In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of progressive learning in the Christian faith. He discusses two key lessons that believers must learn: the consciousness of their own impotence and a strong desire for a better life found in the full revelation of Christ's ability to save completely. The speaker shares a personal anecdote about the negative influence of watching a movie on his spiritual life, highlighting the need to lay aside anything that hinders spiritual growth. He also emphasizes the power of the spoken word of God and how it is an act that judges and transforms individuals. The sermon concludes by emphasizing the importance of despairing of oneself and placing hope in God alone, allowing Him to fulfill His purpose in believers' lives.

I'm going to read again in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2 and 3. Father, thank you this morning for again the privilege of coming to worship, to praise the blessed Holy Spirit that we realize is in this place so wonderful this morning. Anoint us to speak, Lord. Anoint us to hear. And help us to know you talk to the people that's in this room, nobody else. In Jesus' name, amen. You know, when God made man, He put him in that garden which is symbolic of His presence. Man came into the presence of God, and God made that man. He didn't want a robot. He wanted a man that'd choose to work and to love Him. God never planned the fall. If you believe that, then you believe God is the author of sin. But God never planned the fall, but God made man that he had to make a choice. Adam had to make a choice of what he would do. He chose to eat of the wrong tree. What he ate in that tree, the curse and the death, was a human understanding. What he ate was a mixture of good and evil. It was a tree of good and evil. I, for a long while, I believed that the good of that tree was as bad as the evil. But I recognized what he ate was a mixture. And that mixture produced a Cain, a murderer, and an Abel. All along, an Isaac and an Esau. All through life, it produced that. Those two ran from that garden all the way through the Bible till you come, all the way through till you come to a time when it said those daughters, those sons of God married those daughters of men. And it's that mixture that come afloat. Today we're there. There's a terrible mixture in the church of flesh and spirit. Human understanding, trying to be mixed with that which is of God. And it's brought about a curse in the church in many, many, many ways. Because we're not able to get through to God, or he's not able to come through us as he'd like to come through us. But temptation always forces upon us a choice. God never forces me to choose his will. But if I choose his will, he will enforce that choosing. How wonderful that is. That's the reason prayer must have such a large place in our lives. Because there's always that target at me, always that side of me, that flesh. If ever you lean to the wrong side, as the Corinthians did, then everything comes into the church. Whenever there comes any kind of a function, if we willfully allow that side to operate in the church, if you allow those to sing that you know are not right, if you allow them to usher, teach that you know is not right, then you have given the devil rights in that church, because that's his body. And he will collect that as worship. Every time he'll collect that as worship. So prayer has such a large place in the life of Christ. The apostles gave themselves to prayer and the word of God. It occupied 50% of their time, because there was always this warfare, trying to pull them in the wrong direction, to make the right choice. So whenever we hear the word of God, no matter where we're at, what we are, we're judged by that word. We're either found guilty or not guilty. It's always the word of God is an act. Not just something said. The word of the Lord is always an act. Now here we're going to deal with how that comes in verses 2 and 3. He said, God at sundry times, divers manners, spake in time past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. That statement that God has spoken. What a powerful thing that is. That is a medium of communication. Nothing is more powerful than spoken. Speak. What a powerful thing. We sometimes fail to realize what an awesome thing is. If we knew what it was, we'd be more careful to weigh our conversation and what we say. The power of it. God is speaking, or God speaking rather, is a gateway by which he comes and enters this temple. It's by the word of God. Christ came. The word was made flesh. So when you understand he is the word of God, then the Bible will become a more clear book to you, because you'll know that this is a book about Jesus Christ. It's a book about God's Son. Every single thing. He said to Moses over and over, see that you do it according to the pattern. He wasn't allowed to change a color or a doorknob, because that was a representation of Christ to the fraction. That whole system. Tabernacle. All of it. The law was simply a school teacher to bring us to Christ. And all of it. I understand. In these days of confusion everywhere, I've gone into services, strange things taking place. I don't have time to go through 56 books of the Bible to see whether this is of God or not of God. But I know him who is this book. And I just ask myself the question, would Christ do this? If he wouldn't, I won't. That settles it forever. If Christ, no matter how much money it raises, how many people it may bring, if Christ won't, I won't. It is coming to know this. So God is speaking as a gateway into my heart, in which God is to reveal his glory, not only to me, but through me. You see, you have in the book of Genesis, when Moses came to that burning bush, that second time, and God revealed himself to him, and Moses said, you're sending me to Egypt. How are they going to know that you sent me? He said, you tell them I am sent you. God was I am. When you come to the book of Hebrews, he is he is. Now Moses is becoming the I am. You understand, you're reversing things. God is. You must believe that he is. Not just I am, he is I am. But Moses becoming now the I am. In other words, it's God through Moses that's going to speak to the people. It's God through us here in the book of Hebrews. We are to hear and to become. We're not becoming God, but we're from God's voice of that. This is his way of interest. The one object of God in speaking to us is to lead us to God. Everything. To reveal God and bring us in contact with himself. The whole purpose of the word of God is not to make us religious wise, where we can argue with people about what we believe, but we become that truth. And as we become the truth, Paul said, it pleased God to reveal his son in me. Now, if he had put a period there, it would have been great. But it's greater because he didn't, because he said, the reason was that I might preach him to the heathen. In other words, unless Christ can be seen in me, I cannot reveal Christ to others. I may talk about Christ. It's so easy to know Christ theologically and never know him truly. Those Emmaus Road disciples could quote everything about him, but never knew him when he walked with him. And if Christ came into most churches, they'd think the devil had come. They know him in the mind. You see, you have three different Christs presented. You have the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church. They know him historically. They still got him on a cross. That's idolatry. They still got him in Mary's arms. That's idolatry. We don't know him there no more. You have the seminarian Christ. They know about the virgin birth. They know about the death and the resurrection. But you have the Christ of the heart. Until he comes there, you've got nowhere with God. The two pillars of Christianity upon which it rises or fall is the depth of that fall and the height of that redemption. Until you know that, you can never come to know. See, those, that's the root. And without root, you produce no fruit. God said, let us make man in our image. That is, when God made Adam, mirrored in Adam, God could see himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the fall, that was lost. That's what was lost in the fall. And there is no redemption until that's restored. There must be a birth of that Son in us. If we had kept that, we wouldn't have all the spurious miscarriages and abortions that sit on the pews of our churches that have never taken on the image of Christ. Actually, you've got to beg people to come to church. They're not born again. That's not their nature. You know, I was a drunk. I talked to my dear Brent, one of the greatest testimonies. I'd heard a part of it from Nick about his father and mother. But all last night, didn't want to go to bed. As they spoke of how God came to them without a preacher, without anybody. But God came to them. Amen. He was a drunk. Nobody had to beg Nick here to go to a bar. He's just going to get there. And he's born again. Nobody had to beg him to come here this morning. Because this is my nature. You see, in God's speaking, man was created for God. It was sin that separated him from God. In the beginning, that's the way. Man feels his need and seeks for God. That's the reason they jump off that bridge down there. Because they never found him. I was in Thailand, putting a school in the Thai language. And we had to live in a little hotel on the outskirts and driving in every morning to the six o'clock prayer meeting. At 5.30, still dark, there were a line of Buddhist priests marching. Anywhere you come in, they'd be coming. Picking up offerings at 5.30 in the morning. How many people you got here? They'll meet you up at 5.30 in the morning to give you an offering. But they're out there waiting with an offering. On this particular morning when I came, there was this Thai lady kneeling. We passed her down before that devil-possessed priest. And he's blessing her. Cursing her, actually, but going through the ritual. It's so registered on my mind that as I prayed, it just kept entering. I'd see her kneeling there. And I was crying out to God, that woman kneeling, that devil-possessed priest. He said, that's a devil-possessed priest. But she's not. She's looking for me. And the only reason she's there, you never told her who I am. You failed me. You never told her. And so she's looking for me. That heart was made for God. Sin separated from God. Man feels his need, seeks for God. And the Word comes to teach us about that God. Now, God is spoken. Speaking is a vehicle of fellowship. Speaking is proof that the speaker considers me worthy of hearing. And that he wants to have fellowship. The very fact that God will talk to you means that God believes you're worthy to fellowship with Him. And it also says He wants to fellowship with me. You know, I want to talk to people. Some people won't talk. And you feel like something is lost. It's a sad feeling comes into the heart. Because the fact that I speak to you is that I would like to fellowship with you. Well, the fact that God Almighty would talk to me means that God believes I'm worthy of His fellowship. He wants to fellowship with me. The privilege, if we learned that, what a reverence we'd have to come to the house of God. Worship everything is for one thing. To prepare your heart for God Almighty to talk to you. That's the reason Brother Nick put this pulpit in the center of this church. That when you walk through that door, it says the preeminence in this house is the Word of God. Not the organ. That's wonderful. Not the singing. Paul never, never had any of it. Amen. I was in Albania a couple of Novembers ago. Two thousand years ago, Paul was there. Eighteen hundred miles from Jerusalem. He has now got to convince a heathen who never heard the name Christ, that a man died in Jerusalem as a criminal was a son of God. He's got to prove that. He cannot prove it with a religious argument. It pleased God to reveal his son in me. Oh, hallelujah. But if we could just come to know. Prayer all along the line, once he's revealed, keeps that. As I commune with God. Keep that heart open. God can talk. Because there's always that other side trying to intrude. Trying to come back alive. It is also, though speaking is also a token, God longs for that fellowship. Man was created for fellowship with God. Before there ever was a world or a human being, there was this great God. He had thoughts, desire, and a will that God did. He created man that he may manifest those thoughts, those desires, and those wills to us. This is the only reason for the creation. Now all the thoughts and wills and desires of the Father are comprehended in that Son. So God created me that his Son may live through me. You know, I've been married to one beautiful lady 58 years. Oh, she's the best friend I've ever had on this earth besides Christ. But I used to wonder, how can such a pretty thing as this be a son of God? You know, he said, as many as are led by the Spirit. They are the sons of God. I said, how could she? She's all lady. There's nothing masculine about her. And I said, how could she be a son of God? He only has one son. And that son looks better in her than he does in me. I can tell you. Oh, to let him, let that Christ live in. That's the reason we're born, folks. That Jesus may live in the apartment place where you live. He may ride on airplanes. He just doesn't come to church. Lady spoke to me some time ago, said, I don't understand. I had two boys. I raised them in church. And now they're drug addicts. I said, your problem, ma'am, you never took the church home. They heard you talking tongues around an altar in the church. But they never went to bed hearing that in the other room. They never heard you call that name. I can tell you, if you're not as holy in that house as you are in this altar, there's nothing to your holiness. Nothing. I said to a preacher's conference here some years ago, 500 preachers. I said, preachers, mighty easy to stand up here, let a tear roll down your cheek, have a little change of voice, and make the people here think you're holy. But does your wife think you're holy? Oh, yes. Or does the children at home think you're holy? This is a life where Christ is our life. And He must be there everywhere all the time. Man was created for fellowship. Sin interrupted that fellowship. It broke it. Nature speaks of God and His works. David said, and the Bible talks, that it reveals the glory of God. Nature does. But nature cannot speak of God Himself. It can only tell you there had to be a hand bigger than us that made all of this. But it cannot speak of God Himself. It cannot reveal God's heart to me. It cannot reveal God's love toward me. I just see the greatness of God in the sunrise. But it cannot make me know Him personally. It cannot. In His deepest misery, man seeks after God, but often, often in vain. But thanks be to God, the silence has been broken. God has spoken in His Son. That Son has become a living today. And the whole course of life now is to learn to enter into that rest. Let Him be my life. It isn't the struggles of religion, folks. I lived that way. Oh, I'd break down. I'd tell Him, if you'll let me try again, I'll make it. I lied to Him so many times. I said I won't ever do it again. But I did it again. But one day I woke up. God brought the revelation to my heart. As long as it's you, son, struggling, it'll always be. But if you'll let me be your life, if you'll let me live my life through you. You've read what Paul said. Coming down to the end of a great, great life, he said, I have fought the fight. I kept the faith. I've been beaten, forsaken, built churches that hated me, given my life for others that turned against me. But I remained a Christian. That's what he meant. I kept the faith. I threw it all. I remained a Christian. But I finished the course. No way to read that. But he did everything God wanted him to do on this earth. He healed every sick person he was supposed to heal. Cast out every devil he was supposed to cast out. Planted every church he was supposed to plant. Going to meet God. Totally, absolutely have completed the course. I read that many times. But on one occasion, it just hit me. He did everything. I remember I laid the Bible down and I said, oh God, is it possible for nothing like myself to actually live and die and finish the course? He said, if you'll let my son be your life, impossible for you not to do it. But if you don't, it's impossible to do it. I must enter that rest to wait, to let God's life be my life. To know Him. To know, not go around dreaming up programs to do, but follow God, led by the Spirit of God. God is spoken. What a statement. Isn't that a statement? God is spoken. For a time, God spoke imperfectly and provisionally through the prophets. But it was God speaking through them. But that was in preparation only for the more perfect time that would come when God would speak in that son. All that Old Testament was a school teacher. Everything leading me to Christ. The picture stories of the Old Testament are the revelation of God for the New Testament. The greatest commentary of the New Testament wasn't written by Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown. It was written by God in the Old Testament. The greatest commentary of the New is the Old, because it's a picture story of the Old that gives me the revelation of the New. And so there was that when God spoke imperfectly and provisionally through the prophets that the Bible said in these last times, He's spoken to us through the Son, but more in the Son, because the Word now enters the heart. It isn't something out here and I behave and be saved. That's impossible. The Apostle Peter said, Neither we nor our fathers were able to keep this. But now God has not only spoken, but He's spoken in the heart and made it possible for me to live this life of God. You know, when man speaks, when just man speaks, it is a revelation of himself. He speaks, it's a revelation of himself. You know, if you mark your Bible, I mark this and it's about word out. It gets me such a pain, you hate to put it down, but the pages begin to come out. But if you mark your Bible, if you let me take it over to Pastor Nick's home, or Brother Nick's home today, and look at when I come back, I'll tell you where you are spiritually by what you marked in this book. Yes, sir. If all you marked in there is that God will make you rich or something, I don't know where you are. I can tell you about what inspires you in this book, where you are with God, what touch. If you're walking with God, you'll find underlined in there, Oh, that I might know Him. That'll be the kind of passage. Walk worthy of this vocation wherewith you have been called. Those are the things that underline a heart that's really hungry for God. But when man speaks, it's a revelation of himself to make known the otherwise hidden thoughts and actions of his heart. When God speaks, it is the same that He may reveal Himself to me. He wants us to know that He loves me, that He really desires to have fellowship with me. But that fellowship can only occur on His side, not mine. He can't come over here. He's so holy, He can't even look at sin. So I must come to His side. And we sing the only way this morning, that blood, that blood, that blood. It's the only way. Not of works of righteousness, which I've done, but by the mercies of that great God, I can come now and fellowship. You know, the ministry of angels and prophets, the Jews were mightily encouraged that that law was given at the hands of angels. But that is only to prepare the way that could never satisfy the heart of man or God. That never. The real power of God, the true deliverance from sin, the shedding of the love of God could never be communicated by creatures. God's Son had to come here and do that. It could never be communicated by angels or men. God's Son came to communicate that love. There's nothing. The love of Christ is a mystery of ages of ages. It's impossible for a human ever to imagine the depth, the height. The love of Christ constrains me. Paul wasn't purpose-driven. He was love-driven. The love of Christ has pushed me to the corners of the earth. I have rights that I never had because it would have interfered, he said, with what God has called me to do. Amen. The Son has come as a living Word to live within us. That's the only way we can intimately know God is this Word to live within us. The Son has come to bring us into living fellowship with the divine being to dwell in our hearts as He dwelt in the heart of the Father. To be in us is God's Word as He was in God, as He was in Christ, to be in us. The same identical thing. God has spoken. What a statement. God has spoken. The Word's a man, a way to us according to our idea of His wisdom, His integrity, what He is. You know, man talks to you. Some people talk to me. I just let it keep going. I know them. They never did anything they said they were going to do, so why should I believe He's fixing to do it now? The Word's a man, have their value to you according to what you know of the wisdom and integrity of that man. Is that right? My grandfather on my mother's side, he never was born again, but he was a man of integrity. I remember as a boy, that great depression worldwide, but in America, we lived in a little village. He had a farm, so we all finally wind up on that farm to survive. Had to grow what we eat. But my granddad, there was no share for nothing there, so they looked up on him. Any trouble come, they called him. Well, in those times, they leased that 150-acre farm for oil. The Gulf Oil Company gave him $1.50 an acre. They come talk to him and said, we'll give you $1.50 an acre for your farm. That was, you know, right about $250, $300, a lot of money. In those depression days, my father worked for 50 cents a day. That's what he worked for, all day long, 50 cents. Now here, they're leasing it. You don't have to do anything. Just going to give them a right to drill on it if they want to. They shook hands and said, all right. Well, the Texaco people came to him before he got back with a contract. And they offered my granddad $3 an acre, twice as much money. In that poor, impoverished times, I mean, they offered him twice as much money. I remember my granddad said, I'm sorry, it's already leased. But Mr. McCandless, you have not signed a contract. He rose up. He said, you get out of this house. You would imply that John Candless's word, I have to write my name on something to be an honest man? You see, we judge a man by his word. How much should we reverence when God has spoken? Oh, the integrity. I said, the integrity of God. Each word carries with it all the life of God. Not some of it, all of it. The words of men have often exerted a powerful influence upon us. But the words of God are created deeds. And this is the greatest thought because they give what they speak. God spoke and the earth melted. God spoke and Christ came into my heart. You see, they give what they say. What that ought to, if we come to know this, He didn't just being religious. He didn't get in a bicycle for getting somebody in Sunday school. It's having God's Son living in us, developed. You know, when you think about it, the worst sin created on this planet last night was only a mutation of that first sin. Is that right? Only a mutation, only an outgrowth. When I received Christ, I received the whole Christ, folks. I didn't receive half of Him. But now, the whole Christian education is learning Christ. Learn that Christ that now has come to live within me. To learn Him, who He is, what He is, that I may submit myself, that that life may be lived in and through me, not by human efforts, but by the Holy Ghost. That's the reason it's a command of God to be filled with the Spirit, so that I yield myself to that life, that this life may be lived. Men's words appeal to the will, the mind, the feeling of passion. God speaks deeper. He talks to the heart. Oh, hallelujah. God talks to the heart. He doesn't appeal to the passions of man. I was preaching in California. I preach out there, a convention every year. And that year, there were five or six hundred people, many people being filled with the Holy Ghost. And I become very, very ill. I hemorrhaged all night long. Don't know what is wrong with me. When the pastor looked at me the next morning, he thought I died on him. Amen. He said, what do you want me to do? I said, pray. That's what I want you to do. I said to him, I won't be able to be there, I don't think, this morning, but tonight. Well, I got there that night, and I was so sick and weak. I began to preach, and I instantly dehydrated. My mouth just became so dry, I couldn't say a word. I spoke fifteen minutes, and had to sit down, and thirty people were filled with the Holy Ghost. I had to go through a torture for God to let me know it's not your calisthenics, it's not how loud you holler, it's what I am. Oh, yes, it's what I am. Let me live, and everything will be alright. Let it be me, and not you, and this thing will work, folks. Christ has lost nothing. It's when we add ourselves to what He is, that we pollute the water. It said everything in this universe is held together by the word of His power. The moral universe is held together by the word of His power, but in Romans chapter 1, it said they and us, every generation has done it, changed the truth of God into a lie. When we polluted or diluted the word of God, it lacked the power to hold them all universe together, and every civilization has ended with rampant homosexuality, simply because we watered down the word of God. We never made Christ. In the book of Galatians, Paul talks to the Galatian church, made a great start, but now trying to perfect themselves through their own effort, like Pentecost, most of them today, they are using the law, what they have seems legitimate, but he said, how can Christ be formed in you? Now, he said that to the Roman church, but different. What he said to them was, he called them saints. He said, Christ is in you, but He is an ill-defined Christ. You have never come to see Him. You think you have got to help Him. You are adding the law. You are saying, we will help Him. We will be circumcised. We will do this. We will do that. But he said, the problem is, it is an ill-defined Christ. What you need to see is Christ. He is all, and He is in all. And if Christ is not all, folks, all is nothing. I said, if Christ is not all, all is nothing. It is never, never going to be. God has spoken. Amen. Men speak and appeal to the men. You know, speaking claims a hearing. Is that right? You know, it is an aggravation to try to talk to somebody and they won't listen. Yes. God must get awful disturbed with us. Speaking claims hearing. You write that down. God is speaking. You come here on a Sunday. You come here. Pastor Nick has sought God for a word from God. Amen. I am going to have the headlines of the paper. Amen. You know, you voted in the election. That is the end of that. God sets over the nations whom He will. Somehow or another, He just knows what has to be. But yet, when you come, I have come to hear from God. I sat in the church at home. My son-in-law that come unto me, earned his way through the university to be in the janitor. I tell people, worst janitor I ever had. But one of the greatest preachers I ever put out. Amen. I go there when I am home. I want to hear him. He is a man of God. I sat there. Two young ladies sat in front of me and they are talking. I tapped them on the shoulder. I said, girls, I didn't come to hear you. Understand. If you have got to talk, you go right out there. I come to hear what is being said up there. God is speaking. God is speaking. I come to hear what He has got to say. And if I can hear, if I can hear, I am going to hear in this heart. You see, God speaks to the heart. God asks one thing, that you listen in holy reverence and worship with a wholehearted attention. That is all that God asks of you. Amen. This Word will do the rest if you will accept it as a living thing from God. Amen. God is the Spirit. And since He is, He has no other way of communicating His life and His love but by entering into your spirit and living within you. And He comes in by the Word of God. Yes, He comes in, the Holy Spirit, making that a living reality in our lives. And then it will govern us. You know, the Hebrew writer made us know right up front that that Son is more than the prophets. He said, God spoke by them, but now by His Son. You know, there are two Testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament. They represent two dispensations, two modes of worship, two ways in which God has intercourse with man and how man draws an eye to God, these two ways. Now, the one, the Old Testament, was provisional, preparatory, and intended to pass away. He never intended to do what the Galatians thought and much of Pentecost, to bring that in here, that I'm going to build up a strong will where I can live. I've seen people that overcome certain things in themselves. Yes, I have. They hated everybody else that never got there. But Paul can say, I become all things to all men. That don't mean he drinks with the drunkard. He's just saying, I know where you are, and I know you can't get out of there. But I do know the way out. I understand I'm not a Superman, folks. I didn't change because I decided I'd change. I got knocked off a horse. I saw a light. I met a man. Everything's been different ever since. This is the whole of this life. Did you know this? It's a very unsatisfactory, even though like the Galatians, you know God. It's a disturbing thing because I never can quite become what he said. But all of a sudden, God come into this heart. We know. We know. Now, what that Old Testament gave and worked was not meant to satisfy. Never. But was only to awaken the expectation of something better. God said in the Word that that could never make the hearers perfect. Never. Amen. But the giving of a New Testament of better hope did. That we could come in to the perfection of God. That is a progressive thing with us. You understand. You don't get discouraged because you slip here and there. You just know that it is working. But you don't get over it by struggling and battling with it. You know, every one of us struggle. You sit down. You're going to read a Bible. And you'll read a whole chapter and can't remember a word. I mean, the enemy comes. He comes. He comes. Well, you can be angry and you can say, but if you just realize. You just realize. I'm totally impotent with this. There's nothing I can do. I've asked God to forgive me a hundred times. But I come toward that leper. I said, if you will, you can heal my mind. And I find I can read sometime 30, 40 minutes. And don't let the bitterness get into it. Because I come all the struggle of it. I just said, I can't. And if you don't, this mind will rob me of everything you want to say to me. But I cast myself in total resignation. Humble, meek, patient. Total dependence upon you. Hallelujah. And he's healing my mind. Because his mind is coming. That's the gospel, folks. I said, that's the gospel. Hallelujah. Now, in both the Old and New Testaments, it was God that spoke. The prophets spoke. They were the voice of God. Amen. They were everything. God himself could not yet enter and take possession and dwell in that man. So he spoke. In the New, it's an inward power and life. It isn't an external thing working. It's the heart. God lives within me. There is something in me that I said in the beginning, the desire was perfected the moment I was born. Yes, sir. When I become a new creature, that desire was perfected. I've missed it a thousand times. I've committed no adultery, haven't stolen nothing, killed nobody, but yet been angry when I shouldn't have been. May have spoke unkind to my wife or somebody instantly. That's not right. That's not me. That's you now. And I've got to come, Nick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Tell my dear wife, I'm sorry, honey. I let this old man get up. Christ said he's dead, and I let him get up. I didn't reckon on it enough. But I want you to forgive me. The secret of it is we know how to reckon him dead, but we don't know how to live unto God. If you just have half of it, you're gone. Reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin, but that conjunction, see, alive unto God. That's when you overcome. Alive. When it's Christ, then more and more. Less and less, that's in your life. As you grow in the education, you know him, and he becomes. Then you find less and less these kind of things in our life as we learn this great truth. Now, in both the Old and New Testament, it was God who spoke. In the Old, everything was external and through the mediation of man. Everything of that Old Testament, God himself could not enter. But in the New, it's inward power and reality. The Son, who is God, brings us, you and I, into the very presence of God. This great high priest not only can go in there, but he took me in there. I can live now behind that veil. That veil was rent. It was opened up. There's nothing else behind there. That Jewish cult always believed there's something behind there. Once it was rent, the way into that holy place was made for me to live with God, to commune with God. It becomes a force of life, not something I do on Sunday. Ninety-five percent of the so-called Christians said, well, it's Sunday. I guess we've got to go to church. Like taking medicine, you know. I will go. One man said to me, my church has two services on Sunday. I'd go to the early one to get it over with. I said, if it's me, I'd go to both of them, amen, to get as much as I could. You know, my mother used to look at me when I was a boy growing up, and she'd say, you're as yellow as a pumpkin. Oh, I knew what's coming. It's coming, that black draught or something else, you know. She even purged things out. Oh, my. Some people take religion like that. You call a pyramid, oh, my, nothing but a pyramid in there. You see, because they haven't entered into this life, where it's not I, the most exciting thing on this earth is to be a Christian when you know what a Christian is. See, Israel come out of Egypt, stomach full of roast lamb, pocket full of gold. Everything is wonderful. They get out there, and that sand began to burn them feet. And now they're saying to Moses, we want to go back. Said, when we was there, we had leeks, and we had garlic, we had some onions. Not the best night, but we knew we had it. There's a little variety. But out here, it ain't nothing but this manna. 2,000 years later, Jesus said, I'm that manna. And I've watched the same thing. A Pentecostal church, you've got to entertain them. You've got to have some kind of a gymnasium for the kids. Christ isn't enough anymore. No, well, we know Jesus. I have people that come. You know, it's a transit world. Family come. They'll be in the church a couple of weeks, and they want to talk to you. Said, Pastor, could we have a meeting? Yes, let's have the meeting. They said, oh, we love that singing. And said, preaching. We like that preaching. But, and that goat's coming now. But said, what do you have for overweight people? What do you have for children, teenagers? What do you have for divorced people? What do you have for single? I said, we have one thing to offer everybody. Jesus Christ. That's all. Have nothing else. If that don't satisfy you, you're not a new creature yet. I said, you're not a new creature yet. No, no. I've told, I may have told it last year and last year. I went into a church. There wasn't preacher men's fellowship. Wasn't enough men to fill the auditorium. Went in a youth hall. It was decorated like a bar. Just like a barber. Similar to God. Decorated like a bar. Had an elevated platform. Little tables up here. Had other chairs out there. Nothing looked like, you know, a sanctuary. I seen, they had the glasses. You know how they do them. They're more upside down. You know, got them hanging. They were there. And they had Coke up there. And looking, I could see those strobe lights. All that stuff up there. One of the young men sitting by me. He saw us looking kind of curious. He said, you ought to see it with the lights on. I said, I'd rather not. No, no. He said to me, he said, now we don't drink alcohol. You don't? No, no. Why not? What do you mean, why not? I said, I mean, son, death isn't in that bar room. Death is in that mind that wants to be there. To be carnally minded is death. And I said, I'm going to tell you, son. If this atmosphere appeals to you, you are not born again. Oh, he told his pastor. Here comes that pastor. He's going to eat me alive. Oh, yes, sir. I said, let me tell you something, pastor. If this is what draws them, if this atmosphere is what your children want, those children are not saved. And you're going to answer to God. But I said, I, 50-something years ago, was saved out of that environment. I want no part of that. Thou art all. You ain't entertain me. You see where we are, folks. It's because it's something and not Christ. It's something and not Christ. If we're to progress spiritually, we must understand these two stages of God's dealing with externally and that inward heart. The new creature must pass through a time of preparation. You know, when you're first born again, that new creature, if he's really born, oh, he's very excited about things. God dealt with him what he was. Like he is. He'll sit on the front seat here, here, Pastor Nick. And everything, he says, that's what I'm going to do. Yes, sir. I'm quitting that. I'm not going to do that. I am going to do this. But all of a sudden, you see him on the back seat. He's not on the front. You don't want to be a fallout because those old Pharaohs are coming alive. They're just suppressed. They really haven't been overcome. He doesn't know. But you see, God has got to move him from the seen to the unseen. He's got to move into Christ to where it's not just me suppressing the devil, but it's that I've overcome. This is my life now. But he has to go through that. You know, he wasn't born that way. Christ fully in him, but learning how to live by what he has. He must pass through a time of preparation and testing, first of all, to see whether he's willing to sacrifice all for that fullness of God. If you have reservations with God, He'll have them with you. When that lad gave everything, all the fish, all the bread, it fed everybody. But if you just give half of it, somebody went home hungry. It's when you come and you're willing to give all to Him, then all comes back to you. And so you have to pass through that time in your life. If in this stage, he perseveres with effort and striving, he'll learn two lessons that the Old Testament was meant to teach. He'll learn, first of all, he'll become deeply conscious of his own impotence. I can't do this. I've had them. Look, it just must not be for me to be a Christian. New creatures. I just can't live what you're preaching. I said, I know. Oh, you do know. I said, I do know. I said, this Christian life, son, isn't hard. It's impossible. If Christ don't live this, what He's trying to show you now, that you've been struggling, and everybody does that, but now you've got to come and humbly bow here and say, God, You've called me to something I can't do. But if I do it, You'll have to do it in me. Oh, yes, sir. It'll have to be you. I was going around this morning. I've run on around the building now. I'm getting back up here. But I'm going to save the energy to talk. Oh, listen. I was a Christian 20 something years before I learned. More and more. See, it's a progressive learning. More and more, I begin to see less and less of you come. But as you take this, believe this, Amen. Now, these two lessons. The first thing, he'll learn consciousness of his own impotence. And second, a strong desire will be awakened after a better life to be found in the full revelation of Christ and his ability to save you completely. Yes, sir. To save you completely. He that begun a good work will finish it if you let him. But if you like the glacier and let him begin, and you decide you'll take it over, it's going to be a frustrating ride all the way. A total confusion, folks. You're going to every night go to bed saying, what have I done again today? Amen. What has happened to me today? When these two lessons are learned, first of all, the lesson of despair of self, and second, a hope in God alone, then the soul is now prepared, if it will yield itself to God, to become what God wants. And God then will fulfill His purpose in that life. Now, when Christians, and most of them, this is true. I know Pastor Nick and I were talking, most of us were victims of wrong instruction. By honest people, they themselves, they just passed on. That's the reason I tell the world around the world, the priority of God is this local church. Everything produces after its kind. If you send out frivolous disciples, they will produce frivolity. But if you send them out with the knowledge of what we're saying, they'll reproduce this around the world. So the priority is that local church. God says, pray that the Lord of this harvest will send forth laborers into that harvest, but how can He do it if there's not a factory to produce them? The local church must produce those that go forth. As such a blessing last night, as I saw all these young people, amen, I watched them as we worshiped and loved God, and you sat there listening to the Word of God. Oh, I'm blessed. Listen, I'm not going to be here forever. I know that. I've been here longer than most folks stay now. But I do know, as long as I see young men and women like this, He has not given up on this human race. Oh, hallelujah. There's still a hope. He wouldn't be calling them in if He didn't want to do something. Now, we must instruct them right, because we're Christians through wrong instruction or neglect to do what they hear. You understand? Both of them can happen. And of leading into perfection, the Christian life will always be a disappointment. There will always be. Well, I just can't live up to this. Of course not. Only Christ can do that. I must as I learn. And it's a lifelong lesson, folks. That is sanctification. Coming to the knowledge. He is sanctification. It's not a thing. God has made Him wisdom to me. Made Him sanctification. Made Him righteousness. Made Him redemption. It's not a thing. And as I learn Him, then this is fulfilled. And what a satisfaction of life comes out. They did not know the difference between the prophet and the Son. They didn't know the difference between the voices. What it really means that God has spoken to us in His Son. They'd never come to know that. The one object of this lesson is set forth as a heavenly priesthood of Christ. To set forth in the heavenly life to which He made it possible for me to enter into. Amen. Not to emulate. But to become my life. The great value of this epistle. It teaches us the way out. This Hebrew epistle of the elementary stage of the Christian life to that full perfect access to God. We get down here this morning in the prayer meeting. And I was weeping there for a little while. Not because of any problems in this life. But as I thought, I'm not an intruder here. God said, come boldly in here, son. I mean, He invited me to this prayer meeting, this altar, in His presence. I'm not an intruder. He didn't look at me at all. He said, come boldly to the throne of grace. Just come right on in. I've ripped the veil all the way down. So you just walk on in here now. And you talk. You and I. You got a problem? Tell me about it. Your problems are my problems. I want to be to you a father and my son to be all of your life. May God help us to understand the difference between the Old Testament and New. In the one, the action of man is more prominent. God speaks through the prophets. It was the prophets. Today, it's a sad thing when it returns to that. You know, a great American congressman, born again, was back in the days when Parker and Pershing were in England. And he had a great friend, another born again man, in the British Parliament. And he came, I'm sure, on some kind of government business. But he and his friend, both of them being born again, the man said, I won't take you to church. I'll take you to two places. So Sunday morning, they went to hear Joseph Parker. Had to be one of the greatest preachers that ever walked this earth. Amen. I've read a little of him. It's just so startling, the man. And as they left that morning, the Englishman said, the American friend said, what do you think? He said, the greatest preacher I've ever heard in my life. That night, he took him to the great tabernacle where Mr. Spurgeon was preaching. And as they left that night, he was weeping. And the Englishman said, what do you think? He said, the greatest Christ I've ever saw. You see, the Old Testament, it was a prophet. But the new, it's Christ. Dr. Schuch, a great friend of mine in Florida, he'd begun a church, took a church, this little wooden building, 15 people, now hundreds of people there. But he said, as it began to blossom, he was praying, he was laying in the altar, wrestling with God, praying, talking to God, brethren. God said to him, said, Schuch, I've got something against you. Oh, he said, Pastor, my heart shrunk. I thought, I couldn't breathe for a moment. It's so clear. Said, I've got something against you, son. He cried out, God, please, what have you got against me? He said, they're mentioning your name here more than they are mine. That's a tragedy. See, that's back to the Old Testament. He spoke through prophets, and they were the prominent thing. But in the New Testament, the divine presence and power more fully received. God speaks in his son, who brings the life of God, and brings me into living contact with God himself. Amen. It's now not something out there, it's coming in. In the one, it's the human words that occupy and gives us opportunity. In the other, the divine indwelling word reveals God, how to walk. But not only how, but says, let me live it through you. Let me live it through you. In the one, it's a multiplicity of thoughts and truths, of ordinances, of efforts, of rules, of things, and this. In the other, it's a simplicity and unity of the one Son of God, and faith in that Christ alone. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. This is the word of God. The church is full of those who study and meditate acceptance of the truth of the Bible as the word of God, yet fail in their walk with God. They never are able to rise up. They're honest, they're sincere, they study, they see what God says. They fail to realize that those things, this written word and what we read, are just finger posts to take us to Christ, to come in, to live, to walk. Let that become a living thing within us. He did give us a book, but he also gave us a person. And Jesus said, you can read the book till you die and die without me, unless you find me, a living person in that book. You search the scriptures because in them you think you have life. But you've got to find me in there. I am the life. I am the truth. I am the resurrection. I'm everything you look for, but you must find me a living person in there to live in your life. Whatever man sets his heart on to do exercises a great influence upon his life and leaves its stamp upon his character. One of the most disappointing things to me in traveling, preaching for 52 years, travel across this world, preaching, talking, is that it's hard to find a preacher that just wants to talk about God. Not one person in 500 are awed by God himself. They're terribly interested in what God can do and will do. But God himself has a person to love the person, to live for. So few. Preacher wants to talk about his program. He wants to talk about how many people he's got in his church, how much money he's raised. But to talk about this God himself. To be occupied with God in the moment. Amen. Constantly. Just letting ourselves. He said, when you go to bed, talk about me. When you get up, talk about me. When you walk down the road, talk about me. Behind it is front, it's on your eyes. You say, that's fanaticism. I can tell you, I see people all the time. I sit down behind them, they say, what do you think about the Cardinals? I don't know. I said, well, I haven't saw one of them. They're birds, you know. I said, I haven't saw one in a long time. He's talking about a ball team. I don't know nothing about no ball team. I don't care who wins the soccer cup or the football game. Has no interest at all in my life. He thinks I'm mad because all I want to do is talk about God. I know he's mad because his whole life's been in that. I come out of Paris, one of the great doctors of Houston. I didn't know him, he didn't know me, but I ride Continental, and I've been a Platinum with him for ten years. If there's a free seat up front, I can't afford that seat, but if there's one up there, they give it to me. Well, they had it coming from Paris to Houston. I'm sitting there with this doctor. I introduced myself to him, and I said to him, I'm a minister of Christ, sir. And he said, that's good. I'm a physician. I've been over here lecturing in Paris. I'm a heart doctor, and he told me how he is involved and all. And we talked, and he told me about the heart, and I told him about Jesus. And he said, where do you go to church? I said, well, I'm Pentecostal, symbols of God. They left me. I didn't leave them. They left me, but just the same. I'm still what they were. And I knew, you know, that's the largest Protestant denomination on this planet, the Assemblies of God, so I figured he may know that. Oh, he said, you know, I'm Greek Orthodox. He said, I go to church, sit there, nothing but priests waving that lantern and saying a lot of stuff, and I'm just sitting there, you know, and he's an intellectual man. And he said, what's the sense of this? That's what, you know, he said, what's the sense? I don't do nothing. But he said, I went to that church that has a body in that place. He said, it's in that meeting. Oh, you know, I guess there's some tongues, maybe a prophecy, and everybody's singing. Everybody had a banana that long, looked like, drinking that pomegranate juice. You know, he just told me, he said, I tell you, that's an exciting religion. We talked on. I said, you know, doctor, preachers and doctors have much in common. Very brilliant man. He said, we do. I really got his attention. I said, yeah, we have much, much in common. How would you explain that, Reverend? I said, both of us deal with life. I said, you deal with the natural life. I deal with the eternal. And I said, you know, the danger, doctor, is us get to thinking we are God. So easy to think more highly of yourself. One plants, another waters, God increases. Didn't stop, though. Said the man that plant, the man waters, absolutely nothing. God never left no place for that. You see, God must become all. Purchase full of those. They fail to realize that what everything was pointing to Christ, to enter into that rest, to let Him be your life. It's not passive. It's doing the will of God. I must will to do what He wills. I must seek Him. I must hear Him. I must find in this word, then what's not in that word. I must be so sensitive to what He says in the word of God. I know the holo-legalism. Mr. Wigglesworth said, I read in the Proverbs where God hated the winking of an eye. I've never winked it again in a little child. He didn't think that saved him. It's just that would please God. That's the reason God could lead him around the world to raise people from the dead. Because he was sensitive to the word of God. Because when you're sensitive to the written word of God, then God can speak to you, to your heart, what's not in there. Nowhere in there says Clint Dennis to move to Russia. But I can tell you, God heard me. Because in 13 years, we're in 130 countries of the world. The school is. See, God, I don't think you'd ever have anybody like this in Ireland. But I can tell you in Beaumont, Texas, there's folks, they wouldn't give 15 cents to see a world saved. They never bought a songbook. They want you to have one for them. They want a soft pew to sit on, but they never paid for one of them. They never come to a prayer meeting, but come tiptoeing in there on a Sunday morning wanting to prophesy to me. No, I said, just sit down, please. I don't want to hear none of that. Amen. If you don't obey what's here, God ain't going to talk to you through nobody, to about nobody. You understand? It is coming to know He's everything. Whatever man sets his heart on, that's where it comes. Whom He appointed heir of all things. Talk about Christ. The object of God in creation was to have an inheritance for His Son. Think about that. The whole object was to have a bride for His Son through which His glory could fill this universe. That was the whole object in creating us. I learned one day that my only reason for the creature was to contain that Creator. No other reason. Not to be religious. Amen. The Son is not only the final call, the end of all things. He is the beginning of all things. He created all of it through whom He also made the worlds. The Son is the origin, the efficient cause of everything. We sing it, without Him was nothing made that was made. Without that Son, there was nothing made. Now when you begin to think on this, the place of the Son in God was such that God's relation to everything outside of Him must be through that Son. God has nothing to say to you outside of His Son. You have nothing to say to God except through that Son. There's no approach to the Almighty. That is the relationship that God has with that Son. Of all that exists, the end and the beginning, all is in this Christ. The Son hears all things. All things consist in Him. As surely as they could not be created without Him, they cannot exist without Him. Nothing can exist without Him. They could never come. He upholds them by the word of His power, even as by His word they were created. This is the Son through whom He speaks to us. That word that can make a universe can surely make me like Jesus if I yield myself to it. Amen. But I must enter into that rest of allowing it to be God and not try to help Him with my own selfish efforts. Now, what makes Him worthy of taking on the high place between the Creator and the creation? Because He alone is the prism through which the glory of God is manifest. No man can see God and live. But Christ become the prism that broke up the infinite light and holiness of God that I could look at Him and live. You can know nothing about God but what you see in Christ. The essence of idolatry is to imagine things about God and act like their soul. You can know nothing about Him but what you see in that wonderful Son. Amen. It is only through Him as the Son can the uncreated God in the works of His hand come in contact with us in fellowship. Nothing else. The only way it can. His relation to creation rests on His relation with the Father, Christ, His relation. He is the visible image of the invisible God. Oh my, that is the most awesome statement of this Bible. The visible image of the invisible God. As we can only know the Son by the light that shines from it, so Christ, the outshining of God. You and I now are to be in this world what those trees, lakes, flowers are to that Son. You know when the sun goes down this night there is not a color on this planet. You will not find red out there. You will not find yellow. You will not find green. But when that sun comes up, amen, they reflect the glory of that light. Amen. We are here for that. No other reason. Not to be religious. Not to argue. We are not here to apologetically talk for God. We are here to be to Him what those trees are to that Son that reflect the glory of that great God. Hallelujah. When folks see us to see the living God. That is the doubt. When the rich young ruler comes to Jesus, what have I got to do to inherit this life? Not talk about going to heaven now. That will take him there. But he saw something in that Christ he wanted. He saw one willing to pay the price for it. But he saw something that he wanted. He saw it. Amen. It must be so with me. I said it must be so that they see in me. Why is it so imperative that we know the glory of Jesus? The more we feel that glory and worship Him in that glory in spirit and truth, the greater will be our faith that can count upon Him to do His great works in us. The more we know it. See, everything is by coming to the knowledge of Christ. Peter said all things are through the knowledge of Christ. I never stopped to read that very long until some time ago. Everything, the whole education of the creature is to learn Christ. Now when we separated sanctification and Christian education, then we lost it. We began to teach ungodly people how to be religious. But sanctification and Christian education is one and the same. It's a growth of that spirit. It's coming to know Him. Oh, that God would stir us to know, really know this blessed Son that God has given us. Let us turn away from earth, meditate and worship until He who has expressed the image of God is seen in our lives. They took knowledge they had been with Jesus. That's revival. That's revival, folks. They want to kill Him or worship Him. When you make Him real, I can tell you, when He can live like He wants to live, turn away from earth, meditate, worship until He who has expressed the image of that Father shines through. It is through that Son He speaks. It is through the Son, the living, divine Son direct that God speaks to the heart. You can read the Bible all your life, never know. You may memorize it, may quote it, still be mean as a junkyard dog. But when it's really a speaking in the heart by the Son, when that Bible becomes a living thing, things change. Oh, yes. I was so blessed, nobody to teach them. I asked this morning at breakfast, I couldn't hardly go to sleep thinking, Brother and Sister Cassidy, I said, did you see the Holy Ghost baptism? Nobody taught you? You saw the new birth? Oh, yes, yes. We saw, didn't know what to do much, but we saw that in the book of Acts there's more to this now. We're born again. There's something else to go with this. Seminaries don't know that, folks. The greatest in the world will downplay that truth. But it come to that heart that saw Jesus, not just a written word of something, but Christ come, baptized each other. I've heard that before, but I can tell you it come to your dad. It registered in your mother. She told how somebody gave them a book about the Holy Ghost. And it said, open your mouth. And she'd say, oh, my God, I could have wept. Listen, oh, how wonderful that that's so real to the heart. See, that's wrong instruction, but yet that's a heart. That's the reason we must teach them right. We must get this right because they're going to follow. I mean, lambs, sheep, they're colorblind. They don't know whether that's red or green. You can lead them out there in the stubble, tell them it's green, they'll eat that trash. But he said, you lead them into pastures that are green. The wool soaks up water. They'll drown if you put them in running water. They don't know. You've got to lead them. Amen. When Christ reveals the Father, it's not to the mind, you see, not to the mind. That's where it usually gets no further. Amen. Not to the mind, to give us new thoughts about him, but to the heart so that we know and experience the power of that great God living in our hearts. Jesus lives in me. So wonderful. You know, everywhere I go on that airplane, I know, you know, folks said, you know, you could dress more comfortable. I said, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable. They come around and said, you know, there's a lot of good movies on. I said, I don't watch them. She said, why not? I said, well, it's a waste of time. I said, I get things in my mind. I said, the last movie I ever saw, I never haven't been to a theater since I've been saved, but I'll let that intruder of a television get in my home. And one night I come in after church and John Wayne in Red River was home. That's many, many years ago. I sat down while Mama, she fixed a little sandwich and I turned that on. Two hours he'd run. She said, are you going to bed? I said, just as soon as John does. I'm telling you pastor, for the next six months, every time I prayed, here comes John Wayne. It wasn't no sex in that. It wasn't filth in that. But it was weights that blunted my spiritual. He said, lay that aside. If this book is true, all of it is true. And when it said in his presence, his fullness of joy and his right hand is all the pleasure you ever need. It meant what it said. Let us stand. I tell you, we're going to take a break here in just a minute and come back and talk a little more about this wonderful truth. But I want us, we're going to have an altar call right where you are. There needs to be a commitment to God, out of all of us, without a backdoor, that this is it. So complete, so absolute. Amen. So totally, completely. You know, we deal with Ananias and Sapphira and we're very unkind to them because they lied and fell dead. Well, we lie and don't fall dead. We tell God, I'll be in every prayer meeting three weeks later. We're not there. You know, what's the difference? But you know, the difference is that church was so holy that to lie at its altar was to lie to the Holy Ghost. We need to return to that. But there needs to be a commitment that I don't open my mouth and make a vow that I don't really mean that God, I'm going to let God perform this through my life. And I'd like for us just before we go drink that tea, whatever, that we just lift our hands. And David said, let the lifting up of my hands be as the evening sacrifice. That means total surrender. And let my prayer be as incense. That means the fragrance that'll get through everything else. Just lift your hands and commit to God this morning. If you really mean it. Father, we stand here in your awesome presence. My God, take me, use me, wherever you want with me, Lord. I offer this body as that living sacrifice this morning to be whatever you want, to go wherever you desire, to say whatever you want. Take me, Lord, guide me, mold me, help me, Lord. If you can take nothing and make something out of it, I offer it here today as an absolute to you. In the name of Jesus, these young people, Lord, with hearts that are hunger, don't let that hunger be allayed. Don't let it be a waste in the useless efforts of religion. But to know Christ, to walk with Christ, to love Christ everywhere, all the time, to be so filled with the Holy Spirit. My God, my God, fill with thy Spirit till all shall see Christ only always living in me under every circumstance. Birth the spirit of love in our hearts, Lord. Under every circumstance of life, it will be Christ in Christ alone. In the name of Jesus, let that be a reality from the heart of a great God in Jesus' wonderful name. Let the word of the Lord dwell in our hearts richly, bringing forth the fruit of righteousness, not our own works but the works of him that wills to do in his own good pleasure through us. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus.