In this sermon, the preacher discusses the voice of the world and how it tries to appeal to us through various legitimate things in our lives. The voice of the world is cleverly directed by the enemy, who is the antagonist of God. The preacher mentions four forms or patterns in which the voice of the world may manifest itself. The sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding the sin question, the limitations of our flesh, and our dependence on the Holy Spirit in order to navigate through the period of predation and receive illumination.

And this morning, while the heavens are full of the worship of God, and the angels and the archangels are bowing before thee, we join our little worship with it. It seems so little and so broken, that O God, wilt thou be pleased to receive from our hearts now and through the day and through the days to come, thanksgiving and praise and worship. May our hearts always be in that place of adoration, outpouring of all that we have before thee. The whole life may be an oblation that's poured out at the feet of our Lord. And so we come and we sing these frail little hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Receive this, Lord, in Jesus' name. And wherever all that we have to offer, wherever it has the dust and the touch of the tarnish of of the flesh and of the natural upon it, forgive, wash it away, cleanse it out, until our hearts can come into that place of real union and communion and fellowship with thee that thou hast desired. Thou hast died to make these things possible for us, and we are members of thy body. We are members of that mystical body, the bride of Christ. We pray, O Spirit, that thou will accomplish your work in us, a mighty work of transformation, a mighty work, a mystical work, a heavy work, that which we cannot do. We are helpless, we are bound, we have no power within us, but the power is in thee. And thou who hast begun a good work in us, thou will finish it, you will bring it through to its time of consummation. And the heart and the life and all that there is there shall be brought once again, be poured out by feet, that you may be crowned, elevated and lifted and exalted above all. And yet in our inner heart and life there will be that strange consciousness that thou art ours, and we are thine, we are one with him. Now, Lord, today we commit our thoughts and all that we have to thee. Thou canst direct us, thou canst manage us, and we want to be in thy hands like that. Not as we heard yesterday, the mule or the horse, directed from the outside continually, held by bit and bridle. But we want to know what it is to be formed and conformed and inborn from within, a secret, holy dwelling place of God. Thou art indwelling every one of us, for thou hast said that you would come and dwell in us. May we recognize thee more. Help us not to be scattered out over the universe in all that great external flair of living, and forget that thou art the source and the very fountainhead. Thou art the source of direction, thou art the source of plan and purpose for life, and we do want it lived in the energy or in the wisdom even of what we could afford. But we pray thee to bring us into the thoughts and the purposes of God, that every day there shall be something accomplished of God's will, and God's will shall be done in earth, in our little earth, the little earth instrument that we are, born, made of dust and clay. May that will of God be done in earth as it is. We are a portion of that earth. Let the will of God be done in earth as it is in heaven. And we offer to you this earth consciousness, this little existence, this little fleeting passing moment. We offer it to thee, our God, and we ask that thy holy, thy will that moves through the universe, may our little wills be swallowed up in us, and may that will be done in this earth. Be with us this morning as we have it to our hearts. Lead us wherever we be in the language which we shall understand thy message. And I think maybe we'll go along with this idea that there are many voices in the world and none of them without their signification. Yesterday we dealt with the first voice, the voice of God sounding to us through his whole created universe, inarticulate, but interpreted to us through the power of his spirit. He wants to communicate to us all that it's now struggling through because of a judgment that rests upon us, the judgment that was placed there instead of upon us. For thy sake, for thy sake, judgment falls on the earth for thy sake. So sometimes, I suppose you do too, have an idea of what's about. How many have ever sensed an apologetic sense in you when you're in the presence of all the disorder? Like I owe the willing blindly, not of its own volition, but it was made subject because of us. He has made that subject to his judgment, not because. And when I see creation like that, I always feel, oh you are so because of. It's because of mankind and his failure that all creation today is roaming, traveling together in pain. I go to the zoo and I see the animals pacing up and down in that cage. God never made animals to be like that. No, never, never, never, never. And yet they are subject to this law and bondage that's thrown upon them. Cursed be