In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of the body of death and the struggle between being a lost sinner and a helpless saint. He emphasizes that all the problems and temptations we face in life are a result of our self-reactions. The preacher encourages listeners to shift their focus from their false selves to their true identity in Christ. He also highlights the importance of making the choice between being self-centered or self-giving, which ultimately determines whether we experience heaven or hell. The sermon references various biblical figures and highlights Romans chapters 6 to 8 as essential for understanding effective Christian living.

Our Lord, you're the ever-speaking person, you're always speaking, and you give us ears to hear. And so you will tonight again, by your word, by your spirit, by yourself, to our hearts. Thank you. Amen. In the two times I've had with you, in these previous days, we've been seeking to see, from God's word, what his revealed purpose always has been. That the lover father should have his own begotten son, and through his son, many sons, who'd level up with him as co-sons and co-brothers, who'd all be lover sons, as his lover father, and by them, he would develop and manage his universe, because his sons inherit his universe. For that to be possible, each of us has to find what it is to be a real person, because we're to be real persons forever. Persons that express the persons. But we're to be the person, the human person, expressing the divine person. So we have to know what it is to be a person. That has meant the history of the human family. We've had to come face to face with what is the fact of all life, all life consists of opposites. And we are those who make our choices between opposites, but ultimately become fixed by our choices. And so it's been necessary for the human family to face a supreme choice of the universe, choice which we might say that God himself made, where it said he can't lie. The choice between being a self-centered, self-seeking, self-gratifying person, or a self-giving person. Whether I express my self-love, my self-getting, or my self-love, my self-giving, two fundamental forms, different forms of self. One is heaven, the other is hell. One is Satan, the other is God. We've had to come face to face with both, because until we know both, and entered in some measure into both, and then made the final choice between them, we don't become fixed, successful, settled people. And so we saw it always was, in God's understanding, that the human race would go wrong before they go right. And the Satan was the agent which took us into the realm of being self-centered people. We were captured by the spirit of self-centeredness, the spirit of error, which caused us to live for ourselves, after which have come our living for our sins, and all the rest of it, all the chaos in this world. And as a consequence, because of the fact that we are basically the being of God, come into a disillusionment with that way of living. A desire to be out of it, and in another one. This was where it always had been, from eternity, that his purpose, that his son should identify himself with the human family, enter into his sufferings, bring its release, and when he had brought his release and redemption, bring up that human family to receive him into the new family, the new heavenly family of which he is the head, of whom he is the elder brother. And that was what he did. As it says, he pleased the father that it became him, that the captain of his salvation should be very privileged with sufferings. So he entered into all our sufferings, and took them to their final end, when voluntarily, for our sakes, representing us, he went into death and hell. That was the shedding of his precious blood on our behalf, when he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. And by going himself into death, into hell, and rising again on our behalf, he left behind all that would come to us, of sin and guilt and wrath and its eternal consequences. That's the shedding of the precious blood of Christ. There was also the dying of the body of Christ, which represents something different. The sins were the products in our lives. The sin is the speed of error which captures humanity, which lives in our bodies. The satanic speed of error, which causes us to be self-centered, self-loving, self-gratifying, self-people. And therefore, it says that as his body hung there, he was made sin. That's different from bearing our sins. That's a product. Made sin. Made in God's sight this holy person, representing the whole humanity, was like a body which contained the speed of error. That's what sin is, the speed of error. The principle of sin in us. He died. When a body dies, representing us, it leaves its speed behind. So then, that tremendous moment, when that body died for our sakes, out from that body, representing us, with that speed of error, which has captured all of us. It makes it possible for all of us to become immediately freed from the dominion of that speed of error when we move into receiving Jesus Christ. And then by rising, he rose by a new spirit in that body. Into that same body came his own spirit, the spirit of God, the spirit of love. And that body represents us, our bodies. So it says we are crucified with him, we are risen with him. So that when we receive Jesus, we both receive the blotting out of all the past sins. The guilt, the wrath, the judgment, the whole thing closed out forever. God never sees them again. We are righteous in God's sight as Christ is righteous. But more than that, receiving him, being joined to him by faith, we have become freed from that speed of error which dominated us, which caused us to be self-centred people. So a born-again person can never be basically self-centred again. You can move into a self-centred act, you can't be self-centred. To be self-centred is to be a satanic person living wholly for yourself. You can't do it. Because if you are born again, the spirit of self-centredness has been replaced by the spirit of Christ, who is the spirit of self-giving love. And you begin to be a person of self-giving love. And that's the revolution which took place in all of us who received the Lord Jesus Christ, who operated our royal potential, the ability to have faith. Faith is choice. To have faith, to choose, to relate ourselves to something. And by the law of faith, by the law of choice, what you choose, what you relate yourself to, relates itself to you, takes you over. You come here, you're here. You take food, it takes you, and so on. So the great moment, thank God, I hope many of us here have been, when knowing our lost condition, knowing it in our hearts, and our sin and our guilt and so on, and seeing through the word of God about the Lord Jesus Christ, what he did for us on earth by his death and resurrection, and now we are risen again, we have by our inner choice attached ourselves to a person we can't see. For the first time in our human history, we take our faith away from things of time and sense. We put our faith in a person who doesn't belong to the realm of time and sense, the passing realm, amongst the eternal realm, the realm of spirit, the realm of God and Father, Son and Spirit. And every born-again person has, by his inner choice, said, Jesus Christ, I've received you. The crucified, the risen Jesus Christ. And by the law of faith, what you receive, receives you. What you take, takes you. Therefore, if we are born-again persons, let's come into our inner consciousness, the witnessing spirit. That's the new spirit substance. When you take food, food becomes a substance to you. When you take him, the spirit substance comes to you. The spirit substance is the inner witness, Jesus Christ is my saviour. He is alive, he did love me, he has taken my sins away. I am accepted, I am forgiven, I am a child of God, I am in the family of God, God is my Father, and I am in me. It's become a spiritual substance to me, spiritual consciousness to me, that I am this new kind of person. Not one that I took him, but he took me. I begin to live on this new level of this saved relationship. Now that's what we talked about in the two previous talks we've had. We said also that the scripture tells us in many different ways, but one very clear way, subdivides our understandings of our relationship to Christ, our relationship to God, into the three grades of little children, young men and fathers. Infants, adolescents, adults. This we have been speaking about has been the infant stage. An infant hardly knows anything, he's almost unconscious, he just consciously relies on his parents. So when we first come to Jesus, we know practically nothing. That's not wholly true, but practically nothing. We do know we lost sinners, we only know he died for us. We don't know anything about the Christ living in us, we don't know that. We know a Christ who died for us and rose again, risen and ascended with the Father, and we, like a little child, rely on his parents. We as little children relied on him. The Bible description of a little child in 1 John 2 is, for his sins are forgiven, for Christ's name's sake, he knows the Father. That's the elementary description. Sins, forgiven, for Christ's sake, you know your Father. But it's really a kind of external relationship. It isn't quite external because it's happening, you know it in your inner consciousness, but you regard it more as an external relationship. Life isn't an external relationship. Life's an internal relationship. Life isn't separation, it's union. It's the Fathers made us to see everything in separate conditions, appear like that, even including God, Father, Son and Spirit. But truth isn't separation, it's union. No, we don't know that. So that's our first stage, a precious stage. We're born again, we're new creatures, a new Spirit operating in us, the Spirit of God. The old things are passed away, the old are new. We love God, we love Jesus, we want to do his will, we want to bless people. As we explained before, the first revealed fruits of the new birth are peace and love. Peace in my own heart, which has given me a harmony with God, since I'm accepted in love and part of God's fellowship. That's wonderful peace. Love is, I begin to love. Not with my love. Because the revelation that Jesus loved me like that, and his Spirit coming into me, means the Spirit of God begins to operate in me. And the Scripture says, the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit. And I begin to love, probably in my elementary condition, I think it's I loving. Humans love just themselves. This is God's own love. I've begun to express God's love, and it comes out, love for Jesus who died for me, love for my Father, then I want other people to know something about him. I've begun to be a lover. I've told you, the eternal purpose of God is to have safe sons, who are lover sons, therefore my motivation in life will always be to bless and fulfil those whom they're responsible for. Not get people for their convenience, but be for their convenience, other way round. So again. Now we meet a problem. It has to be solved. See, a young man has to find his inner resources. A little child doesn't. A little infant, well he just arrives. Of course he has inner resources, he doesn't come to me. A young man has to find resources. He's got to be himself. He's got to become physically mature. He's got to be mentally trained. He's supposed to have a not enough moral basis to live by. Of course, if it wasn't for Jesus Christ, I'd do that. We call a graduated young man, a young woman, a mature person who can now go out, having finished their maturing level, and begin to contribute to the world. Move out from being people who are recipients, to people who are out givers. That's the father stage. So there's a stage in which we have to become settled in ourselves. Not just settled in relation to Christ who died for me, and who lives again for me, the Father up there. Settle in myself. So the Bible description, 1 John 2 given, of a young man, an adult, is he's strong, he's overcome the wicked one, and the word of God abides in him. Not didn't, the word of God didn't come to him. Abides in him. The word of God abiding in you as a person, of course, is Jesus Christ. You become strong, you overcome the wicked one, and the living Christ is indwelling in you, and you know, you know that fact. Now that's not the condition of us when we get saved. We're up against a problem, which is the failure we have as Christians. Why are we born again? Love Jesus, new people, yet we're such failures. Why are we always battling against things which beat us? Why are we always having dislikes, and fears, and hurts, and resentments, and depressions, and physical lusts, and unclean thoughts, and not the love of God I ought to have? Not the love of man I ought to have? Not the love of the Bible I ought to have? I want to, but it doesn't operate somewhere. I'm dissatisfied with myself. Now I'm a born again person. I'm not talking about the unborn again. I'm a born again person, but honestly I'm dissatisfied with myself. And I'm more concerned with self-dissatisfaction than Christ-satisfaction. I'm more conscious, self-conscious of a failing self than I'm Christ-conscious of an enabling Christ. What's wrong? That's a condition all of us go through. For this reason, I've got to find what it is to be a real person forever. I want to be a functioning person forever. We'll talk about that in the last two sessions I have. I want to be in the foreground functioning. Actually, I really should be the lamp through which the light shines. You see, I don't say turn on the lamp, do I? I say turn on the light. Well, it's not a light. It's a lamp expressing a light. See, the lamp gets lost in the light. That's what we are. We are lamps expressing a light. See, this is what we are to be eternally. We are to be real people like lamps, but actually what's shining on us always will be God in His purposes, Christ in His purposes. This is the eternal purpose of God in having sons. I haven't got that yet. There's a further stage I have to go through. In order to become a real person, I've got to find out how a real person functions, where he fits, where he fits. So I start by being a failing Christian, a disappointed Christian, a defeated Christian. I don't mean to be. I'm not altogether so, but I have a trouble with my hates, my fears, my likes, dislikes, my depressions, and my lusts, and my lack of power, and lack of peace. I have trouble with them. I don't know how to handle them, all the problems that come in life. It's something missing. I can't say I'm an effective person. Now, these people in the Bible, like Paul, were effective people. They had what it took. I'm born again. I have Jesus Christ, but I haven't got what it takes to live a present day effective life. Something missing. That's made very plain to us in the Bible. It's actually made very plain to us in all the great lives that we haven't got time to trace. If you trace the life of Moses, or David, or Joshua, or Elijah, or Peter, you'll find all the way through these men, but we won't do that now. There's a special scripture which specially exposes this to us. And those are the famous chapters for growing Christians. Romans chapter 6 to 8. It takes some reading, it takes some understanding. Rowling would talk to us about the need for deeper understanding of the scripture. Well, here it is. They're basic chapters for effective Christian living. And they're curious chapters because one goes down in the middle. Now, Romans 6, I'm going to put it roughly, is a chapter which tells us that in Jesus Christ dying, his body dying, when we have taken him by faith, we've died with him. He died as us. If he died as us, when he died, we died. That doesn't mean self-died. It means he died representing us to sin. Sin is the spirit of self-centeredness which causes us to live this wrong life and produce the wrong products. He said he died to sin. Now, therefore, the Bible says we died to sin. We didn't die, we're alive. But the self, the grip of spirit of self-centeredness which causes us to live for world, flesh and devil, that's out. Never that again. If you receive Jesus Christ, that's the symbol of baptism. You died to that. In Jesus Christ, yes. So, Romans 6 is mainly on the negative side. Get it? You're never again under the grip of that spirit of error. You may visit there. I'll talk in a moment. You may be tempted. You can't live there again. If you slip, you'll be guilty and come back. Now, Romans 8 is a chapter in the other world. Oh, it isn't you living. It's the living Christ living in you. You're a new person. Not just a new person in yourself. That self of yours which was captured by a spirit of error, you're a vessel containing the God of wrath. You're now the same vessel containing the God of mercy, Christ. But your self is under new management. It's in a new relationship. It's in a conscious relationship with the living Jesus Christ, living God. Living you is as you in you. That's Romans 8. Christ dwells in you. The Holy Spirit dwells in you. You're not in the flesh. You're in the Spirit. In between is Romans 7. That's to go down. Romans 6. Oh, you're out with the old in Jesus Christ's death. Romans 8. You're in with the new in the resurrection joined to him. In the middle you can't handle it. The middle is a big eye, a human eye. It's full of a failing eye. It says in Romans, it says we've been deceived. We're deceived. I'll tell you in a moment how. And that big eye, I want to do right and can't do it. Romans 7 is always talking that kind of language. That which I do, I allow not. What I would, that I do not. What I hate, that do I. In me and my flesh dwells no good thing. The will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. So here's a believer bonding a person, confused because he wants to do right. It says here, the will is present with me. I delight in the law of God, not seen with man. My will is right, but I haven't got that power. What I should do, I shouldn't. I don't do. What I shouldn't do, I do do. And I'm conscious of a law giving me, telling me you ought to, you ought to, you ought to, you ought not to be impatient. You ought to love everybody. You ought to be pure. You ought not to have fear. You ought not to have depression. You ought to have power. You ought, you ought, you ought. And we say, I haven't got it. I want to, but it doesn't work. It's full of I. Now the point I've got to learn, the only learned painful way, is that's a deception. That's a deception. That's why it says in a chapter in verse 11, sin deceives you. What it means is this, you see, that's the independent I which I got through the fall. The fall separated me from the living God. If I'd gone to the tree of life, I should never have had a year of separation. But I became through the fall an independent I am. An independent Norman Grubb and you are an independent I am. The independence is the fall. The independence means I'm running my own life with my own strength for my own age. It's self-love at bottom. It's independence. The independence is the false thing. That's what the devil, that's what the devil deceived me into thinking. I didn't even know he was running me. I didn't even know that. I just was actually an independent person. Now, our scenario is this. We're so used, oh, life is running your own life. You've worked it, worked it, that even when you're born again, you think, well, I still run my own life. That's the slayer. Well, I'm a born again person. I love Jesus, but I love myself. I get the slayer. Beware of saying God will help you. He doesn't help you too much. He takes your place and does it for you, which is quite different. God doesn't help you to do a thing. He does it for you. He takes your place and does it for you. That's different. Beware of saying too much about God helping you. Because God helps me. I'm a person. I'll do it. God help me. No, he won't. That's the slayer. Because, you see, the real reason is self can't conquer self. Self, independent self, is all it really is, loving itself. Independent self, I can't, I myself can't conquer my hurts and my hates and my fears and my lusts and my... I can't do it. So, I'm again, I try to do it. I beg God to help me and I can't make it work. So, I have to come. You find every slayer of God comes to a second great failure, a second collapse. His first collapse was he finds he's a lost sinner. And he was done for, going to heaven, going to hell. When he finds a lost sinner couldn't do a thing about it, Oh, Jesus Christ did it for me. When he knew he's got to the bottom as a lost sinner, he could take Jesus Christ's place. The second collapse, a helpless saint. He's not only to be a lost sinner, but a helpless saint who can't make it work. Now, that may seem easy cliche to say, you've got to find out. You won't find out in any easy way. Job had to go the hard way. Moses had to go the hard way to learn their tremendous selves. Their tremendous selves. But they've got to get back to the right place and then function as a self. Not function as an independent self so as to try to get God's help. It won't do. So, they had a broken self. They had to be broken sinners and broken selves. So, Romans 6, deals with our sins out. Romans 7, our self out. To come back. But broken from this sense of independence. You won't get through any other way. When you do see it, you cry, like at the end of this chapter. This chapter says, Oh, Paul says, Oh, wretched man that I am, who can deliver me from the body of this death? Well, this is a very beautiful body where it's got life in it. But where it's been handled by sin is the body of death. Oh, who will know, who un-miserable, who actually has to have a second misery, you see? His first misery was a lost sinner. His second misery was a helpless saint. And so, may you all have a thorough good misery if you haven't had one. Because you won't come to the end of the independence self until you've been a well beaten up self. You can't do it. You can't do it. When you are beaten up, then you're capable of saying, Oh. Then you're capable of saying, When you were a lost sinner, Oh, he did it. You couldn't see it while you could save yourself. When you as a sinner, you seek to abuse yourself for your own righteousness, you couldn't see Jesus. When you were done for, lost, Oh, I see Jesus for me. You're able to see him replacing you. Now, when you, somehow it dawns on you that life isn't, I try to run, to battle these things out for myself. Independence self is the wrong thing. I say, Oh, I'm not independent self at all. I'm an indwelling self. I'm not, I'm a united self. From the moment I was saved, Jesus Christ and I became one person, one person. Not a Christ up here, not a Christ there. He, as he joined to the Lord, is one spirit. You're human spirit, a divine spirit, one less one, because it's 617th. And Jesus said, Why, look, he said, you're vine and branch, vine and branch are one tree. The branches are the vine in its branch form. A branch is the vine, it's just its branch form. You're a form of Jesus, you see. You're part of a vine, and you're the branch form of the vine. Or you're the body form of the head. You're one person, you're one person. Now that's another revelation. That's supremely put by the Apostle Paul. Well, he really put it. He said, I've been crucified with Christ. That's Romans 6. I've been crucified with Christ. In Christ I've cut off from that old, proud, self-seeking, murderous old Paul. I'm out. Oh, I didn't die. The spirit of self-centredness is where I'm at. I'm alive, he says. Then he goes on, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, I live. Wait a minute. Then he stops. It's a wonderful verse, Galatians 2.20. Wait a minute. I'm alive. No, no. It's yet, I live, yet it's not I, but Christ is in me. He replaces self by Christ. Now, that's a replacement. Your real self is Christ in you. You are Christ in human form. It isn't Christ for you, Christ by you, Christ is you. Listen. Paul says, I, Paul, I've been crucified with Christ. Oh, I'm alive. Wait a minute. Yet not I, but Christ is in me. He replaces self by Christ. That's the secret. Where it can settle into me, I'm not really I. It's always a joke to me to think that can be true. I'm not really I. I'm Christ in my human form, so are you. Now I've got a new centre. Now, when I've got a new centre, I begin to, I can begin to change my attitude, this is important, towards those things that bother me. You see, they bother me because I can't conquer them. Flesh is always there. Now, we are bothered by our flesh because I can't conquer my hates, my fears, my lusts and so on. They get me so often, my perverse auditions, I can't conquer them. So flesh is horrible to me. When I, but really flesh isn't horrible. Flesh is that which God comes through, Christ comes through the flesh. Now, when I can begin to get this fact, it isn't I don't manage flesh, I accept myself. Now, this is part of the secret, to accept yourself, with your temptations, accept your flesh, don't fight your flesh. Nearly all our troubles are, oh, I must fight that hate, I must fight that unforgiveness, I must fight my lack of love, I must fight my wrong thoughts, I must, the more you fight, the more, there's resistance there. See, when you resist a thing, you're affirming it. When I resist you, I'm saying you're there, you're there, you're there. So my very resistance makes you worse. So, see, there's a great secret, don't ever fight. If you feel afraid, fearful, don't say you shouldn't be fearful, say, of course my flesh is fearful, but that's not I, it's Christ in me. When you know Christ in you, you replace your first temptations with fear, of course I'm a human, I fear, you don't keep against it, you don't deny it, you don't condemn yourself, you accept it, sure I fear, but that's just my outer self, that's just my soul and body, my flesh, Christ is in me, and when I see Christ is in me, his courage overflows my fear. This is the secret. See, when you don't know you are really Christ, you're fighting, you're in trouble. You try to fight your flesh, it'll beat you. And the more you fight it, the more it's got you, the more you hate it. We ought to be flesh lovers, not flesh haters, because our flesh is going to be something God's going to use. We'll be right back into focus. So, you see, part of this revelation is to learn, to grasp the fact that your flesh won't change. You don't fight your flesh, you accept it, and he's the changer of it. You won't, there'll be the fears, the doubts, the resentments, the hurts, the lusts, they're there, don't kick at them, just recognise they're there. But say, ah, that's not I, I'm not fighting that. Christ's fighting it. Christ is the purity. Christ is the peace. Christ being Christ overflows the other. That's the secret. But that's got to be changed because the independent self in Christ, you've got to recognise the independent self is a false thing, it's not there, it's a lie, there's no independent self. Your independent self went out at the cross. Satan deceives you to think you're still independent, you're not. It's now Christ in you. Now, that's what has to to sink into us by different ways. If I may just give a little word of my own witness there. I found this out as a young missionary. Now, of course I was dedicated to Jesus Christ. I've been saved some years before. I've been a witness to Jesus Christ in World War I. I got a call to go to Africa. Wonderful call. It was a thrill. It didn't cost me any sacrifice to go to Africa. It was a thrill to go and take Jesus to those who'd never heard of Him. That wasn't my problem. And so, I lived for Jesus Christ. I lived to get Jesus Christ to the Africans. But I hadn't got what He took. I wasn't there any time before I thought I hadn't the love which identified me. I had sort of white man's love. I hadn't got the love which made me brotherhood. I hadn't got a brotherhood love. I hadn't got the faith which made me believe God could really do something. In those days there were simple people in the forest many years ago. I hadn't got the power to see what would happen. So, I was consecrated, brought to Christ, but I had definite lacks in my life. And of course I had my usual critical attitudes to all the mysteries and sins of the flesh and things we all have. So I felt, well, I belong to Jesus Christ for now. I'm a pretty miserable representative of Jesus Christ. I'd better go out or get changed or something. So I began to say, well God, you must have power and love and faith and holiness you can give to me. Of course, like anybody would do. You know what He said to me? Two things which were revealing to me. The first was that little verse came to me just suddenly, God is love. Now what struck me? God is love. Oh, I thought love was some power which came out of God and came to me and I'd had it. If God is love, then God's the love. It isn't something I have, it's something He is. That struck me. It was, I needed love, you see. It was as if God stood in front of me and said, love isn't the thing I give you because love isn't the thing. Love's a person. I am that love. And I said, how does that help me? I need the love. What's the use of you standing there and saying you're the love when I need it? I needed power. Suddenly there are lots of them like this in the scripture. I found a verse in the scripture which says, Christ is the power of God. We're talking, you know those things, we're talking about them. Oh, I said, Christ is power then. Power isn't an atomic something or something else. Christ is the power. Power really is a person expressing itself. A person. That struck me again. It's again as if Christ stood in front of me and said, power, I'm the power. It isn't something I give you. I'm the power. Again I said, how does it help me to say you're the power when I need it? Of course, this is putting things into focus for me. What happened was, just a flash of a little verse. In Colossians 3 verse 11 where it says this, Now Christ is all. I began to catch it, Christ is all and in all. Oh, I said, I see it. Christ is all and in all. It isn't, I've got to become something. I contain someone. That's quite different. I was sweating away to become loving, become believing, becoming powerful and I've given up sweating long ago now and to become patient, I've stopped trying to become anything. In a human, I don't become anything. I'm just a human vessel. I'm just a human. But I don't become something, I contain someone. It was at that moment also, the Holy Spirit put into my mind that this illustration which comes three times in the New Testament where they call vessels. Oh, vessels just means old pot, that's all. He said, you're a vessel. And the Holy Spirit said, that's all you are, an old pot. What, the point isn't the pot, the point is what's in the pot. Ah. And the pot doesn't become what's in it. That's where I got it. A cup doesn't become the coffee. The cup contains the coffee. You're just the old cup. I don't mind being a cup when it contains Jesus Christ. Not a bad cup, of course, when it contains Jesus Christ. It's only a cup. It isn't Jesus Christ. I got it. I then saw, I don't change myself. That's the secret. Our trouble is, we think we ought to be different. You ought not to be different. The only difference in you is Jesus Christ living in you and through you. He is the difference, isn't you? Your humanity never changes. It's just a vessel. And your humanity has amazing abilities, which God begins to use, and we'll talk about that probably tomorrow, how God begins to use our humanity. But, it's also open to the flesh, of course, and so we get these temptations and so on. Now, we don't change it. So, you see, you don't try and change the pot of the vessel. You accept the pot. You say, it's a pot, but that's not the point. The point is what's in the person in the pot. And you turn your attention from the pot to the person in it. That's the secret. That's the secret. So, really, I only have one battle in life, to move off from my self-reactions. You watch. All your hells in life are your self-reactions. Why do I feel like that? Why am I like that? Why am I? Why, why, why, why? That's what curses us in life, because it's a false thing. You're not an independent self, but being human, you'll be tempted that way, to feel, oh, what do I do with this? What do I do with that? I feel this. You see, I, what's that? That's your problem. Now, that, the point of temptation is a spark of faith. Temptation is very valuable. It's a jumpy old spot for faith. So, when I'm tempted, oh, what shall I do with this? What shall I do with that? I say, wait a minute, it isn't I at all. You're handling this. I transfer my attention from that false eye, it's an illusory eye, the Roman seven-eyed, it isn't there, to who I really am, Christ in me. Oh, you've got the courage, you've got the love, and so on. And then, you see, he begins to come through. That's the secret I've had to learn. I remember one little incident which struck me because of the way it took place. I was talking to a group of businessmen. My host was, he owned some of Colonel Sanders' fried chicken places. He had several of them, he was a busy businessman, had a nice home, and he had a group of businessmen, I was talking to them. And of course, I talked to them, I said, your flesh doesn't change, but don't condemn your flesh. I said, you businessmen, you don't tell me you love everybody. There's some people who love some people you can't stand, if you're honest. Don't condemn yourself. Don't try to change yourself. Accept yourself. But then remember, when you accept what your flesh is, you say, that's not what I am. That's only my outer feelings. I'm Christ's image. Christ is love in me. So I, with Christ, I'm a love person I don't like. I explained this to them. Well, my host, this man who had the chicken places, I met him about four or five months afterwards. Brother Gobby said to me, I'll tell you something. He says, you know, I'm a busy businessman. I have a number of these businesses. So I have to have a central office to run my business. I have to have an efficient secretary to run my office. Now I'm a keen Christian for Christ. I presume he gave tax with his chickens because he spoke as if he was a good business for Christ. And, he said, I'm a keen for Christ, but I'm so dissatisfied with myself because my secretary, I have to have an efficient secretary. My secretary is so efficient I can't fire her. She's so impossible. I can't stand her. And so, here I'm piously loving all my brethren and loving all my chicken buyers. I can't stand the person nearest to me. My secretary. And I keep, the more I try to love her the less I love her and I'm sure the less she loved him. Until you told me at that meeting, um, accept yourself. If you don't love a person don't pretend you do love them. Just say you don't love them. He says, Oh, I like that gospel because I sure don't love her. That gospel suits me. Uh, I can say I don't love her. I say, wait, there's a catch in that. Remember, you're not you. You're a vessel that contains Christ. Now, your outer human may not love that person, but you're not you. You're Christ in you. Christ put you to express his love through you to her. I said, brother, I caught that. He said, that's sound sense. I caught that. So I said, OK God, I struck that with you. Henceforth, you love her. Somehow with you, you cause me to have a different attitude towards her. Show something of the love and kindness of Christ towards her. uh, so on. He said to me, what I like, he said, brother, it worked pretty well these six months. He said, left himself, I should still dislike her. You see, he wasn't, he wasn't kicking himself around. Wasn't kicking his flesh around. Accepted, let God change that. I'll tell you, there's a great secret there. I, um, another business, another little touch, what do I mean? Another business, another little business group I was with, it was in Columbus, Georgia. about half of us, having a breakfast together. Far as I knew, they were all born again Christian men, just praising the Lord together. But one of them kept saying, oh, I'm such a sinner. I'm such a sinner. Well, he didn't sound as if he knew forgiveness or was saved. So when the little group was over, I got him aside for a moment and I said, I hope so you won't think me presumptuous, but I a little wanted to ask you a question. You kept saying, I'm such a sinner. Such a sinner. A person who'd never know wanted to be forgiven through Christ. Oh yes, he said, brother, I'm born again of God's spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ has cleansed my sins away in his precious blood. I'm one of his, whatever he said, sons of disciples. Then he stopped. He said, I must say there's a spot in my life, in my business, that I'm not willing to change. There's something in my business I'm not willing to change. That was clouding him. When I said to him, I said, brother, congratulate you. You found yourself at last. You are not meant to be willing. You've got it all wrong. Self isn't willing. The willingness is God in you. You're all wrong. Don't try and be willing. Don't try and be willing. Accept you're not willing. Tell God, I'm not willing to change a thing. But then say, God you're with me. You're pretty good at changing people. Get on with it, will you? Oh, oh. Oh, he said, that takes the heat off. That takes the heat off. It does. That's it. Well, there's just one thing more I'd add on this before I follow it further tomorrow morning. Um, uh, a fact is only mine when it's within reach of me and I want it and I take it and it becomes mine. It's only when it's within reach of me and I see it as something I want and take as mine. Now it's a very rare thing for a born again person to move in and know a unified life. See, I'm talking about a life where forever you're never you again. You never look for him. I don't waste my time looking for him. I recognize him. I don't ever even pray when I come to, for a meeting. I take him because he's here doing his job. If he's in me, does his job by me, why should I fuss about it? Uh, it's taken a lot of wasted prayer out of me and replaced it by recognition, life recognition. If it's a fact that I'm not I but he, okay, I'll get on with it now and he'll do the getting on. I'm saying a very basic, I'm saying a fixed union. Now remember, we only live by consciousness. I told you that each day. Consciousness, you always, only are what you are inside. I kept saying that to you yesterday about profession. You're at home in your profession because inwardly you know how to use your tools. You know how to teach that language. You know how to teach music. You know how to handle those computers. You know how to do your medicine. You know, you know, you know, And you're only at home in your profession because it's got you, not you got it. I well remember when I was a young missionary learning a language. It was a primitive language. It hadn't been put into writing before. We were working at it. Oh, it was hopeless. African called Bangala. Oh, it came in here and went out there. Oh. I suddenly woke up one day and was talking. It had got me. What I'd worked at and taken it as it were by faith, had got me. I could talk to you today if you want. It's part of me now. The heaven thing is to be, the word to know really means to be mixed with, to be mixed with. I'm mixed with it. It's part of me. You're mixed with your profession so you profess it. You're mixed with Jesus Christ the Saviour. You always know He's the Saviour. You don't find Him again, do you? Praise Him, just praise Him. You know it. You're mixed with Him. Now you've got to mix with Him as you. Oh, I'm not I. I'm as He. Now, that nearly always means a second step of faith, shall I say, a second recognition of faith and then a second consciousness out of that recognition. See, faith produces recognition. You say, I'll come here. When you come here it produces recognition. I told that all along. You put your faith inside me, it becomes real to you. Now, it had to be for me. I did that in Africa years ago. When I saw that in Africa, as I told you, one night, my wife and I, we just went to visit one little, one little African in one village, a precious man who loved the Lord. I will remember him because the Africans in those days they polished, they kept beautiful, they kept their bodies spotless but they keep them from change of climate by palm oil which keeps them beautifully healthy. Then, because they hadn't got any shirt on like that, I had a shirt on so he gave me a heavenly embrace. I came out like a zebra. He embraced it all around me. I will remember that moment. He loved the Lord. That wasn't the point. It wasn't so much he was hungry, it was we were hungry. My wife and I, we wanted to know what we were talking about. And so we sat out that night, just in the banana plantation, so he gave us just his cook shelter. We put two camp beds up in the cook shelter. But we didn't get there. We sat out there struggling with this. This is a fact. Christ forever is a real person living here. No change, never coming, no question arises again. Just as salvation is never questioned again, there's no other question again. It's never me again. It's he, I talk a little more explanation of that tomorrow, expressed through me. Well, I'm sorry now, mercifully for you, but might I just say this, I ask permission to do so. A friend of mine, a lawyer, came to great liberation. He lived a keen life for Christ, but a self-energized life, working for Christ no end. He suddenly caught this liberation, this Christ the doer, came to tremendous liberation. And he on his own, I hadn't produced these two magazines, they're very good, he got different ones for us to write on this whole subject. And he sent a number of copies out, they're called Union Life, and they've got some really good stuff in them, by different people, telling on this same kind of thing I'm telling you now, and putting it better and slower.