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George Warnock
George H. Warnock (1917 - 2016). Canadian Bible teacher, author, and carpenter born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, to David, a carpenter, and Alice Warnock. Raised in a Christian home, he nearly died of pneumonia at five, an experience that shaped his sense of divine purpose. Converted in childhood, he felt called to gospel work early, briefly attending Bible school in Winnipeg in 1939. Moving to Alberta in 1942, he joined the Latter Rain Movement, serving as Ern Baxter’s secretary during the 1948 North Battleford revival, known for its emphasis on spiritual gifts. Warnock authored 14 books, including The Feast of Tabernacles (1951), a seminal work on God’s progressive revelation, translated into multiple languages. A self-supporting “tentmaker,” he worked as a carpenter for decades, ministering quietly in Alberta and British Columbia. Married to Ruth Marie for 55 years until her 2011 death, they had seven children, 19 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. His reflective writings, stressing intimacy with God over institutional religion, influenced charismatic and prophetic circles globally. Warnock’s words, “God’s purpose is to bring us to the place where we see Him alone,” encapsulate his vision of spiritual surrender.
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Sermon Summary
George Warnock emphasizes the transformative journey from being 'a worm' to becoming a butterfly, illustrating humanity's helplessness and the need for divine intervention. He explains that while we cannot change ourselves, God, through Christ, initiates a metamorphosis in our spirit, soul, and body, restoring us to His image. Warnock highlights that this transformation is a process involving our willing obedience and the work of the Holy Spirit, which empowers us to overcome sin and live in accordance with God's will. He reassures believers that even in our mortal state, we can experience the quickening of our bodies through the Spirit, leading us toward immortality. Ultimately, he encourages us to embrace our role as vessels of God's glory, despite our weaknesses.
From Worm to Butterfly
David said of himself, "I am a worm, and no man." Such we are by nature--helpless, foolish, earthbound, purposeless. We cannot change ourselves. But the Lord from Heaven came into our nature and our likeness in order that He might bring about a transformation into His nature and likeness. He does not change us by a sovereign act of His will alone; for then He would be working counter to His plan whereby He would have willing and obedient sons, desiring to do His will. And yet we know, "Apart from Him, we can do nothing." From Him therefore who is the Head, there comes to us as members of His Body, that Divine hormone--that Divine influence of the Spirit--which reacts upon and works in conjunction with our hearts and minds, thereby bringing about a spiritual metamorphosis, a complete changing of our whole being: spirit, soul, and body. This is God’s order in restoring Man to His image, just as it was the order in which Man fell from that image. For Adam continued to live on in the natural long after his spirit had "died" as far as his relationship with God was concerned. So in redemption God restores first our spirit, then our soul, and ultimately our body. Therefore we hear the apostle praying for God’s people; for the perfecting of their "spirit, soul, and body," in that order (1 Thess. 5:23). Knowing the corruption of this human body many would teach that there is no hope of coming into the image and likeness of Christ until our bodies put on immortality. But this is not so. Christ walked in perfect union with the Father, though dwelling in a mortal body. But He was sinless, we are reminded. True... and that’s what redemption is all about. He fully dealt with our sin at the Cross, and it is the work of the Spirit of God within us to render the body "dead indeed unto sin" and to make it to be the very temple of God in the earth. And until we are eventually glorified God has made provision for a "quickening" of our mortal body, by His Spirit that dwells within (Rom. 8:11). And so the groaning continues within us that we might be "clothed upon" with our new house from Heaven, and enter into immortality. But it is not God’s intention that we continue to groan in the bondage of sin. It is a groaning rather to be released from the limitation and humiliation of our mortality, that we might know and experience the new life for the body that we have experienced, and are experiencing, for our soul and spirit. God purposed it this way, that now in the midst of our weakness and mortality we might be the fragile vessels He needs as vessels for His glory. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Cor. 4:7).
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George H. Warnock (1917 - 2016). Canadian Bible teacher, author, and carpenter born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, to David, a carpenter, and Alice Warnock. Raised in a Christian home, he nearly died of pneumonia at five, an experience that shaped his sense of divine purpose. Converted in childhood, he felt called to gospel work early, briefly attending Bible school in Winnipeg in 1939. Moving to Alberta in 1942, he joined the Latter Rain Movement, serving as Ern Baxter’s secretary during the 1948 North Battleford revival, known for its emphasis on spiritual gifts. Warnock authored 14 books, including The Feast of Tabernacles (1951), a seminal work on God’s progressive revelation, translated into multiple languages. A self-supporting “tentmaker,” he worked as a carpenter for decades, ministering quietly in Alberta and British Columbia. Married to Ruth Marie for 55 years until her 2011 death, they had seven children, 19 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. His reflective writings, stressing intimacy with God over institutional religion, influenced charismatic and prophetic circles globally. Warnock’s words, “God’s purpose is to bring us to the place where we see Him alone,” encapsulate his vision of spiritual surrender.