In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of being a slave to what we choose. He emphasizes that our ability to choose is our royalty, and we are fixed by the choices we make. The speaker explains that while we may be caught up in temporary things like food or worldly desires, the true change comes from God who motivates us. The sermon also highlights the idea that Satan has distorted and enslaved us, leading us to live self-centered lives. However, through faith and a realization of our need for something more, we can find true fulfillment and become lovers of God.

Thank you Lord, you have fallen. Long ago you fell at Pentecost, and you've remained down where you always were, in the hearts of those who received Jesus by you. And so as you've said, you are the well in us, and you're the rivers through us. So thank you. And we're just along with you now, in what you're saying, doing, working among us, every moment of the day, not only in these sessions, but when we're eating and talking and praying and praising and enjoying together. Thank you for your living self, Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now we're seeking to continue this morning from where we left off yesterday. As I say, the only way I know how to share what God has given me to share is by a process of continuity, moving from one session to another, to another. I say to you, my usual calling is not the public ministry like this, I'm usually more in groups, because I like sessions, I like to get back as much as I give. And so I welcome anyone to come and say hi, I'm sure you were wrong, and I say of course I know you were, but I'll just prove it to you. We'll just do that later on. I knew I should get complaints for being British and too quick, well I can't help being British, as for being too quick, I always understood God could do anything except slow me down. So there we are. Now we were led yesterday to some, what I understand to be from God's word, some tremendous facts. The whole universe is one, because he is one, and the whole universe is he expressed in multitudinous forms, one living person through multitudinous manifestations. And this further revelation, he's only love, so everything is love. Everything is forms of perfection. Even if we mess him up, he reforms into perfection. That's what he came by his son to do, moving into the ultimate perfection. But we're able to see perfection now. We're seeing him with perfect love, in perfect operation, in all forms, in all ways. So we saw this as our tremendous basis. We deal with only one. But because, as the scripture says, he's eternal, immortal, invisible, he can't be manifested except by a manifested form. So from eternity, in his own trinity, he has his own son, who is the manifested father, the manifested God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He moves down to our level, he can move us up to his level. And we're able to know the father through the son. And as we saw further, he continues to complete his eternal purposes through his son and sons. They become the agents by whom the spirit reproduces. Father, son, spirit. The spirit brings through the word of faith of the son, reproduction into being. This creation was the first we know of. And the marvel we saw is that it always had been his purpose, through his son, there should come into being a family of sons, who'd level up with his son. Fantastic. Created, leveling up with the creator. And forming one in a million forms of sons. Sons are persons. Living persons, as the father is a living person, who by their living personality will express him. Because of tremendous significance of being on the manifested level, the agent of manifestation, is that the eternal one, the universal, is only seen by its manifested form. It's never seen any other way. You never see electricity except by that. You never see electricity except by heat. You never see it. You see it by its form. You never see the atom, you only see its forms. And you never see the living God except by his sons. By his son, and then his sons. And no other way will this living person ever be manifested in the world. That's why Paul said in Romans 8, the agonising creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God, not the son of God, not the father. Waits for its deliverance, it should be brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God by the manifestation of the sons of God. Because the sons are the only means by which the father manifests himself and reproduces his own love purposes. It's a tremendous thing to be a person. And when, as we saw, our destiny is to be co-persons of eternity, to be co-owners, and therefore co-developers, and co-managers of God's universe. So it's a very responsible thing, as well as a very wonderful thing to be a person. And then we further saw that the key to be a God person is to be a love person, because that's all he is. John said the final word when he said, God is love. That's all he is, nothing else. Every single thing he is, has, does, is some form of perfect love. We said yesterday, we always get out of tune when we question what kind of person God is in situations. Why he does so and so. When we say, God, you're perfect, what you're doing is perfect, I can't understand what you're doing. It's okay, the light's shining. Therefore we saw, this is the necessary settlement, the eternal settlement of the character of the person. The person of whom the whole universe is in form, is nothing but love. The nature of him in his own deity-manifested form, the son, is nothing but love. That's why we always know what the father's like, because he saw what the son was like on earth, thank God. And therefore the co-sons must be as spontaneously, the same kind of sons as the son. And the son is a spontaneous expression of the love father. So he's a lover son, as his father is a lover father. And therefore we are in tune, in focus down here, and for maternity, when we've begun to be lover people, and learn what it is to be lover people. Our trouble is we don't understand who we are, that's our trouble. Most of our trouble is misunderstanding. We are possessing our possessions. Knowing what it is to be and operate as and affirm we are lover sons on earth, in preparation for being, that would be our spontaneous being, because our being then is a union. Our being then is God joined to us, expressed by us. It's spontaneity. That's a permanent basis. So we're spontaneously expressions of him who is love, he's lover, so we're lovers. Then we're safe. Just as the whole universe is safe because the father, the God is a safe God because he's a lover God. Kings and rulers and people down here are not safe when they're, all through history, self-loving people, so you get chaos. When the ruler is a lover person, that which he manages, those who he manages, move into harmony. So this whole universe will be a harmonious universe because he has spontaneously millions of us, co-lovers, co-manifesters of what he is, co-developers, whatever that means, with his own son. So we saw that the next stage of fundamental importance is for us to know what it is to be the person we really are and be him. What it is to be a person and to be that person, and then to function as that person. So that's what we're talking about these days. What is it to be the person, be that person, and then function as that person. That's yourself, that's all, and yourself as the real self. That's all we're talking about is Jesse, that new man. Then we saw, we're really only, I'd say, talking still on foundations this morning. I shan't actually get on as far as I'm concerned the practical application to our daily lives till about tomorrow, but we're still laying the foundations. We saw this perhaps usually unnoticed fact that you can never be a coveted person in anything until you first learn how not to do it before we know how to do it. Because all life has this strange basis. It's only manifestable, it's only a conscious fact because it has two sides to it, because it has its opposites. You cannot have light without knowing there's dark. You can't have sweet without knowing there's bitter. You can't have yes without knowing there's no. As I said yesterday, you come here because you're your cogged nose. You're yes cogged your nose. You started, no, no, no, I can't, I'm too busy. Finally you say, yes I will, and your yes swallows up your nose. You would only have a strong yes because you've had a good meal of nose, that's all. So life cannot be any other way. That's the meaning of being, as I say. So we saw yesterday, we have to say the living God, a person has conquered the opposite. He cannot lie. If he's a person he could, unless some fixation has taken place by which something by his own free choice is he cannot. That's what choice does, it fixes you in the one. The one swallows up the other. And that's the whole purpose of a person, to discover why it is to be a fixed person, and to be that fixed person. That's why I always love that cry of the psalmist, oh God my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed, I will sing praise. And we are fixed if we know it now, if we're redeemed. We just haven't discovered how fixed we are, that's all. So it's phases of rediscovery we need, that's all. But now, as I say, a person isn't fixed in the positive until he's fixed in the negative. That's what training is, that's what graduation is. Nobody's fixed as a carpenter or a plumber or an electrician or a doctor or a lawyer until he first says I don't teach it that way, I don't handle my electrical things that way, I don't handle my tools that way. It becomes fixed with, oh yeah, that's right, I've settled, I don't do it that way. In general speaking, he's discarded the wrong ways. We all can make mistakes, we humans, and we all have more to learn, but generally speaking, we discard the wrong ways and we're competent, we're able to handle our situations. That's being fixed. Always on the inner level. Because to make consciousness, all you are is a consciousness. All you are is as creative as I am, all I am is a consciousness. And all operation is from the consciousness which is I am, I desire, I know, I will, all rest falls. So everything is your consciousness. A carpenter doesn't operate by his outer tools, he operates by his consciousness. Oh, I know how to use that, his tools are the agents of his consciousness, oh, I know how to do that. From the knowing comes the operation. Nothing's ever done from outside because we're never outside people, that's why outside religion is no good, that's why God had to destroy it. As a great deal of good came in communism by destroying external forms of ritualism. God has to use negative to handle positives. Destroy external forms of outer gods, that's no good, it is no good either. It's only when the outer gods become an inner god is it any good. It's only when the outer Jesus is the inner Jesus is it any good. Only when the outer world is the inner world is it any good. Because I'm only a person of my consciousness. So on every level of life you operate not from your tools, not from your outer knowledge, you operate by that which has become you, now you are operating from the inside you, expressing it through your tools and agencies and so on. So we saw that the central inner consciousness of this central being in the universe fixed in love and can be nothing else. It's tremendous. Has its purpose in creating people like himself, made in his image, spirit, spirit unites his spirit. Spirits like himself who can be co-fixed with him. And as the Bible says, co-gods with him. Or co-operators with him in whatever there is to be done, in whatever there is in the eternal developments of the universe by his sons, that's it. So you see, it's the same as, you don't become fixed as a carpenter without training, or fixed as a doctor, or fixed as a lawyer, or fixed as a teacher. We don't become fixed as a person without training. We've got to discover personhood and then get it fixed. Or God, in this case, have it fixed for us. And then only can we move on confidently from the whom I am to being who I am and functioning as who I am. And that's the history of the human family. And it's always been in God's purpose. God wasn't fooled by the sudden discovery about the devil or fraud. He meant it to be. He had to be. Because we had to become unhealthily healthy. You had to be unhealthy for you're healthy. So we had to be unhealthy sinners for we're healthy saints. Had to be. It's all part of eternal purpose. I proved it to you yesterday. I said the Bible said he foreordained his son to be a sacrifice for a lost world before there was a lost world. So he knew all about the lost world coming before it started. That's the perfect God. You can't fool him. His heads he wins, his tails we lose every time. There we are. Praise God. And so it came. So there had to be a Garden of Eden. There had to be alternative trees. And that naughty God stuck a serpent in one of them. Well, naughty of him, wasn't he? He must have left the wrong tree in the serpent's doubt. Just left the right tree. We all need the right tree to be a bunch of babies. God doesn't want a bunch of babies who just know things unconsciously. He wants people who know consciously who they are and function as such. You only know consciously by finding out. That's why there are the three stages we have to pass through. 1 John says, we discuss as we go on, from infancy to adolescence to adulthood, little children, young men, fathers. A little child is unconscious. A little child is very precious because he can't manage the world. And so if there had been one tree, it would be useless. We should just be unconscious beings. Consciousness came by the opposite. Consciousness came by all is yours. Adderley, all is yours. I'm your father. It's unconscious. Like a child automatically receives from his parents. It's all yours. But one thing, don't touch that one. Had to be. And behind the don't touch that one was this person who did that kind of thing. Satan. Now we don't know any much about him except he's revealed to us that he was a person consciously rejected another lover, became a self-lover. We're just told a little about him. In Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, those are the two key passages. He was made as probably God's highest creation. But as a free person, he was to be a light bearer. His name was Lucifer, which is the Latin for bearing light. He was to be an expression of him who is a light which reveals him who is a love. That's what we are. Lamps that reveal lights. I'll not be there. I'm a free person. I'm beautiful. I have infinite capacity. I'll be for myself. In fact, I'll kick him out and take his place. That's Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28 is his beauty. Isaiah 14 is his purpose to take God's place. So he did take God's place as a false god. That's the blindness in which we live. If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? We live in light and think it's light and it's only dark. That's a self-centered world. If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? So self-centeredness has become a false light where we've been living until we've been disillusioned, thank God. So that's what started and God used him. Satan is a convenient agent. Don't fuss about Satan. Thank God for him. Satan is always God's convenient agent. God uses him for better purposes. Whenever you see Satan turn up, say, OK, Satan, you come in one way. I'm going to watch you go out seven ways now. Have fun. Have faith. Don't fuss about Satan. He's God's convenient agent. We shall see what useful things God's done in the world through Satan and it still is. He got you saved through Satan. If Satan hadn't got you lost, you wouldn't get saved, would you? So you'd better get... So you'd better get a praise meeting with Satan. And this is the first way he used him. To get man into focus on the negative. To get man into focus on the negative. So he used Satan to endorse Adam and Eve. We poor men always have followed women all our lives. We just do what the women do. So it starts with Eve, as usual. You didn't clap that one. So Satan got her. Oh, this tree is very nice. What? This tree is very nice. The tree I shouldn't have. Oh, there's something in it you see. I shouldn't have it, but it's very nice. Now that's the only way in which we can discover being persons. To discover being persons, I've got to discover I have appetite. I have sight. I have mental ability. Tremendous. We, like God, have tremendous potential. We have to discover we've got it. We can only discover it by being tempted to be something for ourselves. So it had to come that way. It had to be somebody who said to us, Hi, you should be able to eat that tree. Oh, I'd like to. I've got appetite. I'd like to. Look to me. It'll taste nice. I've got appetite. Come on, let's taste them. Beautiful. I've never saw beauty before. Oh, my eyes are open. Endless beauty. Of course, for self-reasons, but the point is they had to discover they had the capacity of art and science and what comes through the eye gate and through what comes through the flesh. Oh, the flesh is beautiful. Don't run flesh now. It's only misused. Misused is wrong. It's God's precious agent. Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He didn't come in... He came in the sinful flesh, but he came in the flesh. It's only the sinful part of the flesh, not the flesh, which is wrong. So the advertised fact is a mind. Satan said, You've got a mind. Yes, my, I have. And so they began to discover personality. It had to be. So they couldn't discover personality except to be for themselves. Now, we have to be for ourselves but put ourselves back into focus and then be ourselves on a new level. That's what life is. To be for yourself is what it is in the right relationship. And then you can't be yourself under new motivation. And so they had this temptation and then they went all the way. They didn't know much more. It was mainly ignorance. You know, God's so beautiful. God doesn't throw sticks and bombs at his precious people. He never judges them. He just told them they're silly, that's all. He didn't judge them. He judged Satan. When Adam and Eve fell, it wasn't God that hid. It was they that hid. God never hides. There's no wrath in God. There's no judgment in God. It's a guilt in us. We project it onto God. It wasn't God who hid in the garden. Adam and Eve hid. And God called him out. Came in the cool of the day and called him out. And he said he was hiding. God said, Come out, you silly fellow. I'll talk to you. God said, Come out. He never said one man or woman. He judged Satan. He said, You're the curse. You'll eat dust. Symbolically, that's spiritual self-service. That's hell. That's the curse. As for you, dear people, you'll have some sorrow. That's all he offered. Sorrow is a reaction to suffering. So he says, things will go wrong and those things will go wrong will make you feel uncomfortable. Thank God you'll be uncomfortable. If we weren't first uncomfortable, we shouldn't get comforted in Jesus. So he said, you'll be made sorrowful. As all he said, you'll get sorrow because certain things in life will happen to you we don't like. That's all God gave. He's always on the side of man. The same time he says, Already there's a hidden seed you can find, which is Christ. Christ was always there. Christ was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Romans 11, Revelation says. He was always there. Like a seed form. So you can find Christ. Abel found him. Probably Adam found him. Seth found him. He was there to be found. Lots of you will find you've found Christ with me and have known to come out the way we came. That's the way you see it. He's always like that. So you see, this tremendous, this world, we had to go wrong. Thoroughly wrong. We had to become captives of this spirit of self-centeredness. You see, humans are captives. Humans are manifesters. We're never anything by ourselves. We're manifesters of a deity. That's why the Bible calls us vessels. The Bible says every human being is either a vessel of wrath. You say wrath or something, but I say wrath. The best I can get. A vessel of wrath or a vessel of mercy. The vessel is a container. We are containers of a God to whom wrath comes. Or we're containers of a God to whom mercy comes. A container doesn't change. All the gospel is change of God's inside, that's all. It isn't a change of us. It's a change of the God that motivates us, that's all. Because we're always God-motivated. What happened before was that we became motivated by the false God. He didn't make us. He only stole us. He was only a thief. We always did belong to God. Our very being was in God. That's why people don't know how to respond to God. Thank God they do. The being of every person. I've been in a mission in Africa. I know in the Africans there's always a spiritual response. Everybody, you around the world, you know about the role of the world. There's a spirit everywhere. Because we're in His being. So basically, Satan simply stole us and distorted us, that's all. But he captures made us slaves. And so, in that slavery, we went the self way. The self-centered, self-seeking, self-gratifying, self-affirming way. And thank God, gradually, by this way, by this knock and that knock, we find it doesn't work. We get disillusioned. If you're a redeemed person here, you've been a disillusioned person, haven't you? It's been a rock-bottom disillusion. You've found that old life's wrong. Not outside you. It helped by being told before inside. Inside you find, I'm a wrong person. I'm away from God. I'm in no peace. I'm living a rotten life. I'm doing rotten things I shouldn't do. There's something wrong with me. God have mercy on me. And isn't the person here who's been redeemed, who didn't first say, I'm a wrong person, have mercy on me. Not because of outer forms. It may have come through outer forms, but by inner consciousness. So that's been the whole purpose, thank God. Because we couldn't be right unless we'd first been wrong. Because we might go to it again. You see, if you've been in a thoroughly wrong way, and you've been torn to pieces by it, and you've got an answer, and you say, I'm not going back there again. Of course, we may visit when they were looking, but we won't live there again. Difference, you see what I mean? If you're born again, you will never go back. You can't go back. You can't go back. I'll tell you why later on. As I say, you may visit when they were looking, but you won't live there any longer. I don't mind paying visits as long as I don't live. I can see my English doesn't get a course, so you don't get the point, but it's a pretty good point. So, you see, if you're a redeemed person, you've been a basically disillusioned person. You've had to be wrong, and known you wrong, and been disgusted with it, and cried for mercy, and whatever form it may take, whether towards yourself, towards other people, towards God. Somewhere, if it likes to mean anything to you, you've got to find change. Now, how can the change take place? That's what sends us everything in the sun. The sun. Everything. Because slaves can't redeem slaves. Slaves can't redeem slaves. We're a captive race. Slaves can't receive slaves. A slave may express a little freedom in trying to be something else. Like we, in our unsaved days, tried to be good. That didn't make us good. We just tried and came back where we belonged again. Slaves have little freedom they can express with their slaves. They can't get out. Slavery. This has been the eternal purpose of the father from eternity. That his son should be the head of the true race. The head of the eternal family. The founder, source, and head brother of the family of the spirit dimension. Because the old family is a flesh dimension. Flesh is good or is it misused? It's a bit of misuse. It's a precious flesh. It's to be redeemed flesh. We'd have redeemed bodies. But it's been a misused flesh. And so our flesh, and so our agreement with our flesh, we've gone these other ways. So we've been a flesh people, and after that, marvels come. Look at this universe. Look at this world. Marvels come out of fallen men. Look at the marvels of invention and investigation. If that comes out of fallen men, what's got to come out of unfallen men? When the whole son family is in full redemption. So this is the situation. Now this is where the only person who could redeem us was a person who had a claim on us, who had a basic relationship with us, and could do something for us we couldn't do for ourselves. And the one person who could do that was our creator. He who created us, after all we belong to him, he could do something for us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's no way in which the human race could be redeemed from slavery unless there was one who was our basic creator, who created our spirits and our souls and bodies, who in some way could represent us and get us out of our bondage. That's what Jesus Christ did. Our history and glory and our song of eternity is the Lamb that was slain. The Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and risen. That's why, to my mind, the supreme title for him is the last Adam. It only comes in that form actually once. It's implied in Romans 5, it's stated in Romans 15. In 1 Corinthians 15. The last Adam. Why? Adam's head of a race. Adam's of virginity. We're all reproductions of the flesh Adams, so we're flesh people. Came under the same slavery our father had, for good purposes. We had to learn the slavery before we learned the freedom. That's alright. But he's the last Adam. He's taken the place. The first Adam in the Bible is only called a figure, only a shadow. The last Adam is a real Adam. Spirit is real. This is figure, this is shadow. We've got to get out of living on a shadow relationship to reality, spirit relationship. This is this one. He came to bring the human family on its true spirit dimension. God dimension. He did that by becoming one of us. Becoming an ordinary human. That's why we always preserve the incarnation. The Bible never says the key to your faith is the cross. The key to your faith is did Jesus Christ come in the flesh? That's 1 John. That's the key test of a person. If he's a believer, he says Jesus Christ, God's son, became a flesh Christ, a human being. Incarnation. So we're faced with a unique person. He was us, but he wasn't us. He was a unique son. So he never touches uniqueness. He's the creator's son. We're the creator's sons. He's the deity's son. We're the kind of I don't know what to call us, because we move migration onto the level of brotherhood. That's the best I can say. Now we all know what he did. He first of all had to prove himself as a full human. He had to be hit by all humanity as a hit. So he was hit by the devil. Not only in the 40 days, all the time. But the devil kept getting inside him. You are inner consciousness, not the outer person. Anybody can do anything on the outer. It's how you take it that matters. We'll talk about that later on. All life is how you see it and take it, not how it happens to you. You manage life, because you manage it as you see it and take it from within. Because that's all you are. And so Satan could never get Jesus, because he couldn't get him inside. When he tempted Jesus, oh no, my father, he always was a vessel of his father, not a vessel of wrath, a vessel of mercy. He always had the living God inside him. So Satan could hit him every way outside, couldn't touch him inside. But he was a real man and went through everything we go through. Then he came to the final end. We call the final end death. The real final end is hell. Don't be too body-minded. Don't be too much of a body-fusser. Who cares about your body? Get a new one quick. Don't be so busy keeping people on earth. I aim up to heaven. In our mission we always have a congratulation when someone dies for Jesus. We sing your dance when people die because they've gone on to be real people. We don't say, oh dear, dear, dear. We say, praise God you've gone. May I follow you quickly. So don't be body-fussers. Be spirit-enjoyers. And don't take too much fuss about your body. Praise the Lord anyhow. As long as the spirit shines out. That's what matters. As long as the spirit shines out. If a person's sick, help them to be sure one thing, they're praising Jesus. If they get praising Jesus, they'll probably get healed quicker too. Physical death isn't the point. Destiny is the point. Death is part of this corruption ended in death. That's not the point. Destiny is the point. This dies. Where does this go? And that's where the Bible again says we're spirits. The Bible says there are two ways for the unredeemed spirits in prison to whom Jesus went to preach. The redeemed spirits have just been made perfect. Hebrews 12. So it's destiny. Now that's seriousness. That's the seriousness of the blood of Christ. That's the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. That's where they're subdivided in the Lord's Supper. The blood of Christ and the body of Christ. With two vitally important meanings to them. The blood of Christ was his own blood. That's himself. That person uniquely risked hell for us. That's where he went. Suffered on the cross? I think we make too much of the sufferings of Christ. We should see the glory there. He saw glory in it. They saw glory and they saw a king up there. You see, faith transcends suffering. Jesus never acted as a sufferer on the cross. Think of a person in that agony considering did they mean it. Isn't that beautiful? They didn't mean it, Father. Those soldiers didn't know what they were doing. They didn't mean it. Forgive them. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that seeing God's beauty in everybody? Forgive them, Father. They didn't know what they were doing. It wasn't his crucifixion bothering him. Those people out there should have their forgiveness. Isn't that beautiful? See, it wasn't his physical. He transcended his physical in the glory. So I think we shouldn't make Good Friday a misery. We should make it a praise. Not only Easter Sunday. Because that teaches us praise in your sufferings. That's our glory. When we're able to praise in our sufferings, that's our glory. Know the secret of how to do it. And so he went. That wasn't the problem. The problem was he went to hell. Now, I don't know. But he had to walk by faith as we did. Might he well be, he might have said he might remain there. See, he represents the whole sins, the products, the consequences of the sins of the world. The consequences of the sins of the world is our guilt, the wrath, the judgment, the eternal destiny. That's the point of our sins. The things we've done. He bore our sins. That's not our sin. That's different. I'll talk about it in a moment. It's our sins. Sins are the product. Sin is the producing principle. That's different. He bore our sins. And our sins take us through into guilt, into judgment, into wrath, into hell. And the Bible simply says if you are fixed in that condition, that's what it is. That's the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ was blood symbolized outpoured life. He really did die. When your blood's gone, you're dead. So it's a symbol to us that he really did die. He didn't die physically. I mean, he's dead, but physical body died. He went to hell. That's the first thing Peter said in the great speech after Pentecost. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. So he must have been in hell if he wasn't left there. See the point? Jesus Christ went to hell. He went where you and I are destined to go. That's the risk he took. I took quite a risk. He had to walk by faith. Could it be he'd be left there on our behalf? Of course he couldn't be because he didn't belong there. Satan had no control over him. So, as I was saying, a sin race with its sin stain, its sin guilt, its sin wrath, its sin judgment, its sin destiny, all those sins represent us. He came out left them behind. He shut that door of hell for all who received him. For the whole human race, the world was reconciled to him. Except they hadn't found out, that's all. This gospel had been a world gospel. There's never been a little bit, few Christian gospels, but a world gospel. That the world through him might be saved. Reconciled the world unto him. I love the world-mindedness you get in both the Gospel of John and the Epistle of John. And so, in that one act, he wiped out all that would come to us out of our guilt, condemnation, wrath, judgment. Don't have any of it. You sin by retaining any sense of guilt or wrath or judgment about you. Your past is out of sight. It's out of God's sight. It's out of your sight. We'll leave it out of sight. If it's as far as from the East as from the West, that's a pretty good distance, I reckon. If it's the depths of the sea, they're trying to find power or something down there. Now they're having a hard work. The strong terms of God's wiping thing, it's wiped out. That's the precious blood of Christ. Sometimes people sort of squirm at the blood. They don't understand. They don't mean it. Like a Mohammedan. I worked among Mohammedans. They don't understand. They've got a prejudiced idea of Jesus Christ. They spit on him. They're not to blame for that. They don't understand the perfect Jesus we mean. They've got distorted images. And so there are some people who sort of say they squirm at the blood. They don't understand the preciousness. It's a symbol of this God-life outpoured, went where I should go. To cut me off side. Never need go. I never have the guilt and the offence. That's out. That's the death and resurrection of Jesus on that level. The other level is the crucified body. Now that's very remarkable. We do not participate in the blood. That's his blood. We do participate in the body. That's why communion, it says, you take communion with the blood of Christ, yes. You take it recognising it's his blood shed for you. You participate in the body. For we being one bread, one body, we participate in the body. Why? Because we are that body. Now that's quite significant. We are that body. How do I know that we're that body? The Bible says you were crucified with Christ. You were buried with him. You were risen with him. You were ascended with him. That's all. There's Romans and Colossians and comes up again and again. Colossians, all those letters. Now we are there. Why? Because you see, our bodies contain the same principle. Sins are the products which came out. Our hates, fears, lies, all these things for which we've broken the law. For which there was a judgement and wrath and all that. Christ has become the end of the law, wiped it out. Or become the completion of the law, shall we say. So then we'll know what that left. Now, um, that's not our problem. Our problem isn't the product, it's the producer. Our problem is the motivation which causes me to be self-centred in this. Out of my self-centredness comes my hates and my fears and my lusts and so on. They're products. What matters is the motivation in the body. Now, that's sin in the body. Sin is the principle of self-centredness. It's really another term for Satan. Love is another term for love is God, of course. It's the principle of being, which is God's being. And sin, self-centredness, is the principle of false being, which is Satan's being. So you may speak of the spirit it speaks in Ephesians 2 of the spirit of the power of the air within us. It speaks in 1 John of the spirit of the air. Call him sin, call him spirit, doesn't matter. That's the person who's possessed us through the fall. We are vessels with a wrong owner in us. That owner went out in the death and resurrection of the body of Jesus. See, the body contains the owner. Now, that body represents us. We were crucified. We were died with him. We were buried. A dead body has no spirit in it. And when that dead body lay, it says we were buried with him. There was no longer left the spirit of self-centredness, which has grabbed us and enslaved us. That's the completion. Out that went. It's that empty dead body, put to death in the flesh, quickened by the spirit in 1 Peter 3. Now, into that dead body came the new spirit. His spirit is the fixation of the spirit of self-giving love, taking the place of the spirit of self-loving love. That's the gospel. That both removes what should come to us as a consequence of our sin life, wrath, judgment, so and so. And it changes our condition, which Roland was bringing out so beautifully yesterday. It changes our condition. We put off the old man, put on the new man. We've got to understand a little more what that means. The gospel means out goes hell and the wrath and the judgment and the fear of death and condemnation and all that wretched stuff. Not there. We become precious in God's sight. See yourself. You're perfectly precious. God delights in you. I have a laugh. I always think God delights in me. He says he does, so I suppose he does. And when I look around at you, I say, well, he makes pretty poor choices somehow, but that's his business, not mine. If he loves you, okay, I love you too. So there he is. He's precious. Don't downgrade yourself. When you cease to downgrade yourself, you don't downgrade your neighbor. Upgrade yourself. You're precious. Every bit of you is precious. Cut out, taken out, that old spirit out and the stain's gone in Jesus Christ. Raised again. Now there are Now we come back to ourselves. We begin to belittle ourselves. There are certain phases of consciousness which have to become us. Like any person being educated in a profession, you learn phases. Oh, I've got it. I know I do it. I know I do it. That's consciousness. There are certain phases. The Bible puts them as a three-fold set. I've quoted you. The Bible says you start as a little kid, little children. You go on to an adolescent who's found his own abilities. That's the ferment of adolescence, a young man. You go on to fatherhood when you're reproducing. Bringing out to the world. There are three phases. Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension. Romans 1-5, Romans 6-8, Romans 9-16. All these things all through the Bible. So now we're back on a person. Now, the royalty of a person is my ability to choose. Now the simplest word for choice is faith. It's unfortunate and that's why new translations are good that we tighten up religious words and make them have religious connotations. So we've put little things in a little framework. Faith is a universal action of the personality. It's the only action of the personality. The only basic action of you is faith. Because faith isn't some religious idea. Faith is your inner capacity for choice with the heart man believes. With the mind you can accept. You've got to start there. I agree there. But you don't operate on your mind. You operate your inner self which really we use the word choose which puts yourself to something. That's faith. You put yourself to something. Look here. You didn't come here by your thinking. You had to have thoughts. You were invited and here's the place and so on. What did you do? You came because you chose. You said, I'll come. You didn't come here by your body. You came here by your choice. Your automobile or your airplane just bought your faith, that's all. Because faith is a tremendous, it's the capacity for choice. But that's the moment of choice. That's the word of faith. You say, I'll do that. I'll take that. I'll go there. All life is that. A word is a person in action. A word is a person in action, a word of faith. Everything you do comes out of a word. And that becomes an act on earth and you take it. And the law of faith is that's how you get experience. Alright, now here's some food. Well you believe in it, you see it, that's alright, that's a limit. That isn't good enough, you believe in it and see it. I think we're pretty eager in going farther over here and lining up and taking it. Rather enjoy it, don't we? We take it. You don't take it with your body. You take it because you choose to take it. Oh, I'm going to have that. Inwardly you've chosen, you're going to take this. Now what happens? Poor you, you're taking what you take. If you have that tummy ache, it's your fault for eating too much, that's all. Your food takes you. The law of experience is the taker's tooken. What you take, takes you. All life is that. All life is you're taken over by that which you take. You come here, well you take, instead of staying at home or going to some other job, you take coming here. Alright, you take coming, I'll come, you come, it's got you now. You're here, stuck here for a few more days. Of course, the basic idea is because you freely choose, you like to be taken over. So everyone's a slave to their choices. Because you freely choose, you're meant to like it. Doesn't always work out quite like half the earth you're meant to. So you enjoy being here because you chose to, it's taken you over. So all, practically or eternally, is being, is freely through your mind coming, no, no, I'm taking it, it's available, it's desirable, I hope it's reliable. You can't prove it's reliable until you've experienced it. That's where experience comes in. You say it's, it's, it's available, I've been invited here, it's desirable, oh, I'd like to come. Reliable, I guess they'll be there. Then you move. I'll come. And so it's your inner self that's brought by outer form. And then your self becomes caught up by what you are here. You enter into the system, the timetables, everything else, and move in. And because you freely did it, you're meant to enjoy it. Thank God, I think most of us do enjoy it down here. You're a nice little slave here for five days, so behave yourself as such. Caught up by what we are. God's a slave because he can't lie. He's caught up by love. And I guess he enjoys it. Everybody's a slave to what they choose. This is the royalty of a person. God or man. That's your royalty. Your ability to choose and your being fixed by what you choose. Now, that may be often temporary. You take food, you forget in an hour or two. You take being here, you forget it in five days' time. You won't forget what you've got, I hope. But you forget how you've been here. All life has those temporary takings. You take a profession, it takes you over. You can change your profession, but mainly, if you learn the profession, you probably take, you're kept on that line probably. become a mother and a family. You're taken over by the responsibilities and the love of bringing up a family and so on, whatever form it takes. So, you see, a person's a person who freely takes lots of things, lots of things. Temporarily, or for longer times, you're taking over what you take. Now, the supreme moment in your human history, beyond which, higher than which we'll never go, is when you and I voluntarily transferred our capacity of taking from things material to a person who's immaterial, from matter to spirit. Now, you see, even your religion, that's why I say this book can't save you until it becomes a person inside you. It can only lead you. You can't save by a book. You'll save by receiving a person through the book, and that person becomes you. You're saved by the person, not the book. The words I speak are to their spirit, their life. Nothing outside you takes you. That's why outside religion's got to go. That's why I say it's quite good, in many ways, that communism blew up false professions of religion in Russia. Start again. Communism has shaken us back to proper faith. We owe that to the devils of communism. It's shaken us back to find a real faith, instead of a phony, externally ritualistic stuff. I don't say it's the place for some ritualism, but you know it can eat you up. So, you see, the outside you're never held by the outside. You're only held by what you're inside. Nothing otherwise ever holds you. Now, in this world or any other world. Now then, what did we do? In this moment of choice. You've become, somewhere or another, disillusioned with your present condition. That's the word, probably, of the gospel, or perhaps the example of other people. You felt they got something you hadn't got. You were missing something. There was a defeat, and a hate, and a fear, and a strain, and wrong things in your life, whatever form it took. You felt you were a wrong person somewhere. Up from God somewhere. Now, that was your disturbed background. Now, that disturbed your faith. Up to that time, you tried to have a faith in your present condition. You tried to laugh it off. We try to laugh life off. Laugh's fun, but often behind laugh is a hollow ring. Underneath is a torn up person's heart. You try to laugh it off. Or you try to philosophise it. Oh, I don't believe that stuff. Or you've tried to have some outer religion. Oh, I'm a church person. I've been baptised, and so on. You try but all that's outer stuff. And somehow that's not settled you. That's not satisfying you. That's why you're here. Something's wrong. So, you've had the disillusioned faith. You've had a material faith on a philosophy, on a religion, or maybe on your good works, on your good resolutions, or on your bad works. And the bad way you've been, and the wrong things, all that. That's been the that upon which your faith has centred. Now, that's been shaken up. That's not good enough. Well, where else can I believe? Now, this is the critical moment. When you turn to the Jesus Christ, Jesus Jesus the Bible, that's why we have the Word of God. That's why we have the Gospel, that's why we have Witness. To show us Him, the Son who became one of us, and then went through a process of redemption. We needn't understand all of it when we first come to Him. We have this person. The critical moment is, you try and follow your faith, not to crucify Jesus but to risen Jesus. You see, crucifixion is history. Anybody can believe a crucified Jesus just in history. You can't believe a risen Jesus in history. That's beyond history. That's the new dimension. The risen Jesus is the spirit dimension. And you're never saved just by seeing a Christ who died. Well, you may in ignorance, but generally speaking, you're not saved by believing a Christ who died. You're saved by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our life. And that means you've moved into the spirit dimension. You've dared now, for the first time in your human history, to attach your inability of choice, the one you can't see, can't face, can't touch, can't hear, but something in you says to you, this is the one. This is the Son of God, died for me, rose again, loves me, accepts me, gives me, puts me in the family of God. This is what I receive. So faith means somewhere along the line, you've consciously related yourself to this one who did die, who does live. And you've moved in to relate yourself to a person who wants the true dimension, which is the spirit dimension, not the earthly. Now the law of faith, the principle of faith, always has the operation, you experience and take note of what you take. What you take, takes you. You move in, it takes you, and you experience it, it takes you, whether temporally or permanently. Now this is the consequence. Now this is the first time, up to that time, your material faith has brought your material results. You've taken food, there's the food. Take a chair, there's the chair. Take here, here you are. So you get material evidences of your faith. This is immaterial. You're now believing in a person you can't see, you can't feel, you can't touch, you can't hear, in that sense. The words of God can only guide you. You're receiving him. Now the material you get into is the witness inside you, yes he does love me. Yes he is my father. Now that's the first great reality we have in eternity. Consciousness is reality. And if you're a born again person that's come into your heart, well he does love me. God is my father. Jesus is my saviour. He did shed his blood for me. He is my lord. A new level of thrill has come into you. A level of light. You see, light isn't this. This is the external form. God is light. Light's a person. These are forms of light by which things are materialised. Everything is materialised light. He is the light. Now with our eyes we see light in certain form, with our ears we hear light that comes in sound form and light comes in atomic form, we touch it. So you touch the outbreaks of light outwardly in all those forms. When you're born again you'll come in touch with him who is light and inwardly you're conscious. Now real light is inspiration. Real light, oh that's it. If you're born again somehow I saw in you, Jesus does love me. He's my saviour. Somehow I can't prove a thing but somehow in some way I know he's my saviour. He's, all my past has gone. I belong to him. He belongs to me. God's my father. A thrill has come to you. True light is inspiration and ecstasy. And every born again person is in a permanent inner ecstasy which may take out of fun, but the ecstasy is there whether the outer fun is there or not. Because that's light. True light is a person. And we are part of that person. We are the light. We've come into union with him who is light and in fact it has, oh that's it. How well I know the day I saw oh that's it. I'd been brought up a church foe but the moment came I had to receive him as a personal saviour. When I asked him to forgive my sins, meaning it, oh that's what the blood means, light. I'd heard about the blood across all of my church days. Oh that's what it means. I saw. Oh I don't go to hell then because of that precious blood. Now, Jesus has become real to me. Inner consciousness. God's my father. I was in the middle of the football season as a young man then. I well remember saying, oh dear, that's the emotion. We English are always afraid of emotion. Oh that's the emotion. It'll go tomorrow. First thing when I woke up the next morning, Jesus is my saviour. God's my father. I'm still there after millions of years. This is the permanent thing. Light is inspiration and ecstasy. Now that's it. If you're a born again person, you've been taken. Not you took. In your need you took him. He took you. And you're born again not because you say, I hold him, but somehow it's at ease. I don't know how he loves me. I don't know how. He's forgiven me. I don't know how. He's my saviour. Something's happened in you which has settled. That's the permanent consciousness. You'll die for that one. You'll burn for that one. Because this is the new spirit reality. And you moved into the new spirit dimension. Now the last thing I'm saying, and I'll have to move on to the next one tomorrow, is this. The evidences, there are two evidences, which can be handled by us if you like. They're peace and love. They both come in the Romans 5 chapter, which explains what you get when you receive Jesus. Peace means, if you're born again, oh, that's nothing. That fear's gone. I'm not afraid of my sins and hell. I'm not afraid. Somehow it's right with God. Peace. Peace with God's one Lord Jesus Christ. If you're born again, a person has come into you, the peace of God has somehow settled you up. You're happy because God's your Father and you're at peace with God. That's your inner experience. That's the first fruit of the new birth. The other, I'd say more important fruit, is you can't help it, you begin to love. You cannot help it. It's not you loving. Your love by itself is self-loving self. But into you has come the spirit of love. What happens? Romans 5 tells us, it says, for God's love, God's love, not yours, is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit given to us, and you can't help beginning to love. And every born-again person is a lover. You can't help it. Because the revelation of Christ in you, you can't, oh, I can't help loving him. You think you're loving him. It isn't. It's his love that's operating in you. You begin to love Christ with his own other love. You can't help it. Life is spontaneous. It isn't, oh, I've got to do it. You can't help it. You can't help it. You're a driven poor thing. You're a poor, driven slave. I've been trying to wriggle out for 40 years and can't wriggle out anyhow. Once you're caught, there's no escape. You see? Now, that's the proof. You become a lover. Now, you don't know much about it yet, but you've begun to be a lover, son.