesus. You say, “Brother Pike, you can’t say that. Jesus said that! But you can’t say that because He said to them, ‘Ye are from beneath’.” See, that’s true. He could say that to them, but you know what He said to me? Paul said, “You’re not of this world. You’re not from beneath; you’re from above. They that are born of the Spirit, they are Spirit.” They are in those spiritual realms of heaven, and He said, “I am not of this world.” So He said unto me, “You are not of this world, Brother Pike.”
Isn’t that wonderful, to be like Jesus? That’s why His words are so exciting. They’re so great and so exciting because He said if you know that the doctrine be of God; if you understand it, then you see these exciting, wonderful things: that as He is so am I in Him. And this is the wonderful excitement, from glory to glory, from blessing to blessing, from excitement to excitement, we go right on into these wonderful things that God is doing. My, that thrills my soul beyond words.
So Jesus said all of these things. He said, “Verily, verily I say unto you: whosoever commiteth sin is the servant of sin.” Somebody says, “I just can’t help but sin, and Brother Pike, when you say he that is born of God sinneth not, I don’t get that because everybody sins.” But Jesus said, “He that commiteth sin is the servant of sin.” Now, if I said to you, “Raise your hand if you commit sin,” would you raise your hand? If you did, then I would say to you, “Then ye are the servants of sin.” I’m not the servant of sin. You love the Lord? I said I’m not the servant of sin. Hallelujah! Praise God! I don’t belong to the devil. He’s not my master. I’m not under bondage to the things of the world and the sins of this world. So then, he that commiteth sin is the servant of sin.
Jesus said all these wonderful things. I believe that because He said this, that He was trying to tell me something. They didn’t recognize Him. They said things like, “Ye cast out devils by the prince of the devil, even Beelzebub.” He said, “No, I don’t do that. Ye are of your father the devil.” “I’m not of the devil, He said, “but ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your fathers ye will do, and you’ll do what your father lusted after. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. He never has abode in the truth.”
People who don’t have God, they don’t abide in the truth. Did you know that some of your most thorough, explicit people that do business are liars and cheats? I talked to a man not too long ago. He’s an outstanding man, an outstanding figure in business and whatever, and I talked to him and perceived that he wasn’t straight, though he seemed to be as straight as an arrow, and then he confessed to me and said, “Well, I do lie.” Can you imagine that? See, Jesus said he never did abide in the truth. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Jesus said, “Now, because I tell you the truth, you believe Me not. I have not a devil, but I honor My Father and you do dishonor Me.”
I want to go to the book of Genesis. These are some of the things that Jesus said when He came. I want you to notice this. It says in the second chapter, the first verse: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”
In the second chapter of Genesis, it says: “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
He says here that He finished His work. He blessed the seventh day. That finished His work, but during the time of His work, he goes on to say that He made man a wife. The third chapter says, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” God putting a flaming sword here with the cherubim to protect the way of life.
Chapter four, it says: “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.”
Now, this is reading quite a bit of Scripture here. I want to comment just a little bit on this. A lot of things are said about Cain and Abel. A lot of things are said about the seed of the serpent, as to what the seed of the serpent really is, and we’ve got some teachings and preachings here on it. A lot of things are said pro and con, and there is a lot of dispute over it. And if I add what I say, then, of course, that’s another thing added to it for more dispute, because people, a lot of times, they don’t really search and seek out things to find the truth. They just learn enough to argue about it or fuss over it, and a lot of people have degraded minds, and they go after certain things in the Scriptures so that they might degrade other peoples’ minds and that they might cause a lot of problems. But the Scriptures are clean, and they are holy, and we’re clean, and we’re holy. We’re commanded not to make mention of those things that are done in secret as to any degraded thing that might contaminate the life of a person or the mind of a person, because if you steal a person’s virtues, then you’re going to be brought into the supreme courts of God for it. That is a great crime against a person.
So this is what the serpent did. It stole the virtues of a clean, godly, upright woman. This woman, to what she had been made to know, to what she was; she was a very virtuous person; but he contaminated her mind and caused her to turn away from her steadfastness in God, to turn away from her conviction in God and contaminated her mind to the extent that she also contaminated her husband’s mind, when she came to him, by giving to him the forbidden fruit, the fruit that God had forbidden that they partake of. So then, sin came into the world. We ask the question: Where does sin get into the world? How does sin get into the world? The Bible says that sin is in the world because of lust. So sin is in the world because Eve lusted after the tree. She desired the tree. She lusted after the tree and Satan found an entrance into the world; that is, Satan did not have any way of getting into the world. He did not have any way of doing anything in man’s life. Death had no power over man, but the soul that sinneth shall die, and if sin is in the world because of lust, then death came into man’s life. That’s why the Bible says that death came by man. Through the weakness of Eve death came in. Death came in through lust, and when lust came, it brought forth sin, and when sin was finished, it brought forth death. So today, there is death in the world. Death is ruling over mankind. Death is in the world today because man allowed death to come into the world.
Death is the results of being carnally minded, and man was not made to be carnally minded. He was made to have carnal things, but not to be carnally minded. God made the trees. He made man out of the dust. He made all of the beautiful things that was in the garden and gave them unto mankind, but God never intended for him to be carnally minded. He wanted him to be spiritually minded; He wanted him to communicate with God Himself because God is a Spirit. So then, God, who is a Spirit, created all of these things and made a man and put a man over these things, and then demanded that man keep his mind in the heavenly things.
So then, here we find that Satan enters into man’s world. This is the first time that he ever got into man’s world. This is where he got in. This was the open door, and he got into man’s world, and from the time that he got into man’s world, the curse came. God began to curse mankind. It wasn’t that God cursed mankind or that God wanted to curse mankind, but God had to curse evil, and the curse was upon evil in that God had cursed evil, and then man taking the curse, thus he became contaminated and he was under the curse. He’s been under the curse ever since. Today, we’re still under the curse. Everybody is still under the curse unless we call on the name of Jesus and become born again. If we become born again, then we’re not under the curse anymore. The woman is not under the curse of bearing children in pain and sorrow. She’s not under the curse anymore. She can use her faith and go through those things as it was said of the women down in Egypt, who brought forth their children quickly. There were no problems.
See, a man is not under the curse, to have to labor among the thorns and thistles and the sweat of his brow. He can believe God and God will supply all of his needs according to the riches in glory. The Bible said cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree, and Jesus hung upon a tree for us. The curse came as a result of the tree: the tree of knowledge. God had to do away with the tree of knowledge to bring to a close the curse, so He did it by the tree. When Judas went out and hanged himself, it indicated the end of the serpent.
The Lord Jesus hanging upon a tree indicated the end of the thing. He was made in the likeness of the serpent; that is, in the likeness of the fallen one. He came in the image of man, and man had fallen to the realms of the serpent. So then, He came in that image, and when the Lord went to Calvary, He made an end of sin, and He did away with the curse for everyone that can believe. God said, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
But we are living in a new day. A new day has broken. A golden day has broken in old Gethsemane, the song writer said. So then, we’re living in a new time. We’re living in a new day. This is a brand new time, and we’ve got a wonderful future in the Lord Jesus. There is no future to the world. People who say that I have a future in the world, and that I’m studying so that I can get a diploma and have a future in the world; these people are foolish. They don’t realize they’re foolish, but they are foolish. See, there is no future in the world. All that I could ever do in the world, all the money that I could ever make, all the knowledge that I could ever obtain will lead me to one place. Great men, poor men, whatever it is, rich and poor alike, it leads them to a hole and then the dirt is thrown in their face. That’s the end of man. Sometimes, when we are driving by the graveyard with the children in the car, I’ll turn and I’ll look and I’ll say, “That’s the end of all flesh. Do you see it? That’s the end of the poor; that’s the end of the rich; that’s the end of the celebrities. That’s the end of the presidents. That’s the end of all the great people and all the poor people of the world. That’s the end of all flesh right there.” See, all that we could ever be, all that we could ever do, it takes us to death because death is in the world. Sin is in the world. When you sin, you are the servant of sin, and if you sin, you’re going to die. The Bible says the soul that sinneth shall surely die, but folks, we don’t have to sin. We don’t have to sin! I’ve spoken to you in times past concerning faith and salvation by faith, and I’ve explained the difference between believing and having faith. I can believe, but that doesn’t mean that I have faith. See, I can believe. I must believe just to live. I must believe that I can stand up. I must believe that I can sit down. I must believe that I can speak. See, I must believe that I can take from my plate and feed my mouth. I must believe that. I must believe that that’s a tree. I must believe that that’s a river. I must believe because you have to believe, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve got faith. See, the secret of faith is differentiating between believing and faith. The difference is that you believe up here in your head, from the contact of your human senses, from seeing and smelling and tasting and feeling you believe. The difference between believing and faith is that faith is in the heart. Faith is not a result of your seeing and hearing, so far as your natural senses. That’s not what faith is. Faith is the results of that connection with God. You’ve got to make that connection with God. You say, “But Brother Pike, I hear.” But how is it that the Bible says having ears to hear, you do not hear? It means that it’s not the hearing of natural things. There is a spiritual thing that comes to the church where they have a spiritual ear to hear, they have a spiritual eye to see, and their faith is the result of their contact with God. My believing, or what you call faith in the natural, is the result of my natural conscience mind making contact with the world. That’s believing. That’s what you call faith. My believing, my faith, my real genuine faith comes from the eyes of my understanding being enlightened, and from having an ear to hear. The Bible says faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
You may hear the Word of God as a natural oral expression, but that does not mean that you have faith. When you hear what the Spirit is saying unto the church according to the Word of Spirit, and it is not the minister that speaks, but you hear God speaking, for the Bible says that it’s not him speaking but God speaking, then comes faith. That stirs the heart. That makes a contact with the heart. Like Jesus when He stood by the tomb of Lazarus, He said, “Father, I know that Thou hearest Me and I know that You hearest Me always, but I’m saying this so they’ll know that it’s not of Myself, but that it’s the heavenly Father, that it’s the contact with that glorious world.” Then He said, “Lazarus, come forth.” Can I say that I know that God hears me always? The Bible says God’s ears are ever attentive toward the crying of the righteous. Can I then say that I’m righteous? The Bible says and these that are born of God are righteous even as He is righteous. So then, can I say that I’m born of God? I am born of God. I’ve had that experience. So God has perfected me through His love. He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, which means made perfect forever; and He has sanctified them once and for all by the offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. So then, God hath perfected forever the believer. He has sanctified forever the believer. Though sin is in the world, yet I don’t have any fellowship with sin, and I’m not the servant of sin, and I keep myself and the evil one touches me not. I keep myself by the power of God and the strength of God. It is so powerful in keeping me that the Bible says when you’ve done all that you can to stand, just keep on standing. When you say, “Oh my God, I’ve stumbled and I’ve messed up and I’ve failed. I did everything I could, God, to do right.” God said, “Don’t fret over it. Just keep on going. I’ve blotted it all out at Calvary. Be strong in the power of My might and say, ‘No! Away with Satan! I’m still a child of God. You might trip me, but I’ll get back up and I’ll walk. God made it to where I can’.”
Faith! Wonderful faith. I differentiate between believing and faith, and I said, “What is that?” The difference is that I can believe, but Jesus said in one place, “Don’t disbelieve. Don’t doubt!” Don’t doubt! If somebody was dead, He said, “Don’t doubt.” Don’t let that bother you. See, don’t doubt. What is the difference? He was saying, “You can believe, but if you doubt, then you don’t have faith.” If you can have faith, then you won’t doubt, for faith doesn’t doubt. There is no doubt in faith. When you doubt, you don’t have faith. You are a believer, but you don’t have faith. Jesus said, “If thou canst believe in thine heart and not doubt, then say what you will, because that’s faith.”
So the secret of it is not doubting. But, we are people that go and come. We’re like alternating current. We go and come. We can’t believe without doubting. Do you know why we can’t believe without doubting? Because we don’t walk with God. The Bible says that Enoch walked with God three hundred years and was not, because before his translation, he had this testimony: that he pleased God. That is to say, the Bible says that he was translated by faith. You come to where you walk in faith.
It’s like I was telling my wife. We go around trying to believe. We say, “Bless God, I’m a Christian. Bless God, I go to Bethlehem. Bless God, I’m Church of God or United Pentecostal. I believe.” See, that’s no good. That’s not the way you believe. Going around trying to convince yourself that you believe isn’t going to do anything for you. Let me tell you something: start conditioning your heart. John said to do the things that please God. Jesus said, “Always I do the things that please My Father.” Enoch had the testimony, “I please God.” When we start conditioning our heart, then we are finding faith; then we’re growing in faith. It’s when you start conditioning your heart. You’ve got to condition your heart. You’ve got to make an effort to be clean. You’ve got to make an effort to be holy. You’ve got to ask God for His Spirit so that His Spirit will purify your life, and you’ve got to lay aside the things of the world as to the ambition of the flesh, those things that you are fleshly ambitious to do. You’ve got to get away from those things, and you’ve got to come out from the world and be a separate people. You’ve got to condition your heart, then faith will develop in your heart. That’s where faith comes from.
Millions of religious people will not make it so far as the rapture or as getting into heaven. They won’t make it because they are not conditioning their hearts. They’re in the gullible things of the world. They are in ball games. They’re in everything that’s out there in the flesh. Satan savors the things that be of the flesh. They’re in all those things out there in the world and flesh. They’re in the fleshly doings, and they’ve brought them into the church. They’ve not conditioned their hearts. Somebody would say, “Don’t you believe that they’re believers?” Sure they are believers. They wouldn’t build a church if they weren’t believers. They wouldn’t come together if they weren’t believers, but they don’t have faith in God. It’s going to take faith in God to save you, because Enoch was translated by faith, and faith will not come from a dirty heart. Faith will not come from a heart that loves the things of the world. There is no possibility for faith to live in a heart that is out in the world.
So God said, “We serve Him with our minds.” We serve God with the mind, and that mind is within our heart. That’s our spirit. Our spirit has got to make contact with Christ’s Spirit, and then when Christ’s Spirit comes within our heart, then we have faith. He said, “How could you call Me Lord, Lord and you don’t do what I tell you to do? How could I be your Lord?” When a person is lord over you, don’t you honor them? Isn’t that what makes them your lord? How could you call Me Lord and not do the things that I tell you to do? He’s my Lord, my Savior. Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.” How could you call Him Lord? How could He be your Lord? See, Jesus said, “Ye have not the Spirit of Christ within you. You don’t have the Spirit of God within you.” You have the spirit of the devil in you, that’s why you do the things of the world, because he savors the things that be of the world. He loves the things of the world. That’s what it is. Even when Peter said one thing concerning the flesh: “Nay Lord! We won’t let them abuse Your flesh.” Jesus said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan! Thou savorest the things that be of the flesh; the things that be of the world.”
So when we talk about faith, real faith doesn’t doubt. Faith doesn’t doubt. When you doubt, you don’t have faith. Faith doesn’t doubt. Faith believes. Always, faith believes, and when you believe, then it is faith if it is down in the heart: believing from the heart, doing the things to assure the heart, living for God.
I want to give you two or three things to think on. There was a woman who came to Jesus about her daughter that was grievously vexed and tormented of the devil. This woman came to Jesus, and she kept following Jesus, and the disciples said, “Make her go away.” It aggravated them. They said, “Make her go away.” “Always she is behind us,” they could have said, “following us.” Jesus said, “No.” Just like the man that was blind who was crying out, they said, “Don’t pay any attention to him,” but He said, “I’m not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Finally, He turned around to the woman and she said, “Lord, help me.” He said, “Is it meet to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs?” Don’t you know that we are Jews? Don’t you know that God is the God of the Jews, and don’t you know that the Gentiles are nothing but dogs? “Is it meet then that I should take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs?” Jesus said. She said, “Yea, Lord, I know that, but the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” Jesus said, “Oh woman, great is thy faith!” I want you to notice this now. Great is thy faith. Be it unto you as you will.
And then a man came to Jesus and said, “Come and do something for my servant.” Jesus said, “I will come.” He said, “No, I’m not worthy for You to come under my roof. Just speak the word.” And Jesus said, “Why, I’ve not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” And He told him, as he had believed, so it was to be unto him, and he found his servant healed when he returned home.
I said that to say this: this woman, what did she do? She showed signs of humility. She showed signs of humility. She said, “Yea, Lord.” She humbled her heart. She didn’t fight back. Jesus didn’t get a repercussion from her. She said, “Yea, Lord, I know that, but the dogs eat of the crumbs.” Now, I want you to notice this. He said, “Great is thy faith.” Then, when the man came and He said to the man, “I’ll come.” The man said, “No, I’m not worthy.” See? Great is thy faith. Here’s humility again. Jesus meets humility again. When it comes to Jesus, He said, “Take My yoke and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Lowly in heart means that He wasn’t interested in the high places of society. He wasn’t interested in being a celebrity. He wasn’t interested in money and business and prestige. He wasn’t interested in the high planes of living and the recognition of the world or the diplomacies of life. He said, “Condescend to men of low estate.” Not men with high estates, but men that don’t have much; to the poor. The poor heard Him gladly. Jesus said, “And the poor have the gospel preached unto them.”
So then, when we think of humility, think of condescending. Jesus said, “I’m meek. I’m meek.” When it came to Moses, Moses was a great power house for God. Moses had great, mighty faith; but when it speaks of him, it said that he was the meekest man in all the land. He was the meekest man. “Take My yoke and learn of Me,” Jesus said, “I’m meek.” Everywhere there is great faith, it brings great honor. But Solomon said that humility goes before honor. Everywhere you find this humility, this is something that men can’t have. You can’t manufacture humility. You can’t duplicate humility. This is the thing that men and women can’t have is humility. They are always haughty. They have to be arrogant. They have to meet you with a haughty attitude. You know, “Bless God, you speak to me and I’ll speak to you.” They don’t have the spirit of meekness. And brothers saying, “Ah, that ain’t right. Where did you get that? You don’t know that that is right.” Always with their foolishness, cutting at one another, talking with one another, always they’re haughty. It’s hard to find a meek man; hard to find a man that’s meek. That’s why you don’t find any more power in the church than you do. That’s why you don’t find any more knowledge of God in the church than you do. That’s why you don’t find any more salvation in the lives of human beings in the churches. It’s because they don’t have humility, they don’t have meekness. They’re self-willed, self-exalted. They magnify themselves. All of their efforts is to try to prove how great they are. But Jesus didn’t do that. The Bible says that He did not seek to make any reputation for Himself.
So then, we see that humility goes before honor. Why is that? Because, when a person takes the act of humility like the woman did, she was saying, “I don’t have any righteousness. You say that I’m a dog.” I don’t claim any righteousness. This automatically made everything wide open for the righteousness of God. See, the righteousness of God that is by Christ Jesus. “Yea, Lord. I don’t have any righteousness. I didn’t come to You that way,” she could have said. The man in the temple said, “Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.” That is, his humility is there. His faith registered. God accepted him. The other man said, “I fast. I pray. I pay tithes of all that I possess.” God said, “Away with you. I don’t want that. I’m not interested in that.” God approved all that to the extent He said, “If you would have done the other, love, judgment, humility, and not left them undone, then that would have been fine.” If you are going to do that and not do these others, then you are naturally minded. You’re not spiritually minded, and all that you’re doing is for the flesh. Away with that! I don’t want your fasting. I don’t want anything from you. So then, we see faith again. The man was saying, “I have no righteousness, Lord.” And God said, “That’s all right. That’s all right. You now have My righteousness.” God was saying to him, “Don’t worry about it.” Humility goes before honor. And the woman was bold. The Bible says come boldly before the throne of grace. This woman was bold. He said, “Dogs.” It didn’t move her. She just boldly stayed there and said, “Yea, Lord.” Like Moses before God, when God said, “Move, Moses. I’ll slay every one of them. I’ll do away with all of them and I’ll make a nation of you, the meekest man.” But Moses in his meekness said, “Wait, Lord. Wait! You can’t do that!” And God listened to him. Oh, somebody would say, “Now God wouldn’t listen to a man.” The Bible says, concerning Joshua, that never before had God hearkened unto a man’s voice like He did Joshua when Joshua said to the sun, “Stand still,” and said to the moon, “Stand still.” Humility. Humility.
We need humility in the church. The one thing that’s missing in the church today is godly humility. Charity edifies. It’s got humility. Knowledge puffs up. People get all puffed up with their quotes of the Scriptures, and all these things that they have, saying, “I belong to this,” or “This is my preacher,” or “I belong to the first church.” They get vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind. You understand what I’m saying? Faith can never work in a heart like that. There will never be faith in a heart like that. You may think that you’re on your way to heaven, and you may be determined that that’s going to get you into heaven, but I’m telling you that millions of people are going to be lost because they don’t have faith. Though they are staunch believers, they don’t have faith, and the reason is because they don’t have humility. Humility is the forerunner of honor. Pride is the forerunner of destruction, but humility is the forerunner of honor.
So, when I think of faith, then I want to condition my heart. Jesus, one time, cast a devil out of a boy, and the man had brought the boy over to the disciples, and they could not cast the devil out. Jesus said, “Oh, faithless, perverse” — notice that now — “faithless, perverse generation. How long shall I suffer you? How long shall I be with you?” He said that you are faithless because you are perverse. You’re not conditioning your heart. You don’t have the love of God in you. You are not going after the things of God, but you’re going after the things of the world. He said, “How long am I going to put up with this?” He said, “Bring the child over to Me.” He cast the devil out. When He had cast the devil out, then the disciples came to Him and said, “Lord, why could we not do this?” He said, “Because of your unbelief.” See, a perverse, faithless generation. You’re faithless because you’re perverse. Your unbelief won’t let you do it. It’s your perverseness. It’s because you’re not living right; you’re not going on with God; you’re not conditioning your heart. If you would have conditioned your heart; if you would have done the things that you were supposed to do, then you would have faith. You wouldn’t have been faithless.
So, He said, “Howbeit, this kind cannot go forth but by prayer and fasting.” Why prayer? Because prayer conditions the heart. He said, “You’re going to have to have a relation with God.” Going around trying to cast out devils and not having a relation with God is absurd. When those men went over there and said, “We adjure you by the God that Paul preaches,” the devils said, “We know Jesus. Paul preaches Jesus. We know Paul. We know both of them.” Had it been Paul that said, “Get out of here,” they would have left. Had it been Jesus that said, “Get out of here,” they would have left. But they said, “Who are you?” We don’t have any record of you. And the Bible says that the man whom the devils were in jumped on them and just tore them. So then, you don’t want to mess around with devils unless you have a life with God. Fasting and prayer. You’ve got to pray. You’ve got to pray to God, stay away with God, talk with God. Get your mind on God. Stay with God. Somebody said, “You mean get in a back room, Brother Pike, and stay with God?” That’s good. That’s fine; nothing wrong with that, but Jesus said, “Pray always.” You’ve got to pray. You pray while you’re walking. You pray while you’re sitting. You pray while you’re in the room. You pray in the night time. You pray in the day time. You pray. You meditate in His laws day and night. You pray. Jesus said, “You’ve got to pray.” If you don’t pray, then you don’t have anything from God.
He said, “You’ve got to fast.” Why pray? Because it conditions the heart. It is the spirit on the inside of the heart calling out all the time, all the time, until your spirit is lining up with God’s Spirit and becoming one with God’s Spirit. The power of God is being poured into your spirit through prayer; for everyone that asketh receiveth. The Bible says that when they prayed and fasted, that they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and the power of God came on them. They went out and were great witnesses for God. So then, why pray? Because that is the connection. That’s the way you get your infilling. That’s the way you make contact with God.
And then, why fast? Why fast? What good is doing without food and starving yourself out? The Bible says that you do not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. I don’t want your kind of fasting. Your kind of fasting is to smite with the fist. Your kind of fasting is to gloat. Your kind of fasting is for your own personal desires, and to have the preeminence among men and to have people say to you, “Rabbi, Rabbi, I salute you,” as to the salutations in the marketplaces. But this is the kind of fast that I have chosen: fast some of the things that you’ve got and give to the poor; fast some of your time; and fast your food and do without for the purpose of world evangelism and to share and to be like God, to have a vision to help the poor and needy. This is the kind of fast that Jesus said He was interested in.
So, what good is fasting? Fasting is for the purpose of breaking down my carnal resistance. Fasting is for the purpose of moving the interference that would cross my heart. All of my fasting is for the purpose of subduing my flesh and to bring my passions and my human senses down to a low ebb, to where I don’t have an ego to go out here and be some famous person, or go out here just to eat and to drink, or go out here to frolic, make money, pump iron, as we say, to jog and all these other things, to go to the ball games and the races, not wanting to watch television, listen to the radio, read the papers and study books. See, fasting is to get me away from all of that. Fasting is to cause my body, humanly speaking, or my bodily senses to be cut off from the world. I don’t have any exuberance to go out there. I don’t have any get up and go to get out there. I don’t have any drive to be in those things. I just want to sit around. I want to be in the back room. I’d just rather not listen to anything of the world. It is to cut down the resistance, to keep the bodily interference away from my faith so that I won’t doubt. As long as this body is alive, as long as these things are taking place, then that means that my heart isn’t going to be able to believe without doubting. I must believe and not doubt. Jesus said, “If thou canst believe and not doubt.” So then, if I can believe and not doubt. He said, “Say what you will.” Say what you will. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman. The man came to Jesus and Jesus said, “Great is thy faith.” And then, the woman came to Jesus and Jesus said, “Great is thy faith.” There is no difference between the man and the woman when they come to God. God accepts faith. God is looking for faith, because, by faith, God’s Spirit can come into your heart and God can fellowship you in the Spirit.
Let me tell you this, and I want you to think on it. The one thing with Israel was that they were not spiritual. Paul said, “I would that you were spiritual.” You’re not spiritual. So, they killed Paul. They were not spiritual, so they killed Jesus.
God was saying, in the days of Moses, “Look, Israel, I’ve given you everything you could want naturally. I’m doing this because I’m pulling you out of your homeland, and I’m letting you know that I’m able to feed you and your children and take care of you and supply all of your needs. I must do this with these natural things. I’m a Spirit, and you can’t communicate with Me. You don’t know Me. You’ve never seen Me. Here is a man, Moses, that I’ve raised up.” He could have said all of these things to them. “Here is the man, Moses. I’ve raised up a mighty, spiritual leader, but he is just going to give you natural things and work with you like a baby.” Like today, the gospel tents, that’s all they do. They say, “Healing, healing, prosperity, prosperity.” Those things are of God. God uses those things. But folks, God didn’t use those things to make a hog out of us, and to make a dog out of us, and to make a beast out of us, and to make a glutton out of us. God didn’t do that. God called us to Himself, called to us and called us to Himself by using these things to allure. He uses these things to let you know that if we leave off with Egypt and the things of the world, from our businesses or whatever, that He could take care of us. He did that to Israel. But the thing is, God is a Spirit. He was trying to lead them to the Spirit. He was saying, “Israel, all of this is great. I am with you, but I want to be in your heart. I’m a Spirit. I created the body because I live in the bloodstream. I live in the heart. I work through the mind. I am an invisible force. I am life. I am life, and I want to be on the inside of you, and you are cut off from Me because of the sins of Eve. You’re cut off from Me. I never did have a chance to get into the hearts of Adam and Eve. I gave them the beautiful things of the garden of Eden, and then I gave them the test, and in the test, they failed Me and I was never able to get into their hearts. I’m still pursuing you by the prophets and all of these other things. I’m still in pursuit, trying to get into your heart, Israel. I want to get into your heart. You’ve not entered into My rest. You can’t enter into My rest. Canaan land is only a type of My rest. You can’t enter into My rest doing that. I swear that ye shall not enter into My rest because of your grumblings and your mumblings. You’re too fleshly. It has cut you off from the Spirit. Being naturally minded, being carnally minded, it’s death. You’re abiding in death. There’s no life unless I can get into your heart. Being naturally minded, you are cut off from life. I swear ye shall never go in because you’re cut off because of your carnality.”
So, then came Jesus; so, then came Calvary; so, then came this wonderful day of grace. And Paul said, “I would that you were spiritual. Pray that God would give you the Spirit of revelation.” Jesus said, “It’s not given unto them to know the mysteries, but unto you it is given.” So then, God is trying to enter into your heart. Churches that don’t have heartfelt salvation; churches that don’t preach the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the heart of mankind; those people don’t have any salvation. They don’t have any hope. They are people that are completely lost and cut off. That kind of religion is just a formality. There is no life without the Holy Spirit living within you. Christ said, “If you don’t have My Spirit, you’re none of Mine.” There is no faith, because if there had been faith, then the heart would have been purified. It’s just a religious ritualistic and a formality that brings carnality and brings death. The blind leading the blind, as their leaders all fall into the ditch.
But folks, I’m telling you that God is a Spirit. I’m telling you that you must serve God with your spirit, which is your mind and your heart, and that faith is with the heart and that you must believe in your heart. The Bible says, “With the heart, man believeth unto righteousness,” not with the believing of his head. So then, with this heartfelt salvation, with this Christ on the inside, we’re filled with the wonderful Spirit of God, and the way that we know that a person is filled with the Spirit is that the child is known by his doings. If it is a spirit of a dog, then that is a dog. If it is a spirit of a cow, then it is a cow. I cannot say to an elephant that you should act like a cow. I’d say to an elephant, “You must act like the cow.” Why, he could never act like the cow. I’d say to the cow, “You must act like the elephant.” He could never act like the elephant. He doesn’t even know what I’m saying. How many of you understand what I’m saying? See, it’s the nature of the cow to be a cow and to act like a cow. It’s the nature of a pig to be a pig. It’s the nature of a dog to be a dog. He said, They are beasts; greedy dogs that don’t ever get enough.
They don’t have the Spirit of Christ. They don’t understand what you’re saying. The Bible says that when good cometh, they shall not see, for Lucifer, Satan, even the god of this world, has blinded their eyes that they can’t see when good comes. He blinded Eve’s eyes. He blinded those eyes of understanding. The understanding was, “Thou shalt not eat,” but he blinded that, saying, “Ye shall be as gods.” See, and it really came to pass. They were as gods, but Eve didn’t understand. Being as a god, she didn’t understand. So then, you must have the nature of Jesus to have faith. You must have faith to be saved, and if you have faith, you will have His nature. The Bible says that we are partakers of the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with this nature, we will do just like He did when that nature lived in His body; the same, yesterday, today, and forever to a thousand generations. This nature of Christ will make the child act Christ-like. They were first called Christians at Antioch because they acted Christ-like.
This nature is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and if it’s in your body, you’ll be about the Father’s business. You will not be carnally minded, for to be carnally minded is death. You will not be carnally minded. You will not go after the things of the world. You will not have the love of the world in you. If the love of the world is in you, then that is Satan’s spirit. If the love of the things of God is in you, then that’s God’s Spirit. Satan, thou savorest the things of the world because you’re the god of the world.
So then, it’s going to take Christ’s Spirit. If you’re going to be a Christian, you’re going to have Christ’s Spirit. To those people out there, they’re going to act just exactly like they’ve always acted. I was riding down the street the other night, and there were hundreds and thousands of them there in sin. They cared nothing for Jesus. The frolic, the bright lights, the nude bodies; they didn’t care anything for God. See, what is it? Their nature. That’s their nature. They’re not partakers of the divine nature of the Lord Jesus. If they were, then they would act like it.
But folks, let me tell you, you can be religious. You can go to church. Just like Cain, you can offer your offering, but that doesn’t mean that you have God. Why did Cain kill Abel? Why was God upset with Cain? Why did Cain kill Abel? Why was it? Because God favored Abel. Cain killed Abel because he saw that God favored Abel. Why does the world out there want to kill Little Bethlehem? Why does it want to call them a cult? Why does it want to pounce on the true children of God? Why did they do what they did in the early church, when they threw them into prisons and beat them and killed them? Why? It’s that old Cain spirit. It’s Satan. It’s Lucifer. He knows that God favors the people of God. He favors the children of God, and Cain hates that. So the Bible says that they’ll kill you. They’ll kill you.
So, this is the way that it is. I can’t make them do these things. You can’t make them live right. You can’t force this thing on them, because they have a nature that is different from God. The nature of the world. Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and his lust, his nature, you have.” You love the things of life: money, prestige, fame, and popularity, and the places of the world that are programmed for frolic. You like that.
See, going to those people, you can’t do that. You’ve got to live right. You’ve got to show them a testimony. You’ve got to let your light shine, and you have got to entice them, and if there are any elect among them, they will see it and they will come out. The others have their eyes blinded. They could never see even when good comes. They’re predestinated to be damned and doomed. They’re predestinated. As it was said of Judas, “Let another his bishopric take,” before he was ever born into the world. As it was said of Esau and Jacob, “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated.” The Bible says the children never having yet been born, having done no good or evil, that it would stand by what God had called.
I’m trying to tell you that a nature; if you have a nature, then that nature, whether it be of God or whether it be of Lucifer, that’s all that you’re going to do. See, telling the cow to act like an elephant won’t work. The cow knows nothing about it. But there is one thing that God does do: He does bring grace as to the blood on the seat of atonement, so that every individual can come together and hear the Word of God, and He turns the light on enough for those that are out there to hear that call, to the extent of the mercy of God and the love of God and the grace of God, so that if they want to come out from there, then they can. And if they do come out from there, it is because they were elect before the world ever was. God ordained it, or that is, God saw that they would do it and wrote their names down in the Lamb’s book of life. The Bible says and this was given to us in Christ before the world ever was. So then, they hear this, and then the light goes off. They don’t come. The light goes off and they’re back in darkness, and then that’s the end of them, because they come to hear, they know the love of God, they know the grace of God, they know the kindness of God. God has given them this much understanding, this much enlightenment, and then they go back and they’re doomed and they’re damned to stand before God in the day of judgment in that they did not have faith. If you don’t have faith in God, you can’t go.
You people that aren’t conditioning your heart to live for God, you that are going to church, you don’t have faith in God if you’re in that kind of condition. No matter if you go to church. It doesn’t matter. You still don’t have faith in God, and you’re not saved. You don’t have God. The first news you know, you’re going to drift off over here and then you’re going to drift off over yonder, then you’re going to be out yonder going to another place, going to another thing, another job, another place, doing other things because you never heard what the Spirit is saying to the church.
So then, to love God, to have faith in God, it’s going to take listening to what the Spirit says unto the church, and coming into a place to where you can have faith in the heart, believing in the heart, and that is faith in God.
But folks, let me tell you. Out of the millions and millions of people in the church world, there’s going to be just a few of those people that are going to be saved. I’m telling you from my heart. Out of the multiplied millions across the world, only a few of them are going to be saved, because they don’t have faith in God. They’re not conditioning their heart. They’re of the world. They’re not of God. They’re not of the Spirit of God. Their hunger and thirst is not for the holy things of God and the mysteries of God and the Word of God, of the things related to evangelism, of helping the needy and the poor. Their world is not that of denying self, denying the flesh and thirsting after the things of God. That’s not even in their world. They don’t have faith in God. Jesus said, Have faith in God. Don’t doubt. Have faith.
The Bible says do your diligence to keep thine heart, for out of it comes forth the issues of life, whether it be unto eternal life or whatever. So, I’m asking you the question, “Is your heart right with God? Are you doing anything to condition your heart?” The Jews didn’t condition their heart at all. They looked to God as a natural security; but are you looking to God for your break, for just the things of the world? Is your only interest in God that He feed your belly? The old serpent is on his belly because God put him on his belly. All of his labor is for his belly because his belly craves it of him. But folks, we have meat to eat that they know not of. Our meat is to do the will of God and to finish the work that He has sent us to do. So then, I ask you the question, “Is your heart right with God? Is it? Is it genuinely right with God? Have you done anything to condition your heart?” If you haven’t, you’re not going to have faith. You might as well quit playing your game. You don’t have faith and you don’t have salvation. I told a man here about a year ago, “You might as well stop playing a game. You don’t have the infilling of the Spirit,” though he was one of the smoothest among you, though he was one of the most diligent among you. But he didn’t have it.
See, you might as well quit playing a game, folks. You know, if you don’t have His Spirit, you’re none of His. If you haven’t conditioned your heart then you’re not going to have faith and you’re not going to have His Spirit. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. If you say that you have it, and you’re not doing the things that please God, then He’s not your Lord, and you don’t have it. Why lie against the truth, because you’re doing the things that are unlike Christ? It means that you are the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house always, but the son abideth always.
So then, there are a number of things I would have liked to have said. We go into the foreign countries, and I meet thousands of people in the foreign countries, and out of all of the religious people that I meet, I can count them on one hand those that I meet that I really believe have had an experience with God, that have really found salvation, because they are just like America, a religious world but no salvation. A believing world, but no faith. How close is it, Brother Pike? It’s close enough that Jesus looked at His own disciples and said to one of them, “Satan, get thee behind Me,” and He said to the others, “Perverse generation, unbelieving generation, without faith.” It’s that close. These men followed Him wherever He went.
How many people are really Christians, that are really born again? How many of them? I tell you, a child is known by his doings. Look around and see how many of them are about their Father’s business, that haven’t made a joke out of things and made a game out of things, but find out how many have laid down their life. Jesus said, “Unless you hate your own life, you can’t be My disciple.” That’s why I made the statement that just to be in this world to eat and drink, just to be in this world in routine, I hate that. It’s nothing but debauchery. It’s accursed before the face of God. I hate that. I hate my own life because the natural life is nothing but corruption. It’s nothing but deterioration. It’s nothing but just hard headed, stubborn, rebellious children, nothing but rebellious men and rebellious women as husbands and wives, nothing but dirty, filthy practices under cover. Nothing but drinking and just slopping around in the world. David said, “I hate evil with a perfect hatred.” Lest you hate your own life, lest you hate that life, you can’t be Jesus’ disciple. You’ve got to find another life. You’ve got to find another love for life. You’ve got to have a love for the things of God and a hunger and a thirst for the things of God. Your routine and your prestige and your business and your kind of things are an abomination in the sight of God. God suffers it if it is a child of God that’s doing it. He makes it clean to the extent that Daniel was down there in Babylon and the three Hebrew children were there. But all that is an abomination to God. God will burn every bit of it.
All of the religious practices of today are vomit in His presence. My tables are full of lukewarm vomit. Only a few will find it. Few there be that find it. Little flock, I want to give you the kingdom. Strive to enter in, for many shall try religiously, and not be able to make it. They’ll try. Someone would say, “Well, I believe that if you try you’ll make it.” No. The Bible says many shall try and not be able. He said to strive. Just like two men wrestling together. Put up the best you’ve got to defeat the devil and do thy diligence to keep thine heart, for it is desperately wicked, deceitful above all things, and out of it comes forth the issues of life. He is saying to you and I, strive, for many shall try and not be able.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord