The Dispute Over The Body

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Some people don’t understand what you mean when we say “revelation.” All they know is the milk of the Word, and they’ve never come to any real strength, as to understanding. But, the Bible says that the meat belongs to the strong, they who have, by reasoning, exercised their senses to be able to discern between good and evil. So, it is hard at times to talk to people about revelation unless they’ve had some understanding of it. In some of our evangelistic crusades, we don’t get to say much about revelation to the people. To some people, we get to say more. Here at the home church, and once in a while traveling around to different places, we meet people who really have hungry hearts, and when you start talking, they start understanding.

Jesus gave a parable one time about a sower who went out to sow. That’s what we do. We sow. Paul said, “I plant, Apollos waters, and God gives the increase.” The sower went out to sow, and some of his seed fell along by the wayside and the fowls devoured it and took it away. Some fell on stony ground. Some fell among thorns and some fell on the good ground. He was speaking in parables to those that were without, as we say. The disciples, being disturbed by it said, “Lord, these people don’t understand what You’re saying. How is it that You speak to them in parables, knowing that they are not going to understand what You say?” Jesus said, “I do that because it is not given unto them to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto you it is given that you should understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God.” So, it is given that the church should understand the mysteries of God, but not the world. The Bible says that without a parable spoke He not unto the people, for it’s not given unto them to know. Seeing, they’ll not see" hearing, they’ll not hear, and they’ll not understand with their heart.

Moses, after forty long years of leading the children of Israel, forty years of seeing the miraculous of God and seeing the wonderful things of God, just before they went in to Canaan, he said unto them, “For forty years I’ve lead you through the wilderness. Your ears have never come open. For forty years I’ve lead you, and your eyes have never come open. Never, at any time in your heart, have you ever perceived.” Forty long years. When Jesus came on the scene, He repeated that. He said, “Having eyes, you see not. Having ears, you hear not. Your heart doesn’t understand.” When the disciples asked Him to expound these things to them and explain the parable of the sower, He said the parable is this: those that fell by the wayside are those that hear but don’t understand.

Solomon prayed, “Father, give me an understanding heart.” It’s often easy for us to say we don’t understand. If we disagree with the preacher, if we disagree with the pastor, if we disagree with the Word of God, we just say, “I don’t understand. He confused me.” So we go on our way, and of course, God, letting us be a sovereignty, He lets us go on our way. He doesn’t fuss with us and give us any problem.

This is the world of sovereignty. God doesn’t like dictatorship here in this world because this is the world of sovereignty. He lets everybody make their choice, to do their own thing. It’s sometimes a little besetting to a minister because he’d just like to pull the bridle just a little bit, and make things a little different. But there’ll come a day when the Lord Jesus will be on the throne and things will be different. It will be like a dictatorship. In the millennium, He’ll have one rule. Everybody will abide by it. If they don’t come up to the house of God to worship, they don’t get any rain on their crops. If they rebel against Him, the Bible says that there is a great thing that happens: their eyes will consume away in their sockets. Once, He got a little upset, and He popped the whip and turned over the tables and drove the people out of the temple. Just before His decease, before He went away, He got really strong. He hadn’t lifted His voice much to the people, but He got really strong, and He began to say, “Pharisees, hypocrites, Sadducees, hypocrites, lawyers, scribes, hypocrites!” He just went on and on. “Generation of vipers and serpents,” He said.

That’s hard to get a hold of because that’s some strong preaching. He gave a parable of the sower that went forth and sowed his fields, and while he slept, an enemy came and sowed his field with tares. When they asked what this meant, He said that the enemy was the devil. The servants wanted to pluck the tares up, but he said, “No, just leave them alone. You’ll pluck the wheat, too. Leave them alone and let them grow together.” The rain comes on the just and the unjust, on the tare and the wheat. He said, “Just leave them alone.” Don’t bother them right now. Give them their sovereignty, as we say. Let them grow together. The same light that it takes to nourish a son and a daughter, that’s the same light it takes to nourish what He referred to as a viper, or a serpent, or a person that is without God, who is not elect. Then they asked Him, “Well, what do we do?” He said, “Leave them alone, they’ll grow together. I’ll send my reapers in the last day to cut them down and we’ll gather the wheat in to the garners and the chaff we’ll burn with unquenchable fire.”

Then they asked what this parable meant. He said, “The harvest is the end of the world. The reapers are the angels. I’ll send them forth and they will come and they’ll cut everything down and they’ll burn the wicked and they’ll gather the righteous into the kingdom of God.” But they asked Him, “Where did these tares come from? Didn’t You sow good seed?” He said, “I sowed good seed.” They said, “Well, where did the tares come from?” He said, “They came from the devil.” So we know who we are and we know where we came from. We know where we are and where we’re going. The Bible says that we can differentiate and tell by this the children of God and the children of the devil.

We like to think that God brought us all into the world and He created all of us, and since He brought us all into the world, that we’re all His children, regardless to what we do. A man in Texas told me one time, “God is going to save us in spite of ourselves.” We like to feel that all of us belong to God, but consequently, we don’t all belong to God. A woman told me one time (she looked like a Jezebel for sure), “We’re all going the same way.” I said, “No ma’am, we’re not all headed the same way.” There are people are traveling right now, some are going to California, some are going to Florida. We’re not all going the same way. We’re going in different directions.

But all people are not the children of God. Concerning all of those who came out of Egypt, Israel wanted to believe that all of them were the people of God. But the Bible says that in Isaac shall the seed be called. To him that is the promised child, unto whom the promise was made, in Isaac, the child of faith, shall the seed be called. Not in the natural child, as to the bondchild, or as the bondwoman, or those that are in bondage to the beggarly elements of the world, as to their human senses and infatuations of life. Not that. He said the promise is to faith’s son" the son of faith, the one that couldn’t come here except by faith. That’s the child right there.

You’ve got a mother and a father. You might have brothers and sisters, and relatives in this world. We’re pretty close together. When you do something to one of them, somebody says, “That’s my flesh and blood, I’ll have you to know.” That’s wonderful. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s fine. You love them. Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long on the earth. But then on the other hand, there is another family. When the mother and the different ones came, they said to Jesus, “Your mother wants to see You. Your family wants to see You.” He said, “Who is my mother? Who is my family?” Then He said, “These that do the will of my Father, which is in heaven.” That means I have some flesh and blood, too. I’m bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, and royal blood is in my veins. He’s my heavenly Father, and all the children of God are my brothers and sisters in Christ. They are my flesh and my blood and I’m dead to my family in the earth. I died out to that by the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s like the song I wrote, “I Belong to the Family of God”. You spend maybe fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty years, some live longer by reason of strength, but you spend that much time with your family if some don’t die and leave you, but that’s a short time to spend with your family. I’m planning to spend eternity with my Christian family. So, brothers and sisters that belong to this family, we’re going to have a long, long, long time together. A long, long time. It’ll be such a long time together that we won’t have any remembrance in the past.

So, when I say revelation, it’s hard to preach revelation. Someone might ask, “Why would it be so hard?” Well, number one, it would be hard because I need all night and you won’t stay that long. Paul preached all night long. He had the revelation. If we really got down to business, it would take longer than that. Moses spent eighty days without food, all by himself, trying to get a little something from God, and that was back under the law. Those things, allegorically, were the revelation beyond the veil, as Moses witnessed, as to what he had in that day. A veil was put over his face, between him and the children of Israel, because they were afraid to look at God, afraid they’d die. Then came Jesus, that veil being typical, symbolic. Paul spoke of the allegoric types and the symbols of the types and shadows. When the moon is shining, it’s only a reflector and it reflects that light of the daystar, which is the sun. All you see in the night is a silhouette like thing, and it’s shadowy. You know there’s an image there but you can’t define it enough to really tell the exact shape and characteristics of it.

That’s the way it is in this world. This world is a world of darkness. I know that some of you don’t feel that way, but it is. It’s a world of darkness. When man fell from the garden, they fell from light into darkness, and they’ve been in darkness ever since. When Jesus came, He was the light of this world, and like the lamplighter of old, He just went along lighting the lamps or the candles. Then He said to the church, “Ye are the light of the world.” He said, concerning those that sat in darkness, as to the regions of the shadow of death, “Great light has sprung up unto them.” Now, the true light shineth, or the daystar, as it dawns within your heart.

That means, that in your brilliance of education and diplomas, exercising your senses in the natural, and in the brilliance of your experience in life, you are the more in darkness, and greater the darkness that is in you. If that darkness that is in you is to a deeper depth, then you’ve come to know the depths of Satan. The Bible says if that light within you be darkness, then how great is that darkness. That is to say, Satan was a reflector, and he still retains that understanding, as to a light. When you say light, you’re speaking of understanding. When you say darkness, you’re speaking of intellectual ignorance. Everything in this world is a type.

Paul said, “I would that you were spiritual.” He would have liked to speak unto them as unto spirituals in his day, but he could not because they were babes in Christ. He said to them to just desire the sincere milk of the Word that you might grow thereby. That’s why Jesus spoke in parables to those that were without. Paul said that the church should pray that God would grant unto them the spirit of revelation. Pray that God will grant unto you, as the church, the spirit of revelation. That veil over Moses’ face was symbolic of the Lord Jesus, and God, the great light, was veiled in that body, and that bodily veil was rent at Calvary.

So tonight, we’re going to read from Matthew, chapter 24, if you’ve got your Bibles you can read with me.

Matthew 24:1-51: “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ" and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations" and then shall the end come. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there" believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders" insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert" go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers" believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west" so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree" When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away" so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field" the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill" the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming" And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken" The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

That’s reading the entire chapter there. Now let’s turn over to the book of Revelation and read just a little bit there to kind of carry our thought over. Let’s read here of the sixth seal. It’s the sixth chapter, twelfth verse.

Revelation 6:12-17: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake" and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood" And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together" and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains" And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come" and who shall be able to stand?”

Reading this, we see that it goes from Matthew 24, one of the four gospels, over to the book of Revelation. Let’s just bow our heads and say a word of prayer, can we? Precious heavenly Father, we thank You for Your wonderful blessings. Father, help us not to be as the seed that was sown by the wayside, Lord, that the evil ones can come and devour it. Let us not take the outlook, Father, as to not understanding, but, Father, let us understand. You said that the righteous would understand, but the wicked would not understand, and Father, the wicked would not see when good cometh. Their eyes, the eyes of their understanding, Lord, would be darkened by Lucifer, the god of darkness, even the god of this world, that they should not understand. Lord, we pray that You will make us to understand tonight. In Jesus’ name.

First of all, Jesus said that great light has sprung up unto them that sat in the regions of the shadow of death. Great light. All of us are under the shadow of death. David said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Walking under the shadow of death, and then, all of a sudden, into the world comes light. The Bible says that Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus comes in, being the light of the world, and that light is within a veil" that is to say, Christ within the body of the Lord Jesus. He said that this light shined in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. But, He said that we have the power through Christ to comprehend the height, depth, width, and length of this great wonderful thing, for unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, it is not given.

In our preaching, we often use the term that when the revelation comes, it is the end of the world. Anytime the revelation comes, it is the end of the world. When we talk about the end of the world, we think about it in different ways, and most people don’t understand the end of the world or the way it’s coming. They say, “Brother Pike, anybody with any kind of sense would know when the end of the world is coming and what it’s going to be like.” But I’m afraid that you don’t. The average person doesn’t know at all. I find this traveling around the world, that people don’t know because they do not understand spiritual things. People are just not spiritual. They spend so much time eating and drinking and buying and selling and going places, that coming to church to them is like a social thing. They come to church. They sing a set number of songs. They have a little exhortation. They might even shout. They might praise God. They might even get a little emotional. But, as to really get spiritual, very few of them around the world get spiritual. God really has to move for them to get spiritual. They even get to the place where they can exercise some faith and they sometimes will have a miracle or a healing, or somebody will go on a fast, or somebody will pray a little bit and things will happen, but to be spiritual, they still don’t get spiritual. They really still don’t understand the things of God, and that’s bad, folks, because we need to understand the things of God.

Any time the revelation comes in any age, it is the end of the world. It came in a number of places during the past several hundred years. It came to a man by the name of Paul the apostle in his day. Paul said, “And the revelation was made known unto me, and when I write, I write so you can understand my knowledge and understanding in the mystery of God.” We preach, and some people say, “It’s just simple, Brother Pike. Anybody can understand the gospel.” But anybody can’t understand the gospel. As a matter of fact, nobody can understand the gospel except the elect of God. They are the only ones that can understand the gospel.

Paul said that when he preached the gospel, those that were ordained unto eternal life believed, and the rest did not because it was hidden from them. They couldn’t even see it. The Bible says that they’ll not even see when good comes. Their eyes are darkened. They intellectually reason, and though they might be great Bible scholars, and though they might be professors, yet the Bible says God has made this higher above our heads, or our understanding, than the heavens are above the earth.

There’s no way you can study and get it. No way you can learn it. No way you can fast and get it. No way you can pray and get it. There is no way you can live what you call a holy life and get it. There is no way. It is strictly something that is a sovereignty with God. He gives it to whomsoever He will and whenever He will. Even the Jews, with all of their fasting and all their praying, He said to them, “Away with your solemn assemblies,” and they said, “But we’ve fasted before You and we’ve prayed and You take no knowledge.” He said, “In the day of your fast, you fast to smite with the fist of wickedness.” He said, “Away with that.”

He took it as a sovereignty, fulfilling righteousness within His own self, as to the veil, by the body of Jesus. God reserved to Himself all rights so that no one can get to Him except through the righteousness of His Son Jesus, and nobody can get anything from God except through the lovely name of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t have to give anything to anybody. He isn’t obligated to anybody to give anybody anything. Some folks say, “Well, bless God, I fasted and prayed.” It has nothing to do with it whatsoever. So did the one over in India, maybe about eighty or ninety days, and so have others, thirty, forty, fifty, and seventy days. Doesn’t have a thing to do with it. He does what He wants to when He wants to, and in any way that He wants to. All things were created by Him and for Him and for His pleasure were they made, and without Him there was not anything made that was made. Everything was made for Him and by Him, so He does what He wants to.

That’s why the Bible says, “Humble thyself in the presence of God.” Many times, fasting and studying and knowledge just puffs up. It makes you think that you are something that you are not, and you get puffed up by your fleshly mind, and then you are in trouble. The Bible says to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due season. Humble yourself. Come down to a place where you can be humble. As it was with David in the Old Testament. At the battle, there were the soldiers, and his brethren, out there that had trained for battle and they were supposed to be the men of the hour, but when the time came, their courage failed. When the giant came along, their courage failed.

But here was David out on the hillside. He didn’t know anything about anything. He just stayed out there and praised God, loved the Lord, and talked to the Lord. He became a friend to God and developed a heart of courage and faith in God, and when the time for the testing came, they had to send and for David. David, his little slingshot, and his skill, took care of the job.

When we think we know something, we don’t know something as we ought to know. When we try to be something, we only get vainly puffed up by our fleshly mind, but when we humble ourselves, then humility goes before honor. Pride before destruction, but humility before honor. Any place in the Bible where you find God speaking of great faith, it’s always humility as the forerunner.

When the man had a servant that needed healing, he sent word by a servant to Jesus. Then, when Jesus decided to come and heal his servant, the man sent word by another servant and said, “I’m not worthy that You should come under my roof" just speak the Word.” Humility. Jesus said, “I’ve not found such great faith, no, not in Israel.” A woman came and she asked for something for her daughter. Jesus, not being respect of person regarding male and female in God, He acted a little rude toward her and said, “You don’t give children’s bread to the dogs.” She said, “I know, Lord, I know. But the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.” Then He said, “Oh, woman, great is thy faith. Whatever you say, that’s the way it will be,” and so it happened that way.

We need humility. That’s the problem with the world. The world keeps moving towards education and all of the things of the world, monetary values, polished ethics of life, raising the flesh up, as to pride, and all these kind of things. That’s just exactly the devil himself. The devil is trying to get a hold of the body.

The dispute is over the body. The dispute has always been over the body. Even at the time of Moses’ death, when Moses was making his departure, the devil came there and said, “This is my body.” The angel said, “Satan, the Lord rebuke thee.” He couldn’t get a hold of that body. There was a dispute over this body because this body had been in the presence of God for eighty days, up there on the mountain. This body had gotten faith. It had bypassed death. It had conquered death through being with God. So when the devil came to get a hold of this body, the angel of the Lord said, “Satan, the Lord rebuke thee.”

When you look for the body of Moses, it is supposed to be buried over there in the valley of Moab, but you don’t find it over there. They’ve never found it even until this day. I asked the Lord once, “Where in the world is that body? I’ve been over in Israel. There is Abraham’s body. There is Sarah’s body. There’s Rachel’s body.” There are all these other bodies. I go by the tombs and I see these tombs. I asked, “But where in the world could Moses’ body be? You said You buried it down in the valley of Moab, according to the Bible.”

Then I heard the Lord speak to me so clearly. He said, “You will find him on the mount of transfiguration in glory with Jesus.” I looked over there and there He was. Somebody said, “The Bible says they buried him.” Well, He must have buried him in glory. You know, when a bird buries something, he buries it up in a tree. So when God buries it, He can bury it wherever He wants to. Isn’t that right? So then we see here Moses and Elijah, and we see Jesus, all appearing in glory.

So, the dispute is over the body. The devil came to Jesus, trying to get a hold of Jesus’ body. He actually quoted the Scripture verbatim to Him, and Jesus refused to listen to him. He never disputed the Scriptures" He just said, “It is also written.” Each time He would say, “It is also written,” and each time He would defeat the devil, and finally the devil left Him. If the devil could have gotten the body of Moses, he would have been God in that day because God had made Moses a god to Pharaoh. If he could have gotten the body of Jesus, he would have been God throughout eternity. If he could have got Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life after they ate of the tree of knowledge, then he would have been God. He would have had the world, and you could never have gotten it out of his hand, but God put them out of the garden to keep them from doing that after they partook of the tree of knowledge.

So, the dispute is over the body, and today there is a continual warfare between the body and the soul. In your mind, there is a continual spiritual fight, and the devil is trying to trample down the minds of humanity and he is after your mind, and he’s after your body, and he’s disputing with you all the time, and if he can ever put your faith down, he’s got you. I don’t care how much you fast. I don’t care how much you pray. I don’t care what church you belong to, or how much you give in the offering" it doesn’t have anything to do with that. If he ever kills your faith in Christ and His righteousness, you’re gone. It’s by grace through faith that you are saved, and that not of yourself, but it is the gift of God. When he kills your faith, you are gone.

You can still believe that you are believing and be dead. The Bible says that if you live in trespasses and sin, you are dead while you live. You’re dead. While you have the love of the world in you, the love of the Father is not there. If your desire is for houses and lands and cars and education and all the monetary values of life, you don’t have anything in God.

