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Our Word - His Word, 1977
Norman Grubb

Norman Percy Grubb (1895–1993). Born on August 2, 1895, in Hampstead, England, to an Anglican vicar, Norman Grubb became a missionary, evangelist, and author. Educated at Marlborough College, he served as a lieutenant in World War I, earning the Military Cross, though wounded in the leg. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he helped found what became InterVarsity Christian Fellowship but left in 1920 to join his fiancée, Pauline Studd, daughter of missionary C.T. Studd, in the Belgian Congo. There, for ten years, he evangelized and translated the New Testament into Bangala. After Studd’s death in 1931, Grubb led the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) as general secretary until 1965, growing it from 35 to 2,700 missionaries, and co-founded the Christian Literature Crusade. He authored books like C.T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer, Rees Howells, Intercessor, and Yes, I Am, focusing on faith and Christ’s indwelling presence. Retiring to Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, he traveled, preaching “Christ in you” until his death on December 15, 1993. Grubb said, “Good is only the other side of evil, but God is good and has no opposite.”
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the presence and power of God in our lives. He references Ephesians 2:2 and 2 Kings 4:4-5 to highlight how the Spirit of Error and the God of this world can blind our minds. The speaker explains that as vessels of God, we need to undergo a change of place and a change of God's nature. He emphasizes that God is always awake and working in love to perfect and save everything. The sermon concludes by reminding listeners to operate on earth in preparation for their eternal purpose.
Sermon Transcription
The grace of God, too, produces quite a few works. The other is, it's by the son, he comes in a further point of reproduction. What shall I say? Further detail to reproduction. What I mean is this, it's through the son that the father came up in various creative forms. The illustration I usually use is, no founder of a great firm, say like Henry Ford, can spread his form worldwide. To make his firm worldwide, he has to have a series of sons and negexes who take his assortment and produce a British form, a Dutch form, a German form and so on. So you get a second level of people from the originator and the founder and the man who has the original genius assortment, who apply his assortment and bring about another in new forms. That's what sons are for. To be means by which the living God can come out in further manifested forms. That's what sons are for. We have to be people who are further reproductions of God in power actions, heavy actions, love actions, by us, by us. That's the significance, although we'll go further into it tonight I think, of the reason why the son is called a word. We use the word. Because a word is a person in action, I've told you all along. All you are is in the person, that's all you are. And the only faculty you have, it's a divine faculty, it's a God of faculty, is the ability to choose something, to express something, that's faith. To let yourself something, that's faith. I'll go here, I'll do that, I'll do so and so. That's the word of faith. Out of the word of faith comes substance. Faith is always substance. We discussed that in the third day of God. It's always substance. Faith is substance. And that's presented as his first form by his own son. Because that was when his son said, let there be life, let there be so and so. That was the son recognizing, again, he's got his word in focus. We've not. We've got God so far away from us, we think God's rather sleepy. And we're in tight corners, can't we wake up to do something about it? We've got to shout on God to come and do something about it. The truth is, God's awake and we're asleep. God's always in love purpose. God's a pressure of love. He's here to perfect everything, to save everything he can save, to redeem everything. That's what he's here for. He said, presence of truth. We are so far away from real God that we've got to get him to truth. Now, you see, the way Jesus said it, let there be light, let there be, meet it there and let it come. Let there be, meet it there and it'll come through. In other words, he saw the Father's purpose to produce light. The Son's faith is the local form. If we say light, whatever it is, let there be that light. And through the faith of the Son, let there be light, light comes out. Let there be sun and moon, let there be so and so. That's faith. And that's one of the main operations of our sons. To know how to be those with all the affairs of life and letting God through in new manifestations. We know how to operate the word of faith. He said, come out this way, come out this way. That's what we've got to learn. In operating sons, not just passive sons, active sons. And that's the heart of activity. Faith is the heart of activity when we understand how to operate faith. That's it. Now, as I'm only saying, in that let there be, it's very, you know, the only time it's spoken, the word does it. The word is a person making a decision. I'll get you a simple decision. You came here by the invitation of John the Apostle. I'll come. That's your word. You didn't come in a car. You didn't come because of an invitation. You came because you said so. Not because you thought about it. Because you, by a royal person inside you, said, I'll come. That puts you in action. And that puts you in substance. Now, humanly speaking, because we're human, you can use your car and the faith becomes substance. The way you said, I'll come to John's house. I'm in John's house. Faith is substance. Faith dissolves. You say, I'll come. In the faith, I'm going to come. I am. Faith always dissolves and becomes substance. Faith is only arrived when it becomes substance. I'll come to his house. I'm here. It's always there. And I'm going to say one little difference in those theories in the equation. Let there be light. Let there be so-and-so. Let us make man. Us comes in there. He moved in with God to make people like himself. We're now going to make people like ourselves. And God produced the human family which had always been his eternal purpose. The whole foundation of earth. Had millions of sons who are in such a free relationship, such a settled relationship, so conscious. They're not they but God. You've got to know it. They're not you but Christ in human form. So settled in it, as a consequence of the creation. You operate as if you were just yourself. You think your thoughts, make your choices, follow your motives, do what you like, and yet not you but God. Then you're operating on earth. In preparation for what should be in the eternal dimension. That's the sun. So always with his purpose. And again Dan touched for a moment about the sun. The marvel of this revelation which puts us finally in focus is this. For what purpose? And the Bible calmly says, when you discover your co-son, your co-heir. Well, heir of what? The Bible says, Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1 says, the father appointed the son to be heir of all things. So the inheritance of the son of God is the whole universe. On the side of inheritance, we're co-heirs. So our inheritance, which we use it now that we've got it, we already inherited it so you see it per se. It's the whole universe. We fuss about it, we lose a few pennies or something, or break a chair or some ridiculous thing. We haven't got plenty of everything. We're so silly. We let a bunch of kids fuss because we lose a few things. Well, that old airport lost my case. All I've got to say is that being with you here is what I've got in me now. Well, thank God I've got one shirt anyhow. The Bible already said, have one coat, I've got one coat. Well, I need a few more, let's get up, I'll get a half dozen more. I'm not stuck on one suitcase. Probably if it's lost, I'll get a better one back, you know. We fuss about things, you see what I mean? We are little people. We inherit the universe. But you see what it means? The real heart is this. What you inherit may be a tool to receive. It's a responsibility to use. Oh, my God, what shall I do with it? Now, it's inconceivable to the human mind really, of course, that our inheritors are co-inheritors of the whole universe. So we own what you own, you develop and you manage. So we're destined here, whatever that means, to own, develop and manage your universe. Now do you see why you've got to be the right kind of son? This is the right kind of universe because he's a lover father, not loved. Because the father is yet to complete and bless and fulfill. To cast out the wrong and settle in the right, that's his universe. That's what Calvary did, of course. His only purpose, at whatever price, is to move on. It's now, you see, that the whole earth is at harmony. To protect his universe, he's a lover father. Where you've got self-loving leaders, you're in trouble. This whole world's torn up because each person loves himself. We can't get peace because each nation, each business, each soul loves themselves. So we're pulling each other and have fears and doubts and has and has nots because we're fragmented by our self-loving self. So to have leadership, which is a self-loving nation, is hell. To have leadership, which is a self-giving nation, is heaven. And God's a self-giving leader. He is for his universe. So do you see, you and I are safe in God's destiny. Safe in being the sons who express the father when we love our sons. That's all. When the basis of my being is I'm for other people, I'm safe. Because what I'll be doing then is for other people. Then I love my son. Now this is the whole meaning of human history. Not just to discover, but to know I am and love my son. Probably all of us here know, ah, I don't know it. That's our trouble. It isn't that we need to attain something we haven't got. We need to recognise what we have got. That's all. But sometimes you need a little activity of recognition to settle in who you are and be it. That's all that is. Do you see the perfection? Do you see the total perfection of the universe? With all expressions of the person. And this person is grace if we may use her subdivision into his own manifested form and forms, the sun and the sun, millions of them. And for purposes we don't know what, it's a developing universe we don't understand. And we as persons are those, whatever that means, it says creation waits for manifestation, are going to be those who fulfill whatever developing purposes are necessary in the universe. And the one necessity is that we have only one motivation, to bless those we serve, not to be blessed by them. To bless those we serve. Our only existence will be how can I complete and fulfill that to whom I'm responsible. Then I'm a safe son. So you see, God must have not saved sons, safe sons. You're a safe son or you're a lover son. And that's why it's so beautiful when it says, Paul, when you see it, it's telling you now when you see it. Paul said this remarkable statement in Timothy. Speaking of the grace of God, he says, Speaking of the grace of God, I thank God who has enabled me, for he counted me faithful. Putting me to sleep. It's fun to count God faithful. It's all silly to count God faithful. Isn't he always faithful? How silly we are to tell God he's faithful. What else is he? But when God says you're faithful, that's something. Let God delight. I can rely on him. Of course he doesn't rely on you. He relies on the Holy Spirit in you. It makes a big difference. I can rely on him. Because when you're born again, he takes you as he is in you. Then you rely on him. And yet it's you too. It's a union. Isn't that beautiful? Oh, I can rely on him. Actually, God has begun to rely on every born-again person. Because if you're born again, you're not you. You're born in the Spirit. And you've begun. He really relies on you when you really know who you are. When you find out you're born in the Spirit, you're an expression of the Spirit, you're an expression of Christ, you're in a unity. Then he relies on you because it looks like you. It's really he. And this is God's joy, you see. He doesn't rely on him. He says, I can count on them. I can put weight on them. Because they're with me in this. And that's his thrill. To have co-gods, co-saviours, co-operators. That's his thing. And this is it. So, I'm not going to go on, I suppose. But what we have to examine, or go over, is the human process by which we find out who we are. You see, you've got to find yourself to be yourself. You've got to find... A person's got to find he's capable before you give him a responsibility. A person's got to find himself a carpenter before he can carpent. You've got to find yourself an engineer before you can... You've got to find yourself before you can operate as an efficient person. So we have to find ourselves a person, to be persons. That's the process of human history. To find ourselves, then we see why we have to find ourselves wrong first. There's a great secret there. God fore-meant, fore-intended us to go wrong. We know God intends us to go wrong. Why? Because, it's like a joke, the Bible says, before ever there was a created world, in 1 Peter 1, he fore-ordained his son to be a lamb which shed his blood for the world, before the world was shed its blood for. In other words, he perfectly well knew when we came we should fall. We had to fall. Why? Because you're never safe positively until you first discard the negative. No professional man is safe to use his tools rightly until he's described the wrong way, you see. He says, I don't cook that way, I cook this way. I don't handle my tools that way, I handle them this way. I don't teach this way, I teach that way. You've got to learn and discard the wrong way of doing things for you to say, yes, what competency is. I know how to do it. So, you see, we aren't safe selves until we learn the wrong kind of self, or discarded it, and found how through Christ to become a right kind of self, and you won't go back. So, I say, you may be here, but no one's looking. You're not going to live there again, you've had enough of that one. So, God must have safe selves who've been through certain phases of personality to find what it is to be a person, and then be that person, and then have to find our earth to function as this liberated person here. We're using the authority of the person here. That's what we're here to remind ourselves. You know it. So, actually, I'm going to end with this. That little word of ours, open our heads, see it. All that the households do, they possess their possessions, it's already yours. Because Jesus Christ did the whole thing. This perfect one was the last Adam, did the whole thing, completed the whole castaway, out of the devil, and sin, and wrath, and judgment, the whole business went out, and renewed us in God himself, perfected the thing. So, we enter into our existing perfection, not some new thing. We possess our possessions. It dawns us who we are, but the dawning has to be something which makes you think, oh, that's what I am. You have to live by inner consciousness. You're not saved by the Bible. You're not saved by the church. You're saved by an inner knowing. You're an inner person, only when the Spirit confirms you an inner knowing, are you a saved person. Or a person near, the last thing I say, you'll never, you can never live by the outside. Nothing outside can hold you. You get it and lose it. That's why religion can't hold you. The Bible can't hold you, unless you become the inner Bible. Oh, that's true. That's where the word of God abides in me. Because all I have is what I've got inside. That's my know-how. You live by your know-how. When you've got your know-how, you operate freely. The supreme know-how is I'm not I but He. I've got supreme know-how. They're not for me. So, we've got to go through these phases until we settle, how we discover, how we settle into the know-how, persist, what's already our position, and thank God, I'm reminding many of you what's your way of home, thank God. Well, you can rejoice and anyhow sleep peacefully if you want to while I'm talking. That's all. I think that's enough, John. I feel a little like the president with his bodyguard. We're going on where we left off last night. I have the two sessions today, this morning, and another one this afternoon when I want to cover as best we can because Sunday morning is more uncertain because many of you may not be with us on Sunday morning. Now, you know what we've been seen to be, what we believe to be the revelation from God's Word from eternity. It's always purposed to be a manifested God by His sons. Universal One, manifested by His manifested form, His own Son in the Deity, and then that Son coming down, having we come into being through creation, come down to our level, and lift us up to His level. So His eternal manifestation is not only by His own Son, but by His Son's head Son among many sons. And therefore, our destiny is, which starts now, to be God manifested. But that doesn't mean that we dissolve, and it's just the paradox is we're in action. We are functioning as God. We're in action. We're in total action. A human being is forever, we're in total action, but part of our being in its full fruition of activity. But, I shouldn't say something has happened because it's really already happened when we see it. Actually, we as persons are in our activity, we are expressions, we are manifested as the person. Just as Jesus said, if you see me, you see the Father. And if people see us, they see the whole Trinity, Christ or anything else. That's, you know, what our basis is. And that, as this destiny is, to be inheritors of the universe, co-inheritors with Christ, and therefore developers and managers of God's universe, His agency for whatever eternal purposes are through His universe, the secret of the universe is it's a manifestation of God, who is a lover God. His only, His whole being is, exists to fulfill and perfect and complete all those, whom, or things, or people, whom He's brought into being. And so, He's a God of harmony because love is harmony. And therefore, the one essential is that we are perseverance and lover sons if we express, expressing the love of Father, or the love of Trinity. And, we are only what we are, just normally. You can't make a thing up, you can only be it. So, what we're, that means how we are, in perfectly normal condition, lover sons. Now, which is, Christ is being manifested in His lover character, His lover self, the deity in His lover self, because, as I think I said before, the scriptures interchange the names. John uses, you've got God dwelling in us. Paul was speaking about Christ dwelling in us. They both speak about the Spirit dwelling in us. So, the name by which we name Him is, in some sense, is interchangeable. Now, we saw that, if we're to be operative, so responsible people, we must be with people. We'd be people. Well, if we're people, we are discovered, we are persons, and then, what kind of persons we are, and then be that kind of person. So, there has to be history of humanity, by which we, we, if you like, find out who we are, and then be who we are. That started at the creation, started in the Garden of Eden, because you have, you know, it's not a problem, it's a fact of existence. Nothing you can manifest is shaped by its opposite. You can't know light if it isn't dark. You can't know sweet if it isn't bitter. You can't know hard if it isn't soft. You can't know yet if it isn't low. Everything only manifests because it's, it has two sides to it. That is Godly manifestation. That's divided light. That's why the creation of God is divided, divided. Because God's unified light. God's got an opposite. That's why you can't know God if you're not a person. There's a sense of which you can only be. Knowing God is an inner what? We're just, he and the other, in an inner relationship, isn't the knowing, in the sense that I know you there, it's a different kind of knowing. Because he's got an opposite. You can't contrast him with another. God is light. But we're a form of the divided light. Possibly, like Ed Kristevich, of course, is divided light in itself, and so on. So we live, as persons we're part of a manifest creation which is a divided creation. Opposites are right, not wrong. Dark's no more wrong than right. Rough's no more wrong than smooth. Sweet's no more wrong than bitter. They're both sides. They meet together and make things. All life is the mating together of the opposites, who seek each other and make things, become things. Soft and hard, make a satie. Sweet and bitter, make something in cooking. Everything's the mating of the opposites. And they together manifest some form. So there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong. But because all the material expressions by which God is expressed, of course, we call unconscious. We may say a tree has a certain consciousness, but not the type that we're concerned with here. But we say God in his expression, in his creation, is an unconscious creation. He just is. A tree is a tree, and so on. But persons are different, because persons, of course, develop and adapt and express and so on. So a problem arises in the division of the self, which doesn't arise in divisions between light and dark and peace and bit. As I say, there's nothing, there's nothing single thing wrong in this creation except its use. Dark's not wrong. It's only we turn it into wrong uses. Not a single thing's right. Bit doesn't look wrong. We turn it into wrong uses. It's the use we put into a thing, the content we put into the thing of the person, which is the wrong. There's no wrong in the thing. Paul's very strong. Every creature's good. Every creature's sanctified. It's only its misuse. It can be the unsanctified area in it. But we have this one problem with the self, a self-conscious self. There's a division there, which can be a right or wrong division, which doesn't come in other things. That is a self-conscious self, a self-expressed self. Our capacity for expression can be either way. We can either be loving myself by being for myself or loving myself by being for others. I can love myself by being a self-getting self or I can love myself by being a self-giving self. There's a division there. That's where the right or wrong comes in. There's no diet or whatever. If you don't need it, then you have to push it out. That's why there's that remarkable fact said that something God can't do, which is remarkable in contrast to the fact that we immediately say God can do everything. His name is almighty. The Bible specifically says, as we're pointing to God, there's something you can't do, something you can't be. Again, I can't say can't. I can only say can't. But you've got to give the best I can. This is difficult, because right in the heart of the deity that opposite has been settled eternally. So it's not there, because it's been settled and kind of dissolved, but it's there. And that's where the Bible says he can't lie. Can't lie. That's a very striking statement. God that can't lie. Not didn't, not haven't, not shouldn't. Can't. That means he can't. But it means that such a thing is a lie. If it says he can't lie, it means there is such a thing as a lie because it's true. It's not knowable unless it contrasts a lie, unless it dissolves a lie. A liar, of course, is a self-getter, a self-seeker. If I lie to you, I lie to gain my ears, if you expect that I'm from the self, I lie. Not for you. It may hurt you, I don't care about that. A liar is I'm from the self. That's the basis of God's character. He can't be for himself. That's the perfect basis of character. You'll never see rock in God. You'll never see judgment in God. Everything is perfect love. Everything is perfect love. That's all it can be. Because he's fixed. In other words, he... Is someone coming in? Better wait. It does worry me. So it says there's a marvellous fixation in a person. You can't be the other. That's what we are when we're there. You know the Bible says you can't sin. You've got that one? 1 John 3, about 10, says you cannot sin. Of course, you're bought into that. You don't believe that, but it's a fact. By about Sunday evening, I'll prove it to you. We'll get on with that later. So the marvellous of a person is the potential of being fixed and being fixed. That's what we are. You're only a saint in terms that if you're fixed, you can't be the other. So that's... Although you may say it's a problem that a person can be an opposite, where another thing can't. It's just normally there's no moral basis to it. A person can be. But the privilege of being a can-be is you can't be the other. You can get fixed. So we positively only forever remain one. That's marvellous. God's only one. He's only love. He can't be anything else. He cannot lie. So that's the basis of the divine personality. It's the opposite which means dissolved. The other isn't there. There's no doubt it isn't him. It's not dissolved. He's wholly alive. This is wholly love. Nothing else. That's why, you know, it's always... You're always in gear. If whatever happens, you say, Oh God, I can't understand that. It's all right. It's all love. Somewhere you're mixed up with that thing with love. The moment you question God's character, there's a shadow in your spirit. Because you're questioning it. The moment you say, whatever it is, it's all OK with you. I can't understand it. It's OK with you. You're only love. There's some form of love. You're safe. You have in you a sense of witness harmony. So now, if we're to be... If we're to be gods, and the Bible says we are, John says we are gods. I say dear God, to God. Not he. We. If we're to function as God through eternity, as gods expressing God, there has to be this process, progress, I don't like to use the word, but it's already done in a sense, by which we are equally fixed. As I said yesterday, God can count on us as much as we count on him, and he counts us faithful as much as he counts him faithful. We're totally reliable. So his purpose, his eternal plan, and of course he's really fixed that plan as we see it, have a vast, heavenly, millions of times we're totally reliable. And instantaneously, nothing but other love, as he is other love. And there'll be lambs that will lay down their lives for others, and even as he is the Lamb of God, ladies will lay down their lives for the world. And our delight is to be something for others, doesn't matter what it costs us. It can be something that gives you what you need, doesn't matter what it costs me. That's the person. That's the marvel of God being called the Lamb. That's the final great... Is it worth illustrating? Symbol? It's used finally in the Revelation, about 20 times over, the Lamb on the throne. Because I've often always pointed out the contrast is so vast between the almighty God and the Lamb. Because if almighty God is the most powerful person on earth, then the Lamb is the most helpless thing you can think of. I've taken the symbol in because it's helpless. In other words, we look upon a human, a natural lamb as if it were a plaything. It can have its uses, and you can eat it and kill it and freeze it, but it's a little helpless thing. In other words, we say a human lamb is helplessly available. The contrast between the human lamb and the divine lamb is far greater. A human lamb can't help itself. It's helplessly available. God's purposefully available. He means to be a lamb for you. If it's necessary for us that he be torn in pieces by us, he is torn in pieces by us. Of course he is. That's the perfect God. And that's the perfect us. We are laboured as a sheep to slaughter. It says we are killed all like sheep. We kill all their logs, Paul says. We are lambs. Because that's the lamb character. So now, we are moving into the fact we trace through this our understanding. I don't like to use the word process too much because growth is a dangerous word. You can escape life. You say I'll grow there one day. You escape what you should be today. It's a dangerous word. I don't like growth. Because actually, to put it in focus, the only growth in the Bible is recognition. You grow in grace in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is what he's already given. And the Lord Jesus Christ is whom he has given. So grace isn't growing. It's growing in recognition of who he is. Who he is to me. Who he is in me. Who he is by who he is. A large recognition of Christ. That's all growth is. Nothing wrong with me. Now that's a safe kind of growth. The other way we escape. I've got to be improved at some stuff. So we're looking at the human self. And there are phases, stages that help us to see it. When we move into the redeemed life, unified, or what is moving into the reality in its phases of the unified life has given us quite distinctly in the Bible three phases. We should move on to that. Little children, young men and fathers. Justification. Identification. Cooperation. Salvation. Sanctification. Saviourhood. Oh, I won't discuss that now. You'll come right to the scriptures that will be seen. There are the other phases. Now, that's why we aren't told how or why there was a being, a conscious being, who had become the opposite. He purposely chose to be the opposite. That's given us, he's given us the name we usually call him Satan. The original name he gave him was Lucifer. He is presented to us in two outstanding passages in the Bible. Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14. And Ezekiel 22. Those two present him in his characteristics of how he, as a perfect person, freely chose to be his own God. To use his beauty and his fantastic for himself. He rejected being what he was named to be or named your character Lucifer. Lucifer means bare light. He's meant, because all humans or the whole universe is negative. Negative is not wrong. It expresses him. It's the other side of his self-expression. And he used to be the perfect expression, the perfect God, bare light. In that light they'd find the perfect God and his perfect love. And he used to be the agent when we take it. When Jesus, of course, has become that. By which, the perfect God and his perfect love is revealed to mankind. He wouldn't take it. If that were me, he'd be for others. We aren't told any more than the prophets, except we're told he's fundamentally rejected it. That's a fundamental objection when you become a devil. We don't start life as devils. We start life children of the devil. A child of the devil can graduate and become a son of the devil. That's the people who go to hell. People don't go to hell by mistake. They go to hell because they're settled. They chose to be there to become that. You live eternally as you are judged when this is something God puts on you. All this silly talk we talk about God judging. Judging is only proclaiming what he is. A judge doesn't make up something about a prisoner. He tries to decide what fits, what punishment fits the crime. He doesn't impose something. He doesn't impose something on a prisoner. It's what must that prisoner have to fit that condition in our human social laws here. That's all. So a judge is only trying to declare what fits the thing. You live in eternity. What fits you? If you were lost in a spiritual prison you'd live in a spiritual prison and live. If you're a liberated spirit in Christ you'd live a liberated spirit there. That's all. We put all these words on God and shadow him in his perfection of his perfection his love and his goodness and so on. And so Satan became that. Satan, if ever given to us such a person who is in a self he became the opposite. Now it was necessary that we persons to be conscious persons must therefore consciously go the way a person should go and become constantly fixed in being what a person is meant to be. So it has to be on the basis of consciousness. And that's the first way in which God used this one who'd chosen the opposite way. I said to you yesterday that there was always a God-convenient agent he's using for perfect purpose he's always using Satan. Don't see Satan see God using him. See through Satan. We're far too devil-minded and Satan-minded except to say you watch what a good agent uses for God and then you get praising God for Satan. Didn't Satan get you lost? If you weren't lost you wouldn't get saved so praise God for Satan. Only lost people get saved. Don't even know you need to be saved unless you find you're lost, do you? So all along God of course everything there's only one power. We've got to get right out of this divided idea of two powers good and evil God and devil. No, no, one power. If it may misuse power at least for God's part it's OK if I can turn you away if you won't be turned I'll still use you Pharaoh I'll still use you. Anyhow I'll perfectly use you I'll save you if I can if you just won't be saved I'll still use you. So this is God's convenient agent. This is a positive outlook. This is a single outlook. I say yes you are a single your whole body is full of light. There it is. So there's the first occasion for the day he planned to use this person who'd chosen to be the God of the opposite he'd chosen to be the God of self-loving self the self-giving self that's the Satanic God the king of this world the character of self-sacrifice he'd use him to lead his pedestrian sons through their stages of consciousness until they could be the perfected they could find they are the perfected sons the fixed sons who could as I say be the allowable expressions of a lover God to eternity. And that's the why we're put in the Garden of Eden where this fixed person already was the Satan was there the foremost servant. Why? Because he tempts us to be ourselves there had to be some means see a little child doesn't know a child has to begin to find himself doesn't he? A little infant doesn't know he's practically unconscious and he doesn't know he has to come and gradually he does know he is a person by certain painful purposes but so you see to be a person we have to we have to find the persons which means something had to happen which would cause me to say I'm a person Now what could that be? That could only be if everything was there God didn't say don't eat that tree He said do eat everything just tuck a little bit in of course don't eat that one have all the rest don't make God negative as God said don't eat that tree He said the whole business you'll read the whole garden is yours all this beautiful preservation is yours yours yours yours yours but I just don't touch that so the majority was the giving the minority was the well don't touch that it had to be because you only learn by its opposites you couldn't learn anything by its contrast and so their self had learned even God had may I say learned because he couldn't lie somewhere along the eternal history that was a fact of course it was an eternal fact but that was And so it had to be, so this is the first necessity, the Satan should come along and should cause Adam and Eve, Eve first of course, he's always a problem, I'm a big problem, because as you and me know, we poor men are slaves, we follow in Eve's, that's why Eve was deceived and man meant it, as the Bible says, well somebody said to me yesterday, oh wasn't it wonderful that through a woman came a saviour in the world, yes I said and through a woman came a fool too, I won't get away with that one, but you see the point, therefore that came to Eve and Adam, isn't it nice, wouldn't you like to have this, wouldn't you like, now that's how he discovered himself, wouldn't you, yes I would, I've got appetites, the only when you want something for yourself, does it occur to you, yes I've got a want, I've got appetites, so you see the temptation was the first lesson to humans that we are humans with enormous potentials, it makes us living humans, it's precious to be living humans, as we get on, we've got so negative, we think flesh is evil, no flesh is good, it's only it's misused as evil, it's seen in the flesh, not precious as evil, it's the lust of the flesh, not flesh, flesh is beautiful, God manifests in the flesh, God manifests in your flesh, nothing wrong with the flesh, but you see it's only, we use these words, we've got to get back to positive aspects about us humans, humanity is God's precious agents, but we've got so self-accusing through certain areas, we tend to start by picking bad things about us, like Paul did, till he got to the old Jewish body of his death, it was the body of his death, it was also God's temple, he just temporarily saw it as the body of death, he could see it was the body of, it could show the life of God, that's where you see the thing, so they had to go through this, and so you see Adam and Eve learned and then it occurred to them, it would be nice to look at, suddenly you look up, all of them with their eyes opened, all the beauty, the art, I suppose investigations, science, I don't know, look, where we see things, as soon as we see things, approach them, adapt them and so on, all that comes to that, and then Satan says, well yes, there are a few things that God doesn't want you to know, oh yes, nothing you'd like to know, do you see my point? God had to use the opposite to cause us to find we are real selves, and we have appetites, we have abilities, we have potential, the enormous mental ability we have, so it's fantastic what comes out of this fallen world, and it's the fallen world, what would be the redeemed world? So that's the first stage, now we may say that Adam and Eve didn't fall, no, that's a theory, they did fall, as I pointed out yesterday, God knew they would fall, so in that sense, it came as near as could be that God meant them to fall, I told you that yesterday, because that key scripture, I quoted you yesterday, 1 Peter 1, where it says that, verse 1, 18, redeemed, not with 18, 1, 18, redeemed not with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, 19, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, it was manifest in these last times for us, that's fantastic, that means God so had it settled that when the human race came into being, they'd fall, but he already ordained his son to be the lamb slain and sacrificed to him before they were there to fall, and so obviously he knew they'd fall, so he provided the favour before men had fallen to sin, so it's as good as saying he knew they'd sin, at least he knew they'd sin, and it's pretty well made that he meant they'd sin, why, because sin is the alternative form of self, sin is self-centeredness, we need to re-state our vocabulary in many ways, because the vocabulary gets hardened into terms, we've got religious terms, we need to re-state the word faith as a functioning choice, we need to re-state the word sin as purposeful self-centeredness, to get them back into terms which we can understand a little more today, and so we're saying here that Adam and Eve did fall, I won't go too far at this moment in time, it says Eve was the seed, you see it's alright for us to talk, they'd never seen that, they didn't understand love as we knew, an unconscious child doesn't understand love, he just utilises love, he didn't understand God as love, he lived in the ocean of God's love as you may say, and he didn't understand, until you make sure she's not even conscious, so we're just flowing in that love, so it's alright for us to say, but they didn't understand grace and sin and all that, it wasn't in existence, it wasn't noticed, and so it says Eve was the seed, there was a choice, but she was mainly the seed, she thought she could have this, the fundamental difference between Satan and Adam and Eve is Satan's sin was spirit, which is you, Adam and Eve was flesh, which is only an outside form of you, in other words Satan intended to be a devil, which is a person, he'd be his own God, he intended to kick God out and be his own God, Adam and Eve didn't, they just thought God wasn't looking, that's all, perhaps a bit of both, so they didn't see into the roots, that's why of course they knew him once, Satan never knows God, but Adam and Eve does, they knew him at once, I won't go into that because I haven't time, too long, but you'll find, that's perfect, God didn't put iota of judgment on that man, he judged Satan as the principal self-centredness, he said you serpent, he said you're cursed, the symbol is you, you're cursed, he never cursed man, he blessed man, he said Adam and Eve, he said you've been caught up, and you're going to pay a price for being caught up, and so you're going to have one thing, you're going to have sorrow, sorrow is going to be a healthy thing to you, because sorrow means you won't like something, you've got to know you don't like that old life, that's all, hey I'm here in the seat of the woman, seat of the woman is eternal of course, because man must claim prominence in the world, seat of the woman are Christ and people who are in Christ, that's the seat of the woman, the purpose of return, the first person in Christ at least that was able, probably Adam, because it says as the Lord taught, man claims prominence in the world, that's the time factor with God, time and space are up here, so in God's sight he's always there, so from the very beginning people can be attached to the true seed, Christ, in his human race, so that was the beginning, now the important thing that works out of this is this, it's again a matter of the nature of things, I think I mentioned it yesterday, you will never on earth be established in the right way to do a thing, unless you are conscious of the wrong way and discard it, in other words all practical training in life is how not to use a thing that you think you'd like to use, you don't use a tool that way, you use them this way, you don't cook that way, you cook this way, you don't teach this way, you teach that way, this way, so no competence means I discovered the wrong way of doing it and discarded it, I set it in the right way, and we pay a person for their competence in doing things the right way, when you pay a great deal of money to a plumber and a great deal of money to an electrician and a builder, it's because they know how to build, not just because they build, because you can't, what they do be a good job, they know how, they won't put the timbers in the wrong way or whatever they do, put them wrong, feel me, so do you see that as it is with humans, now if I'm to be a fixed, a fixed self-giving human, another lover human, I must have faced the fact that the alternative of human is to be a self-loving human, I must have been through something which has cured me of that one, or I might go back to it again, I must have gone through some experience which says I'm not having that again, I haven't had that, but if you've had another thing and find the opposite, you settle on using, you discard the old, settle on the new, so do you see the necessity that the human race should have gone the wrong way, and should have been thoroughly disillusioned, because then you won't go back to it again, so the flaw is all the purposes of God, I've proved it because he created, the Bible proves it, because he created the human race knowing they'd fall, which didn't mean no portion had created them, that's all, it's his fault, not ours, see, because falling is the only safe basis to be standing upright, so you see the process now, we have a far dose of a self-loving self, and find it's guilt, and it's hate, and it's fear, and it's hell, and it's uncleanness, and it's disruptions, until somewhere we say this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and that's why you know, because only in the people, no other, no other Christ can get you, no other religion, no other Lord can get you, it's got to come in there, and so you born-again people say I know it, you claim to be an evildoer, that's wrong, I'm wrong, not because you tell me I'm wrong, not because the Bible says it, because I know I am, it's happening in me, the revelation, that's the gift of repentance, the spirit of God, let's use the law for that purpose, but it caused me to go into, that's off, I'm wrong, I can't remain this lost, sin-stained, hell-going person, now you're conditioned to be safe in the opposite, because you've had enough of this one, so you see the mercy of God, and as I say, the proof is simple, if you're a saved person, you know you've been lost, and you didn't wish to remain lost, or you wouldn't get saved, you know that, you had to come back somewhere as a prodigal, or learn the tough lesson the other brother learned, one way or another, to come through, now I'm not going to give us some kind of getting moving on, but to fit it in the focus, from eternity, it always had been, as we know God's purpose, to have this vast family of sons, all of which we choose, no one goes to hell that they mean to, the whole world has to be saved, we need much more world-minded, God's to sell out the world, the world to him must be saved, we even just love to make sure people go to hell, I get more questions, are you quite sure people go to hell than they do if they go to heaven, they're so negative, I want to be quite sure they go to hell, you do mean that don't you, I say I'm not interested, I'm interested in getting people to heaven, I leave that business to God, we're all so negative, we seem to like to be sure some people go that way anyhow, the Bible's not like that, the Bible says strong things that cover a great many people you know, the Bible says the whole world is already reconciled, actually are the world's forgiven, because we're forgiven through Jesus Christ, before then Christ, before we came, so in God's sight the creation was forgiven before it started, because the Savior was there before we were there, so we always were redeemed, forgiven, sanctified, unified before we started, that's the marvel of God, the whole world was, you've only got to read one passage like Romans 5 where it says, for instance, therefore by the offence of one, verse 18, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even for the righteousness of one, the freakiness came upon all men unto justification of life, and then silly narrow people come to me and say, of course the only person to say, he doesn't have to say, read, this is about the whole fallen world through Adam, it's fine I'm not going back now in verse 12, I've seen it in the world, the world was caught by sin through Adam, through Moses and so on, and then as by that one man's sin, so is this one man's judgment, so the Bible says all men are there to take it, of course that involves, we're free people, so it involves our freedom, it only works when we freely relate ourselves to be there, in other words, the Bible and the Gospels are much more world-wide, and we're anxious even here, because we want to be quite sure we get it, and we're quite sure other people don't get it apparently, I don't really mean it, it also looks like that, the way people anxiously ask, are you quite sure people are going to hell, it looks like it, doesn't it, so, uh, what's that, oh, I can't hear being deaf, the mercy sometimes, am I, there's something going on here, I can't hear, oh, I see, I can't make out what's happening, we're ready for you, yes, well, you don't look like the way you're talking, well, um, uh, the, uh, we know, of course we know, uh, the way by which, um, we, um, um, have become, if you like to put it that way, and become, uh, the true person, um, the, um, Christ-manifesting person, the simplest, the simplest understanding is, uh, that, um, uh, the, all, as I said before, all things being negative express positive, the whole universe manifests him, the human is a, is a, a negative, uh, personality that expresses the positive, which is a deity, so human expresses a deity, uh, we are, we are ourselves, we're not, never came to being, see, we weren't in being until we had the temptation, and the temptation got the wrong deity, we had to eat the fruit to become a person, you see, fruit symbolizes what goes inside you, as the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil, which brought the divided outlook, and as the fruit of the tree of life, so a human, when I become a human, symbolically, when I receive something into me, uh, well, of course, obviously, uh, if you put a tree of life in a fruit, because he said, if you see the tree of life, you'll see the eternal life, well, the eternal life of the fruit is a person, so we know the fruit symbolizes the tree of life, symbolizes the Christ coming into you, and the tree of knowledge, the evil, good and evil symbolizes hate becoming interest, so, you see, the condition of the human race is, we're, we're, um, uh, expressions of the false god, uh, that's why you get that, that, um, put out in Romans 9, where it says, all humans are vessels, all humans are vessels, that's where you get the vessel idea, uh, it says you're either a vessel of wrath or a vessel of mercy, now a vessel is a container, now that puts the human in focus, all humans are, are, are humanity, because there is a deity, we express that deity, so, you see, what, what's happened in the fallen world is, we've been spontaneous expressions of the deity of self-centeredness, in God and his world, that's why it says, for instance, in 1 John 4, 4, that's why I first saw this clearly, um, greater is he in you, now, that's the redeemed, well, so, in me is the Holy Spirit, then he is in the world, that's what may be set up, oh, I said, I hadn't seen that, it has a he in the redeemed, that's also he in the unredeemed, then I follow two verses down, 1 John 4, 6, here by the way, these be the truth, the, we are spirits, this is these spirits, these spirits are the truth of the Holy Spirit of course, and these spirits of error, oh, I said, I see it, he will always have these spirits, which god, you have the spirit god in you, either the satanic spirit or the divine spirit, uh, that, of course, is what knocks out, what puts in focus, is nature business, this confused teaching, we have two, you can't have two natures, we never are a nature, we're an expression of, of, of a deity nature, humanity is a negative agent, we express the deity nature, and we've been caught up through the force, we express it as a false deity nature, if we want further proof of that, Ephesians 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, tells us, Ephesians 2, 2 says, we walked coins across this world, in our old days, because the prince of the power of the air, the spirit, has now worked in the human convenience, there he is, and so we've fulfilled the desires of the flesh and the mind, self-centredness, self-gratification, and our, by nature, should be lost, that's the nature of this, this prince of this world, the spirit of, the spirit of error, he says, so it's across, or in 2 Corinthians 4, 4, 4, 5, it says, uh, the gospel preachers are those who are lost, no, the preachers, the gospel preachers are also those who are lost, in whom, the God of this world has blinded the minds, he's in us, I'm just showing, therefore, the simple understanding, as we move along, it helps us see it, is, we humans are vessels that contain a God, now what, if we're to be, uh, God's vessels, a change of the place has to be, a change of God's, so all salvation is a change of God's, it's not a change of vessel, it's out with the old God, in with the new, now, of course, he always did belong to Christ, but has become lost to us, the creator, um, and, uh, this is where he, uh, um, uh, he, he, he, he takes, he fulfils this, this next stage in eternal purposes, uh, that's why it's called the last Adam, um, I think that's one of the most important, uh, names given to, to, uh, God's son, that's, you get that in one, first Corinthians, the last Adam, why, because the Adam is the beginning of the race, now, this is the beginning of the new race, not just the failure of individuals, beginning of a whole new race, a whole new vast family, and that's why Romans 5, I won't go into it now, it calls Adam a figure, the first Adam, the first Adam, just a figure, a symbol, he's not the real thing, he's a sheriff, a figure, a symbol of the real thing, um, and so it says of the, of the, of the Adam's transgression in 5, 514, who is the figure that committeth to come, so he's a symbol of the real Adam, because, see, real life is spirit life, not flesh life, flesh is completely right, relationship is beautiful, but if it's wrong relationship, it's, it's, it's hell, it's, it's if it, it gives itself service, it's just an agency of hell, and so flesh in itself is, is um, a, a, a, a flesh, not flesh like it was before, Adam, it's on the, it's on the hell route, uh, the reality is spirit, and the last Adam was the presence of the spirit race, because spirit real, this is got to be lifted up into the one, because the real is spirit, all of it is many We are spirit people expressing matter forms and operating in matter situations, that is what we are meant to be. A spirit person is a real person because God is the spirit and he is the person, we are the person, now we are forms of God, we are operating from the universal person and universal sources, this is what we get to. Now this has come about because he who is the spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ in his son form, became the last Adam and became one of us in order to lift us up to be members of this eternal spirit family, the last Adam, the family. He did it by two stages, two necessary stages of redemption, that is by his blood and by his body. That is why Romans 1-5 is the blood of Christ, Romans 6-8 never mentions the blood again, it is the body of Christ. There is a great significance between our relationship to the blood and relationship to the body. One deals with the sins question, the other deals with the sin question, there is a great difference. In one case he bore our sins, his own body on the tree, in the other one he was made sin and died to it, that is different, that is his body. So there is a fundamental, important difference between our relationship to Christ in his shed blood and the Christ in his dead and resurrected body. That is why you hold communion, you have to remind us that we have two phases of relationship to the last Adam as he became the redeemer who could lift us into being members of the new race. That is why it says in that 1 Corinthians 10 passage about the Lord's Supper, I am quoting, it says The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not communion of the body of Christ? Two. The cup of blessing which we bless, 1 Corinthians 10, 16, is it not communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not communion of the body of Christ? Then, for we being many, are one, not blood, not blood. One bread which is one body it says. In other words, we unite it in his body but not in his blood. That is a very great significance there. That leads us on into the two phases in which we experience our relationship with him. If you like, justification and union. If you like, justification and union. The blood which is our sin. Now our sins are our products. The sins are what come out of the sin principle. The sin principle in us, of course, is the satanic spirit of self-centeredness operating by us and causing us to bring out our hates and our lies and all our sins. They are products, when we broke the law, products of this motivation for self-centeredness which we use to audit sins. That is why we have the curse of law. That is why we have the death, the judgment, the condemnation, the hell on us. Now that is what is removed by the blood of Christ. The sins are removed by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ represents a historic death. The point of the blood is the blood of the life, it says in Leviticus. And that meant, when that blood was poured out and the soldier saw he died and so on, you know, it was evident he really died. Now, the great significance of death, if you catch it, death is not physical death, I told you yesterday, death is not the body, death is destiny. I very much question this point of sentiment we put on Good Friday. Good Friday, we are praising enough, we are sentimental, I don't believe Jesus Christ felt the suffering as we think he did. I don't believe how the martyr does. A martyr has a glory in his sufferings. If you read the history of the martyrs, in the days when there was the persecution of the early partisans and so on, in Europe and so on, you would find they partially measured themselves whether they were going to be burned. They partially measured themselves, got the glory, got the glory. In other words, in their cells, preparing to be burned, they were captured by glory and they praised in the flames. And Jesus Christ, if Jesus Christ on a cross had been occupied with suffering, he wouldn't have been thinking about his enemies, saying God forgive them, they didn't know. He wouldn't have come to his mother, he wouldn't have looked after his mother, would he? That was a detached person. You don't tell me those darkened criminals hanging with him, if they had just seen a bloody, torn, despondent figure, would have seen a king in his kingdom. Remember me when I come into my kingdom? And that tough old Prince Orion, who had handled some tough Roman soldiers, he would have said, that's the son of God, and if he had said something different to people he was used to crucify. I very much doubt whether Jesus Christ lived in the intensity of human suffering that we rather sentimentally mourn on Good Friday, rejoicing in a glorious person who walked through Calvary in triumph, and being detached from his own suffering so much so that he could pray for his own persecutors to be forgiven, and so on. Why I want to say that is, death is not physical. Pardon? Yes, because that was spiritual, of course. The point is the mistaken, the spiritual. But the whole point you get wrong is, my God, my God, not why has he forsaken me? The key is, you're my God. I can't tell why he couldn't say it at the moment, because he does. He says, you're my God, that's the point. We always go to the negative, why has he forsaken me? Take the positive, my God, my God. That's the point, he didn't let God go. He missed the whole business. Most of our life we're hanging on to the negatives and miss the positives. See? My God, my God. At the moment I can't see the mistake, because he had to act as a lost sinner. I can't see it. My God, you're my God, even if I'm lost, you're still my God. That was the one. Well then he went. Now what I'm pointing out only, I'm just, I'm not taking too much time, the reality of Christ's death was not hanging on the cross, but he went to hell. He went to hell. Why? Because that's the product of our sins. Judgement, condemnation, broken law, curse, hellish destiny. So it isn't where our body goes, it's where we go. And if we die after Christ, we go to where those prisoners are, hell. Now you know what the Bible says. The very first speech at the Pentecost. Paul, Peter, Peter rose up on that very first speech at the Pentecost. And he said, The cause thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. If he didn't leave his soul in hell, he must have been in hell of course. Jesus was in hell. If you ask me, that's the battle of Gethsemane. He had to walk faith just as you and I. He had to know inwardly a God who wasn't in some special way known to him, except in that union relationship we all have. He had to walk the walk of faith like we did. And he had to believe that he would not remain in hell. And Gethsemane would have been so. Because he knew death wasn't physical. He knew he was going to take on him what we were going to. And that's the perfection of the deliverance from the consequence of our sins. He went all the way we go. Not to physical death, but to eternal hell. And because Satan never had him, he didn't belong there. He didn't raise him himself. He raised him in the glory of the Father. But Satan couldn't hold him. He didn't belong there. He'd always had, of course, the living God within him. He never let Satan be. Up he came. And he closed those doors forever. He took all that was involved in the consequence of sin as well. Judgment, hate, guilt. Everything went in one totality. And he banged that door and fell shut and broken his arm. And we're justified that it never was a him. The resurrection, it never was there. Where's hell? Gone. You know that. And that's why we have the Eden of God. No, sin's not in Eden of God. They're not there. God's precious perfect people like Jesus is justified by faith. We know that, don't we? Now you see there, the first stage of redemption. But now, we're going to get beyond that. There's so much here to do. The second stage of redemption which catches us out. And that's his body. Because his blood, you don't identify his blood. You come and receive the consequences of his blood. You receive the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, going to hell, resurrected. You see this person as outside you. That's why the Bible says, whom God has set forth. You're a child. You can't see inside things. You're fallen. They will blind us. We don't know the inside things. We only know outer things. And so, the first presentation is, God has set forth to be depreciated in the face of his body. He's set forth outside us. No, you're not in Galatians. Christ was evidently set forth as crucified in Galatians. Because you see, that's all we should see. Because when we come to Christ in the name, all we see is the loss of it because of our sins. We don't see our lost condition so much as our sinnerhood, our guilt. And the judgment hanging on us, and the wrath as the youth in the hill. And that's the precious blood. But the real problem of humans isn't the product, it's the producer. What matters? All that matters is the kind of person I am. Not what I do. What I do is what I am. I always do what I am. That's all I can be. I'm an I-am-er. I'm what you are. You do. And that's all that it tells you. Ever be good to yourself. You can only transmit yourself. That's why the only transmitter is what you are. What you are isn't transmitted. That's all that is. As I say, every professional man transmits what he is. He transmits his know-how in doing something, that's all. And so, our problem, you see, which we don't see when we first come to Christ, isn't the product. It's the producer. It's the person who causes us to do those things. Now, the doing is out. And the precious blood of Christ is out. There's not a thing left, as if we never did a thing before. Justified in Christ. But what good is that if it leads in some way to the producer? And I still remain motivated by the God associated with death that contains the false God. No. Salvation, redemption had to include a cast out of the producer, as well as a blocking out of the consequences of the products. Consequences of the products are hell. The cast out of the producer means if... I've never heard of a vacuum. A human cannot be a vacuum. If, therefore, the producer is cast out and you are put in a place, I told you, the gospel is a change of God. Now, that's an identification with Christ in his body. That's why you begin to get into identification principles when you get up against the problems of your daily life. There are problems of your daily life in the first five chapters of Romans. It's about your sin and justification and all that. Suddenly, in Romans 6, shall we continue in sin? That's my problem. It's how I keep on falling. That's my problem. That's a new kind of problem. It's not what my guilt has taken away. It isn't that. It isn't the precious blood. It's a present problem. It's a sin. Continue in sin. Don't you know you're a Gentile in his body? Don't you know, Romans 6, when you're buried with him? Baptised in him? Buried with him? And planted together in his death? And died with him? And reckoning toward the dead is indeed a sin? Alive in him? Don't you know that? Now, you see, you've moved in. You're moving into a wholly new concept. And this is where it begins to get, until our eyes open, difficult. You see, we're so external. We need God as external. Here's God. Here's the Father. Here's Jesus. And we have that relationship. Well, it's precious. We'll be born again. It's conveyed to us that this is a precious relationship, in which we are redeemed and accepted and loved and so on. But it's a kind of... It's witnessed by the Spirit. We know that. But it mainly is still out of relationship. I'm related to the Lord Jesus Christ. I may even know him by the Lord. And I say that. I may even have some conscience of it. But it's in me to a certain extent. But it's at a separation level. Now, I have to stop because I'm getting sleepy. But I've got a lot to go on with. I have to... Mmm. Because these are terrific things. They're wonderful things. Well, I'm already out of time. I've got a bit of sleep. Well, I've heard of the attitude of the peacemakers. I think especially the noisemakers here. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Well, we're going on as we... Well, we're left off by Dan's kindness. Why the body? Why the body of Christ? The blood of Christ. Why the body? Because the body contains the Spirit. It speaks in the Roman text, but the body is sin. The body contains sin. Sin is the Spirit. You get that more and more, don't you? Don't imagine it to be a label or a characteristic. It's a person. It is only a person in the universe. Sin is the Spirit. How do I know sin is the Spirit? Because 1 John chapter 3 says, Sin transgresses the law. Sin is the transgression of the law. What's the law? The way everything works. What's the law of the universe? The person. The law of the universe is the person with love, of course. The whole universe is the person with love expressing himself. Transgression is, I'm not going to be that. A thing can't be that. It must be a person, but I'm not going to be that. So sin is a person. I won't be an expression of a God who is love. I'll be the opposite. So sin is a person. Sin is the title for a person, a self-centered person. And we, in a sense, we are joined with him. And the body of sin, always since Christ has made sin, means the body of sin, because when vessels enter this body, came this person of self-centeredness, in whom the God of this world defines the minds. Prince of this world, you know, I suppose, a spirit that works in the presence of Jesus. There he is. Therefore, a body is the container of a person who is a spirit, and presents which spirit? This is the spirit of error. Now then, that's why the body of Jesus is different from the body of Jesus. And it's distinct from Jesus, so-and-so. And why we are joined to the body, not to the blood. Because the blood you produce, it has effects, results. The blood handles that which would cause us to be judged and damned and went to hell. And what gets out in that death and going to hell and resurrection? So he and I, his shed blood, bearing our sins in his own body, our sins in his own body, the tree removed, all that. But the trouble still remains, the person is in the body. The spirit is in the body, the sin in the body. And that's where one admires Set-Quintet. Set-Quintet is the depth letter. That's the letter of the intercessor who sees things in depth. There's no deeper presentation of the resolutionary consequences of being joined to him in his death and resurrection than that 2 Corinthians 5 passage. That really takes you where you are. I can't go into that now. This is the intercessor seeing the depth of it. And that's where it says God made him to be sin for us. Not sins. Made him to be sin. Not bearing our sins. Now that's a him who sinned. It's a him who is motivated by the spirit of the sin. So, sin is that way. That body represents us. Therefore, that wonderful scripture says we were buried with him as a body. If we were buried with him, that's a body. Of course, only a body is buried. We were risen with him as a body. And that meant, as a tremendous result, even if he died, he died unto sin once. That's Romans 6. Even if he died, that's not his blood. It's death, the body. It's unto sin. Why? Because, of course, body separates from spirit. Death is, by being a body, not a spirit. And that person who represents this vast atom represents the whole human race. That body, in God's sight, was like the whole human body motivated and dwelled by this spirit of error. And when the body dies, it dies through the relationship between the spirit. And that body represents us. And a dead body, that's why it's so definite when it says we're buried with him. Because then you're quite sure there's no spirit there. Because you don't bury a spirit. You bury a body. So we know, therefore, this body representing us represents the person from whom the spirit that motivates the body had gone out. And, therefore, into that body, it says in 1 Peter 1, put a death motivation quickly by the spirit. Into that same body comes a new spirit. So, do you see what I've said? Salvation is change of gods. It's the vessel that contains the spirit. It's change of spirit in the vessel. Not to change the vessel. Change of spirit in the vessel. Out goes the old spirit. In Christ's death, in comes the new spirit in Christ's resurrection. Now that's a total redemption. The effect and the cause. The product and the producer. So you haven't got a total redeemer in that last atom. Unless it has a dual aspect of it. Blood and body. And our union, now that's where we begin to move into things. See, union is different. That's where our next problem comes. We're used to separation. I told you why. Because a self-centered spirit wants things for itself. Can only see things for themselves. We can't, therefore, from the fall onwards, all we could see was things for ourselves. We couldn't see the imagination of a loving person because we weren't loving people. A self-loving person cannot see a self-giving person. It's dark. You can't see light. So we couldn't see this is a person who is self-giving and has expressed all this and it means nothing to us. That's why the humans, the scientists, they say, I've got spirit life. They know that because it doesn't belong in the fallen world. They know those things. And, so we got this fragmented outlook which causes, see, everything is separation. As you go on, you find the whole key to living is to begin to be able to move back. Oh, there's this, this. No, it's a person through everything. Firstly, see, operate with the person by, in, through, everything. That's what we go on to later on. So, you see, we've fallen to be people who see things in external forms including the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Well, not quite the Spirit because the Spirit does come in and witness it, but even then he witnesses it as it were to an external person. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ has died but those again are remaining rather on that level in the relationship. So, putting it simply, our first born-again relationship is a, um, it's a relationship rather than union. We've come into a relationship with the Lord, with the Trinity, like Father, Son and Spirit rather than union. We don't want to say unions too far on. That's the first step we take um, before we really move into number six when we know who God has set forth in perpetuation through faith and His blood. That's where we've begun. The new operations of faith. Do we have to get on with that somehow? because you see, um, the means of production in life are always faith. Um, because faith is, I don't want to get onto it too much because it comes in, faith is substance, get that? Not comes, is substance. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, that's even level one. So, faith isn't, isn't, um, just I relating to something. It's I becoming something or having something. It moves in. We have to, that's why I say we need to, we, we, we, use new terms very often. We've got such an idea of faith as some sort of believing, some sort of religious believing or something. Faith is you. Everybody's faith. Because faith, faith means my spirit in freedom relates to something. It's my inner center, it's my royal center, by which I relate. I mean, say, I'll go there, I'll take that. Faith, technically, is, um, there's something, um, uh, desirable and available and I hope reliable. All life is that. Say, for instance, people sometimes say, oh, well, you've got to pray. How can you pray that God can change a person's will? God doesn't change a person's will. He changes their wants. He changes the character, that's all. There's a donkey, a seltzer. Your will always follows your wants. You change your wants and your will will follow it. That's the fall. So, God doesn't have to change your will. He just has to put something nice in front of you. And then you follow it. And you show your will. So, your will, your wants, that's how God can change people. Get them disillusioned with their old want and present it with a new want. Oh, I call that one change of house. That's all. You didn't see my point there. That's because you're so dull. Oh, I am. One of the two. That's because you're not donkeys, of course. Um, so, that's what faith is. Uh, faith is all life consists of the, uh, things, um, uh, uh, available things, coming to a house, eating food, going to a place, anything available, available to you, desirable, now, I'd like that. Now we're moving in. Uh, that food's available, I'd like it. Now, that's what my want, my will goes. Reliable, I can't prove it, I get it. It's only faith is the evidence. Only faith is substance. Because faith means you've got it, and it's got you. Then you know. So, faith is not getting, it's being gotten. It's only when you pass through getting, it's being gotten. That's faith. So, faith only becomes faith when the food's got you, not you've got it. So, you've got to come half-way to talk about faith. We may even foolishly think faith is just, just mind, of course, the mind is then available to the late King Seuss. Faith is you. But the, the first form it takes on earth, is, oh, here's food, available. I'm hungry, it's available. It might poison me, of course, it's made, you can't be sure. we'll hope not. So, life's always a gamble. Life is betting on the right horse, that's all. I know who my horse is. You can't prove it till you get there. So, faith is, I'll take. Now, that's, my human move in. I'll take. Now, the person says, what you take, you've got, gets you. In this case, you take food, your hand takes it, your mouth eats it, it's got you. The only hope is to ask a therapist or something. So, then it's reliable, or unreliable, as the case may be. So, all life is fun. It's a single, million things available to us. Desirable, yeah, yeah, I'd like that. Available, within reach of me, desirable, I'd like it. Unreliable, I hope so, I'll bet my life on that one, that's my betting on my horse. Which means, I'll take it. I'll go there, I'll do that thing. Now, faith, only faith, oh, I'm here, I've got it, it's become me. As I said, faith wasn't just you saying by the kindness of John Francis, I'll come here, that was faith. It started by available, well, he made it available to us that we could come here. Desirable, well, you may be tired now, I don't know, it'll be too late. Anyhow, you thought it was desirable, you're attracted, I'll come, that's faith. The first part of faith. Now, being a human, you fulfill your faith. Spiritually, it doesn't matter. On the human level, oh, I'll get my car and come. Now, your car is just the agency for bringing your I come, I'll go, here. And I go becomes I am. Oh, I'm here, I don't say I go here, I don't say I believe I am here, I am here. Faith is a simple thing. When you've got it, it's always recognition. That's why it's so perfect in this life. This is not, it's when you know him, you know him. It's like a recognition. You know it on the same level, on a saved level. You aren't saying, I believe, I believe. Oh, he's got me. The joy, isn't it? Well, he's got me, he is my saviour. I don't know, he is my saviour, not I've got him, he's got me. Faith has become substance, hasn't it? Faith is substance. It's only faith when it's exchanged for substance. So, faith dissolves, as far as my moving into it is concerned, as replaced by facts. Faith is facts. And all life is that. Everything we make, and have here, somebody said, I'll make those chairs, I'll use the metal or something, use the tools, and substance is a chair, of course. All life is a substance produced out of faith. Someone, somewhere, had something available and desirable, moved into it, it becomes substance. All life, therefore, is faith. Nothing else but faith. So, it's a tremendous worth. And it's royalty, it's my ability to make my choices. I started by saying, OK, it may attack me if I say we may have a variety of carrots. Thank God given us a gospel carrot to draw our attention. So, we change our will and say, I'll take that one. So, you see now, now the tremendous moment, I always say, this supreme moment may be in eternal history, is when through certain disturbing and wonderful circumstances, we transferred our faith capacity from matter to spirit. Now, always known in life, by matter I mean things visible, including your philosophy, including your religion, including your Bible, including anything, or just seeing this world of flesh and sin, we've been related to see the world of flesh and sin, or to that religion, on the level I've got it. That's the name of psychology, and this is saved psychology, because it builds up more self, that's all. It's true self. I got it, I get it. It's true self. So, that's still the adornment of self. I can become a better person, all that stuff, you know. Psychology can be good, if it's attached to the making of the Christ. So, thank God, the Christian psychologists and psychologists, but the others, build up self. So, that's the old life. Somewhere or other, my faith is attached to what I am, or what I come, or this and this and this. Now, it's a tremendous moment in history, when I'm disillusioned enough about myself, and my sins, and conscious enough I'm lost, and don't want to be where I am, and it has been made to me desirable and available. I don't know much about it, I can't prove it, but it says here that God is, and God loved me and sent his own son, and his son did this for me, and died on my behalf, and took my sins away, and gave me eternal life, and had the family of God, you know, desirable, available. Now, then, the great moment in history, the first time in human history, you transfer your faith faculty from relating something down here to something that's not down here. That's why you're not saying about crucified Jesus, you're saying about risen Jesus. Because to crucify Jesus in history, anyone can believe that. Anyone who believes history can believe that he died. To believe he rose again is totally phony. You're crazy. Or wise. You're believing something which is ridiculous or true. Now you jump. Now you jump. You cannot prove the resurrection, except the Bible says so, but you can't prove the Bible. You don't live by the Bible, you live by the Bible, it gets inside you. Now, then, faith. All you born-again people, without knowing what you did, you took the Lord Jesus Christ, you didn't take a crucifier, you were that, of course. You took the Lord Jesus Christ, didn't you? No, you took a person. Put it up down here. You moved. Or faith has moved you into the spirit dimension. Because he's spirit. He has a body. He has a body, but we needn't discuss that from another dimension. Basically, the realm of persons, they're all resources. You know, that person, the Father, Son, Spirit, the person, we moved into him. And the substance is the new one. Now, usually, there is a difference. On earth, because we have time-space, we have to, a thing has to become something. I have to take food. I take food, I have to take it. So in between my being the food, or having the food, is my taking it. There's a gap. I'll go here this weekend, between I'll go and I am, is the gap, which you fill with your car. No gaps in spirit, of course, because there's no contact there. So, in the spirit, the moment a person believes, he has. Because real substance is consciousness. That's all you've had, ever, is consciousness. I can't impress that enough on you. You don't live by anything else. I told you, again and again, that's what comprehension means. Comprehension means having a know-how. So, that's how I know when I was a missionary, I had to start in primitive language, had to reduce it to writing, primitive days, and struggle with it, and then get on to translate it. But before I got as far as that, I said, oh, I'll never get this. It goes out there. But the faith was there. I wouldn't have gone into it, of course. Faith was there in that sense, somehow. I sort of said, I'll never get it. I didn't really mean that. My soul meant that, but it didn't, if you're technical. So what happened? I remember, like you, in your profession, a few months, I was talking it. It got me. It had become substance. What I've taken, taken me. And the thing became my know-how. I can waste your time. Now, I talk the language now, if you want me to. It's part of me. Your profession's the same. You know, you know how to do a thing. That's consciousness. And all a person is conscious, all you produce is not from your tools, but from your consciousness. Or this lovely food we eat is not from the beautiful food because certain people knew how to make it. And the know-how comes out in those lovely things we eat. See what I mean? So all life is consciousness. Now, the consciousness is this one. I belong to Jesus Christ, God's Son, witness to brother's faith, belong to the Father, I belong to the eternal world with the eternal sources and the eternal, I mean, the source of eternal action. And this is the new, the last Adam, introducing you to the membership in the true family, the spirit family. And we have to begin to learn now, this is what we go on to learn, how to operate by the impacts of the visible, which always must hit us, we're human, and usually hit us negatively, this and this, and how to have the impacts of the visible on our outer form, which is our soul and body, and yet, in our spirit, being able to say, no, I don't take that, this is perfect, you're operating, I'm with you, I'm a child of faith, in which you're doing something here which isn't here, it's nearly impossible, and so on. That's when we get on, the operation of faith. The whole of God is operating in faith, or it has been, because the beginning and the end was walking in faith. But now you're operating, you've got to operate on the spirit level. The outer, if I put it, the one, I would say, external evidence, you might call nearest to external, in this spiritual consciousness, that when you took Jesus,
Our Word - His Word, 1977
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Norman Percy Grubb (1895–1993). Born on August 2, 1895, in Hampstead, England, to an Anglican vicar, Norman Grubb became a missionary, evangelist, and author. Educated at Marlborough College, he served as a lieutenant in World War I, earning the Military Cross, though wounded in the leg. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he helped found what became InterVarsity Christian Fellowship but left in 1920 to join his fiancée, Pauline Studd, daughter of missionary C.T. Studd, in the Belgian Congo. There, for ten years, he evangelized and translated the New Testament into Bangala. After Studd’s death in 1931, Grubb led the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) as general secretary until 1965, growing it from 35 to 2,700 missionaries, and co-founded the Christian Literature Crusade. He authored books like C.T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer, Rees Howells, Intercessor, and Yes, I Am, focusing on faith and Christ’s indwelling presence. Retiring to Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, he traveled, preaching “Christ in you” until his death on December 15, 1993. Grubb said, “Good is only the other side of evil, but God is good and has no opposite.”