Being Spiritual
People that really belong to God are jewels. The Lord said, “When I make up My jewels, I shall spare thee as a man spareth his son.”
I think most of us will admit that the end of the world is here. I say that so often to remind you. People forget so easily. I think most of us will admit that things aren’t going to get any better. No matter what we say or think, they’re not going to get any better. I know we have hope that they’ll get better, and we talk about things getting better, but in all reality, to be honest with you, they’re not going to get better. The Bible says that perilous times shall come and men shall be lovers of self more than lovers of God" whereas, we’re at that time now when men would rather have their own thing and do their own thing, and have their own comforts and convenience, and spend their time as to the magnitude of body and of their desire as to their wealth. The Bible says that evil men shall wax worse and worse. So, it’s not getting any better. It’s getting worse all the time. But we are still God’s people, and we are still holding on to His promises, and it’s going to work. It’s working and it’s going to work.
Sometimes the things we say are a little bit deep, but to me, it is so plain. When I say these things, I think of what Jesus said, “Launch out into the deep.” He said that the Spirit of God searcheth out the things of God, yea, the deep things. I know that the Spirit of God is among us and that He searcheth out the deep things, and I just get carried away when I start talking. It’s not me talking anyway when the anointing begins to utter forth.
When the Spirit of God starts moving, I just say whatever He gives me or whatever He tells me, or I just try to get out of the way and let Him say what He wants to say. That’s the only way I know how to preach. It’s like Brother David Paul, when he comes up here, he gets excited.
If I say something you don’t understand, don’t try to latch on to it as to believe it when you don’t understand it. Don’t do that. Don’t be foolish and go to criticizing and saying that it’s not right, and that it’s confusion and all these kinds of thing. Don’t you dare do that. God will cut you off in a minute. Just keep believing what you’ve already got a hold of as to the Word of God. Just desire the sincere milk of the Word that you might grow thereby, and hold on to what you’ve got, because if you try to change and grab something else, then you’ll make your faith shipwreck, because you can’t believe in something you don’t understand. If you’ll just hold on, you’ll understand it. A lot of folks will say, “Well, I’ll never understand that.” Well, maybe it’s because that you are not a Christian. The Bible says that the righteous shall understand. Don’t start calling it confusion because confusion is of the devil. When you start doing that, that’s the devil, that’s Satan. That’s the old carnal mind, and you don’t want to do that.
You want to listen, and you want to listen with an open heart and with the love of God, and you don’t want a spirit of carnality to rob you of these things. You want to listen sincerely, because there are two kinds of people in the world. One of them will say, “Well, it’s confusing.” The reason they say that is because they don’t want to come to holiness, or they’re vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind as to thinking they know something that they don’t know, and they don’t want to admit that they’re wrong about what they thought they understood, or they’re not willing to enlarge upon something that God has given, and it’s Satan with that carnal mind that’s enmity with God, which is death, and it means they’ve never gone beyond the veil of death. So don’t do that, because that will prove that you are the image of the devil and that you are of the devil.
Don’t get confused. Just listen, because the Word of God is never confusing. Never. Paul came into the city and began to preach the gospel, and as he began to preach the gospel, there was great confusion in the city. But when the confusion was defined, it was of the devil. The Bible says that confusion is of the devil, and it was of the devil. Paul had confused no one, but they that were so set in their ways, as to the goddess Diana, they were the ones that were causing the confusion among the people, because as it was said of the coppersmith over there, he didn’t want to give up his trade, because he made lot’s of money making these images of paganistic gods.
There are a lot of people that have frolicking in their heart and in their mind and their spirit. They’ve have a following and money and prestige, and they don’t want to turn loose of that. The Word of God casts out devils, and these devils are holding humanity within their mind as to their thoughts, and these things hibernate within the mind, which is a composition of thoughts, perhaps that Satan has built within you over many years. Sometimes it’s biblical building, as to knowing the Word of God and misusing the Word of God and changing the Word of God into a lie" that is to say, as the charismatic order of today, where they’ve changed the Word of God into a lie, to go on with the lasciviousness of the flesh and not to believe in holiness, and just gullibly go after God as to say, “God loves us,” when the Bible says the prayer of the wicked is abomination in His sight. They go after these things through church denominations. They’re great in prestige, and they’re mighty as to age. They’ve been here for a long time. As I said about the Presbyterian Church, it is one of the greatest, most outstanding churches that we’ve ever had, as to reputation, but at the same time, they are as blind as they can be, yet not all of them, but as to the system, in that I told you how that they are beginning to take what is referred to in the world as ‘gays’, and they’re ordaining them into the ministry.
Listen to the Word of God. Have a love for the truth and desire the truth. If the truth is going to make you straighten up your crooked life, then get the truth. I love the truth. The truth, many times, has been a chastisement to me to make me straighten up. As I have come along down through the years, growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus, He has been my example. He grew in knowledge and He grew in stature. He grew in favor with man and God. And as I grow, then the Lord tutors me. He chastens me. Every son that cometh to God, He scourgeth Him first. If you’re without chastisement, then are you bastards, whereof all sons are partakers. Even the Lord Jesus as our example, the Bible says that He learned obedience by the things that He suffered, even unto death on the cross" therefore, being made perfect, He became the author and the finisher of our salvation.
Follow after truth. Have a love for the truth. When the truth cuts across the grain or it begins to ruffle the feathers a little bit, love the truth anyway. Love the truth, and then it will be dear to you, and you’ll find out that if God will reprove you of your wrongs, then He also will reprove your enemies of their wrongs. If He will chasten you, in that you mistreat someone, you can rest in peace and safety knowing that no one’s going to rise up against you without God chastising them. He’s going to make your enemies be at peace with you. If your ways please God, He maketh even thine enemies be at peace with you.
All right, let’s read chapter 3 in Saint John.
John 3:1-24: There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh" and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen" and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world" but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea" and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison. Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth" and no man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life" but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Now let’s just move over here just for a moment to confirm something. In chapter 4, verse 25, Jesus is talking to the woman at the well.
John 4:21-24: Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
A man that was trying to sell us some property found out that I had been to Israel, that I am a minister, and he started asking me questions and he wanted me to explain who he was supposed to pray to. He said he gets mixed up trying to pray and he was confused as to whether he should pray to God or to Jesus.
So we see that people are hungry and needy. This man didn’t even understand how to pray to God, but was very religious and he does pray, but he wanted to know how to pray. Then we expounded very clearly to him what he had to do, in that God is a Spirit and that he cannot get to God, the great eternal Spirit, which is the Father, except through the blood atonement as the Lamb that was slain in our behalf, as to the name Jesus. According to the law, when you call a name, you bring that person present, and you can be charged by the law with slander. According to the gospel, calling the name Jesus brings the great, wonderful Holy Spirit, even the Lord Himself, present.
First of all, we have to remember that Mary’s divine conception was of the Holy Ghost. Now we have to remember, that if that conception was of the Holy Ghost, then who is the Father of Jesus? The Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must be the great, eternal Father. It’s hard for you to understand sometimes because of teachings of three gods, or the teachings of three persons. There is no such thing as three persons. If you’ll check, you’ll find that even in Webster’s dictionary, as to intellectual understanding, tells you that a human person is a body. There are not three bodies of God. There’s only one human form of God. God is a Spirit.
It says very clearly in the fourth chapter of John, the twenty-fourth verse: God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Isn’t that right? As we was discussing something the other night, I said, “Now, differentiate. Is the Son of God Spirit?” Well, there’s something to consider right there. But when Jesus rose from the grave and they saw Him, they immediately said, “A Spirit.” And Jesus said, “No. A Spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see Me have.” Now He could have said, “No, not Me. I’m a human body, but My Father is a Spirit.” He could have said it that way. And He did to those that understand.
So then, it’s difficult to look at it in the carnal mind, trying to understand the Godhead as we would say. I say this for a purpose, that to understand the Godhead, if you look at it naturally minded, or if you look at this revelation I’m preaching naturally minded, you are not going to receive anything of God, because the Bible says that the carnal mind is enmity with God. It’s not subjected or subject to the Spirit of God or the things of God, neither in deed can be. It says that the spiritual things of God are foolishness to the natural man. He’s got it all figured out in his natural mind" what religion ought to be, what God is, and his intellectual indoctrination has perverted his thinking and he is programmed wrong. That means that spiritual things are foolishness to the natural man and neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned. The Bible says that the Spirit of God searcheth out the things of God, yea, the deep things. It also tells us that the eyes of the wise and the prudent has been intellectually blinded. They that are but babes in Christ. But God has made this revelation known unto babes such as would learn, who humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, that He might exalt us in due season. It also says, as to the natural man, that he shall not see when good cometh, for his eyes are blind. Even the god of this world, Lucifer, has blinded his eyes, even the eyes of understanding, that he might not understand or see when good cometh.
As we go along, I’ll expound more and more on the Godhead. Remember, the Godhead is not confusing. I tell you again, the Bible says that all of the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly understood by the things which do appear, even to the eternal Godhead, so that we’re without excuse. There’s nothing baffling about it at all, but when we get our own understanding mixed in with it, and we try to figure it out, or try to make it come down to what we have been indoctrinated with, or what we think of it, then we get into trouble. I’ve went down that trail in my early life, so I know. What we need to do is take the Word of God and let every man be a liar. I don’t care what preacher you’ve listened to in the past, or what preacher you’ll listen to in the future. Let every man be a liar, as to his testimony, no matter how much confidence you have in that person, whether mother, daddy, brother, sister, whatever it is. When it comes to the Word of God, the Bible says that He that God sendeth will speak God’s Word, and faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So when you hear the Word of God, you believe the Word of God. Don’t be hasty in spirit and say, “Well, that isn’t right. I don’t believe that. That doesn’t agree with what I think.” You are a fool when you do that. The Bible says there’s more hope for a fool than a person who is hasty in spirit.
Let’s not be so hasty in spirit. We’re growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We’re moving on toward the full measure of the full stature, and we’re moving on toward the full reward. Now, if I was the kind of person that every time I heard something, I said, “Bless God, that isn’t the way I believe it. That doesn’t fit what I think. That isn’t the way I’ve heard it,” do you know what I’m going to be? I’m going to be a spiritual dwarf, and all I’m going to ever know is my own intellectual ignorance, because that’s what it is. Paul said, “I would not have you ignorant.” If all you’re going to do is judge everything by what you think and by what you know, then you’re never going to grow. I know many things by the grace of God, but I listen very carefully. The Bible says that when you come to the house of God, keep your foot. Don’t let it slip. Be more ready to hear than give the sacrifice of fools, or that is, your own opinion about things. Don’t harden your heart. Don’t fasten yourself to judge everything and scrutinize everything, and if it doesn’t fit what you think, throw it out. Don’t do that. Don’t be foolish. Judge everything according to the Word of God, and if it fits the Word of God, whether it fits what you think or not, get rid of your thinking, and come to the Word of God.
Did you know that Jesus so respected the Word of God, that when Satan quoted the Word of God, even taking it out of its original context to pervert it and change it into a lie, as to the meaning, trying to destroy with it, that He never one time cut across the Word of God? Satan quoted the Word of God verbatim. It’s in the Scripture the way he quoted it, but Jesus never cut across it one time. He acknowledged that that’s what it said. But He knew the spirit behind it was wrong, and that it was trying to kill rather than bring life. And He only said, “It is also written.” God said, “Line upon line and precept upon precept.”
Now, when you hear God’s Word, cuddle what you hear. Listen to it. It may be so dimensionally deep that you could never understand it at first. I had things in my early childhood in God that I heard, and I thought, “My God, I just don’t know where to begin with that. That’s just slap crazy. That doesn’t make any sense. I can’t get that. I just can’t believe that.” And then I’d hear something quietly say, “Be careful.” And I tried to be careful. And later years, folks, when the Word of God opened unto me and I went into the deep Spirit world of the mysteries of God, I thought, “My God! My God! My God! My God! The church is so ignorant, they’ll never get to You unless You do something!” With all of their shouting and all the things that they’re doing, they’re still like a bunch of little babies, even the ministers, and they have not even scratched the surface. When God took me away into the world of revelation, and I began to get into that realm that Paul the apostle was in, I thought, “It’s no wonder Peter said, ‘Paul says things that’s hard to be understood’.” The Bible says that you have an unction from the Holy One that you should know all things. Jesus said, “What My Father’s made known unto Me, I’ve also made known unto you.”
As we read tonight, let’s just consider this one thing now. He says here in John 3:19: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Let’s take that as a starting point, “And this is the condemnation.” What will be the condemnation, my condemnation, your condemnation, the condemnation of the world by which God shall condemn us in the day of the judgment, should we come into that place of condemnation? What will it be that He uses? This will be the condemnation: that light is come into the world. Light is understanding. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, comprehending the heights, the depth, the width and the length. Light is come into the world. Understanding of godliness, understanding of holiness, understanding of righteousness, understanding of love and concern for God’s will to be established, as to His kingdom in the earth as in heaven.
So this light has come into the world. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. I go away, now you’re the light of the world.” Light has come into the world, and because this light has come into the world, then this will be the condemnation that will bring death upon you, because you love intellectual reasoning, as to the lust of the flesh, which is darkness, more than you love light because your deeds are evil. You want to do the things of the world, you want to go the way of the world. You want to be with the world and be part of the world, and you know that you cannot come to the understanding of God lest you be reproved of your deeds, as the Bible says, for everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither will they come to the light, lest they should be reproved and their deeds be made manifest. But he that doeth truth, loveth truth" that is, comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.
So this is the condemnation, that has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. This is why I give the warning: don’t lean to your own understanding, because the Bible says, “Lean not to thine own understanding, but cast down imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ.” So then, we are not to think our own thoughts. We are replacing our thoughts with His thoughts, the great, wonderful Word of God, which is life and Spirit. I take this into my mind" whereas, the Bible says 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. So, in that this mind comes into us, it is a transformating of my thoughta" whereas, the Bible says to be ye therefore transformed by the renewing of your mind, that is from glory to glory, from understanding to understanding, from revelation to revelation, from knowledge to knowledge. Let us move on to that mind of Christ, always eradicating this natural mind with which we’re born with when we come into the world.
Let us move on from light to light. Let us move on from understanding to understanding, and be transformed by the renewing of our mind, to prove that which is the good and acceptable will of God. This is how healing comes. This is how salvation comes. This is how the great things of God come, by knowing the Word, believing the Word, laying hold on the Word by faith, and then the Word is made Spirit, as into your heart. With the heart man believeth, and then you’re partakers of the great, wonderful, divine will and promises of God, for the Bible says that God hath given us all things that pertain unto life by His divine power. He hath given you health and youth. He has given you strength, good sight and good hearing. He has given you wealth. The Bible tells us that it is the Lord thy God that giveth thee the power to get wealth. I would above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. I will make you to ride upon the high places of the earth, feed you with the heritage of Jacob, make all of your beds in the time of sickness. If you’ll confess your sins and forsake your sins, whatever you do shall prosper. I shall make you like the tree that’s planted by the rivers of waters that will bring forth your fruit in your season, and your leaves shall not whither. Whatever you do shall prosper. God promised all this to us because He delights in us being in prosperity. I would above all things that you prosper, that you be in health, even as your soul prospers.
I’ve said many times, as to the threefold application of the Word of God and the blessing of God: He would that ye prosper, as to houses and cars and lands and monetary values and clothing, whatever you need is in the world, I would that you have it.
Then He said secondarily, I would that you be in health, even as a physical strength of endurance, to enjoy all the prosperity that I’ve given you, that you be in good health in every way.
Then He said thirdly, I would that you prosper, be in health even as your soul prospers. That is, I’m going to make all of this hinge upon your soul prosperity, because if I have natural prosperity, that’s great, but if I don’t have any health to enjoy it, that’s terrible. Solomon said, “I’ve seen an evil under the sun, whereby man has been given everything that his heart could wish for, and hath not been given the power to eat thereof.” So then, as to physical health, you must have it to enjoy your natural prosperity.
If you get the natural and the physical, and then since the devil’s in the world, he’s a robber and a thief, and he’s going to take everything away from you and steal everything you have unless you have the spiritual seal of security, as an eternal promise and eternal security concerning these blessings that God has given you. All natural things are made by God. He gave them to you. All of these things emanated from God: the trees, the birds, the lakes and all these beautiful things God has given unto you. The powers of ingenuity as an understanding to build cars, boats, planes, or whatever it might be. God has given that unto you. He is not jealous of that. But the devil cannot give you anything because he doesn’t have anything. But he can, through shrewdness, come into your life, take control of your mind, put you into bondage and take control of all of your substance by getting into your body. He’ll be a parasite, using up your life here, and then doom your soul, having taken everything that you have as he did Adam and Eve, shrewdly taking it away from them. He’s the prince of the world today, but Adam, himself, was the prince of the world, and Satan shrewdly took it away through the weakness of the flesh.
All God was trying to tell you is that the third part has been left out. You know there’s water, blood and spirit as three witnesses in the earth. There is Father, Son and Holy Ghost as the three that bear record in heaven. Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one. They don’t bear witness together in one. They are one. If you can understand the revelation, it’s very clear as to the Godhead. There are three that bear witness in the earth: the water, the blood and the spirit. These three agree in one. Going back to that of the water world, coming over to the blood world, and going over to the angelic or spiritual world, putting it all together, it would be so beautiful, letting you see what we’re trying to say. For as I say so often, the lifeline of the natural world is water, as to the world of vegetation. The lifeline of human anatomy, as to human physics, whether it’s animals or man, and man of course is nothing more than a beast as to his first birth, this is blood. And the lifeline of the angelic world, as to that angelic being on the inside of you, or the angels in heaven, is spirit. So these three bear witness, as to life, as the three different dispensations: a two thousand year dispensation down to Noah, and a two thousand year dispensation down to Calvary, and there’s two thousand years from Calvary over to the coming of the Lord as to the translation of the church.
So we know that it’s not by power, it’s not by might, it’s by My Spirit, saith the Lord. The reason that the church today is powerless is because they are without the Spirit of God as to the infilling. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they don’t have the gift of eternal life. But it does mean that they are not, with a regularity, staying before God, to be, over and over, filled with the Spirit of God. It’s like a battery, as to having the ability and potentiality, that is to say, the cells are filled with acid and the cells aren’t dead. Maybe it’s a good battery, but that still has nothing to do with the power of the battery. It must take on a charge. It must get that charge, and that charge has to come from the generator. You have to have that power of charge within you, as to this outer man being charged, filled with the virtues of God, as to living holy like a virtuous woman would be to save her virtues. The Bible also speaks of the man saving his virtues. Living holy before God. The Bible says that the virtuous woman’s price is far beyond that of rubies, and she is a crown to her husband’s head, but a whorish woman is like rottenness in his bones.
So it is, that we are the feminine gender to God, the Spirit, who is the male. We are the flesh as to the female. If we are a virtuous person, withdrawn from the world and the things of the world, then are we a crown to our husband’s head. If we are as to the world, going after that which is worldly and after intellectual knowledge, that reasoning, that human understanding that’s contrary to the Word of Spirit and life, then are we rottenness in His bones. So then, when the church begins to tarry and be filled with the Spirit, through fasting, prayer, and submission, and trying to be filled with the Word of revelation and the Word of God’s wisdom, then we’ll see the great, wonderful move of God in the church. We’ll see the church coming together, and we’ll see them all come together in one mind. There’ll be no disputing. There’ll be no schisms in the body. Every member will be fastened one to another. He said, “When I bring Zion again, they all shall speak the same thing, all marched hand in hand, and they’ll not break ranks.” They’ll be like mighty men, and this is what we’re looking for.
Why does God bring us to the spiritual application? We start as a child, like in kindergarten and like in elementary school, and then we go on to the types, natural things showing spiritual. Then we go on to college, then to a graduation, as to a diploma, and then on to the business, taking over the father’s business. So we see in this, that a natural person can learn the Bible. A natural person can become a scholar. A natural minded person can read and read and read and become, as I’ve said, a walking Bible. Some of them have like a photographic memory, and they get to where they can quote the Scripture verbatim. I remember that when I first started in my ministry, I started to do that. I would read and read and read and read that Bible through, through, through and through. I’ve even read the New Testament through on my knees. I tried to quote this and I tried to quote that, and I’d be so precise to be sure that I was just right on the Word. And I heard something say, “I don’t want that.” And it really shocked me, because I thought, “Well, sure that’s what You want, God.” And He said, “I don’t want that.” He said, “I want you to love the truth, and I want you to understand the truth, and My Words are Spirit and they are life.” He said, “I want to show you something.” I never had considered it before, but He took me over to where Jesus quoted that of David as in the book of Psalms. I just kind of scratched my head, and I thought, “Well, that isn’t what the book of Psalms says.” And then I looked at it and I thought, “Yes it is what it says, but it’s not in the same words.” And then I thought, “Now that’s what He’s trying to tell me. He doesn’t want me to pantomime anything.” You know it’s like two people.
He told me this: “Now when one speaks in tongues, and then you hear one speaking in tongues over here, you hear another speaking in tongues over here, or you hear one speaking in tongues, and this one will give an interpretation, and this will give an interpretation.” Then the Lord said, “What is it?” Then He revealed to me, it’s like the four books of the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All of them told the story of Jesus, all of them wrote about the life of Jesus, talked about the life of Jesus. But when they wrote it down, as to word for word, they each took a different avenue of thought. They each magnified a different part of His life, and brought in things that the others left out, and putting these together it brought a great composition of knowledge of our master in the earth.
Folks, now that’s the way it is. God wants you to be original. He wants you to stay out of that old natural mind of yours. Anybody in the world can study the Bible and become a Bible scholar. That’s what’s wrong with the Presbyterian churches, as to what I quoted earlier to you. Not only them but others. They are vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind. Jesus said, “If the blind lead the blind, they all fall into the ditch.” The scribes and the Pharisees knew all about that. They could tell you all about it, that the Messiah is coming. Such and such and such, but with all of their brilliance, when the Messiah came in a manger, they couldn’t receive Him, because they looked for Him on a white horse, and some day, of course, He’ll come on a white horse in the coming of Revelation 19. He’ll come on a white horse as a king with many crowns.
The Bible says to humble thyself. Make sure thy friend. Jesus came as a pauper in a manger to humble Himself, to see who would love Him without gold and silver and without money and without all of the brightness of life. And now, when He comes back, He’ll come as a king to receive unto Himself those were His friends. Right now you can be His friend, as Abraham was. He said, “Abraham is My friend. Shall I hide anything from Abraham, seeing that He’ll command his household after Me?” Right now, He needs a friend. He doesn’t have anybody. He doesn’t even have a human body to work through. Will you then be the friend of God while He, at this time, has nothing? The devil has taken the whole world away from Him, and all He has, even in the world, is what you sanctify and give back to Him.
So we see the calling, and we see who we are, and what we are, and what God is wanting out of us. He doesn’t want us to be intellectual. The Bible says that Nicodemus talked with Jesus. He was a ruler of the Jews, a great, learned man. Jesus, twelve years old, sat in the midst of them that thought they knew when He was coming, and confounded them as a babe. And a little baby shall lead them. So here Nicodemus says to Him, “How can a man be born again?” He said, “Are you then a ruler of Israel and you don’t understand these things?” You mean that you are a teacher? Then what are you teaching? Jesus could have said that. And then He really confounded Nicodemus. He said, “Nicodemus, lest a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he shall not even see the kingdom of God, for no man has ascended up into heaven, no man, except the Son of Man who is in heaven.” And here the Son of Man is talking to Nicodemus, and Nicodemus is standing there, looking at Him as if to say, “Well, You’re the Son of Man. They call You the Son of Man, and You say that You’ve ascended up into heaven. And here You are talking to me, and You tell me that You are in heaven, when I see You right here?” He was confounded.
That’s why I’m telling you, folks, the things of God are spiritually discerned. They’re foolishness to the natural man. That was foolishness to that great scholar as he looked and saw Jesus standing right there. When you are naturally minded, carnally minded, then you are at enmity with the Spirit, which means life cannot, as to the Spirit, get to your soul, and there’s no life without Spirit. The Spirit must of necessity get to your spirit, or you are cut off from life. The middle wall of partition that took hold of Eve, that placed itself there, is your intellectual reasoning that you’re born with when you come into the world, and it must be eradicated. It must be broken down. It must be done away with, because you, yourself, continually indoctrinate yourself with the things that’s been handed down to you from your fore-fathers and all the others. Twenty years old and doing all right" twenty-five, let’s get something" thirty-five, let’s make some money, let’s build us a home" forty-five, I’m feeling a little different about the situation" fifty-five, I need to think it over" sixty-five, my, you know I don’t know" and at seventy-five or eighty-five, you think, “My God! I better forget about this junk and I better think about where I’m going.”
Do you see how intellectually deceitful life is? Just few days and full of trouble, vanity and vexation of the spirit. So you don’t want to do that. Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, when the evil days draw not nigh, when you look back and say, “My God! The sowing that I sowed, I wish that I had have never sowed it. I don’t have any pleasure in the reaping of these days.” Sow the righteous seed, for the reaping is coming to each and every one, so that He can say, “Come ye blessed, a crown ye have won.”
Anybody can learn the Bible and be a Bible scholar. If you want to get into some problems, especially as to the Torah, those first few books of the Bible, you just get with one of the Jews, and I’ll tell you what, they’ll wrap you up like somebody with taffy. See then if you think you are a Bible scholar. You just try that sometime.
What I’m trying to get across to you is that we are spiritual. We are supposed to be receiving the Word of Spirit and life, to become spiritual. Paul said, “I would like to speak unto you as unto spirituals. Seeing that you’re babes in Christ, I can’t.’ He said,” I judge you to be babes because there’s envy and strife and malice and jealousy, or love for the things of the world.” These things all mixed up with you and you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know what you’re doing, and all these kind of things: you fuss and you fight, quibble among you. “He said, Are ye not yet carnal?” To be carnally minded is death. But I’d like to speak unto you as unto spirituals. Why don’t you pray that God would grant to you the Spirit of revelation? God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
It’s like the woman there at the well said, “Our father Jacob gave us this well, and over here we worship in this mountain.” And Jesus said, “Woman, the time is coming,” (He knew that He was God standing there with her), “and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship God in Spirit and in truth.” Or that is, I’m going to Calvary, and in a little while you’re going to have to call on God in Spirit, and it’s through My name that you’re ever going to see God or know God. She got real interested and said, “I know Messiah cometh.” It’s obvious, as I’ve said a number of times, this young woman wanted to flirt with this young Jew. We say Jew, and yet He was not a Jew, not of the blood of the Jews, but He was among the Jews. The Samaritans and the Jews didn’t have any fellowship. So, she asked Him, “Why are You doing this for, knowing that?” And she wanted to flirt with Him because she was adulteress. She had been married a number of times. But this man had steadfastness in His Spirit. Her admiration for His face or His form or His wisdom did not move Him. See, He was interested in one thing: He had made her, put her together, created her, and there was the devil within her, trying his best to take advantage of Him. But He was steadfast in His Spirit, and He spoke back to her and said, “Go call thy husband.” He perceived what she was doing. She said, “I don’t have a husband.” You know, being an adulteress, she didn’t have a husband, because now she’s met another that she thinks might be her boyfriend. She said, “I don’t have a husband.” And Jesus told her just exactly where she was living, and that shook her up so bad until she said, “Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. I know when Messiah comes, He’ll tell us all things.” Jesus said, “I am He that speaketh unto thee.” So then, with this, she went her way, and she began to tell all of the people, “I have met a man that told me all things whatsoever I have done. Isn’t this the Messiah?”
Is God a Spirit? Is God a Spirit? Indeed He is. If I worship Him, how then must I worship Him? He is the Father of spirits. Shall we not then be in subjection to the Father of spirits? If God is a Spirit, then be in subjection to Him. And if God is a Spirit, and if we must worship Him with our spirit, then how are we going to worship Him with will worship, as to carnality and our intellectual approach, by coming into the house of God? Coming to this church or any church, is that worshiping God? No. No. Just being out in the congregation, is that worshiping God? No. Just because your presence is here, are you worshiping God? No. That’s why I chide with you to this extent. I say, “Now look, folks. Let us get in the Spirit.” The Bible says that John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. If we’re born of the Spirit, if we have the Spirit, if we’re in the Spirit, then let’s walk in the Spirit. That is, let our outer man be submerged in this atmosphere of the outpouring of the Spirit, as we sing and worship God, to get into this flow, that the gifts may come forth from within our heart to use us as members of the body, for there are many gifts in the church, so that the minister also may come to you full of the Holy Ghost and full of the Spirit, that when he speaks, it’s not him speaking but the heavenly Father speaking from within him, that it may be a spiritual Word of utterance, that is life and is quickening, that will go directly into the innermost parts as into the spirit, and shape and mold the spirit as to Christ being formed within you.
The Bible says to exhort them the more as you see the day approaching. We can see by this that we need to move up in God, and we don’t need to be complacent. We need to go on to perfection. Let us go on to be perfect. Be ye therefore perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. We need to be spiritual. Remember, this is a Word of Spirit and life. Though I orally express this to you as a natural word here, that’s not going to do the job. See, Paul said, “I’m a preacher and a teacher, and he was also an apostle. And then he said, “I have the revelation of Jesus Christ,” which means that if the revelation was made known unto Paul, and he was the overseer of the Gentile church, then with the veil being removed, he saw that it was now made known to the church the manifold wisdom of God, that you might have this heavenly treasure in your earthen vessels. That is what we’re after: to get the spiritual mind of God.
May the Lord bless you. You go out and win souls. Be a soul winner. He that winneth souls is wise. Preach the gospel to every creature. This is the charge of every individual as the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord