The Comforter Will Come
Reading in Saint John chapter 16, beginning at the first verse:
John 16:1-33 “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to him that sent me" and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth" It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me" Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more" Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself" but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer" I have overcome the world.”
If you’ll notice, there are quite a number of things here that Jesus speaks of that are real striking. One thing is He said, “I go to the Father and you won’t have to ask Me anymore.” That is to say, I will not be with you as a natural man anymore for you to ask of Me, but because I go away, you can ask in My name. Then He says, “If I go not away, the comforter will not come,” which makes it very obvious that Christ within Jesus is the comforter, and that He has to die for the remission of sin, or there will be no comforter given, because unless sin is taken away, the comforter cannot come. He had to depart for more than one reason, as to the comforter coming back: to yield up His Spirit that it might go to God and return into your body" to yield up His body so that body might be given, taken out of the way, not to be given back into the world during the time of this great wonderful move of the comforter, because the comforter is as Aaron, the high priest, officiating within the tabernacle of your human body, which is in the wilderness wandering of your intellectual reasoning.
The body of Jesus must thus be crucified and pay the price for sin so you will be able to receive the comforter, which is the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of life. His body, in the meantime, being a vesture dipped in blood, in that His countenance was marred more than any man, must be set on the throne at the right hand of the Father and remain there until the days of the Christ officiating within the temple are over. Then, that Christ will return to the body of the Lord Jesus and bring Him back, pick up that body on the throne that He set there, which is the blood dipped vesture, and bring it back to join it unto you as the Father of His children, or as the head of the church.
He says here, “I must go away.” I must go away. He said, “I’ve been talking to you in proverbs, as to the Father, but you will come to know Him plainly.” He said, “When the comforter is come, He will have a job to do, and that job will be to reprove the world of sin. Of sin, because they believed not on Me, (sin is unbelief in that He hath fulfilled all righteousness in our behalf), of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more, and of judgment because the prince of this world is judged.”
He said, in essence, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Many things I’ve said unto you, but that’s not all that I want to say. I have many more things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them.” That is to say, as long as you do not have My Spirit within you, you cannot bear these things that I want to say. But when the comforter comes, it will still be Me, and I will still be tutoring you and I will still be telling you things, and the many things that I have to say unto you that I’ve not been able to say unto you, I will then say unto you. I will say these things to you as I guide you into all truth and righteousness. A little while and you shall see Me no more, as to My body, and a little while and ye shall see Me in the return of the Spirit.” Having eyes to see, we see Him return. He said, “The world will not see Me. But you shall see Me, for I shall be in you.”
We then see that it is necessary to have the comforter. You need to have the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and at the upper coast of Ephesus, Paul asked the question, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” They said, “We’ve not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost or not.” Paul asked, “Then unto what baptism were you baptized? If you don’t have the infilling of the Holy Ghost, then what kind of baptism do you have?” They said, “We were baptized with the baptism of John.” The promise was be baptized for the remission of sin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Why is it that if they were baptized by John, perhaps in the very same place where John baptized Jesus, then why did they not receive the Holy Ghost? There was a reason.
The reason was that the Holy Ghost had not yet been given, for John was the forerunner of the coming of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet died for the remission of sin. Therefore, they were not being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ as to enter into the glory of the Lord. They were being baptized unto repentance, but they were not being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin. It could not be said to them to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. It could not be said to them, as it was said on the day of Pentecost at a later date, when Peter said, “Repent everyone of you and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin that you might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for it is unto you and unto your children, and to as many as are afar off, even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call.”
So then, we see that there was a world of difference, nothing less than a world of difference, between the baptism of John and the baptism of Christ Jesus, in His name. The Bible says that Paul met these disciples at the upper coast of Ephesus, and he asked them as he was preaching, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” They said, “We’ve not even heard so much as whether there be a Holy Ghost or not.” We’ve not heard that kind of doctrine, they could have said. And Paul asked, “Unto what baptism have you been baptized?” He knew that they were disciples. They said, “We are disciples of John. We’ve been baptized unto John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with water unto repentance, saying, ‘Believe on the name which is to come, which hath remission of sin’.” Or that is to say, John said, “I baptize you unto repentance, and ye shall believe on Him that is to come, whose shoe latchet I’m not worthy to stoop and unloose.” And so the Bible said that when they heard this, knowing that John had taught them that the coming of Jesus was at hand, that they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. They laid hands on them and they received the infilling of the Holy Ghost, which means that you need to be baptized again if you’ve never been baptized in the name of Jesus.
Someone might ask, “Well, Brother Pike, what difference does it make how you were baptized? The thing is, I was baptized.” Evidently these men had been baptized, but still there was a difference. They had been baptized by John unto repentance. So someone would ask, “I’ve been baptized.” I ask you the question: were you baptized in the name of Jesus? How were you baptized? Some would say, “I was baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” That’s wonderful. These men were baptized unto John, but I still tell you, you need to be baptized over, because there’s no remission of sin in the name Father. There’s no remission of sin in the name Son. There’s no remission of sin in the name Holy Ghost. The remission of sin is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and the Bible says, “And these three are one,” and the name shall be called Jesus. The everlasting Father, the Bible said. A Son shall come, and His name shall be called Jesus. Jesus said, I come in My Father’s name,” and He said, “When the comforter comes, which is the Holy Ghost, He will come in My name,” of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, even the name Jesus.
So I ask you, how were you baptized? You need to be baptized over, to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin, for the Bible teaches that we’re planted in His likeness. We’re baptized for the remission of sin, and as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, for Peter said that it’s not the putting away of the filth of the flesh that saves you, but the answer of a good conscience by baptism. He spoke of the old world being overflowed by water, speaking of those that had been saved by water, and then he goes on to say the like figure whereunto baptism does also now save you. “As My Father has sent me,” Jesus said to the ministry, “so send I you. Whosoever sins you shall remit shall be remitted, whosoever sins you retain shall be retained.” I, as a minister, have the power to remit sin through His name, and I do that by the burial of the body of that death Paul spoke of, to take the body of that death that was crucified at Calvary. If you be crucified with Him, then are you buried with Him in baptism, and I have the power to bury you in baptism. When you are buried in baptism, that means that you are dead, buried and planted in His likeness. We come forth in His likeness, as to the resurrection. In that it is the death of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, then it is the burial of Jesus and it is in the name of Jesus.
I am baptized for the remission of sin when my body is planted in the watery grave. The body of this death, as to corruption, is now gone, and when I come forth, I’ll leave that body there, and I come forth without that body and my spirit thus enters into the body of the Lord Jesus. I am now bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh in the mind of God, and it will be made manifest at the last trump, because this mortal being shall be changed into His likeness at the coming of the great Jesus. He will come as the head for the members of His body, and I, having put on Christ Jesus, am now part of that body. You are baptized for the dead, and as many as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ Jesus, and the body of sin is now dead and buried. God, according to the Bible, at Calvary rent the veil in two, and the rending of the veil was the separation of the body and the Spirit, as to say the Lord and the Christ. With Jesus, it was the Lord and the Christ. With the church, it is the body and the spirit, and Jesus did that in the behalf of the church. He made in Himself twain, both Lord and Christ, which means two, and at that great rending of the veil, the Bible said, as to His own flesh, making a new way through His own flesh, in the rending of the veil. He separated the Spirit from the body. He folded up the body of sin and laid it away, and that was my body that He folded up and laid away. He that knew no sin was made sin, even my sin, folded that up and laid it away as to the part of me that was sin, and now I am resurrected in the likeness of the Lord Jesus. Having been delivered for my offenses, He is raised again for my justification, and it is not I that liveth, but now it is Christ that liveth, having raised up in a new form. The Bible says that as they walked with Him on the way to Emmaus, their eyes were opened and their hearts burned within them as He expounded the Word to them by the way.
We see what greatness this is as to salvation. I have then become a new creature in Christ. Old things have passed away and behold, now all things are new. I once was dead, but now I am alive forever more. I now have the comforter. I was baptized for the remission of sin. My body, as to the sinful image, was planted in a watery grave, and now Jesus has taken away my sins, and now I am no more a living soul, but I am a quickening spirit. The Bible teaches that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. When I was born of flesh, I was flesh, and then when I was born of spirit, today I am spirit. Everyone that is born again is a spirit, for the last man Adam was made a quickening spirit, the first man Adam a living soul. Once, I could die, because the soul that sinneth shall surely die, but in that I have passed from death unto life I can no more die, because I am not a living soul. I am now a quickening spirit. I’ve been born again by the washing of the waters of regeneration. I’ve been placed in the generation of Jesus Christ, which is the spiritual generation.
The comforter has come. He has entered into this body. How did He enter into this body? The Bible says to be baptized for the remission of sin and then ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. As long as you are born of the flesh, then are you flesh. As in Adam, all die. As long as you are born of Adam, you are a fleshly being, a living soul, and you are guilty of transgression and sin, as was your father. By the sins of one man, sin came upon all the world, and by the righteousness of one man, righteousness, life, grace, and mercy has come upon all the world. Why doesn’t God just go ahead and give us that infilling of the wonderful Holy Ghost? Why doesn’t He give us the comforter? He cannot give you the comforter, because you are in the image of sin, and He cannot place the comforter within your image of sin. But, if you will be baptized for the remission of sin, then the image is gone, of sin. When you are baptized, as the Bible says, for the remission of sin, then you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. If I’m planted in His likeness in that He was made the image of sin, then I’ve done away with the image of sin. And when I come forth, I’m no more the bastard child as the image of sin, but I am now bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, for it’s not me living but Christ Jesus. In that I am the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the Spirit that departed from the body of the Lord Jesus Christ will return back to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, or it will come into me, because I am the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that the things of God knoweth no man, but they do know God. And if I be the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, He said, then are you gods. And if we be the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ is God.
So then, the great Holy Spirit, the comforter, will come to me after I’ve been baptized for the remission of sin and put away the old body of sin. I’m saved not by the putting away of the filth of flesh, as to dos and don’ts, but the putting away in that I planted that body in the likeness of death. Jesus killed that body and took my spirit out of that body, and in that sin is conceived within the flesh, sinful flesh, then that means I am free from sin. At death my spirit went back to God who gave it. I am hid with Christ, as to His angel, within God’s Spirit which is the great wonderful angelic host of heaven, the environment in which the angels dwell. I’m equal to the angels and cannot die. I’ve passed from death unto life.
I was baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sin. My body is now gone, and I am now the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and I now have the Holy Ghost, the comforter, which is the Spirit of Christ. It has come back within my body and I received it because I was baptized. I had my sins washed away. Ananias said unto Paul, “Be baptized and wash away your sins.” With the baptism, I washed away my sins, because I washed away the old body. The veil was rent in two on my behalf at Calvary. My body is separated from my spirit, and my body is now buried within a watery grave, and my spirit has gone back to God who gave it. Or that is to say, it went back into the body of Jesus, for the Bible says that at Calvary (and that particular time is called the fullness of time), God would gather all things in heaven and earth into the body of the Lord Jesus. He has gathered me into the body of the Lord Jesus. That is, He has gathered my spirit, through the Holy Ghost, into the body of the Lord Jesus. In the ark of Noah, there were the creeping and the other creatures of darkness, creatures of night. He made the Lord Jesus an image of sin, as to sight, in the likeness of man (man is the image of sin), and inasmuch as the children were partakers, He partook also.
In making Him in that image, that was where He trapped Satan. He trapped him right there in that body and destroyed him at Calvary. “I beheld Satan, as lightning fall from heaven. I’ve destroyed him that hath power over death.” You have nothing to fear anymore. Greater is He, which is Christ Jesus, that is within you than he that is in the world, even Lucifer, the one that has the power as the prince of the world, having the power over death. When the veil was rent in two, that was me. I died. Now I’m buried and He became my sin. In that body, He trapped the things of darkness, and in that body He trapped the old raven, the crow, and in that body of sin He took the things of darkness, the demon powers and whatever, in the confines of that body, to reach out and dethrone Lucifer, and He brought down Lucifer’s kingdom. That’s why from the ark the raven was turned loose, to go out and feed on the old unclean things, on the bodies that were floating around on the water.
When the Lord cast out of the body (your body and my body) Lucifer, the infiltration, the old raven, the evil spirit, then he had no more resting place. He could no longer be in the grace of God. He was cast out of heaven. The kingdom of God is within you, and the kingdom of the world, having been in you, God put the world out of you, and with that, He put the king out. He dethroned him, which was Lucifer, and out went the raven. And so, Satan was cast out of heaven, out of light, out of that which was within you, and today, you have the kingdom of God within you, and you have the great eternal Spirit, as to the comforter, the Holy Spirit, living on the inside of you. Satan is now destroyed. He is no more in your mind and in your world. He is defeated, and the Bible tells you to be of good cheer. He didn’t tell you to be of good cheer because you have wrought the works of salvation. But He said, “You be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” In other words, “What I have done has been accredited to you, so all you have got to do is believe in what I did.” And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your believing in what He did on your behalf, or your faith. Therefore, taking the shield of faith, you can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, because Satan cannot penetrate that faith. Contend for that faith which was delivered unto the saints, by which you are sanctified.
We see that for the remission of sin, I, as the minister, baptize you and plant you in the watery grave. When I plant you in the watery grave, you thus have washed away your sins, because you have been buried, as to the old man Adam, and he is dead and he is gone. He is no more. Your angelic being, at death, went back to God who gave it. So when you raised up in the likeness of the Lord Jesus, you are then bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh as in the sight of God. Though you’re walking through these valleys, God sees from mountain top to mountain top, and over here at the end, God sees the change of your body into that eternal body, which means that your body is, as we say so often, the purchased possession. It’s already been paid for at Calvary. When you were baptized, God gave you that new body. The redemption of your body, see? And He looks on it as bone of the bone of Christ Jesus and flesh of the flesh of Christ Jesus. You can’t see it, and the world can’t see it, as through the natural eyes, because they are beholding the lying vanities and they are in confinement to the world of darkness, which means intellectual reasoning, or the mind of Lucifer, which took into captivity the body at Calvary.
That means that you are free, in that the world cannot see when good comes, but you can see through the eyes of understanding. The Bible says the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, then you comprehend the heights, you comprehend the widths, you comprehend the length. We realize then that we are free from sin and death, because the Bible teaches that the law hath power over an individual as long as they live. But if you die and they plant you in a grave out here, the law doesn’t have any power over a dead man. And we being dead to sin by the body of Jesus, and dead to the world by the body of the Lord Jesus, and dead to unrighteousness, then the law hath no power over us because that was the law of sin and death. Thus, are we free from the law of sin and death and it’s not us living but it’s Christ that’s living within us, and the life that we now live we live by the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Jesus said, “If I go away, He (the comforter) will come.” Be baptized for the remission of sin that you may receive the gift of the comforter, the gift of eternal life, for you are now the beloved body of the Lord Jesus. You now have eternal life, because you have the Spirit of Christ. God now, in His foreknowledge, sees you as the Spirit of Christ and He sees you as the body of Christ. He sees you with the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who being made in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. We are made in the likeness of God, therefore we are equal with God as to the wonderful mind of Christ, and God already sees us like this. It’s already accredited to us, because the body has already been redeemed and is the purchased possession, for Christ Jesus purchased it at Calvary.
God gives you the Spirit as the earnestness of your inheritance, having purchased your body as the purchased possession. Through this earnestness, we are redeeming it, in that we are going after it to take it and wrestle it out of the hands of Lucifer, because the Lord Jesus has already redeemed it. He shed His blood for it. That’s what He bought and that’s why you are baptized with Him in the water, because it is the body, and you are putting off the body of death, and now you are taking on the new body of righteousness, which body He redeemed at Calvary. See? Now are you the redeemed body. But it does not yet appear as to your understanding what ye shall be. Your eyes you cannot see it, only in the comprehension of God’s Word. But as we go through the transitional change, from glory to glory, working on and bringing this body into perfection, as to get full control of it, as we say, as putting the bridle on it, as to that spirit of the inner man, then we bring it to the full measure of the full stature of the perfect man Christ Jesus. That is to say, we go on to a full reward in Christ Jesus, and then at the sounding of the last trumpet, when the mysteries of God are finished, we will comprehend, through the revealing of those mysteries, the redemption of our bodies. We will come to know, through that ministering, that our body is already redeemed.
I made the statement today that all of this great power is here. We have four hundred and forty volts coming in from the power plant, but in this room, we have a hundred and ten volts. It’s not that the full power isn’t there, but the receptacle only calls for a hundred and ten volts. If you have the kind of receptacle that could handle two hundred and twenty volts, then the two hundred and twenty volts would come in. But, you can’t handle God in His fullness all at one time, so you have to set up a transformer, and it transforms, or it breaks down or converts or changes from the two hundred and twenty volts or the four hundred and forty volts, down to the one hundred and ten volts. We get that one hundred and ten volts and it’s just a little something to give us light and to help us, and we use that one hundred and ten volts to cook, we use it for our lighting, and we use it for so many things. All of that electrical current coming in, and we use it.
When man lost that overshadowing, or the illumination, or the quickening of God’s eternal Spirit, God had to switch man over to a quickening of an angelic force, in that Satan is a powerful spirit. He switched him over from the inspiration of God’s Spirit to the inspiration of human senses, to the sensual way of life, and thus the quickening of the human senses, as to the stimulation, keeps us alive. This is what Satan is seeking. As long as the blood is on the seat of atonement, Satan is seeking to get into your body. When he gets into your body, then he picks up these stimulations, as to the vibrations. Even witches work by those vibrations. This is a refreshing to him as a spirit, because he is cut off from that great vibrant world of quickening. He causes you to overindulge, because your spirit requires quickening to stay alive in the body. Lucifer is in the realm of darkness, and he is in the realm of torment. He’s in the dry places and cannot find that water of life, as to the quickening. He enters into your body, because there is blood on the seat of atonement, and through your body, he gets the rain that comes upon the just and the unjust, and by that means, he stays alive and keeps the body alive. Then, when this is all over, there won’t be any more stimulation for him, and there won’t be any more healing. There won’t be any more life. It will eventually all be gone.
Man has been switched over to the quickening of the human senses. This is why the Bible uses the terms that some have sensually separated themselves from the Spirit. They have, through human senses, separated themselves from the Spirit, because they have given their angelic beings to car racing, hunting, frolics, passions, and all of these other things. They have separated their spirit from the quickening of God, and they have given it to the things of the world. I know that we are babes in this body, and we have to live by that quickening until the day we come to the knowledge and understanding of God, and at that moment, if we change over to the light, then are we coming from childhood, off of the milk into the meat. That is to say, we come into the eternal quickening.
The Bible says that this is the condemnation that has come into the world: men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Light has come into the world. Understanding has come into the world. They know this, but they don’t want to change to it because they are children of darkness. When this light shines, it shines upon you. Now that the day star now has come, now that the light has come, now that the true word of prophecy has come, a more sure word of prophecy has come, you can judge the situation by the illumination of this light, which is given you during the time of dispensational grace while the blood being on the seat of atonement. When it comes to you, in that you are religiously inclined, then you get into the environment and then you see this and you know what is right and you know what is wrong, but you don’t want to do right.
This is the light that reveals the children of light, because when this light comes to them, when they see light and righteousness, they go after that, and they want to conform to that and live and walk in that light. The Bible teaches that if you walk in the light as He is in the light, you’ll have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus will cleanse you from all sin. The light, of course, is the understanding of right and wrong.
To those who are creatures of darkness, it is suddenly revealed to them their judgment, which begins at the house of God, as the minister ministers to remit their sins according to faith. They see the light, but they don’t want the light because they are creatures of darkness and their deeds are evil and they love that darkness and they love that way of life. Therefore, the Bible teaches that is their judgment. Now they know and they cannot be saved, because they’ve come to the light and rejected the light. This the proof of who they are, and thus the judgment has come upon them, and the separation of the bad and the good, or the separation of the sheep from the goat, as the minister preaches the Word of life. That’s what they are charged with in the day of judgment. They are not charged with all of their dos and don’ts. Their judgment is according to the rejection of light and not loving the light.
The children of light stumble and make mistakes, and they have to be forgiven. The high priest is interceding, and they go to the high priest, as for the body, pleading for forgiveness, in that they are already sealed unto perfection within their inner parts (Christ is within their inner parts), and their inner parts cannot sin, because it is born of God. Therefore, the body is pleading with the Christ that’s on the inside of the Spirit, or sitting on the throne of your heart. The Bible speaks of the fullness of God being within Jesus, and when Jesus prayed, His prayers returned into His own bosom. Where else could they go, because God in the fullness was there?
Praying and talking to God is your spirit interceding for your body, in that Christ is within you. Your spirit is interceding, as to Christ, repenting for all of the mistakes and errors that the body is making. Paul said, “I’d like to present you to God, body, soul and spirit.” I don’t want to be a bodiless person as a bodiless angel, in that angels in heaven have no body. I don’t want to be as an angelic being without my body. I want my body, because my body is given to me as a gift. If I overcome evil, if I possess the body, if I redeem the body, then do I have the body. So he said, “I’d like to present you body, soul and spirit blameless before God.”
So we see that the comforter will come. You do have a right to the comforter. He will be with you, He will tutor you, He will teach you, He will lead you into all the great revelational truths of Almighty God, and the minister will preach to you. The minister can baptize you, and you can wash away your sins, for it shall come to pass that whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The man said to Paul, “Be baptized, wash away your sins calling upon the name of the Lord.” And of course, Paul did that. Paul was a great scholar. Paul was a Hebrew. Paul had everything to his favor as to godliness, even from the Old Testament. He said, “As touching the law I am blameless,” but it was necessary for him to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin. People get things misconstrued because they say, “Well, Paul said, God didn’t send me to baptize. You know, I just baptized a few people.” He said, “But I plant, Apollos waters and God giveth the increase.” See? Do you get a harvest without water? Jesus said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but He that believeth not shall be damned.” Then should we be baptized in water in the name of Jesus for the remission of sin? Of course we should, because if a man is dead, shouldn’t you bury him?
Somebody might say, “Well, I accept that by the body of the Lord Jesus Christ I am dead.” I would then ask you the question, “Why do you accept it? How do you even know about it?” You would say, “By the Bible.” I’d ask, “Why do you accept it?” You would say, “Well, the Bible says so.” I would say, “That means that you are a believer because you accept that.” You would say, “Yes.” I’d then ask, “Doesn’t the Bible also say that you should be baptized for the remission of sin? Do you believe that?” And you would say, “No.” I would say, “The Bible says line upon line and precept upon precept, that inasmuch as you don’t believe that, you couldn’t believe the other, because the proof of the other is that if you believe you are dead, you believe that you should be buried.” You don’t leave dead men and women laying around. The unburied is what causes the stench in the church.
We find out that there is a reality in water baptism, because there is a natural body, there is a natural water. Someone might say, “Well, I’m very spiritual, Brother Pike, and I just don’t believe in that natural water.” But yet you believe that you’ve got a natural body, and you believe in naturally eating, in naturally sleeping, in naturally working, and you believe in getting natural money, but when it comes to the natural baptism, you don’t believe in that. Do you know why you don’t believe in that? It’s because you are not a true believer in Christ. The Bible teaches that we are buried with Christ, and how then are you going to bury somebody other than in water? Water is the grave. God chose that so that He wouldn’t have to naturally kill us. Otherwise, He will naturally kill us and put us into the grave. The only way we can be baptized is to be naturally killed and put in the grave. But in that water is a baptism, as a burial into death, then He buries us in an actual grave, which is water. It is a grave that they use to bury sailors and people out at sea. So He literally buries you in that water, and when you come up, you come up a new man. You leave the old body behind, the image of sin, because of the death of Jesus Christ. It’s no longer that which was delivered for the offenses of sin, but it is the new man that has come forth in a new form. The Bible says that is He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification" therefore, being justified by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ if we believe it. That is why it is said we are justified by faith. To believe that we are justified by what Christ Jesus did, then it is accounted unto us for righteousness, even as Abraham for the Bible said that God imputed his faith unto him as righteousness. Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, whose iniquities are taken away and blessed is the man unto whom God will not impute sin. God imputes faith for righteousness.
The law and the prophets until John, since that time, the kingdom of God has been preached, and men press their way into the kingdom. Or as we say, the kingdom of God is an inheritance. It is an inheritance. You don’t see the kingdom of God by eyes, as to observation, for the kingdom of God has never come and never will come by observation. The law and the prophets until John, and after that, the kingdom is come. Now the kingdom of God is here, and the Bible says to pray that His will be done on earth as in heaven, because the kingdom of God is now here. We see that the kingdom of God is come, and we are praying that the mind of Christ be within us, in that this body is made out of the dust, so that His will can be done, so that we can set up His kingdom here on earth. Since Calvary, you can now, by your eyes of understanding being enlightened, you can see the kingdom of God, comprehend the kingdom of God, the heights, the depths, the width, the length of the kingdom of God. I repeat this to you again, many shall come from the east and the west, even as they’ve done since Calvary, and they shall be translated into the kingdom or sit down in the kingdom, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness. That is, the Jews were cut off, in that they were the children of the kingdom, in the days of David.
We see that we have been translated into the kingdom, and we have pressed our way against this evil body of death and dispute, for men press their way into the kingdom of God. The preachers have been preaching the kingdom of God, and preaching the name of Jesus as the entrance into that everlasting kingdom. So today, there is a door open in heaven, through which you go into that kingdom that John was in. Where is that kingdom? The Bible says to repent, believe ye the gospel for the kingdom of God is at hand. It is here. You inherit it. Flesh and blood cannot receive it. It is an inheritance which means Spirit, and you inherit it. By faith you inherit the Spirit of Christ and it becomes an heritage to you. It enters into your body, as to your spirit, and has set up its regime as a kingdom in your heart.
Have you received the comforter since you believed? If you’ve not received the Holy Ghost, then let me encourage you to receive the Holy Ghost. When He, the Holy Ghost, the comforter, has come, He shall reprove the world of sin. That’s why when you hear a preacher preaching and reproving the world of sin. It is the Holy Ghost. It is not him that speaketh, but the Father that speaketh from within him. He has the power, by your faith, to remit your sins, and then, when you receive the comforter, He will tell you to be baptized in His name for the remission of sins. If you are believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and you are baptized, you shall receive the comforter. When you believe, then have you received life by the righteousness of Christ and your body is thus gone. The burial is the proof, as to a testimony to all mankind, that it is gone and you are eligible for the Holy Ghost.
Someone might ask, “Well, can you receive the Holy Ghost before?” The Bible says that at Cornelius’ house, they received the Holy Ghost as they believed on the Word as Peter spake it. He spoke the Word, and immediately, as they received the Holy Ghost, it guiding them into all truth and righteousness. It said, “Be baptized. Here is water. You should be baptized,” and they were baptized. Down at the city where Philip was preaching, the Bible says he preached the kingdom of God in the name of the Lord Jesus, and they were baptized in the name of Jesus, and then they received the Holy Ghost. It was said to John, “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” He will guide us into all truth and righteousness, and baptism is part of righteousness.
Jesus, being our example, was baptized in water. This means that when we stand before God, and we say that we don’t believe that it was important, and the King, sitting there on the throne, talking to us, looks at us says, “I took time to come down out of heaven, from glory, into the earth and went to a muddy river, to put My body down into it, and you tell Me it’s not necessary?” You are a doctor, or a lawyer, or someone in the upper echelon, and you’re too important to leave your throne, which is really nothing but rags and beggarly elements, and you can’t go be baptized in His name? There’s no way to explain your way out of it. You need to be baptized for the remission of sin. You need to bury that body of death, and when the Holy Ghost is come, He will guide you into all truth and all righteousness. What is righteousness? Baptism is a part of it. How do you know that? Because Jesus said to John, “Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Suffer it to be so now, John, go ahead and baptize Me.” So the fulfillment of righteousness was to take away the law.
The carnal mind is the Jordan. To be carnally minded is death. God would never have made a Jordan if it wasn’t to be a type of the old mind of Lucifer that got into Eve. It’s in you. You’ve got to get over it. That mind is the mind that savors the things that be of this world and of the flesh, because he is the king of this world. He is the prince of this world: therefore, he savors the things that be of his kingdom. If you can get over that mind, then you’ve got everything, because God has already wrought victory in Jesus Christ for you, to give you all things that pertain unto life. There’s nothing but a wall of unbelief that’s holding it back, and the waters are pressing against the dam. The great waters of life are pressing against the dam of unbelief, and all you’ve got to do is break down that dam of unbelief and the waters of life will flood your soul. Everything that you want, from the redemption of the body to eternal life, all the wonderful things of life are freely given to you in Christ Jesus. Already they are given to you. You don’t have to work for them, you don’t have to fast for them, you don’t have to pray for them, all you have to do is believe.
Someone would ask, “Well, why do I fast, why do I pray, why do I give these gifts to the poor, why do I try to conform to righteousness?” Merely for the sake of your conscience that you might convince your heart. When you convince your heart that you are the friend of God by doing the things that please God, then do you have confidence that is called faith. This faith brings you your heart’s desire. The more you believe, the more you have. Do you love the Lord? Your faith then is dead without your works, because you have to do something to stimulate that confidence in the finished works of Jesus Christ. Do you understand? But by His faith are you sanctified. God has sanctified you, justified you, glorified you, perfected you forever, once and for all, even in the foreknowledge of God. Before the world ever was, you were elect. Elect according to the foreknowledge. Get over the carnal mind, now. If thou canst believe, all things are possible.
Let’s get over the unbelief. Let’s get over the carnal mind. Let’s believe all things. Blessed is he that believeth all things. Jesus said, “Thou fool, in that thou hast not believed all things that the prophets have said.” To believe all things that He has said is to cross over your carnal mind of unbelief, because the only death there is is an intellectual concept of religion and unbelief in the supernatural. When you cross over that intellectual tree of knowledge and get rid of that unbelief, and you take on the Word of God and have faith, then you’ll get away from knowledge that puffeth up and you’ll come to charity that edifieth, and charity, or love, is strong as death. So to cross over your intellectual reasoning of unbelief is to have all that God has for you, which is an eternal kingdom, with eternal life, an eternal body, and eternal happiness. Someone might ask, “Well, Brother Pike, how far away is this? How long does it take to get there, and what do I have when I arrive?” I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t take any longer than just believing, because God did it. You cross the Jordan by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus death is conquered and you cannot die, because you’ve passed from death unto life, and you have everything that you want because it is His Word that cannot be altered or changed. It is the same to a thousand generations.
He has said to you and me, “I have given you all things that pertain unto life.” “If thou canst believe,” Jesus said. It’s all already freely given to you in Christ. It already belongs to you, and the only problem you have is unbelief, the wall of iniquity that stands between you and your heavenly treasure, as to this full reward. The devil is always stirring up your mind, as to the lustful things of the world, to create within you unbelief, because when you do wrong, then your conscience will not forgive you and you will find yourself disbelieving in the wonderful, supernatural life and treasures of Almighty God. He hath given you all things that pertain unto life, and now you belong to Him. Altogether you belong to Him. Nothing can separate you from Him. Nothing can separate you from the love of God: heights, nor depths, nor things present. Death cannot separate you from Him. Things, people, problems, heartaches, sorrows, misdemeanors of life, stumblings and staggerings cannot separate you. A good man will fall seven times and still get back up. Nothing can separate you from the love that was so great that He gave the best thing of heaven for your redemption and for your recovery, to have your fellowship and for you, as the prodigal, to come home. In the day that we’re living in, the kingdom of Satan is falling and people are beginning to hate that life out there. Those that have experienced it see the corruption and the interwoven misery and they hate it. It’s the fall of Satan’s kingdom. That which was polished and glittery, enticing, is now becoming a dung hole and people are beginning to hate it with all that’s within them.
We can see that it’s time, as the song says, to come home. It’s supper time, time to come home. The shadows are falling. It’s time to come home. The bride says come. The bridegroom is saying come. Let whosoever will, come and partake of the waters of life freely, for all things are yours. This is what we are preaching: the sounding of the trumpet, the finishing of the mysteries, so that you might know, as sons and daughters of God, that you are eternally His, and you cannot sin. You are born of God. You keep yourself and the evil one never touches you at anytime, as to your inner man. Your outer man is dead and buried with the Lord Jesus, and God never sees us stumbling and staggering. Never at anytime does He see any of your stumblings and staggerings, because you are not alive anymore. You are dead and buried and gone, and all He sees is His Son, Jesus, and your spirit in that body of the Lord Jesus and you are married to another. Inasmuch as you are the body of the Lord Jesus, it is said, “I find no fault in that just man. No one can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect.” Jesus died for you and God is the one that justified you.
Jesus so loved you while you were yet in your sins that He died for you when you were doing no works. How can you work your way unto salvation when He gave it to you by predestination, or foreknowledge, as to Calvary, before you ever came into righteousness? Paul said, Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, now you feel you’re made perfect by the flesh? Who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? You did run well, who hath hindered you? Lay aside the sin that doth so easily beset you" that is, kills your faith, and run with patience the race that is set before you.
Am I telling you that you have to work your way unto salvation? I’m not telling you that. I’m telling you that you have salvation by foreknowledge, in that God saved you from your sins. While you were yet in your sins, Jesus died for you. You are the predestinated, you are the elect, you are the God body. If this be true of you, then the nature of Jesus Christ will be in you, because you are partakers of His divine nature and it will bring forth good works, even as the nature of a tree produces according to its nature. As the seed, so is the planting, and when the tree comes, it will automatically produce the fruits. We say the fruits of the Spirit because you are born of God. You are the seed that Christ planted, therefore, are you predestinated unto good works and you cannot bring forth anything but good fruit. A good fountain cannot bring forth bad water and good water. You either bring forth good water or bad water, and if you are a predestinated fountain of God, you will automatically love righteousness. His Spirit will dwell in you and will bring forth the good water.
If you are not the predestinated, you can be very religious, but you will always have your mind on the gullible desires of the flesh and you will bring forth your temper. You’ll bring forth your lust. You’ll bring forth your greed. You’ll bring forth fault finding and gossiping, backbiting and reveling in the world and the love of the things of the world, because this is what’s in you. If the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father isn’t there. If the love of the Father is in you then, the love of the world isn’t there. The world isn’t there if the kingdom is there, and the kingdom isn’t there if the world is there.
When God’s Word says something, down in your heart you’ll just chuckle on the inside and rejoice and say, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Did you hear what that preacher said? Hallelujah!” I guarantee you’ll enjoy the greatest thing that you have ever known in your life. There will be nothing hid from you. There will nothing be kept back from you. You can enjoy all the many riches that you have because you are the son of God.
You’re rich! His blessings maketh rich, naturally and spiritually. It addeth no sorrow. God wants, above all things, that you prosper. That’s natural. That you be in health. That’s natural. As your soul prospereth, so do the spiritual securities. The Bible says all these things don’t come upon you because you give not praise unto the Lord with joyfulness of heart. That is to say, because of unbelief in what you have been given, as to health and happiness, you suffer remorse and heartaches, but if you would rejoice in what He hath given you, as to confidence of faith, as Abraham did, being strong in faith (he did not consider his body as to age, being dead, nor the deadness of Sarah’s womb), but he rejoiced in what God had said, believing and being fully persuaded that He was able to perform that which He had promised.
So today, why can we not believe? Abraham was before the law. He was without this day of grace, as to the atonement, and if he believed, why is it that you cannot believe? With the comforter in your heart to encourage you, why can you not believe what He has said? What did He say? “I have given you all things. I’ve given you all things that pertain unto life,” and you certainly wouldn’t want anything unless it had to do with the land of the living. “I’ve given you all things, all things are yours. Rejoice forever more.”
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord