In this sermon, the speaker discusses the significance of a white stone in biblical times as a symbol of being found guiltless. The sermon emphasizes the importance of repentance and living a life that aligns with God's highest and best. The speaker encourages listeners to deeply internalize the principle of repentance and strive to be in line with God's intentions. The sermon also highlights the need for genuine praise and worship, not just repeating phrases, but truly understanding and embracing the truth behind them.

I'd like you to turn with me to the book of the Revelation and to the same section that our brother touched on, the great truth of the hidden matter. Now, I suppose you've discovered, and I personally am thrilled that our brother should take this angle with these great truths of the churches in the book of the Revelation. That is the practical angle as it applies to us. I suppose you have noticed that if they be prophetical, I say if, not to cast any doubt in your mind, if you think that they are yet futuristic, then it is most certain that there is herein revealed a divine principle. And that is that prophecy is related to history. And it is related to history, and I mean way back history, not that kind of history which is foretold in prophecy, getting this angle out of it. But that when you read through these messages to the churches, and they have a message for us, and blessed be the name of the Lord, we are to hear, we are to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. That's what we are supposed to be listening to. There are the particular messages that are said to individual churches. And because churches are nothing other than individuals gathered together in the wonder of one life, then it is what God is saying to individuals in each of these churches. And what a glorious thing this is. But when you listen to the messages, what the Spirit is saying to each of the churches, and then you go back over the entire revelation, you see that God has said something to the church. And that the general message, of course, in them all is, I know your works, repent, hallelujah, here's the great message, repent, overcome. And overcome, and here's the reward. That's the general outline of truth. Repent, if we are not in what God intends us to be, beloved, then let's take this so deeply to our heart that it becomes a basic life principle. For words are useless unless in the mouth of God they become to us life principles. We take then this principle of life, that is a repentant attitude toward anything that is less in my life than the highest and the best, that God has revealed. I've been letting the Lord speak to my heart this morning, sitting there, I don't know whether you have, for I want to have my whole life right, especially in relationship to the fact that I'm supposed to be a circulating minister, and very few people see me in my home setting, but only nicely set in as a sort of a crowning jewel in their households when I visit. Altogether wrong, of course, they don't know me well enough for that. But this is the honour that is done us as we move around, you remember that Bernard, and everybody else that circulates, everybody else, they think you're the top stone, they think you're the jewel, you're the crowning gift of God's ministry. And that's a marvellous thing and it's a glorious honour that's conferred upon ministry. But you see, that's right out of the context of daily living. And we did well if we listened to the word that God spoke to us through our visiting brother, on this. I would like to say, brother, we're not unfamiliar with that kind of ministry, many times we're exhorted down to practical things here by the Lord's grace. And thank you for coming and underlining that word. But, beloved, I suppose you've noticed that this is an unfolding of history. Let's start, shall we? Now, you know how it all started in the beginning, don't you? That God created a paradise, he came down and walked in it. And here's Jesus walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. We're in the new creation now. Now, it follows the identical pattern in the church as well as in the history of ancient Israel. There's the tree of life, that was in paradise. All right. Okay. You know that they ceased to eat of the tree of life. God is still concerned about food. I'm referring to manna later on, as we go through. God is still concerned about their food. It was, manna was an inferior food, if I may put it that way. God intended them to live in the garden and eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. That's what he intended originally. All right. You come out of the first message then, which is the message of wonderful love. Of first love as it should be. What God in his first love, in the beginning, that is his eternal love, provided for men just to be in paradise. Walked with him that walks in the midst of the glorious paradise. Listen to his voice. Eat of all the trees in the garden, including the tree of life. Amen. And of course, their leaves, the leaves of the tree of life were for health, so they would never get sick. As they walked in the garden, say, well, how do I know that? Because it says so in the book of Revelation. The leaves of the tree, that's the end of the book. This is how Adam and Eve on this wholesome fruit were kept wonderfully alive and healthy. And it was marvelous. I still believe that health is better gotten from nature than from drugs. Better still from God. But the whole tremendous thing is that God wants to keep us in this state. But they got turned out of the garden because of disobedience. Now it's the introduction of disobedience, beloved, which necessitates the command to become an overcomer. It's only as a man obeys that he ever becomes an overcomer. You understand that? The natural thing is to disobey. Unregenerate men and women disobey. They haven't got a clue what to obey anyway. And so the natural state is disobedience because it's all begun in disobedience. God said thou shalt not. And they said well we will. And that's it, disobedience. And when they were turned out, the first thing that happened was the first martyr. That's why you read in the next message to Smyrna, and all the way down through here, these great things about tribulation and death, be faithful unto death, and so on. And you got in verse 13, Antipas, the faithful martyr, following the line of Abel. And Cain and Abel came into the world in the beginning. And the great promises that God gave. And then you've gone right through, not just in Adam and Eve's children, but the outworking of Adam and Eve's children in the children of Israel. Verse 14, Balaam taught Balak to cast tumbling blocks before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate. And the Nicolaitanes, they are compared here with Balaam. And this is how you will always do them. False prophecy, teaching a man with false authority to commit fornication. Not necessarily physical fornication, but spiritual fornication. And physical fornication always results from spiritual fornication. Always. Whether it be in the individual or in a society. I don't want to go on and discuss that now. But here then is the great unfolding of the truth. Now I've given you a line to follow, all you Bible students. You will see that it is a reference to history. If it has a prophetic value, it will only have value as it is related to the historic event. Always. Now that will get you right down on the book. That may conflict with much that you might read in books. But that's the truth of the inward revelation of Scripture in itself. Not that I want to discuss that in any intellectual or academic way. I'm not qualified to do that anyway. I only want to come to the spiritual content. You will know that as we go down, it was during this period of Israel's history that they were feeding on manna. They'd come away from feeding on the tree of life. They were now feeding on manna. And so you see the apt commentary of the Spirit and the inspired Word of God is on the basic life state they were living at that time. Are you gaining this? I hope I'm not going too fast. I don't want to regard you as a class that I'm lecturing to. These people had to go out every morning and gather manna. You'll find the description of it in the book of Numbers, where of course you have the story of Balaam as well. And you know the glorious story of the manna. It was the most delightful thing. It came down on the dew in the night. They just went to bed at morning. It was wonderful. We should wake up and find our daily bread there. They didn't have to say, well, I've got to get up and go to work this morning. You see, or anything like that. There was never any Monday morning feeling with them. They just used to get up every morning and they went out and they gathered the manna. I should think it was Father's job. It ought to have been, if not, it was a lazy scoundrel, if not. He had to be gotten up and he would have to go out and get their pot of manna for the day. All right. I'll leave you to work out all these things. I want to stop on this great truth of the manna. When they gathered it and they took it in, you know the glory of it all. Well, it was white like coriander seed. Tasted like wafers flavored with honey. And it was called angel's food. It was angel's food. Now, here we have a wonderful truth, really, to the tabernacle and the temple. And you must read this thing in conjunction, not only with instructions given to ancient Israel for making a tabernacle, but in conjunction with the book of Hebrews. Are you making a note of this? Anyway, it'll be on the tape if you want to get it repeated back to your heart or to your mind. And when you come to the book of Hebrews, you'll find something absolutely marvelous about this great truth of the manna. For you know that God instructed Moses, the great mediator of that old covenant. He instructed Moses to gather a pot of this honey. And he had to take it and put it where? Come on. All right. Now, it was taken into the holiest place of all. And it was to be put in the ark. And that's where the manna was hidden. I hope, too, that you've noticed, when you read the Hebrews letter, which is the New Testament truth concerning Old Testament things, figures, types, that it seems to deal differently. And one of the secrets you must learn is this, that when the veil is rent in the temple, there's no difference between the ark and the table and any other place. It's all just in one big hole. And so things are spoken of as though they're in the holiest of all, you see. That's why when in the old layout they weren't. Because if you think you don't understand this, well, you read Hebrews 9, and I think all I want to do more and more as I get older is to make you Bible students. Now that you say you're baptized in the Spirit, of course, if that's only a fictitious notion, you'll just become a dead, old, dogmatic asserter over scriptural texts that'll make just no difference to your audience except to kill them deader still and bury them a lot deeper. That's right. But if you are baptized in the Holy Ghost, then you must get to this book. You must. Hallelujah. It is a royal heritage to you. It is a marvellous thing so that you can... don't have to spend so long time in the primary department when you get to heaven. I mean, it would be absurd if you say you've been baptized in the Spirit for fifty years when you get to heaven and God says, now go to the primary department. I wish I didn't think they had schools in heaven. Don't you want to know what eternity is? It's an eternity of learning. God. In all His fullness. What did you think it was? Sitting on a cloud and playing a harp, I'm sure you did. That's right. You ought to get down to this. You are. You must. You've got very little time to do it and if what they say is right, that it's about one second to midnight now and the Lord's coming, might be sort of... they get carried away by charismatic movements and that sort of thing and they make sort of ecstatic statements. But never mind. That means to say that you've dropped nearly everything you're doing and get down to this. If you really believe that. All right. You're to know this thing and you'll see that it doesn't talk about manner and the art in the book of Hebrews. It doesn't talk about manner and the art. Because of the great change that's taken place since the death and resurrection and their saving the heaven of Jesus. I'd like to be able to discuss this with you at length some other time. But not at the moment. We are coming to this particular verse, this lovely verse in verse 17 of chapter 2 of Revelation. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Now, I want to ask you a question, beloved. Can you hear what God is saying to you this morning? Now, remember, if it be true, and of course it's true what dear Martin said earlier, that God gives to them that obey. He says God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey him. Then you've got to hear and you've got to obey and then God will give to you. Now, God gives you so much before you do obey. God gives you so much before you do attentively listen. But there are things, and the vast majority of the things that God has to give to us are dependent upon hearing and obeying. They're not dependent upon hearing if we don't obey. To hear without obeying is to commit ourselves to the unrewarding fullness of emptiness. Now, you say, that's a contradiction. But haven't you ever been sort of filled up with your own emptiness? Haven't you? So that it just fills everything, you know? Oh, I'm empty, I'm empty. You're filled up with your own emptiness, beloved, when the fact that you haven't eaten a meal for about 24 hours fills your mind with one desire, and you're filled with this sort of empty state in here, the empty condition. You're full of the knowledge of it. You want to find a home or a restaurant somewhere to go and get something to eat. And this is what lots of people's fullness is. You can hear it when you listen to them. They don't obey. To go on, beloved, in the greatness of God help us all to do this. To hear and go through with God. Listen. Now, if you overcome, he says, I will give you to eat of the hidden manna. First thing. Now, you will know that manna was the food of Israel in the days when there was a great emphasis laid upon stones. All right? You know, for instance, they had the two covenants written in stone for a start. And it started off with what? How did the first one of the Ten Commandments start? God, you all know this. Pardon? That's right. I am the Lord. That was the name of the first thing on the first stone. The Lord, Jehovah. A name written. Jehovah. This is the great thing. A marvellous truth. Moreover, not to push this thing too far this morning, because, anyway, I haven't got time, and to labour you with too much what might be new kinds of thoughts this morning, might be to overweight you. But you will see, you will know also, that in the tabernacle, which was essentially a non-stone building, the stone building came in the temple later. There were stones, there were the two tablets of stone in the Ark, and there were stones here, on the high priest's shoulders, and on the great breastplate, here. And every one of those stones had the name of a tribe. Israel. All right? Of Israel. Glory be to God. Now you begin to see the relationship. This was in the days of the hidden manor. The man that had the stones on his breast, and on his shoulders, was the only one who was ever allowed to get into the place where the hidden manor was. Mind you, he had to take those off at that time when he went in. But nevertheless, he went in. And he went in in white robes. He went in absolutely in white. God's going to give a white stone. I want you to tie these things up. You must do it. Knowledge of the Bible is essential, and not with mere facts, but with spiritual understanding of it. And what the Lord is talking about, to have a head full of knowledge, and to give us all modern translations so that we can do it, remember it in the vernacular, will not help us, beloved. At all. It's passing into the spirit. I tell you that what understanding I have is because of the years. And I do understand partly what Kathleen Kuhlman says. I don't think I'd say it her way, that I'm baptized in the spirit every day. But you should be filled with the spirit every day. Because the baptism in the spirit is your initiation into that place of total submersion in, and containment within the spirit. But the phrases we use aren't important. But, beloved, since this has happened, it's been a constant life of understanding the scriptures. Understanding more and more, not just the scriptures, but understanding Him of whom the scriptures speak. And understanding the ways of God. Understanding how it's all interwoven. Understanding because you're coming at it from Him, and not from man. Man comes at it by looking at the Word. God comes at it from issuing the Word. And that's a tremendous thing. And you see, beloved, here then we have this blessed thing that God is saying to us. The hidden manna in the ark. If we're going to eat the hidden manna, it means this. It means that this is, now understand this well, manna became man's food, didn't it? All right. But it was primarily angel's food. Is that right? Then it is the angel's understanding of Jesus Christ. It is the angel's feeding on Jesus Christ. That's what it is to eat the hidden manna. Not just, you see, you can get three concepts of Jesus Christ. Actually, you can get four. But I want to cut out one because one of them is the devil's concept of Jesus Christ. We don't want that one. But there are three. There is the father's concept of Jesus Christ. There is the sinner's, redeemed sinner's concept of Christ. But there's the angel's concept of Jesus Christ. Amen. How many of us have got that? We're to, what did the angels feed on in Jesus Christ? See, he's angel's food. Jesus is angel's food. He's also man's food. He's God's bread. Father feeds on Jesus. Angels feed on Jesus. Now in the same way. And the sons, the redeemed children, feed on Jesus. Oh, what a glorious thing it is, beloved. Do you do this? Now I can assure you that if you will, this is God's way of bringing us back into and more, and realizing more of than they had in paradise in the beginning. For, you see, they lost fruit. But for us now to come in, and God has always been doing this, he will reinstate us in and lift us up higher than these things that they had in the beginning of creation. Feeding on Jesus. Glory be to the name of the Lord. Dear, feed on him. This is their inward communion. You see? Inward communion. This pondering, this thinking, this, oh, how can you explain what it really is. On Jesus, man did eat angels' food. He said, I'll give you, if you'll overcome, I'll give you to eat of the hidden manna. What have you got to overcome in this concept? Not committing spiritual fornication. That's the whole background of it. You mustn't let your spirit go out to and love other things. You mustn't do it. And seeing that there's no difference between spirit and soul in the New Testament, because the veil is red, which divides the figure between spirit and soul, then you mustn't let your soul go out after it either. Jesus is more than sufficient for spirit and soul. The real combined fullness of the richness of the human personality, spirit and soul, the shape of the body it's in, don't matter much, though that's what men go for. The spirit and the soul. When I say men, I'm using this generally now, male and female. I'm not talking about one thing or another. It isn't that. Oh, beloved. It's this feeding, feeding, feeding. It isn't Jesus. It isn't just Jesus, beloved, as He is and was, that wonderful spirit. It was that spirit becoming a human soul in a physical body. That's what we feed on, the veil is red now. That blessed man, that wondrous personality, how can you describe him? How can you describe him? Is he so great and wonderful and real to you that you literally feed on him? And because of this, you exclude all these other things on which a spirit, soul and mind would feed. Exclude. As much as it's humanly possible by His grace to do so. Amen. Now, this has a bearing on what we were told first. What is it? Life is pregnant with opportunities. Wherever you go and whatever you have to do, beloved, if you're really eating the hidden man, you're just feeding on angels' appreciation of Jesus. This is what it says. I'll go back with you. This is how the scripture inheres. And this is the thing we were discovering in those last two or three days that some of us had the joy of spending together. This glorious inherent consistency of scripture. Let's go back into Paul's letter to Timothy. You will know it so well, won't you? Verse 16 of chapter 3 of the first epistle. Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels. Seen of angels. Oh, praise God. If a Roman judge could look on Jesus and say, I find no fault in Him, what did angels see? He only saw faultlessness. Angels saw perfection. Glorious perfection. Amen. You say, well, I don't particularly want to sort of know what angels thought about Jesus. Well, why don't you? They say, holy, holy, day and night. This is the angelic thing about Jesus. They don't say, Redeemer, Redeemer, Redeemer. They don't understand that. That's man's concept. But angels say, holy, holy, holy. Oh, the sheer holiness of it. Angels spoke. It was white like coriander seed. When they cooked it, it tasted like wafers made with honey. Honey is the sweetest natural substance that there is. You see, that's what Jesus was. The sweetest natural substance that there is. This God was a natural man. Glory. Oh. That's why God said the promised land was to flow with milk and honey. So when they picked the coriander seed-like stuff off the ground, it tasted like honey. That's what he said. It should flow with milk and honey. White like milk, tasting of honey. That came up off the ground. Basic. Basic. Yeah. What are you, basically? White as milk. Pure like coriander seed. Are you? Sweet as honey, are you? Sweet as honey. I'll give you the eatable dessert. The hidden manna. And this was the only manna that had eternal life about it. The other all died when the sun came up. It was kept there, preserved. Holiness. This is eternal life. Mars. The angels' concept of it. The angels that never knew sin. The angels that were created in glorious holiness and have maintained it spotless. And they saw a man, and he maintained it on earth. Help me, Lord, for I haven't always maintained it. Have you? Oh, what a man. This is the hidden manna. You know, of course, that's really what the word is, don't you? It's really man. The words N.A. aren't there in the original. They said, it's man. Well, of course, because they would all have been dead men if they hadn't eaten it. They had no food. That's man. Their food was themselves. Man, your food is you. You know that, don't you? Stop eating your food, you won't be a man. It's man, they said. Glory. You see, but when Adam was first born, he was created, he was called man. But now Adam's gone. Old Adam's dead. Gone. This is the new man. This is the last Adam. There he is. It's man. They gathered him. They ate it. You overcome, he says. You overcome, he says. I'll give you to eat. I'll give you to eat this. Now isn't this lovely? Praise God. Now Aaron couldn't eat this. He wasn't allowed to reach inside. He had one thing and one thing only. With Israel, I don't know whether you will appreciate this statement I'm going to make. Blood was an obsession. The blood, the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood. It was an obsession. Atonement, atonement, atonement, atonement was the great thing. Now what I'm going to say now will shock you, unless you know it, the spiritual truth. The word atonement isn't in the New Testament. Did you know that? It belongs to the Old Testament entirely. You say, oh yes, your mind's thinking. You say, yes, I can remember a reference to it. It's a bad translation. It's the reconciliation. Atonement was never reconciliation. Atonement glossed over, covered over that and they were always unreconciled. We've got beyond the atonement now. We're in reconciliation. If that astounds you, then let it astound you. And this is why our gospels never properly preached. People are still preaching the atonement. Jesus fulfilled all the law and there was no need on this side in the new Adam race for atonement. Because atonement only ever covered over what was there. That's the Hebrew word, to cover over what's there. Reconciliation is the removing of what was there. So that now we're at one. That's reconciliation. Nobody's reconciled. If I fall out with my dear brother, and I don't think I ever will, bless him, if I fall out with him and then I'm reconciled, neither of us will ever recognise that there was ever any difference between us. It won't be glossed over, it'll be gone, won't it Bernard? No atonement, reconciliation. Atonement belongs to the Old Testament. That shocked you, hasn't it? You think I'm just about revolutionary and too much way out to be listened to. But it's the absolute truth. We've been given the reconciliation. Reconciliation, if you've got atonement written in your Bible, I can tell you where to find it in the Roman letter, cross it out and put the reconciliation beside it. That was one slip up that the translators did make for the authorised version. Bless it, I've had it so long. They didn't do us a good turn then. But they hadn't got the real revelation of what the new covenant was, that's all you see. Now mark this, in all your modern translations, you can only interpret when you translate, and you can only interpret according to your understanding. You cannot go beyond it, it doesn't matter what your scholastic abilities are. So the tremendous thing lies here before us. We've been given to eat of the hidden matter. Glory, glory, glory, glory. And how about this white stone? Shall we have just a little look at that? And I will give him a white stone. And in this stone, a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. Bless the name of the Lord. All right. This glorious white stone. Well some of us have talked on this before. Was there a white stone amongst all these twelve, fourteen stones that Aaron had? Now listen, there were another two stones. One of them was called Urim. And the other one was called Thummim. And this is how they never ever went wrong. Because it was all lights and perfections. And by these, plus the cloudy pillar, plus everything else, they walked always in the ways of God. By Urim and Thummim. Hallelujah. Out of the breast of the high priest. That's where he kept them. There on his heart. Lights and perfections. The white stone. New name written. Well you know what it is, don't you? Now if you haven't received it, then you won't know. And seeing that the Bible didn't disclose the name, neither am I going to. But I know it. A man should never go beyond what the scripture allows him to say. It's because people presume to do this that we're tangled up in the theories of men. And we go rushing down a road and after we've sold ourselves out on it, in about two years we find it's a cul-de-sac and we've got to retrace our steps. Yes. The glory of it is, beloved, he says, it's a new name written. Nobody knows save him that receives it. He said there's a name on this stone, on these stones, on this stone. Yes, they were all set in ouches, the lovely word that's used. Not pouches, no tobacco in the Old Testament. Ouches. Set here. Hallelujah. On the Lord's breast. There are different colours. And two here on the shoulders, you see. Glorious scintillating flashes of beauty that caught all the outward lights. But here was the inward light and the perfection in here. It was tucked away in here. Glory be to the name of the Lord. I'd love to talk about this glorious high priest of ours for the next hour. But I'm not going to. Because I think we ought to break bread. Because my heart's that way. I nearly said earlier, let's do it tonight. But it doesn't matter particularly when we do it, as long as we do it. But the whole glorious thing is, beloved, hey, let's talk about this Jesus. When you're sanctified in your imagination, and when your whole mind is handed over, and when you're free in the Spirit, just to let yourself go. This is why the majority of priests never go anywhere. They never allow a man to let go. If he's been going 30 minutes, they want him to stop. He's never had a chance to let go. He can't lead his flock into the glorious pastures. They won't let him. Serves them right. This is the terrible system into which we've been bred. For ho, one of it all, beloved, is to know the secrets of Jesus. These wonderful stones on his heart and on his shoulders. As I said, they caught the reflected light of the blessed sevenfold candlestick. There, a man put in here. It was just him, him alone, right in here. There was the inward and the outward. He was outwardly right. He was inwardly perfect. Lights of perfections went in there. And we're to be in this great realm of perfection. Perfections of Jesus. Eating him, the white stone. Hallelujah. Glory. We also know that it has a reference to the fact that in the days when old judgments were carried out, people never received summonses on paper or anything like that, but they were given a white stone. When the jury or the judge found them to be guiltless, then they were given a white stone. And anybody came along after and said, so and so, so and so, yes, I'm free. Look, here's my stone. A free man. Hallelujah. So the Lord moves in this, beloved. Are you in this? Are you feeding this morning on the Lord Jesus? In us, beloved, God intends the bread of God to be eaten by us. This great thing that the Father loves about the Son. We can each bring our own contribution, you know. Generally, we get here, we praise him, we bless him, we tell him what we think of him, we worship him, you see. And then, presently, beloved, again, the blessing, understanding of the angel's coming. Oh, it's blessed, marvellous. Holiness isn't a static state. Holiness, beloved, and confessions of holiness about Jesus is the confession of the fact that we've investigated the Lord, he was seen of angels, that it's our taste of him, it's what we feel about him. It isn't that we're just setting forth adulation from the mind, but we're stating the experience of our lives. You're perfect, Lord. If it be adulation in the sense of, you know, we all get whipped up into a Pentecostal fury to say, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Well, I've said that before. If you do it long enough, you'll get a budgerigar to say that ten times over. I'm being right here. I want to be down to earth. But, oh, Lord, oh, to know him, to love him, to state his praises, when you praise the Lord, state your reason for your praise. State it. I love the Lord because, thank you, Lord, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so. You see, this is the way to praise the Lord, not just repeat the phrase, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, or even hallelujah, because it's the same. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. You see, they're all wonderful truths, but to pass into the understanding of it all is what God wants us to do.