In this sermon, the preacher begins by discussing the background of Matthew chapters 4 and 5, where Jesus is teaching and ministering to a multitude of people. He then introduces the topic of obedience and states that he will be discussing it over the course of seven nights. The preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding organization, placement, and relationship within the body of Christ to avoid religious confusion. He also mentions the need to clarify the nature and spirit of obedience, which he has been trying to explain for many years.

Alleluia, Alleluia. O Father, we thank Thee for the privilege of standing together as Your people. We thank You for the living Word of God. We thank You, Lord, for the privilege of standing behind this desk, Lord. We ask Thee that Thou should grant my servant and this people that anointing which shall bring them together for spiritual profit. Help them to speak with simplicity and clarity, Lord. Let there come a clear word even as it's spoken. Let's get through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen, amen. God bless you. You may be seated. I always wish that camp meetings could start on the second night, because if you come back the second time, that's your fault, you see. But here we are with, in a sense, a whole new group of people, and I felt as I was waiting on the Lord just to share with you a little bit, as the prophetic word came to us tonight, that there's a cry in the hearts of God's people. One of the things that we felt we were discussing today, whether this was the sixth or seventh year of World Mass Camps, I'm not sure which it was, is that this is the seventh year. But when Lord first dealt with us about having meetings such as these, they were designed felt that there was a people that wanted to be out on the growing edge of what God was doing. Do you understand? That there's a people who want to know what God is up to, and that gets you in trouble. It really does. You know, I said, Lord, what are you doing in Europe, where are you going? And many of you have heard me share that I was a successful pastor and everything was going real great. And I said, Lord, if you're doing anything in the earth, I'd like to know about it. And that's when the excitement began, because it's becoming clear to many of these men who are home, and myself, and many others, that God is up to something, see? Now, if he's up to something, he said, I will not do anything except I reveal it to my servants, the prophets. And so it's our conviction that God is going somewhere. So the main purpose of World Mass Camps initially was to gather together and be led of the spirit as we got men in to share and teach with us, to hear what it was saying to us, what God is saying, where we're going, what is happening. How many of you know that we could have never anticipated what had happened in the Church in 1962? See? 1962, there was no way we could have ever anticipated where we are today, see? Now, I also wonder, if there is a 1982, you know, I wonder where God is going in the next ten years. Now, if he's going anywhere, it's my desire to go with him. And I mean that at any cost, or whatever is involved, I want to go, be with, be involved in. I don't know who said it, it's not original, but someone said, out on the growing edge. See? Now, if you're out on the growing edge, you don't have all your doctrines all figured out. How many of you have had God born already? Because if you're there, see now, this is what's involved, there is a whole new group of people, and you know, there's other things on my heart to want to say to you, and then that's why I say, if you'll just be the second night, and then if you come back tomorrow night, then I'll feel perfectly safe in persecuting you, because if you come back, then you know what you're getting into, see? But we don't have our doctrines all figured out, we don't know all that's involved, but I do believe, I believe that we're living in the day, and maybe for the first time, when the devil is really on the defense, and the Church is on the offense. Amen. It's just happening, God is invading, He's moving out, He's moving into areas that we never expected Him to go to, and He didn't ask our permission. Right? And I know most of you have heard or read a little of what happened at Expo in Dallas, but I understand the brothers that worked with me that was there, they just never will ever be the same, as they sat there in that huge auditorium on the street there, and 150,000 kids, see? And all these were kids, straights and long-haired and dopers and everything, and they were there worshiping the Lord, and then one of the groups began to sing, Oh, the King is Coming. The King is coming, I can hear the trumpet sounding, and they said the only time that thing almost got out of hand was when they sang, The King is Coming, you know, the hands began to go up, worship just swept across all 150,000 kids, and I said, God, how could we have anticipated, how could we ever have thought when all this began among the kids? Now, Jesus said, I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all flesh, sons and daughters, see? Now, again, my mind is continually expanding, see, as I anticipate, or as I try to anticipate, what God really is up to. Now, there's many of us, and many of us here on the platform who feel that this thing has just begun, and that's, you know, the magnitude of all of this, and one nation after another, as we'll learn this week, one nation after another is coming under the dealings of God and coming under the outpouring of the Spirit, Colombian and Indonesian and nations in Africa and other places where the power and the presence and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. All right? Where is it going? It's going to happen. Where do we go from here? What is, is there any way that we can anticipate this? Now, there have been brothers who have met together and been trying to examine some of these things, but what we feel is this, that there's an excitement, it's a patience, there's something that is going on. But above all of this, there has to come form, there has to come proper placement in all of this. It is possible for the Spirit of God to be poured out in such measure, and the ground not prepared that the rain pours out, and then it pours off into the gutters and into the ocean, having done any good. So there's a preparation of our hearts, there's things that we need to hear in God. Some of you have heard me share about a young Catholic priest come into my office one day, and at that time I was just understanding that God was baptizing Roman Catholics. He came into my office and he walked into my office and he stuck his hand across the desk and he said, Hello, brother. And I didn't know whether I wanted to be a brother or not, you know, that's a Catholic. But his face was so shiny, and I knew that he was filled with the Spirit, and I reached across the desk and shook hands with him, and we began to fellowship and share in all kinds of things, beautiful spirit of fellowship. We began to worship and share together, and my heart was open and his was open. We fellowshiped about 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, and then finally got up to go, and he said, I must go now. He was from Chile, and he said, You know, brother, the stream is flowing. And I said, Yes, I know. And he said, But we don't know where this is carrying us. And then finally, see, the stream is flowing, see, and we don't all together know where this is carrying us, but we want to be in it, we want to be part of it, and that's what a world map camp is. We're being carried with the stream, see, flowing down into whatever God is doing. This is part of it, this little sign. I really like this. I don't know who built that, but that's part of it. All the earth, do you believe that? All the earth fills with his glory. All right? If that's so, then God does have something up the road. He has things to teach us. He has things to say to us. He has a situation, a placement in the body, and many, many things that you ought to know about, you see, and things that I trust that you understand some things about. Now, what I want to talk to you about for, I think I have seven nights, at least we anticipate, seven nights together here, and we want to talk to you about the nature and spirit of obedience, see? It's what we want to talk about. Seven nights we'll be talking about how do we obey God, see? Now, I'll tell you some heavy words, see? Some heavy words. There was a time in the past where we were anxious to make people feel good. Are you there? I said obedience, and eighteen people left. But you see, there was a time when, you know, in our coming together, when the object of our coming together was to feel good, see? But as we go on in God, we learn this. If you be good, you will feel good, see? So then, you don't mind laying on God's people a word, see? A heavy word, so to speak, so that as that thing begins to permeate into our spirit, we begin to understand God has, and one of the ultimate goals in all relationship with God is obedience. Let me ask you a question now. Which is the hardest, to find the will of God or to do the will of God? I'm not talking about finding the will of God. It's important that you understand. That's divine guidance. That has other things to do with it, and you can't do all that together. But what I want to talk about, if we can, is doing the will of God. Now, let's look at an Old Testament text, will you, first? We'll begin in the Old Testament, Zephaniah. You know where that is, right after Psalms. Let's look at Zephaniah for a moment now, and we want to introduce you to God in some sense of understanding some of God's problems. Do you believe God has any problems? Do you? Yes, he does. God has some problems, and they're sitting in this meeting tonight. One joyful Zephaniah, chapters of chapter 3. Zephaniah. Now, there's much I could pick from the Old Testament, but I want to try to give you just a feeling now, a sense of what it is in God's heart that we're after. All right? Zephaniah, chapter 3, beginning to read at 1, verse 1 through verse 5. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted! To the oppressing city, this is Jerusalem, God's chosen. She obeyed not the voice. She received not correction. She trusted not in the Lord. She drew not near to her God. Her princes within are rolling lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They gnaw not the bones till tomorrow. Verse 4. Her prophets are lies and treacherous persons. Her priests have polluted the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law. Verse 5. The just Lord is in the midst thereof. He will not do iniquity. Very important word. We'll be working on that in a little while. He will not do iniquity. Every morning, Margin says, morning by morning, he bring his judgment to light. He faileth at the end, just knoweth no shame. Now, one of the things, let's look up here now for a moment, and we want to just try to introduce you to the God of the Bible. How many of you know that at the beginning we don't always know the God of the Bible? See? We have a mad or a mental God, we have all kinds of funny Gods. But when you meet the God of the Bible, listen to who you're meeting. First of all, you're meeting someone that can't be bought, threatened, bribed, or chained. Aren't you glad? You are meeting God. Though he maneuvered and manipulated a thousand people, you can't maneuver or manipulate him. He can't be threatened, and if you throw a temper tantrum, he waits till you're done, so now you're going to obey. But when I began to understand, now, as I have met people, I've seen people change, situations change, politics change, but God isn't like that, and I began to thank God that he was the unchangeable. And I began to find myself learning more and more to trust in God and depend on him because he said he's unchangeable. And some of you have heard me say this one day, I was sitting in my study, and the Lord said, Mumford? I said, yes, Lord? He said, you know, you and me are incompatible. I said, we are? And he said, yeah. And he said, and I don't change. And then I got an idea of what he was saying, see? He was saying this. If you and I are incompatible and I don't change, then what? You're going to have to. Now, the problem, listen to me, church, see, the problem in the Old Testament was this. The people were very religious, but they never obeyed. Are you there? See? There were all kinds of religion and all kinds of ritual and all kinds of things that was going on, but deep in the personality or in the nature of the people of God, there was the spirit that didn't want to obey. Now, you can go back through the whole Old Testament, and when I was, God was dealing with me, I went through, if you want to do something sometimes, look up the word O-H in your Bible and hear God pleading. Oh, that they were such a heart in them. Oh, that they had obeyed my commandments. Oh, that you would open your heart to me. You know, and I just went through the pimcorns looking at words that said, Oh, God pleading with His people. Now, they had all the ritual, had all the forms, had all the outwards, everything looked right, but inside was a rebellious spirit, was a spirit that didn't want to obey God. All right? So let's look at it now. So He's a God that unchanges. Now, the basic principle or the basic problem in the Old Testament was a situation where God's people, even though they belonged to Him, even though they were covenant people, had made covenant with God, the facts were of the matter of they refused to obey Him. When it came right down to the issue, they refused to obey. Now, will you go with me over to the New Testament, please? Matthew chapter 7, and I want to read to you a verse. Now, it took me some courage. Believe me, it did. They even want to touch on this verse, especially here in Southern California. How many of you have come far enough in this to know that error is good for the church? Are you there? It helps us to reexamine. It forces us to look at things in a new way, you see. And error, always be error, so on. Now, another problem that's present in the church is this. Someone already knows how to exegete the text, you see. And since you already know everything about it, now we're reading, I think, some of the most puffy, some of the most misinterpreted, some of the most complicated verses in the New Testament when we read Matthew 7, 21. Let's look at them now. You follow with me, please. Matthew 7, 21. Glory to God. Help me, Jesus. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. Now, it gives us the exception. But he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out demons. And in thy name done many wonderful works. That's important. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Now, I want you to do something in the margin of your Bible, this iniquity. And there are many men here who know their Greek, so you know I'm not saying anything wrong. But ye that work lawlessness. Would you give me that word, please, in the margin of your Bible? You know if your Bible is too good to mark. Throw it away, get another one. That's right. All right, now look. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work lawlessness. Now, when we say iniquity, how many of you know we have a wonderful idea when we say iniquity? We think of robbing banks, you know, or beating up our grandmother, you know. We have a wonderful idea of what iniquity is because we use that word all the time in our churches or in our groups. We say, oh, that's iniquity, see. But there are other words that have to do with that, and we can't get involved in Greek. But in this instance, it has to do with a word which means lawlessness. Literally translated, meaning one who acts without law or acts, very basically, one who acts without restraint. Now let's come back to this for a moment, and I'll do my best to make this very clear to you. The reason I am is for your sake and mine, see. Because I want you, if I can, I want you to lay hold of this. If you never come back again, I'd like for you to go out of here tonight with this thing resting in your spirit, and it's this. Matthew 5, 6, and 7. You don't need to turn in on it, just look at it. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, by anybody's interpretation will tell you, they are three most important chapters in the whole Bible. They are called the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount. And now just follow for a moment the background to these three chapters, and it says this. In Matthew 4, the end of the chapter, he says, And many came to him, and he saw the multitude, and he healed, and he was teaching the kingdom of God, and he was ministering deliverance, and the multitude kept coming. And then the scripture says, And seeing the multitude, this is chapter 5, verse 1, And seeing the multitude, he called his disciples together, and he began to teach them. And he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers. And he began to teach them. Do you know why? For he was teaching them something along this line. Seeing the multitude, he wanted to teach those disciples that they could pick up the burden and carry it out to others, those that were sick and afflicted and those who needed ministry. So as he saw the multitude, he knew the right answer to that need was to call some men to him and teach them the ways of the kingdom. So he called them, and then in chapter 6 he taught them. Watch how you fast, watch how you pray, watch how you give. In chapter 7, be careful when you judge, and ask and speak and mouth and all the things of chapter 7. Then he brings it up to these words, and he says, Not everyone that is involved in this or understands this, not everyone really will understand the essence of what I'm saying to you. Now follow me, please. Let's look at this just piece by piece. In chapter 7, verse 21. Will you look at it with me now? Chapter 7, verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord. Now I call your attention to two verses. One you don't have to go to, I'll just give you the text. It's chapter, 1 Corinthians 12, and verse 1, and it says these words. No man can call Jesus, Lord, except out by the Spirit. Alright? Now there's another one I'd like for you to turn to this one. It's Mark, chapter 9, and let's read that one, please. Mark, chapter 9. Did you hear the rustling of the leaves? Alright? Mark, chapter 9, and verse 38. What I'm trying to do now is to introduce you to something, and John answered him, this is Mark 9, 38, and John answered him saying, Master, we saw one casting out demons in thy name, and he wasn't a Presbyterian. Isn't that interesting, you know? It really tickles me. I think God must get some real laughs out of us. Alright? And he followed it, not with us. He's casting out demons, and he's never been to a world map camp. And we stopped him because he followed it, not us. Notice the us. But Jesus said, forbid him not to stop him, for there is no man which shall do a miracle, notice these words, in my name. These are important words. There is no man that shall do a miracle in my name that can like me speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part. Now these are words that are very important. Let's go back now to Matthew chapter seven. Now in my own understanding, and I stand open to this and trust that you will understand what I'm saying, and I can't go in to prove it, but I think I can give you sixteen or seventeen scriptures to show you that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are the same. Now in my understanding, what Jesus is saying is this, and those of you who've been around me or heard teaching along the line of the kingdom of God understand this to be establishing his kingdom in our hearts on the earth. That is the spiritual manifestation of the kingdom of God. Here's what Jesus is saying. Not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God. It has nothing to do in my understanding about going to heaven. Now I hope to explain that to you in a moment. But he that doeth, notice the emphasis is on doing, he that does the will, the wish, the desire of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, which has to be by the Spirit, have we not baptized in thy name, and in thy name have cast out demons, and in thy name done many wonderful works? Now, does anybody see any sin in this? How many of you see that there is no barbarism? See, we've interpreted it. Sometimes we read into the scriptures things that are not very good. See, and what Jesus is saying, if you can, if you can, feel my Spirit tonight, church, please feel my Spirit tonight, and understand the altitudes. They're waiting for ministry, and Jesus sits them down and begins to teach them, and he says, now listen, so listen to me. The ultimate of ministry is not doing anything, it's finding the way. It's finding the will of God, and doing it. I want to ask you a question. Is it possible to take the very things of God, and use them to your own advantage? Now, he said to them, and then I will say, I never knew you. Now, oh, what people have done with that text, God knows. And most people read it and say, well, I don't know your name and address. How many of you know he knows their name and address? See? Here they've been praying, casting out devils, healing the sick, having a wonderful time, and so it's evident that he knows them in some sense, you see? So, so there must be, now, the Raffelheim translation and Greek construction gives you this. I have never approved you. My approval doesn't rest on me. Now, let's follow, let's follow the exegesis now, very carefully, and, and, and please think with me, church. Don't, just, just, just get your mind right on this thing now. Jesus is saying, now listen to me. The multitudes are out there. There's much ministry that needs to be done. But the goal of all of this isn't ministry. The goal of this is doing the will of my Father. All right, let's come back now for a moment. He doesn't mean that he doesn't know their name and address, all right? I never knew you. There's a, there's a whole involvement here of Greek construction, but what he's saying is this. I have never placed my approval on what you're doing because the manner in which and the way in which you went off to do it. Now there's a particular thing. Let me hold a moment and see if I can help some of you understand that when you get into the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts and ministries of the Spirit, how many of you know there are some particular problems in this realm that are not in the first Baptist church? Do you understand? You don't have too many people running off that way. But see, just get a taste, listen, just get a taste of the power See? Oh man, just get a taste of the deliverance ministry. He said, I'll see you, honey. See you in about six months. See? And the husband takes off, wife leaves the husband, everybody's going every which way. The need, oh brother, the need is out. You're coming around now, aren't you? All right, all right. Because what is happening is this. I've watched this thing for fifteen years, and I have touched the symptoms, I've touched all around the edges, but I'm saying, God, there's something, there's something that I'm not understanding in this thing. See? And then, as I began, now listen, all real ministry comes out, or has in the past, fit this description, you see, because I was a man with a lawless spirit. See? I wanted to do work for Jesus, and if I have to run over you to do it, just look at me. And the Lord, you hate me. He said, nothing. Then are you going to wind down? I said, but Lord, look at all the needs. Now, here's what I see. I see as this charismatic thing increases, and if God's people don't learn to know and do the will of God, we're going to have an ultimate pandemonium religious mess. See? If God's people don't learn to know some organic, all right? Now, what Jesus is saying, let me explain to you this. Now, I'm trying now to put this in words, so that no matter how long you've been saved, small or little, you'd know what I'm saying. I mean, you know, small or little, little time or great, you'd know what I'm trying to say. Now, let me show you four aspects of doing the will of God. Let me show you that, please, and I'll just give them to you like this, one, two, three, four, so you can line them up in your own things, please. And this may help you, may help to clarify the thing that I'm after and have never been able to explain for many years. I've pulled around with this text for about nine years. I've read it and prayed over it and studied the Greek and read it into Hebrew and read it into every kind of language because it never would yield a secret. Let's look at this this way. First of all, there are some sins which we know are sins and we don't do them. Right? They're just gross sins. We don't commit adultery anymore. God said thou shalt not commit adultery. I said, okay, hallelujah. Settled that forever. Now, second one, there are some sins that I know I shouldn't do and I do it anyhow. All right? Let's talk about anger or pride or envy or some of it. See, now, I know that I shouldn't, but I find myself involved in it anyway. See? Now, that's the Roman 7, things I don't want to do. How many ever pass through that? Things I don't want to do, that's what I do. Things I do want to do, that's what I don't do. And I just, oh, oh, oh, you know. So, here's the second one. Now, the third rhyme is this. Good things that God never told me to do.