So then, what are we talking about? The dispute is over the body. The devil is a spirit. He wants that body because he cannot eat and drink and frolic without a body. He cannot have the monetary values and the comforts and conveniences of this world without a body. He cannot have these things that have emanated from God. He cannot have passions, as to union between male and female" he can’t have the fornicating acts and the adultery of life unless he can get into a body. He has to get into a body to cause this kind of corruption, and he has deceived mankind. Man, through the weakness of the flesh, the woman being a type, lost their inheritance and what God had given Adam, and it went to the devil. God then clothed Himself in a vesture of flesh, robed Himself in a robe of humanity, and came down into this world and gave the very blood out of His veins that He might redeem it and give it back to man. Now, here man has given it back to the devil again. This time he’s really given it to him on a full scale.

You can’t go into a restaurant, you can hardly go anywhere at all, and sit down and eat a decent meal without it sounding like the drums in the jungles. I’d have to apologize to those in the jungles. These people here sound a lot worse than the jungle. That’s right. Going over into Africa and having crusades, there is no comparison with America and the music they have over here. It literally drives people wild. I’ve seen even the little children get up from the table, while they’re trying to eat, and start moving and prancing. I see the others, around about, they can’t sit at the table without the devil motivating and moving their body. The world is gone. They’ve given themselves to the devil, and they’ve given the world back to the devil, and they don’t want you to say anything about it. It’s even crept in to the churches. Over in one of the biggest churches in Atlanta, Georgia, the Church of God, they’ve let a rock and roll group come in that was so bad that even the newspapers gave a big write up against it saying it was so terrible. Across the world, it’s been accepted.

Where is holiness? Where is the life of holiness? Someone would say, “That’s a thing of the past, Brother Pike.” If holiness is a thing of the past, then eternal life is a thing of the past. When the Spirit came upon John the Baptist’s father, he stood up and said, “That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.” It’s always been down through the years that God told Israel, “When you live holy and you keep yourself from the accursed thing, I will bless you, and in the day that you fail to do it, I’ll do you the same way that I’ve done the others.”

Moses told them just before they went in to Canaan, “I want you to know that God is going to take you in to Canaan and give you Canaan, but not because you are good. You’ve been a rebellious people since the first day I ever knew you. He’s not driving these nations out because you are a good people to give you their land, but He’s driving these nations out because they are wicked. He’s going to let you go on in because you found favor with God through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob your forefathers, and because they were friends to God, I’m going to do this for his children. But I warn you that in the day that you go in to Canaan and you do the things that these nations do, I’m going to drive you out the same way I drove them out.”

He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. Some might say, “Well, Brother Pike, in this day, don’t you realize that we’ve got grace? We’re the church, and God’s taken our sins away” I do. But do you realize that in this day we’re living in, those people out there are not the church and yet God took their sins away, too? Somebody says, “My God, Brother Pike, you don’t preach that?” Yes, that’s what I preach. The Bible says, “God saved us while we were yet in our sins.”

Why would He save us while we were yet in our sins, and not save those folks out there while they are yet in their sins? Wouldn’t that be respect of person? Didn’t He say He saved us while we were yet in our sins? The Bible says Jesus died to take away the sins of the world, and as long as that blood is on the seat of atonement, as long as that mercy is there, then God is going to let everybody in the world be a sovereignty and do like they want to do. He doesn’t see their sins and He doesn’t see their wrongs because He cannot look on iniquity. He is only giving them grace because the church has to have a certain amount of time to get ready, and when the church gets ready, and the church goes out of here, then that blood is coming off that seat of atonement. The blood won’t be there anymore. There won’t be any more grace. When that blood comes off of the seat of atonement, God won’t look at their iniquities. He can’t look at iniquity. He’ll just destroy the whole thing. When the light of the church is gone, He’ll destroy every bit of it, but right now they are getting along just as good as you are.

You don’t realize it, but you are already in heaven. All of the people are already in heaven. Somebody says, “My God, Brother Pike, do you know what you’re saying?” I believe I do. Somebody said, “You might as well say the devil is in heaven.” That’s what I’m saying. Somebody said, “You mean to tell me that the devil is in heaven?” The Bible says John, in the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation, looked up, and there in heaven, he saw the devil. He saw the woman, the church, in great travail, ready to give birth, and he saw the devil right there ready to devour the child just as soon as she gave birth.

Do you realize that when God took away the sins of the world, that the devil is living in those human bodies out there, and as long as there is grace on those human bodies, the devil is in heaven? Did you know that it’s heaven when you can go to a dentist and stop a pain? When you can go to a doctor and get something to heal you to keep you from dying of cancer? Did you know it’s heaven when you can eat and drink and do what you want to, have your own way, and spew off like a Roman candle and nobody does anything about it? Somebody says, “Well, I don’t believe that’s heaven.” I’ve said this and I’m going to say it again tonight. When you get to hell, if you go there, you’ll be able to differentiate, and you can tell the difference between heaven and hell. The rich man in hell couldn’t even get one drop of water to cool his tongue. That was hell.

So, there is a world of difference. Now the question is, what heaven is it? Paul said, “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, such an one caught up to the third heaven.” So there must be a second heaven and there must be a first heaven if there was a third heaven. Someone would say, “I dispute that.” The Bible says heaven and earth is going to pass away. So if heaven and earth is going to pass away, that means that you folks aren’t going anywhere. Your talk about going to heaven, you said you are going to heaven, but if heaven and earth are going to pass away, then you won’t have any place to go unless there is more than one of them.

Somebody says, “I don’t believe there’s another one of them.” The Bible says, “And I saw a new heaven. I saw a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” God’s got a new heaven and a new earth, and it’s going to be filled with the righteousness of God. There is a new heaven and there is a new earth, and the Bible says that we are looking for a new heaven and a new earth and worlds, in the plural, without end, and to the increase of His kingdom, there shall be no end.

There is a dispute over the body, and that dispute is between Satan and God. God, who is Spirit, made this body for Himself, and made Jesus Christ in the likeness of this image to be the head of the tribe, that He might be God of His people, that He might be king of His people. The devil has tried his best to get into a body, even at the end time with the antichrist, to raise up, as it would be, the beast so that he can control all of humanity and keep this perversion, and all these things going that are contrary to the Word of the Lord.

One thing he doesn’t understand is why everybody dies. He can’t keep them alive. He’s trying hard through the medical world to keep them alive, but he can’t do it because the Bible says the soul that sinneth shall surely die, and he can’t keep them alive. He would if he could. He’d keep this corrupt government going. He’d keep people alive and keep them going. He’d keep them from marrying. He’d keep them like a bunch of beasts, and everything would be illegitimate and perverted, and he’d keep this rock and roll, and all of this stuff going.

But, God is going to do away with the tares. There are some daughters of the devil and there are some sons of the devil, like those that were religious when they looked at Jesus and said the things that they did, as to attack Him. He said, “You are of your father the devil.” He didn’t say that they were created by God and came in by God. Jesus said the devil sowed those tares. Someone would say, “How did it happen?” Back when Eve got a hold of that tree of knowledge. After that, we had a flock of devils born. They came in because it was the wicked one that was sowing the seed. That seed today is still the seed of intellectual darkness and intellectual ignorance, and the Bible says it’s carnality, and to be carnally minded is death.

I can have all the carnal things I want to have. Paul said, “If I have sown unto you spiritual things, shall I not reap of your carnal? If other men be partakers of these, am I not the more?” I can have a car. I can have a home. I can have land. I can have all of these things. As we sometimes say, the three-fold blessing of God is a natural, a physical and a spiritual blessing.

As to the natural things in this world, I can have them because I need them. They are necessitated of life. I can have cars and houses and land and money and whatever I need. The Bible says that God hath given you the power to get wealth, and it’s the blessing of the Lord that maketh you rich and addeth no sorrow. If you’ll delight yourself in Me, I will make you to ride upon the high places of the earth and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob. I will give you the desires of your heart. You’ll be like a tree that’s planted by the rivers of waters to bring forth your fruit in your season. Your leaf shall not wither. Whatever you do shall prosper.

Then He said, as to your physical being, that if I have the natural things of the world, I must have health to enjoy it. What good is it to have these things and not have health? Solomon said, “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof.” So then, I must have health. The Lord said, “I would above all things that you prosper and be in health.”

But then I need something else, and that is soul security. I need spiritual security. I need something that is in my soul and my spirit and my life that gives me a security that will be an eternal bond of security that will take care of my natural wealth and physical wealth. Throughout eternity, I’ll have a spiritual inheritance that will stop the devil from ever taking this away from me again. So God would that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. If you have the soul prosperity, if you have Christ, you can have all of these other carnal things.

But, there is one thing you cannot have and that’s a carnal mind. You cannot be carnally minded. To be carnally minded is death. God will give you anything you want in this world. He made all things for you, but you can’t have a spirit of perversion and misuse these things, as Satan would have you to do. God will give you the desires of your heart. All of the things in the world are made for you, but there is one thing God will not do. He will not let you be carnally minded. When you get automobile minded, and when you get worldly attire on your mind, as to the gullible desires of life, or to the love of the world within you, or the monetary values of life, when you get this in your mind and you get thus minded, you are dead while you live. They that live in pleasure and sin are dead while they live, and some twice dead, plucked up by the root, which means they are spiritually dead also.

God will give you the desires of your heart, but the devil is ever warring to get you to be naturally minded. The more natural things you get, the more carnally minded you become. The more of the world’s wealth you get, the more carnality that is seen in your life. This was the thing God warned the children of Israel against, saying to be careful when you go into Canaan, when you get your blessing from the Lord, as in our day, when you get these things that God has promised to you, beware lest you get lifted up and say, “Who is God that I should listen to God?” Who is God that I should pay attention to God?

Prosperity leads people away from God. Unless you are really anchored in God, the first thing you want is fame. You want popularity. You want to be before the people. You want to lord over God’s heritage, or you want to run things. Even the preacher has trouble with you. Let a person get a little wealth and get him in the church, and the preacher will have a hard time with him. But not with a poor fellow. The Bible says that the poor uses entreaty, but the rich answer haughtily. Let somebody get a little wealth, and they get lifted up and the preacher has to rub them a little bit different, you know. If he ever rubs them wrong, then they get bristled up and he has problems.

I’d rather not have people like that. I’d rather have a group of poor folks, if that’s what it takes. If I can’t have somebody that will conform to the way of God, then I don’t want the rich. I don’t want the educated. I don’t want those that are lifted up, if that’s what I’ve got to deal with. I’m not speaking against the rich, because there are rich people that follow our ministry and they’re good folks. They love the Lord. I’m not speaking against education or professors. We’ve had all kinds of people. Not too long ago, a Catholic priest converted to follow our ministry.

The thing I’m saying is not against individuals, nor against what they’ve got, but against the carnality that’s in their life. When a person is carnal and they want to control things, or in their mind they want to be a preacher, or they want to be the deacon, or they want to be the leader, or they want to take control of the church, that’s a bad situation, folks. In some churches I go to, they don’t have any order. They don’t have any system. You can sing until you sing your lungs out. You can shout, you can jump, you can do anything. Nobody says anything because they’re afraid they’ll hurt the Spirit. They don’t systemize anything because they’re just actually spiritually ignorant and they don’t understand, because to them, you just follow the Spirit.

I’ve been to churches where I’ve seen this actually happen, where they all sit down, nobody would get up to preach, nobody would do anything but just sit there and say they are waiting for the moving of the Spirit. I’ve seen this happen. While we all sat there, I saw a women get up, take her little baby and lay it on the altar and change the dirty diaper while we were all sitting there waiting for the leading.

God said even when people prophesy, even when people speak in tongues, there should be an order of one, two, at the most three, and that by course, of one at a time and others should interpret. How much more should you have some kind of control over the singing and other things? There is a time for everything. What am I saying? I’m saying that the devil is wrestling to get a hold of the church. He’s wrestling for the body, and as long as I’m ignorant and you’re ignorant and they’re ignorant, he’s going to take it over until we come to some understanding in God.

Somebody might say, “Well, I feel like you should follow the leading of the Spirit.” Well, why don’t you let them do that in your house? The wife says, “I don’t feel led to cook this morning for breakfast, and I don’t feel led to cook any supper. We’ll just follow the leading of the Spirit, and as for the beds being made up, I just don’t have a leading to do it.” The husband says, “I don’t have any leading to go make a living, either.” Sissy comes in and she wants to do whatever she wants to do so. She has a leading to take over the house and invite all her boyfriends over and do whatever she likes. Junior doesn’t like it so he has a leading to sock Sissy in the face, or slap her jaws. Oh, nothing like that happens, Brother Pike. Everywhere I go it happens! Not just that, but they actually kill each other. Do you know why? Because they are ignorant. They don’t have any leadership. No father, no mother to tell them anything. The Bible says that the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are on edges. The Bible says that in the last days, the children would rise up against the parents and put the parents to death.

It is a terrible hour. Why? Because the devil is trying to get a hold of the body. He makes Junior rise up in the home, and father’s so afraid and mother is so afraid to say anything to Junior. They’re afraid he’ll throw the shoe through the window, or he’ll jump in the car and he’ll wreck the car. You get in the car and you go down the road and mother says, “Bless God, I’ll open the door and jump out and break my neck if you don’t do what I want you to do!” Sometimes they let them do that.

We had a case not too long ago where one said, “I’m going to jump out!” The man said, “There’s the door,” so she jumped out. That was the last time, as far as I know, she jumped out. It didn’t kill her, but it sure did teach her a lesson. It wasn’t long before I heard about another case, she said, “I’m going to jump out!” So she jumped out. It didn’t kill her, but it taught her a lesson. I haven’t heard of her jumping out again. As a matter of fact, the last one that jumped out made the statement, “It’s for sure I’ll never jump out again. Next time I’ll push you out.”

So what are we up against? We’re up against the devil. We’re fighting. We should stand our ground. We should not give place to the devil. Whether it’s Junior, or Sissy, or Mama, or Daddy, whatever it is, let’s go back to the Bible, and whatever the Word of God says, let that be it. At the church, I tell my brothers and sisters that there is one thing about it. We’ll all give our opinions. We’ll do our best. We’ll say whatever we can, and do the best we can, and when we get to where we can’t understand this thing and the things don’t work out right, we’ll go back to God’s Word and He’ll be the ultimate in our conversation. The Bible says, “In the beginning was God,” and what we need to do is go back to the Word of God, go back to God and we can stop the devil from taking our mind, taking our body, and taking these things.

Let’s try to be a little bit spiritual. At Calvary, the veil has been rent in twain, the veil that was over Moses’ face. The Bible says, as to that covenant, that they could not look unto the end of that because of the veil. Not being able to look steadfastly unto the end, therefore God abolished death, and today the veil is gone. Today, the true light is shining, and we are seeing differently from what they saw in that day, if we have come into the light. The veil is that intellectual carnality of the mind that came into the weakness of the flesh, through Eve, there in the garden. That carnal mind of death, even the voice of Lucifer.

Man’s spirit has been in captivity ever since Adam. In Adam all die, because this light, this perverted power of control, has been handed down from one person to another. When a baby is born into the world, we looked at that little baby and we said, “What a beautiful little thing.” And truly, the Bible says that children are an heritage from God. They really are and they belong to the Lord. But, as to the image, as to their birth, when that little fellow is born into the world, it is the image of the devil. Did you know that you are the image of the devil, and did you know that unless you are born again and take on the image of Christ, that you are not made in the likeness of God?

Some might say, “Well, bless God, Brother Pike, I’m made in the image of God!” No. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, and Adam lost it. You ever hear that phrase, “He lost it? She lost it? I can’t handle it. I’m losing it.” Well, you don’t have to worry, you’ve already lost it. You lost it through Adam. You are facing death. The Bible says that you are the image of iniquity, and it says, “In iniquity did my mother conceive me.” The Bible says, concerning Jesus, four hundred and eighty-three years before He came to the cross, that Messiah will come and make and end of sin. He will make an end of transgression, and He will make an end of iniquity, and from that time, God has taken away sin. How did He take away sin? Paul said, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Then he said, “I thank God that for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”

God has now brought to light immortality, and we’ve been born again, and in the foreknowledge of God, God does not see our bastard child image anymore, but He is looking at the image of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are members in particular of that body. We are members in particular, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. We are the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We already are the sons of God" not going to be. We’re already the sons of God. We’ve already passed from death unto life.

The Bible says the wicked won’t understand, but the righteous will understand. If you are born of God, if you are actually born of God and God comes into your heart and you are born of God, then the Bible says that he that is born of God cannot sin. Somebody said, “Well, that means if you do good.” Since when does it mean that? He told Israel that with all the good they had done, He didn’t accept it. What could they do? He didn’t accept their fasting. He didn’t accept their praying. He didn’t accept their offerings, He said that it’s an abomination in His sight.

So then, what do you have to do to do good? The Bible says, “There is none good, no, not one. All have gone astray. Every man has turned to his own way. God has laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ the iniquity of us all.” He was the one that was bruised for our transgression. Our chastisement was upon Him, by whose stripes we are healed. He said, “I am the Lord God that healeth all of thy diseases and forgiveth all thine iniquities.”

So then, what do you have to do to do good? The Bible says, “He that is born of God cannot sin.” It didn’t say he may not sin. It didn’t say if you hold on and that you can make it and not sin. It said, “He that is born of God cannot sin.” Do you want to dispute that? If you’ve got your Bibles, you can have a dispute with God tonight. We’ll take all night long if you want to. He that is born of God cannot sin. I had a fellow come to me not long ago, and he said, “It says that if any man says that he has no sin, he’s of the devil. He’s a liar.” That’s right. He did say that he was lying. I said, “The same fellow who wrote that, just read on a little farther, and he’s the same fellow that said, ‘He that is born of God cannot sin’.” I think John knew what he was talking about. He that is born of God cannot sin.

Sometimes we don’t understand, but did you know that if you committed one tiny, little bitty speck of sin after your new birth, no bigger than the point of a pin, the finest point that was ever honed, you would be eternally damned and never could get back to God? The Bible says that he that is born of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not. He is without spot and without wrinkle and without blemish. The inner man is sealed, as to the inside man. He is born of the Holy Spirit and is sealed, and the Bible says, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption,” or the witting of the redemption of your body, which body has been purchased by Christ at Calvary. I’m thankful that God took this out of the way, because in the days of the Jews, it was a holier-than-thou thing. We’ve still got preachers with that same holier-than-thou thing. We’ve still got people that lord over others, and some weak Christian out there, just trying to hold on, just a little baby, and they’ll put their foot down on it and literally crush that thing by some foolish ritualistic that they are doing. When you check into their lives, they’re straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. I pointed out some things, not too long ago, to a group of people that really thought that they were elite. When we got through pointing some things out, they realized that they needed a good wash job from God. Somebody would say, “You’re trying to give us a brain washing.” No, I am trying to give you a heart washing.

So we see that the devil is after the body. It’s not a matter of what you can do and I can do" it’s a matter of what Jesus Christ did, and the Bible says for you to be strong in the power of His might. He has already done it for you. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith. Your faith in what He has done for you, to believe, no matter what the devil does to you. Someone might say, “Well, that means I can go out and wallow in the vomit, like the old sow back to her wallowing in the mire, like the dog back to his vomit.” No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Somebody would say, “Well, you’re telling me that I can’t sin. If I do these things, I’m still a Christian. I’ve been born again and I can’t sin.” No, if you do those things you’re not a Christian and you have not been born again. You are a liar if you say that you are. The Bible says, “He that is born of God cannot sin.” It says he cannot sin. It says where these things are, there is no conscious of sin. All of the sin has been taken away. That’s why God gave a new covenant, because in the old covenant, under the law, sin was always brought back to God’s remembrance. God wanted to put it away once and for all. He wanted to get rid of that kind of thing.

So then, we realize that he that is born of God is a son of God. Can a son of God sin? He is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, members in particular. Can the Lord Jesus Christ sin? No. Somebody might say, “Well, Brother Pike, when I stumble and stagger, what is that?” We pray, “Father, forgive us our trespasses even as You forgive others their trespasses.” Now then, if we cannot sin, then that means we’ve passed from death unto life. If you do sin, the Bible says that you’re of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. It says, “He that sinneth is of the devil.”

Folks, you may stumble, you may stagger, you may make many mistakes, trying to do your best as a babe. A babe will stumble and stagger and Father and Mother have to lift it up. It burns its little finger here and there. It hurts itself, but it still belongs to you. It’s blood of your blood and bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, and all its little stumblings and staggerings don’t change the fact that it’s part of your family. Those babes need strength. The Bible says that if you offend one of them that trust in Him, it’s better that a millstone be tied about your neck and you drown in the depths of the sea. These need comfort. These need strength. These need help.

I’m not talking about the preacher getting up here and letting everything that comes in off of the street and comes from everywhere. I’m not talking about that. I believe in a standard of holiness and godliness and pureness to the best of your ability, and God requires it out of you. I’m just saying, that when I’ve done my very best, and my strength fails to be able to accomplish what I want to accomplish, as to the stature of Christ, then the Lord takes care of it. He is the link that makes up my chain. As Abraham Lincoln said, “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.” Wherever I’ve got a weak link, Jesus locks it together so that my chain doesn’t have any weakness in it. It’s been said, “Everyone has a weakness.” Where do you find a weakness in the man Christ Jesus? Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him.” If we’re the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, where is our weakness?

We need to perfect our ways in holiness, and we need to perfect our ways before God. We need to get our mind on God, and get our mind on holiness. We need to get back to the Word of the Lord and faith in the Word of God. We don’t need to trust in carnality, and we don’t need to trust in ritualistics. We don’t need to get our mind on the world. We need to love God, praise God, have faith in God, and realize our sins are gone. Our sins are not leaving" they’re gone. Someone says, “Well, when we stand in the day of judgment, the Lord puts so much over here on this side of the scale and so much on this side of the scale, and if it balances thus and thus according to His evaluation, we’re all right.” That’s not right at all. The Bible says that judgment begins in the house of God. You’ve passed from death unto life. When you are born again, you can’t be unborn. Somebody says, “Ah ha! But in this life, you can die.” I know. But thank God, in that life, you can’t. That’s why it’s eternal life.

If you could die, it wouldn’t be eternal life. I’ve heard people say, “Adam had eternal life, and Eve had eternal life. But they died.” There is nothing said about them having eternal life. Where did you ever find that in the Bible? Where does it say anything about Adam and Eve having eternal life? You know they didn’t have eternal life. If they had eternal life, they would have never died. They were illuminated with the presence of God. I’m not illuminated with the presence of God. Those people out there are illuminated with the presence of God because the blood is on the seat of atonement. That’s what makes it a second heaven. They are where John saw them in the twelfth chapter of Revelation.

But the thing is, I’m not illuminated. I am born of the Shekinah glory of God. I am inbred with it. The Holy Spirit is in me and I’m in Him. It’s in my inner spirit. He’s in my heart. I’m His temple. He walks in me. Am I illuminated? I’m illuminated just like they are, as to take care of the church body. While it was yet without the change, He had to let it go on them, too. They’re getting the benefits of it, just to take care of us in the body. But I’m speaking of being born again. I’m speaking of revelation. I’m speaking of understanding. The veil has been rent in twain.

It is strange that when the Bible says that the veil was rent in twain, the Bible spoke of these people, being carnal, these people being natural minded, and they thought that Jesus was talking about a temple here in this world, like this church building, like Moses had in the tabernacle. Indeed, He did mean that the veil was rent in twain, as to the natural. It was rent in twain, as between the holy place and the most holy. The veil of the covering cherubs was rent in twain. But, folks, that wasn’t what He was talking about. The Bible says, “They understood not that He spake of His body until after His death and resurrection.” He was speaking of His body. His body was the temple of God. You’re the temples of God. When the Bible says the veil of the temple was rent in twain, it said He made in Himself twain, or two, both Lord and Christ, and when the veil was rent in twain, it meant that the Spirit had been separated from the body, or the Lord had been separated from the Christ, and that body had thus done its work and fulfilled the law, and now that body was ready to be laid away. Jesus said, “Not one jot nor one tittle of the law shall pass until all be fulfilled.” When Jesus came, He said, “Think not that I come to destroy the law" I’ve come to fulfill.” He fulfilled every jot and every tittle. He fulfilled everything that was required of those people under the law that they could not do. Jesus died to redeem those that were under the law, and He fulfilled every jot and every tittle of it, folded it up and laid it away and give us grace.

So, when the veil was rent in two, the Christ stepped out of that veil that was over Moses’ face, as it was said. That bodily flesh, as to the law and the keeping of ordinances that stood between man and his salvation and his eternal life. The Bible says God has done away with that, and He nailed it to the cross. He took all of the ordinances out of the way, and today we are free from the law. I say this: if I pass from death unto life, then that means that I’m free from the law, because transgression of the law is sin, and the sting of death is sin. So then, if I’m dead to the law by the body of Jesus and He fulfilled every jot and tittle for me, I cannot transgress the law.

Can a man that’s in the grave transgress the laws in Mississippi? Can he do that? No, he’s dead to the law. I’m dead to the law. Paul said, “Reckon yourselves to be dead to the law.” Be dead to the things of the world. Come out from the world. Be a separate people. Touch not the unclean things and I’ll receive you, saith the Lord. God has redeemed us from the curse. Cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree, and we’re redeemed from the curse and we’re free from the curse of death.

If I cannot sin (he that is born of God cannot sin), then I cannot die, because the sting of death is sin. If I cannot sin, how then can I die? I cannot die. I’m born into this world a living soul, but now I’ve passed from death unto life. The second man Adam was made a quickening Spirit, and I’m bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. In my world, there is no conscience of sin. All of it is gone. While people were under the law, it brought the remembrance of sin to God over and over. Now, God never has a remembrance of our sins. He says, “Peace on earth and good will toward men.” Eternally and forever. Jesus, having been delivered for my offenses, is now raised again for my justification. He ended my offenses when He died, then He raised again to prove that death has no power over you and I. We are alive forever more. We are buried with Him in baptism in His lovely name, raised again by the power of God in the resurrection. Having been buried with Him in death, we are now living with Him in this wonderful resurrection of life.

We know that we have passed from death unto life. When the veil was rent in twain, the body of the law was folded up and laid away, and it meant the body of this death was gone and my spirit, at death, went back to God who gave it. I’m hid now with Christ in God whom the heavens have received until the time of the restoring, or the resurrection, or the millennium, that coming in of the new world. That’s why we will be translated.

The world doesn’t know this. The world’s sins are gone momentarily, during this age of dispensational grace. But when the church goes out, the devil is no longer in the light of God. He is no more in heaven. He’s in darkness. The Bible says great darkness, so great that they’ll gnaw their tongues for pain, and there won’t even be so much as a healing medicine. They won’t even have enough sense to make a bottle of medicine. Somebody would say, “These wonderful medical people.” I know God has raised up some, and I thank God for that. It’s just like a mechanic for a car. A physical physician, a spiritual physician. Archeologists for the world. But, folks, let me tell you something. Healing comes from God. I don’t care whether you get it through the hospital, wherever you get it, and if you think it doesn’t come from God, then what are you going to do with the Word of God when it said, “In that day there shall be no healing medicines”?

There will still be professors around. There will still be doctors around. Why is it they can’t bring us any healing medicine if they’re around in that day? Because it doesn’t have anything to do with them. It is the grace of God. While that blood is on the seat of atonement, God is allowing these things, and when the light of understanding goes out, there won’t be anything at all that can rid them of their pain. Not a thing. While we’re in this condition, this is what makes us rejoice.

If I have to fast and pray and beg and cry every time I stumble and God slaps me down, and I have to fast two weeks to get back up, what have I got to rejoice for? How can I say, “Glory to God. Hallelujah. I thank You Jesus.” How can I thank Him? He hasn’t done anything for me if that’s the case. That’s the way it was with the Jews. They would rise up and say, “I’m a priest. I’m a holy men. Do it my way.” But when Jesus came along, He didn’t like that, so He did away with all of that. I say, “Glory to God!” because it is glory to God. All the glory is to God. He did it all. He paid it all. All to Him I owe. I say, “Hallelujah!” because I’ve got something to say hallelujah about! I don’t say, “Hallelujah! If I can just fast and hold on.” No. No. I say, “Hallelujah! Glory to God! Amen! Praise God, my sins are gone! They’re underneath the blood of Calvary. As far removed as darkness is from dawn, and they’re in the sea of God’s forgetfulness. That’s good enough for me. Hallelujah! My sins are gone!” Someone might say, “Well, bless God, I know they’re gone, but ...” That isn’t the case at all! You need a good case of getting born again. Your faith will never translate you and take you anywhere.

If you don’t have the faith of Jesus Christ, the faith by which we’re sanctified, you don’t have anything. I know the world says that nobody is perfect, but the man that says that is a liar. The Bible says Job was a perfect man. The Bible says, “Mark the perfect man that is among you, and watch the end of a perfect man,” which is peace. The Bible says that God has perfected forever them that are sanctified and sanctified them once and for all by the offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish, and the evil one never touches you at any time. You keep yourself.

What are we talking about? We’re talking about perfect folks. The Bible says that those that He sanctified, He has also perfected forever. If you’re not perfect, you’re not a Christian. To be Christ-like means to be perfect. They were first called Christians at Antioch because they acted like Jesus. The nature of a man brings about an image. It doesn’t matter if it’s an apple, an orange, or seed for corn, or butter beans. Whatever it is, it brings a conformity of the image as to the nature.

If you have the nature of Jesus Christ, then you’ve passed from death unto life. How did you pass from death unto life if you’re not perfect? It’s because He fulfilled every jot and every tittle of the law, and because He fulfilled every jot and every tittle of the law, that made you perfect. The Word of God says that God has sanctified us once and for all by the offering of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary.

I know there is a daily sanctification, where you sanctify yourself to utilize your ability for Christ. It has nothing to do with your salvation at all. That has to do with the utilization of your ability, whether to a thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or hundred-fold, what you accomplish in this world for God. The Bible says, “Paul, turn My people from darkness unto light, unto the faith which is in Me, by which you are sanctified.” If you have the Son, then you have the life, for the Bible says this life is in the Son. If you have not the Son, then you don’t have life. If you have not the Spirit of God, you don’t have life, for the Bible says if you have not His Spirit, you’re none of His. There is but one Spirit.

So, the veil has been rent in twain. What happened? My body was buried in Jesus Christ. My spirit went back unto God who gave it, and today, my spirit dwells in heaven, hid with Christ in God whom the heavens have received. My body has already been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, but it hasn’t been changed, as to the last trumpet, the Thessalonians change, in the moment in the twinkling of an eye. That’s why the people in the world have grace. That’s why they are illuminated, like Adam and Eve were. Someday that illumination will lift. Right now, they’re illuminated by the righteousness of those who love God. The blood is still on the seat of atonement as to Him, the head of the church, until the church is perfected as to their ability to utilize, to bring this body to wit the redemption" not to bring this body to redeem it, as if by some good works, nor to bring this body to some place where God is going to save you. That has nothing to do with it. I was saved when I was born again. I passed from death unto life. I got into the God family, and that Christ on the inside is still there, like a little babe in the womb. Paul said, “I travailed until Christ be formed within you.” I’m waiting for the inward life to be made manifest in my mortal genes, as to the change. I’m going on to perfection, and the more I get perfect on the inside, as to the development, then the more it’s released into my body and my body is thus perfected. Is the life in a little baby a perfect life? Sure it’s a perfect life, just as you’re a perfect life. It might not be but two days old, but if it’s living, it’s a perfect life and it grows and grows and grows, and if that body responds to that life, having no deformity, it will be a perfect body, and that’s what we’re working for.

I’ve passed from death unto life. How did I pass from death unto life? Because I cannot sin. How is it I cannot sin? Because I’m born of God. Somebody would say, “Bless God, I don’t think you ought to say that.” Well, that’s what the Bible says. The Bible says I’m saved by faith in the Word, and if I believe that, I have to say that. If I don’t believe that, I just lay that aside and say, “Well, I just don’t understand it,” and I make God a liar if I say that I’m a Christian, if I really am a Christian, if that were possible at all, which it isn’t. The Bible says that he that is born of God cannot sin. The Bible says that we have an unction from the Holy One and we know all things. The Bible says the wicked shall not understand, but the righteous shall understand.

So I’m born again. That’s means sin is at an end. Sin is gone. Jesus made an end of it. Four hundred and eighty-three years after the end of the Babylonian captivity, and then He made an end of it. God smote the bastard child image, which was you and me, in Jesus. He was made like unto us in the body, and thus the sun would not shine and everything became as dark as sackcloth of hair, and then Jesus said, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It was because He wanted to save me, that’s why. The Bible says that He that knew no sin was made sin, even my sin, your sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So then, if I can’t sin, I can’t die. Somebody would say, “What do you mean can’t die? Why do they put people in the grave?” Because some of them are dead. “You mean they put some of them in a grave and they’re dead, but some of them that they put in a grave are not dead?” That’s exactly what I mean. You figured it out. “You mean to tell me, Brother Pike, that you are ignorant enough to think that when they put men into graves, and neither one of them can breathe, and they throw dirt in on top, that some of them are dead and some are not dead?” That’s what I’m talking about. I’ve had people say, “Well, there’s one thing that bothers me. I hope that they’ll never bury me alive.” Well, you don’t have to worry about that. If you’ve ever worked around embalming, you’ve seen them rip that jugular vein and pull all that blood out and put fluid in. You say, “Why are you saying that?” I’m just doing that to humble you a little bit so you’ll lose some of your prestige. People get to living, eating, and drinking and they forget there’s a day like that coming.

It’s appointed unto man once to die. Somebody says, “There you are, right there. That’s the Scripture I’ve been looking for, Brother Pike. It is appointed unto man once to die. That means, Brother Pike, you’re doing to die, I’m going to die, and everybody else is going to die.” No, that’s not right. It meant I was going to die and you were going to die, but we died through Jesus before the world ever was. God took care of that before I was ever born into the world. Somebody says, “But it’s appointed unto man once to die.” I know, but I’m not a man" I’m a son of God! What difference does that make if I’m a son of God? When an elephant begets elephants, as you use the terms, it’s an elephant. If it’s a dog, you would say it’s a dog, unless you have a better vocabulary. If it’s a man, you say it’s a son of a man. When I was born of God, what happened to me? I’m a son of God. What does that mean? Well, Jesus gave us a little break down on that. When they were going to stone Him, He asked, “For what good works? For opening the eyes of the blinded eyes, raising the dead, healing the crippled? For these good works? Which good work do you stone Me?” They said, “We don’t do that for good works. But we stone You because You being a man, make Yourself God.” All He did was say He was the Son of God.

Now, could that mean that you are a god when you say you are a son of God? If an elephant could talk, and it was a son of an elephant, could he say that he was an elephant and be justified? Or if he was a man, could he say he was a man and be justified in it? I believe that we can say that we are gods and be justified in it. Jesus told them, “Is it not written that I have called ye gods?” He called them gods. He said, “Moses, I’ve made you a god to Pharaoh.” I searched the Scriptures, in the Old Testament, to see what He was saying, and there it was in Psalms, where the Spirit spoke through David and said, “Ye are gods, but ye shall die like men.” Why shall you die? For the lack of knowledge, or knowing, that ye are gods.

What is a god? A god is something that lives forever. It doesn’t die. In every generation, it’s still alive. Things don’t live on and on unless it’s a god. It is a god. That is why the Bible says, “I’ll make the whole world come and kneel at your feet and know that I have loved you.” Paul said they magnify God and glorify God within me. You are the body of Jesus Christ. How many believe Jesus Christ was God? How could you be a member of His body and not be God? How could you be the son of a monkey and not be a monkey? We are the sons of God, and He begat gods. Gods begat gods and dogs begat dogs and elephants begat elephants and men begat men.

Somebody says, “Why can’t we die, Brother Pike?” The reason we can’t die is gods don’t die. That’s why we can’t die. When we passed from death unto life, sin was over, and today we cannot sin, and because we cannot sin we cannot die. O death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory? The grave doesn’t have any victory, because there is no sting of death.

We may go to the grave, but we don’t die. How can this be? Because Jesus said, concerning Lazarus, “Lazarus is asleep. I go to awake him.” What do we do? We go to asleep. Somebody says, “Six of one, half a dozen of the other. When you’re dead you’re done.” A man told me this over in Boston one time. But Jesus said, “In that you don’t understand, Lazarus is dead. According to your terms, he’s dead, and I’m glad that I wasn’t there so that you can see the glory of God.” Or that is, He could have said, “You will see that I’m the resurrection.” So then, Lazarus sleepeth. Jesus went to awake him.

When people die, you don’t awake them. You don’t wake up a dead man. Paul said, “Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but be changed.” Some of us, as I say so often, are not sleepy, so we’re not going to go to sleep. A man doesn’t go to sleep if he’s not sleepy. We’re not going to sleep. That is, there are some that are coming along now in this message and in this age, and have come along far enough, and the time is just right that they’ll never be put in a casket and they won’t be put in the ground. They’ll never die. They’ll never even go to sleep.

What is the difference? When you say “die”, then we then put them in the grave. We bury them. Is that then death? Not to a Christian. What does the Bible mean when it says that we’ve passed from death unto life? That’s what it means. We’ve passed from death unto life. What death, since we may be put into the ground like everybody else at a certain time? Why is it that we’re put in the ground, if we’ve passed from death? There must be a difference between those that are put in the ground.

When Jesus said you have passed from death unto life, He was speaking of the second death. The Bible calls it the second death. The lake of fire. A Christian’s soul can never go into the lake of fire. To have your spirit separate from your body is sleep. The body without the spirit is dead, according to your terms. It is sleep if you are a Christian, because Christ is in your spirit, and your spirit goes back to God who gave it. But if your spirit separates from God’s Spirit, that’s death. If you live in this life and you never get God’s Spirit, which is Christ’s Spirit, into your spirit, as to a new birth, you are dead. When you close your eyes and you breathe your last breath, you are as the rich man who lifted up his eyes in hell.

But, as it was with Lazarus, in the foreknowledge of God, it’s given to us in Christ before the world ever was. Our names are written down in the Lamb’s book of life before the world ever was. Paul said to greet his workers whose names are in the Lamb’s book of life, already having passed from death unto life. With these kind of things, what am I saying? That the first is only a sleep. There is but one death. Jesus calls it the second death, because to those who lose out in this world, it’s death. He said, “Lazarus is asleep.” But since you don’t understand, He could have said, “He is dead. I go to awake him.”

He’s going to wake us up in the morning because we’re just resting awhile. But those that are in hell, who look across the great gulf, they’ll never be awake to life again. They are in hell and they are very much alive, the way that you take it as to life, but it is really not life. If you are in this world and in pain from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, that’s a living nightmare and that’s not life. You’re existing, but you are not living. When you are in hell, where the fire is not quenched and the worm dieth not, you are there to be tormented and tormented. I understand hell is not eternal. I’m not telling you that hell is eternal. Hell is not eternal. The Bible says that death and hell delivered up the dead that was in them, and death and hell was cast into the lake of fire. But when it comes to the lake of fire, the Bible says eternal flames, where the fire is not quenched, and the worm, the body, never dies. The Bible says, “Thou worm, Jacob, I will help thee.” Understand what I’m saying?

Just remember this, the veil is dead, and your body is dead because of sin. It’s buried in Jesus Christ’s name in baptism. Your spirit is now dwelling in heaven with Christ. You cannot sin because sin has to come through the body and there’s no such thing as sin to you. Your spirit is sealed, that the evil one can never touch it, and you are free from sin. You may stumble and stagger and make mistakes, but when you know that you’re born again and you’re doing your best and you’re not allowing for those things, as to willful allowance, the Bible says, “Happy is he that doeth not condemn himself over that thing which he allows.” If you stumble, don’t condemn yourself over it" keep your faith. Somebody would say, “Well then, I can just go out and sin, and all I got to do is say, ‘I’m just not going to allow for it’.” You can go out and be ignorant. Paul said, “But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” But we’d not have you to be ignorant. You can do that. You can go out and play a game. You can believe, but believing is not faith. If you believe, you can join the devil’s crowd. He believes also, but that is not faith. Faith is out of the heart. You can believe anything up here in your head. You can believe you’re healed when you are sick. You can die when you think you’re going to live.

We have passed from death unto life, and we can always worship God. Shall I then come into condemnation, or should I condemn myself? Absolutely not! How can I condemn myself when the Bible says there is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit? Someone would say, “Well, that’s where it’s at. If I don’t walk after the flesh.” That’s exactly where it’s at, if you don’t walk after the flesh and walk after the Spirit. The only thing I have to add to that is line upon line and precept upon precept, as to the Word of God. The Bible says, “No one can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect.” Not even you yourself. If you condemn yourself, God is greater than your heart. He knoweth all things. He knows that you’ve been born again and there is no condemnation to those that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. I’m born of God, and I’m not after the flesh. How can I walk after the flesh when I’m not in the flesh? The Bible says that you’re not in the flesh. God has chosen you out of the flesh. He’s chosen you out of the world. The body is dead, buried, and gone. The spirit went back to God who gave it. How then can I walk in the flesh? There is now therefore no condemnation to them that have been born again.

So, we’re children of God, having been made gods, and we cannot die because we cannot sin. We are never under condemnation. If we’re never under condemnation, then we can rejoice forevermore. “Ye that dwell in heaven,” the Bible says, “rejoice forevermore.” We can rejoice, and every time the devil jumps on us and tries to trample our mind down, we don’t have to get down in the dumps. We don’t have to feel as though we thought we made it and we didn’t make it, and now, we don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ll just keep on praising God anyway, keeping our faith up in Him. Don’t cast away your faith. It has great recompense of reward. The thing that the devil is trying to do is kill your faith in God’s righteousness, to do away with your faith, because when your faith is gone, that means that you’re gone, but in that it is He that liveth within us, as to the seed of God, Christ that remaineth in us, even the faith by which we’re sanctified, and there is no way that you can ever override that faith.

The Bible speaks of a sin unto death, and I do not say that you should pray for it, as to one blaspheming the Holy Ghost. There is a sin that is not unto death, and you should pray for this. But if it be the sin unto death, don’t pray for that. It won’t do any good because there is no forgiveness. Somebody says, “Well, there you are. You, being a Christian, and you sinned a sin unto death.” How can you sin a sin unto death when you can’t sin? Don’t be childish. John said, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” He then said, “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not.”

So you don’t have to worry about those kinds of things. All you can do is just rejoice. Give God the praise. The devil tries to put a damper on you, to keep your faith down, so you won’t utilize your ability to be a light for God unto all the world, and so that you can’t be about your Father’s business. As long as he can put a damper on you and keep you suppressed in your mind and feeling real low, as long as he can do that, you’re not going to do anything for God. Your faith is not strong enough.

I’ve tried to enlightened you, so you can comprehend the height, the width, the depth and the length of this great salvation, because the translation of the church is near at hand. Of course, that means the change of the body, for you have already been translated in to the marvelous kingdom of God" not going to be, but you already have been in the inner man. The kingdom of God has been here ever since the law and the prophets. Since that time the kingdom has been preached and men press their way into it. The Bible says that God hath, even right now, translated us, as to the inner man, into the marvelous kingdom of God" which kingdom is the Spirit of Christ, for my spirit is interwoven with Christ, as the SafeGuard is in the garment, where the spots can’t penetrate.

Jesus said, “If you love Me, you’ll keep My commandments.” The real love of God is manifested in that you keep His commandments. If the love of God is in you, you’ll keep His commandments. He said, “My commandments are not grievous. You should love one another.” Do you love Him?

If you believe what I’ve said, then you’ve passed from death unto life and shall never come in to condemnation. If you cannot believe what’s I’ve said, then talk to God until you can come to the place to where you can understand the Word of God, because the church is being translated and she’s on the verge of the change. Everything is just right for the coming of the Lord.

I tell you again, wherever the revelation is found, it’s always the end of the world. It’s the coming of the Lord. Look in the book of Revelation and you’ll find the Lord coming. You’ll find in the first part of the book of Revelation, every eye shall see Him, and they that crucified Him shall narrowly look upon Him. The Bible says, “The time is at hand.” When the revelation came, it said that the time is at hand. When Paul received the revelation, he said, “Ye are the people upon whom the ends of the world have come.” Any time the revelation comes, it brings the end of the world.

Are you ready to meet the Lord Jesus Christ? Is everything ready in your heart? Have you just been playing a game with God, or have you been growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you been moving on to the full measure of the full stature, or have you just took it for granted that you are a Christian and you are still dabbling around in the things of the world? Do you still have your mind on the prosperity of the world and the things of the world and trying to achieve something in the world? It amazes me that even the preachers of today have their minds on the world. They’re trying to accomplish things in the world, and to project themselves in the world, and get all of the world that they can get a hold of. I thank God He has given me everything I could wish for. Boats, planes, land, houses, travel anywhere in the world I want to whenever I get ready. God has given me hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars. He’s taken care of me.

But when you get your mind on those of things and you get carnal minded, you are under the control of Satan. You are under the influence of Satan. You don’t have to have a private jet to be under the influence of the devil. You don’t have to have a private ship to be under the influence of the devil. You can have all of that and still not be carnal minded. You can still love God and use your whole life for God. But you can have just a few hundred dollars and be filled with pride and be under the influence of the devil. You’ll have your mind on your income, have your mind on your human physique, and have your mind of the things of the world. You’ll have your mind on the future, wanting an education, or wanting to educate your children so they can be a part of this world. Always pressing toward that and you are carnal minded in death.

Won’t you come out from the world and be a separate people? Won’t you give in to the Spirit of holiness and get into the things of God? Give yourself to the understanding of God. Forget about the old tree of knowledge and the diplomas of the world. Men measure themselves by themselves, as to a world of diplomas, and the Bible says that they are not wise. How can you honor with God when you seek honor of another? We need to measure our self by God and by God’s Word, and we need to study the Word.

Some people feel like the Word is so simple. They’ve read through the Bible, and they know it and now they’re going on to college. Don’t be ignorant. The Bible says, “Great is the mystery of godliness.” I’ve been made a steward of the mysteries. The church world, with all that they’ve done throughout their lifetime, has hardly scratched the surface of the mysteries. I was so shocked when God took me into the revelation of Jesus Christ and began to talk with me. I could hardly believe it. I said, “My God! This can’t be possible!” I’ve preached all around the different parts of the world, and prayed and fasted and cried, begging God to help me. I thought that I had something and was doing something and was going somewhere, but when I came into the knowledge of God, I said, “My God! My God! This can’t be possible that the church is in this kind of condition.”

It’s getting close to the translation and still many of you are just babes. Paul said, “I’d like to speak unto you as unto spirituals, but seeing that I cannot. You’re babes in Christ. Desire the sincere milk of the Word that you might grow thereby.” These things are so phenomenal, so great, so mighty, so wonderful that Paul, with all of his knowledge, said, “I count all of my learning as dung, and I’m determined to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified. That when I write, you may understand the mysteries that God has given me.”

You know what’s wrong? People are not hungering and thirsting after the things of God. Jesus said that if you hunger and thirst, you will be filled. People are not hungering and thirsting after Him. The church world is not hungering after God. They’re hungering after land and cars and prestige in the world. Don’t you know that the mind of this world is enmity to God? The carnal mind and the things of this world are not what God is wanting. God is a Spirit, and the Bible says they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. Because God is a Spirit, He wants you to be spiritual. How can God, a Spirit, fellowship something that is not spiritual? He wants you to be spiritual. He wants to get your mind and your heart on spiritual things.

Some think that when we go to heaven, all of us are going to have the same thing. We know that isn’t right. When the apostles asked, “What shall we have, because we’ve given up everything?” He said, “When I sit upon My throne, you shall sit upon twelve thrones beside Me.” There are twenty-four elders who are kings, and they sit as kings around Him. The Bible says that God has made us kings and priests unto our God. Paul said, “Go on to a full measure of the full stature of the perfect man Christ Jesus and that every man will be rewarded according to his works.” That’s where your works come in, as to what measure you’re going to have.

What are you going to attain unto? Are you just going to sit idly by and say, “Well, if I can just make it to heaven. I don’t have to worry about it if I can just get in.” Well, I’ve got some news for you: you won’t get in. You’ve got the wrong attitude. The man that’s going to get in is the man that’s going to try his best to get everything he can from God, and then wherever he stops, as to the limitations of his ability, as to giving himself to God, then he’ll get in with that measure. But men that make no effort and say, “Well, I’m just going to trust the Lord. I’m not going to worry about all that.” You’re not going to get in. There is no such thing as you getting in. You don’t even have the Spirit of Christ.

The Spirit of Christ is a Spirit that says, “I must be about My Father’s business.” If the Spirit of Christ is in you, do you think that Christ would take the attitude, “Well, it really doesn’t make any difference?” The Spirit of Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. If you’ve got it, it will be about the Father’s business. It won’t be interested in the things of the world. It’ll be after God’s business. Where are the saints that used to spend all night in prayer? Where are those that used to come to the church and have all night prayer meetings?

They’ve been driven out and called fanatics. The church has leaned on the people with money and prestige, trying to bring some kind of false prestige, get somebody into office, some kind of dignitary, something so your church would be a little more polished in its ethics and somebody would notice it. Don’t you know you’re of the devil when you do that? If you love the world and the things of the world, then God’s Spirit and love is not in you, and if you are seeking those kinds of things, that’s of the devil. We’re supposed to be going out into the highways and hedges and compelling them to come to fill up the house of the Lord. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: that you visit the widows and the orphans in their afflictions, and then keep yourself unspotted from the world.

You should be seeking God, and hungering and thirsting after the things of God, and be interested in the things of God. Forget about that house that you’ve got on the hill over there and that piece of ground, because you’re not going to keep it anyway. After a while, they’re going to put you in the ground and the worms are going to eat you. The ones that are left behind are going to fuss over it. Somebody would ask, “Don’t you think we should leave something for our children?” Sure, but don’t leave it to a bunch of devils. I said leave it to your children, but not to a bunch of devils. Don’t see how much you can get here to leave to them. Let them work for a living. Let them learn to work.

We give them education and more education, then we say, “Now, you don’t have to work like I did.” That’s the worst thing you can do. Now, we’ve got a bunch of reprobates that don’t want to work. Every time you ask them to do something, they look at you in a strange way because they’ve been taught to con their way through life. What we need to have is a mind to work. The Bible says that they built back the walls because they had a mind to work. If you are going to do any learning, let’s do it in God. It tells us to work for a living, to be honest.

Let’s get away from this worldly thing, folks, and the ways of the world. Let’s forget about trying to project ourselves on television, trying to put our self in some kind of situation so someone can admire us, or be some kind of dignitary and run for some kind of office. Let’s forget about that. Let’s do the will of God. The Lord said, concerning David, “I’ve taken you from among the sheep cote. I’ve given you a name liken unto the great men of the earth. I raise up one, I put down another, I’m the one that kings and rulers rule by. I have my way in the good and in the evil. I work all things after the counsel of My own will. I raise up one and I put down another. Kings reign by Me.”

As long as the church is in America, America will never be defeated. The day the church goes out, that’s the end of America. God is moving on our behalf. This is your chance. This is your opportunity. Now is the time to get hold of it. Get away from the world, get away from the mind of the world, because if you’re carnally minded, then that’s death. There’s no faith unto salvation in that mind. Get in Christ Jesus.

The church is about to be transfigured. It’s the change of the body. The church has already been translated. This is the last hour. Let’s get our minds on God, children of God, and let’s worship God. Let’s get back to the wonderful way of life that God has taught us before.

If you want to be healed in your body, the Bible says that He sent His Word and healed them. All you have to do is have faith in God. Jesus said, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to them that believe.” Jesus tells us in Mark 11:22, “What ever you say, in your heart, if you don’t doubt, it will come to pass.” It will come to pass. You say it, decree a thing in your heart, and don’t doubt it, it will come to pass. I’ve done it many times. It works. It works one-hundred percent. Jesus said that everyone who asks, receives. The Scriptures cannot be broken, altered, or changed. There’s never been anybody in the history of the world that asked who didn’t receive. Jesus said that everyone who asks, receives. The only thing is, they misinterpreted what He said when He said, “According to your faith.” Everyone of you received according to your believing. You received exactly according to your believing. That’s the way you received. Jesus said, “According to your faith, so be it unto you.”

“Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Jesus asked. They said, “Yea, Lord.” He said, “According to your believing.” If you’re going to get salvation, you’re going to have to believe. It’s according to your faith. Your healing is the same way. If you’re going to get your healing, you have to believe. If you’re going to heaven, you have to believe. If you’re ever going to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and know anything about God, you’re going to have to believe this Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. You cannot get faith by fasting. You cannot get faith by praying. You cannot get faith by good alms deeds. Faith is believing what Jesus Christ said. Faith comes by the hearing of the Word. You can strengthen your faith by all of those things, but you cannot get faith that way.

Faith comes simply by believing what He said. If He said it and we believe it, then that’s the way it is. “I am the Lord God that healeth thee,” God said, “I am the Lord God that forgiveth all of thine iniquities. I heal all of your diseases.” If you’re God’s children, and He’s forgiven all of your iniquities, then He healed all of your diseases. The Bible says, “By His stripes ye were healed.” All of these things were given to you in God, in Christ, before the world ever was and brought to light at Calvary. When the veil was rent in twain, it began to be seen. Four hundred ninety years, it was said to Daniel, was determined upon your people, to make an end of sin. Four hundred and eighty-three years to Calvary, and from that time, it is a heavenly episode. The door was opened in heaven, and time is not counted anymore until the last seven years, as the tribulation comes in and that door is closed. When the seven years is fastened to the four hundred and eighty-three, that’s the end. It’s getting close, folks, real close.

Don’t ever ask the Lord if you’re good enough, or wonder if you’re good enough. You’ll never get good enough. There’s none good but God. You have to be the body of the Lord Jesus Christ to be good, and we are. God won’t give His glory to another. The Bible says so. He won’t give His glory to another. But the thing is, I’m not another. You’re not another. We’re His very body. We’re bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Jesus said, “Father, glorify these with the same glory that I had with Thee before the world ever was. Give them the same glory.” So, He’s given us His same glory. Moses and Elijah appeared in that glory. Christ in you is the hope of that glory because Christ alone is made heir to it. Without Him, you cannot get it. Not seeds as of many, but seed as one, even Christ Jesus, the Son of God.

It was said of Jesus, “I find no fault in this just man.” You are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Before the throne, you are without fault. The evil one never touches you at any time. Never! You keep yourself by faith of the seed that remains in you, and you cannot sin. You cannot come into condemnation, neither can anybody lay anything to your charge, for you are not in the flesh, you are in the spirit. You’re born again, and you’ve passed from death unto life. You can rejoice forever more.

Can you forget those things that are behind now? They are gone. When you were baptized in the name of Jesus, when you were born again, they were put behind you. “Satan, get thee behind Me. Thou art an offense unto Me,” Jesus said. They are behind you. The shadow is behind you when the sun comes up. As long as the sun is behind you, the shadow is in front of you, but when you turn around, and you look straight into the Son, then the devil is behind you then. That shadow is behind you. It’s not before you anymore. Now you see the light. The true light now shines.

I feel the yoke breaking. That struck somebody’s faith. Some of you began to believe then because that struck your faith. I felt the Holy Ghost move. The Bible says that as Peter spoke to them, he felt the Holy Ghost fall upon them, and I felt the Holy Ghost fall upon you as we spoke to you then. I can feel the Holy Ghost still falling. I can feel your faith. It’s moving.

While we are standing here, let’s just pray together, can we? Precious heavenly Father, we pray tonight for these, Your children. You said whoever we bless would be blessed, dear God, and Father, tonight we’re blessing these people in the name of Jesus Christ. We’re blessing them through the righteousness of the Son of God. We give Your blessings to them. Father, we bring Your blessings to them through the wonderful words of faith, that their sins be forgiven them, heavenly Father. You said that whosoever’s sins we remit would be remitted. We remit these people’s sins in Jesus Christ’s name, according to their faith tonight. Father, believing in Thy Word that their sins be taken away. I feel Your presence, heavenly Father, and I feel the yoke being broken. I feel the yoke being broken. Father, heal these sick bodies. Father, You’ve healed these bodies. The Lord of heaven that heals, God, we ask You to heal them tonight. Awake them in their faith to their healing tonight, Father, that was wrought in Christ Jesus at Calvary, for You sent Your Word and healed them, even as they believed, O God, and tonight, they are accepting their healing, they are accepting their salvation, they are accepting the infilling of the Holy Ghost tonight, Father. They are accepting it tonight. The yoke is being broken tonight. O Lord, a new life, a new world, a new way of life, Father. I can feel it tonight. Father, while they are worshipping You tonight, I can feel this. I ask You to do that tonight. May Your blessing come down upon them.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.

Holiness Unto The Lord