the earth for thy sake. The poor dumb creature can't help it. He doesn't know what it's about. He's still moving under the laws and powers of the inner instinct, and that is under a judgment. God never made him a snarling lion to eat up something else. Never, God never made a little lion or helpless creature here. Now he says, I'll make you lion so that you can eat him up. Well, it's all ridiculous. He never does things like that. But it's due to the disorder that's come to us through sin. And the whole universe has been thrown, every phase of the universe has been touched by it. And so I'll feel all sort of an apologetic feeling to the old lion. Because I said God didn't make you right. He looked upon his first creation and he said, of course, man is of a higher level of creation. You're thrown under a judgment in one sense, that death has entered, and we're born in it, born dead, partakers of death, partakers of a whole broken down thing. So it's wonderful that when we come to this Christ, the son of the living God, that very life, and the whole world, of course, getting us to heaven is included in it. But let's get, I wish somebody would write something sometimes that would exalt redemption. Wouldn't it be lovely to have some kind of a majestic, glorious expression of that thing? Don't you feel it sometimes in you and you can't say it? It throbs and rolls through you. And we find such a small, inadequate sense of expressing it. I think all of us who've had any moving of the Holy Spirit in us at times have been conscious that he has tried to pour it through us. Isn't that lovely? Every little while he breaks through the limitations of my flesh. He sets me aside, but lets me have the joy of my consciousness being itched with his spirit so that I too may move with it when I know I couldn't do it. It isn't, but it's the power of the spirit of God moving again, even through the little instrument, carrying its praise, carrying its worship, carrying all that we can't make. I long personally sometimes for touches of it. I get it, you've had it. When we're swept out of the consciousness of just our need, and I need, and I need, we forget that. That in some way gets forgotten, but we're conscious of the fact of intense worship and glory rolling through us back again to God. You know how that is. Isn't that so refreshing? It's so out of the world. I don't get it too often, but sometimes you've had it too. I always feel when I get in there, and of course I come back again, but I always feel that's my habitat. You know, you feel that's the thing that I was made for. Now I'm functioning. I'm functioning now. That's the thing. That's the reality. Here we are. To be caught in that. I think I've told you before, when God was beginning to show me the development of this scale that I showed you the other evening, predation moving, when God years ago began the power of this, although all of us, all of us in our development, and we should, and we must be uneasy because it's not, it's not rounded out. It's not complete. As we said in that poem last night, the holy urge, an infinite sense of incompleteness haunts me here. That's the haunting spirit in us that the thing is not consummated. That's entering, I think, as Paul says, all creation grown is and travels together in pain, waiting. You get that grown in you. You get that consciousness in you. The incompletion. It's not only the incompletion of the thing in my heart, but it's the incompletion of the great scheme of God of which I'm only a little part. Isn't that so? That's the way it is. But we become conscious of the cosmic whole, the great scheme, not egocentric, but it's a universal thing. We're caught up in a universal scheme. It's the universal program, the purpose of God, bringing it back again. And so we can't be uneasy because we don't find these things all completed here and now. I don't know of anything really that's brought to its completion. I know there's very many things have their, well, that's a whole period of adjustment. It's when we begin to find out our ideas of salvation, because they're restricted to the, and I'm staying, and I'm going to heaven, and that is a part of the scheme. We rejoice in it. But the scope of his, the scope of the covering of it is, it's a universal thing. God told of the world, behold the land of God that takes away the sins of the world, the whole universe that has been touched by this. The sin and disobedience, the struggle, the pull of it, the feel of it. And that's what we have, but not in completion. Here, say, is the period of predation with which we are first acquainted, because that has to, we have to learn about the sin question and the selfhood and the breaking down of the human, the limitations of our flesh, and it's about the Holy Spirit. We have to be strong enough that then he begins this idea of illumination and brings it out more fully. Now, we can all prove that if we have retrospection, if we can sit down quietly and it says, consider the pit from which, not morbid introspection, just a clear, unafraid introspection. And you can find even in our limited walk that we have illumination here in things that we couldn't possibly have had there. We couldn't bear five and ten years ago the light and the demands of God upon us now. Then, no, we couldn't. We couldn't because we were not geared to it. The processes of adjustment and predation and the understanding of the thing that God is after, the foundation was not strong enough yet to bring the power of the illumination. We had nothing to receive it and could rest. But we got glimpses of it. We had flashes of it. We had little moments of inspiration. I call them the high moments of my living. How many of you ever, no, now, certain epics when you had a high moment, a touch with God, and God broke in, and it was fleeting, it was a flash, but yet you walked under the power of that for some time. Well, those are illuminations of what is here. Now, this is under this and this. That doesn't mean we can't have times of worship and adoration. We certainly do. The very beginning of our experience in God, when he fills us, he baptizes us, he immerses us. To immerse, that's a complete covering. The baptism spirit isn't sprinkling spirit on us. It's the submerging of this ego, the submerging of my whole identity under the power, dominion, authority of the third member of the trinity. And when that happens, my theory is this, and I still stick to it, I don't feel that a person who really comes under that consciously, knowing it, can ever be the same when he comes out. I really don't believe it can be. I don't believe it. You may not see the change completely in a moment, you don't, but there's something that's happened there. Something has happened in that experience, special dominion and authority, because yours has been lost in this sweeping up of the infinite grasp of God, the hold of God. Now that doesn't mean, don't get me now on the moral issue that we are made holy and sinless. I'm not talking about the moral consequences of that experience at all. I'm talking about something else. I'm talking about the whole of life. We're born with an intense hold, the urge to live. A little bitty baby, he doesn't know what's about, because he wants to live, but he doesn't know it. The urge to live. Now that, but even here, you've all had it, I know. Those who, when all could roll through you, you weren't saying something, you weren't saying, I thank you for, well those are little, oh my, I thank you Lord for helping me get, the former things shall not come into remembrance. The whole scale, the whole schoolhouse will be set aside. But here we will carry with us, I'll tell it, because I don't tell it, because I think I'll tell it from that angle at all, but I like to relate some experiences, that when others come along, have I ever helped you that way? I want to help you that way, because I want all of you to come along, and some have gone, many are way, first way ahead. I'm on the beginning, but I'd like to say, this is the way it is. I remember saying, this, that's really what you're for. I remember being caught up, as it were, in my spirit, glorious life, human, like an altar, which had the sense of God centralized. I couldn't only do it with my arms, sleep, and God would wake me up, and I knew God, and my arms would automatically go up like this. I didn't try to, but they went up, and I think the lifted arm is the symbol of aspiration and of worship, that becomes the symbol. Have you noticed in our architecture it's carried out? How many of you know the Gothic architecture? What is the Gothic? It's not the Norman architecture at all, it's the Gothic. What is it? It's your arms put up like this in the worship before God, and the cathedral is based on it. Those old cathedrals I visited in Europe, I noticed every one of them, those old Gothic things, what did they, they stand there as symbols of faith, the symbol of the aspiration of the spirit, and they always have, how many know that Gothic? Surely, well what is it? It's the aspiration made in stone, so it can stand there. The testimony, it stands there. It's a stone made symbol that even when man is dumb, the stones still cry out, where the hell is that aspiration? Well, I can remember every little while I would be caught up in like that sort of a, I call them pockets, the sort of thing I could call, caught up, and I would be in that pocket of aspiration and worship. I didn't want anything all the day. I would be busy, of course we're busy, and that's what stumbled me. I said, well, am I two people? I'm getting queer every day. I wonder if I'm two people. Now there's one of me that's there, and I know it's there, but here I am getting breakfast, washing, raking the lawn, mending my socks, going to the store, but I thought, well, how can I be? I think it's like this. I think he lets us in spirit, which is the essence of our reality. We are the spirit. It's a conscious entity. I think he lets us just have a momentary catching away to the thing which is to be, you see, because it's an anticipation, and I risked it, as it were, in that pocket, and I could be busy with things, and I could just stop like that, and my real, is this getting queer, or is heaven's thing telling me? I don't know if I'm getting off the handle or not. Identify myself with that. I could be just as conscious as though I were in heaven with this. Well, I think it's an anticipation of what God really wants, because that's what we were made for. We were made and designed and geared for the worship of God. All creation is unto one objective, the glory of God, the glory of God, and heaven is filled with it. All heaven is nothing but the glory of God, the glory of God, the glory of God. Now, that was the chief objective with all creation, everything, and man was made for it, and even in the garden, the very first objective that God had for them was to glorify him by doing his will. The idea of the responsibility of life was never a problem until after their failure. Never. It was never a problem until after their sin and failure, then they become earth conscious, responsibility conscious. What shall I eat? What shall I wear? How shall I do? They became conscious of all that after sin and failure, but never before. He had given them the supply. This is for you. Eat. Live. The burden was not there. Never intended to be. Never intended. But what was the objective? He says, this is unto the glory of God. Glorify God. I'll speak of it later. Your objective is to glorify God. The method or technique by which that is accomplished is to do the will of God, and when you will do the will of God automatically, you glorify him, and you give back to him again that which you were designed for. Now in the, after this period is over, here's where our spirits will be caught up. What do you mean to say then? You just stand before the throne of God, glory, glory, glory, glory forever and ever. Oh, don't be ridiculous. No. I'm telling the attitude of heart. Now, I believe through the eternal ages, there will be manifestations of life and ministry and cooperation with God and unfolding of things that we don't know. We don't dream. It has not entered into the mind and heart. The things which God has prepared, they're in abeyance, they're waiting, and if we can get through our schooling, if we can learn the meaning of being down here, what in the heavens did the Lord make us? Did he have an objective in mind? Was there any thought? Or did he just bore on us all, and we have to go around till we die, and if we believe in Jesus, we'll something. That's nice. That isn't it. The Bible doesn't teach you. Because you've got some symbols which are representatives of spiritual things. You've grabbed hold of the symbol and lost the reality. The symbol isn't the thing. The symbol is a symbol of something. Then get the something. Don't run around with the symbol. The symbol, the picture isn't the thing. It's the best thing that it can be produced for us to catch the glimpse of the reality, which is abstract, but it's not tangible. But we only know it through that eternal period ahead of us, how little we dreamed what God has. It has not entered into our hearts, minds, and thoughts, a preparation of the unfolding of the eternal. No. But we can be united to it. We can be brought into a conscious. I said it last night. I am caught up in this divine. You have to be birthed to it, born to it. Flesh and blood cannot enter into it. That which pertains to my mundane, earthbound period, that can't enter into it. It's not supposed to. He says it's a new creature. No longer to here, but it relates itself to the there. So we've become strange creatures. We're creatures of two worlds, and we have to live in two worlds. Isn't that right? The real thing that we are lives in a world that's different from this, because that is its point, its place of light, illumination, and strength. But we have to have our field here in a body filled with action, filled with the commerce of living, filled with the display. We have to have that, because that's our school. That's the field of our demonstration. That's the field where we pour out into actual, tangible, visible form the thing which we receive, seated together with him in heavenly place. That's where we are truly seated. But we're down here eating bacon for breakfast. It's good. He wants that balance. But it is not here. This is fleeting. I think it's one of the oldest universities in Scotland that has an over-the-door carved in stone. It's just as I thought. Well, this tomb that we're so involved in down here will pass away. But we become enamored. We become possessed of the thing. I've said sometimes to students, and it's fortunate the Lord can keep us all poor. I said never ask for possessions. Well, why? Because if you're not careful, the possession will possess you. It has a nasty way of grabbing back at you. And as you take it, you think, oh, I'll take this for the Lord. See, but now, wait a minute. We've seen that. That's the impulse of your heart when you don't have a million dollars. Oh, if I could do it, I don't know if would or not. Because I don't know how safe I am. I know under the inspiration of sense, of need, and the fact that that could be communicated to the need, I know that. And so I say, oh, shit, a million dollars. I hope, I think, I sometimes think, because sometimes right now with the limited stuff he gives me, it doesn't matter. It doesn't let me get married to it nor attach to it. No, they are, I call them conveniences and accidents of life. That's all they are. That's all they are of sorts. But now don't get fanatical and say, well, if that's the way it is. No, don't do that. You can't. We say, I'm here, Lord. He says, that's right. Accept life, but accept it in me. Then it'll be safe. Otherwise, we're not safe. Because the possession, it'll possess you. And before you know it, you're under bondage to it. You can't do, you can't come, you can't go, you can't sit down, you can't stand, you can't do anything while you are possessing. Well, how do I have a license? That isn't reality. This is the school of it, the school of it. It's all reactionary. Strange spirit that we are, set free in the world down here. It's a very strange thing. If it was given a place to live in, in the bodies that we have, we didn't choose them. We didn't sit up the night before we got born, make out what we thought we'd like to be. And neither did God sit up the night before you got born. He breathed the life into a broken mold. And the mold, he did not break. The mold was a perfect thing when he created. His joy was to continue. Everyone's got born in a crooked, broken mold. And he doesn't blame us. He doesn't say, why did you get born that way? Because he knows. Now, don't mean he justifies and is happy with us. No, he gave his son and a tremendous redemption that we wouldn't have to. But as long as we keep identifying ourselves with that thing and its limitation and its earthbound thing, that Paul didn't, he saw the secret of the joy of his heart. To be one more little instrument that can gather up. And your interpretation of the will of God has to be uniquely personal, individual. And the will of God flashed down upon you. You pick it up and say, thank you, Lord. Is this my pattern? Yes, this is your pattern. It is my will for you. And if you walk in this pattern, in its obedience, you shall glorify me in peace. And so we grasped the consciousness that that's the will of God. Well, we didn't choose it. We didn't choose the broken mold for our being. And I cluttered up saying here, no, the real thing is living and moving, having our being in an infinite God, related to him as a father, related to his, and the Holy Spirit is the dynamic and the power of God in me to make this thing live. Anyone thinks the experience in life is dead sortable, consent to truth. It's the most dramatic thing that I know. It's the most arresting. I've lived 70 years. I'm 70 years old. I've lived 70 years. And as I get older, I can see it more and more. It's the most daring, dramatic thing that ever comes, that a soul should be born into consciousness and can touch God and live. Oh, to me, that's terrific. But it's good to, um, to become conscious of it. So I have been, you have too, had those strange, there, there it is. That, that's, I often say, Lord, that's where my spirit, my body, Lord, I have to move along. I have to do all this. But this is only in my body consciousness. My real spirit is with you. Isn't that nice? My real spirit. My real spirit there is like a little votive candle that's burning before the altar. This represents, this is my votive candle. See what I mean? Or don't you? My little votive candle. But my body, while we live, not in the thing. Life, we have to become disciplined. We have to unlearn. Oh, I brought that little quotation for you. I found it when I was looking. It just makes me think of it. And I'll read it to you. I think you'll enjoy it. I just, I like it. So this is a translation from Terstegian's little poem called My Task. This is what he discovered to be his task. He was no Christian mountain mystic. The one who loved the Lord. He lived many hundreds years ago, but then it didn't matter. He found the reality. And so he reduced his philosophy of life to this simple little poem. And I want to read it to you because I believe it's what we have all found. But I'd like to have somebody say it for me. And then when he says it, I said, this is it, Lord. He says, to learn and yet to learn, whilst life goes by, so past the student's day. And thus be great and do great things. Die and lie embalmed in praise. My work is but to lose and to forget. Thus small, despised to be. All to unlearn. This my task before me said. Unlearn all else but thee. Isn't that nice? Unlearn all else but thee. I like that. Such a contrast. You see, the earth spirit is possessive. It doesn't mean just possessing money, but the earth spirit is grasping. It's possessive in the sense of fame. You want to grasp it and hold it. Name, hold it. Wealth, hold it. Glory, hold it. Possessive. That's the human spirit. That's the natural man. He's made that way. He's grasping because he hasn't found the reality that he must hold. And he's still grasping at the bubbles and the young realities. That urge to retain, to hold. It's in him. So if it's not focused, if it has not attached to reality, it grasps at everything and he calls that life. Now I'm living. No, you're not. Jesus said life consisteth not in the abundance of anything which you grasp and hold. Because it's automatic. It will hold you and retard you. Life is not holding. It's losing. It's losing. Losing. Let it go. Lose it. Don't let it have power. Lose it. Lose its power. Glory, let everyone lose it. It's a perishing thing. I love that hymn. You like it too. I lay in dust, life's glory dead. Isn't that a sweet line? What a philosophy. I lay in dust, life's glory dead. And that's why he's saying here, same philosophy. Not to grasp, to hold, but to lose, to forget it. What is that? Life consisteth not in the abundance, the ability to hold, to acquire anything. Most people think that means money and houses and lands. No, no. He's not talking about that. He said life consisteth not in the abundance of anything. Anything is a rather inclusive word. He didn't say life consisteth not in houses and lands and money. No, that, that's not it at all. Life consisteth not in the abundance of anything that holds you. So let me read this again. This is the average to learn, that is to grasp, to get, to have, to learn, and yet to learn whilst life goes by. So cast the student's days, and thus be great, and do great things, and lie embalmed, my word, is but to lose, to forget, thus all despise to be, all to unlearn, this task before me said, unlearn all else. But the call to task, a nice little translation that I think is, now I'll give you some scripture verses now for this next, next voice that we hear. I've been already telling it out to you. How many are conscious it's the voice of the world, or have you, have you, have you been conscious that's the voice of the world that clamors at everyone's ears, that taps at every door, that sounds in every spirit? So your next voice is the voice which we should have to learn how to interpret. It's the voice of the world, the voice of the world. The other one was the voice of all creation, telling us God, God, God, explaining, telling us, proclaiming God. Now we hear another voice. This is the voice of the world, which is the most persistent, and is the earliest to be heard, because it relates so, so directly to our earthbound life. It makes us appeal to it. Now here's some approaches, and the things which I've jotted down as little notes for us. It's the loudest too, if you know, by the way. You know, the voice of the world is the loud clamoring voice. What is the voice that we are to hear? A still, small voice, utter contrast, utter contrast. But the voice of the world is, I don't, well, to me it sounds, it's vulgar, like it's loud and brazen. Of course it has very pleasing trappings, that's all right, but that's its mask, that's its disguise. But the inner quality of the voice of the world is brazen, it's loud, boorish, because it just thrusts itself at you. It thrusts itself at you. That's the voice of the world under all these masks and disguises, and you know, I want to give you, I've got, let me see, I have four here. You can get a lot of them. I just happened to hit on four of the forms or patterns which this voice of the world may take, and you know, he's so clever. The director of the voice of the world is the enemy, of course, of our souls. He's the antagonist of God, and he's so very clever that he allows it to make its appeal to us through all legitimate things. Every one of them is a legitimate thing, and a thing which God takes into consideration in our life and has a part of it. Every one of them. But you see, when the enemy takes those things and places a wrong emphasis upon them or throws them in a distorted pattern, he gains a victory. Now here, for instance, is the voice of the world. This is one. We'll say it comes to most people as the business of living. I call this business. Now I don't mean going into business selling neckties. I don't mean that. I mean business in the sense of legitimate commerce in the world. The come and the go, the play, the take, whatever form your vocation takes. Now he'll come in that. He'll come in that. But you see, in the world, without any vision, without any consciousness of God, that usurps the place of the voice of God who wants to speak to the soul. He listens first to that voice. It occupies him. It's the voice of the world in what I call the business of living. That which should occupy you, which is right. There's a place for business, I call it. I mean the commerce of living in every life. We are not angels living on a planet. We're here. We're in the world. We're eating and coming and going and wearing clothes and getting a living. That's right. But when that voice of the commerce of the world of our coming and going usurps the place of the voice of God for its direction, it has won a victory and we come under the power of it. The power, we call it the business. Now look at the world today. Did you ever know a world period in which just the plain business of living occupied such preeminence? Everybody is so busy, they're living. They're living with a consciousness of things, business, money, position, better wages, more coming, more going, a better television than last year and a new model. Well now listen, not one of those things in itself is wrong. There's nothing wrong in any of its dogs. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong and damning and that's a dog. They're all right. They're legitimate. But living, life consists of not. Seek ye first the spiritual adjustment and all this living will find its right pattern. Seeking first the seeking power in us to live. The seeking element in a man to live is normal. Otherwise he'd be a lazy sort of a fool. But we may be intelligent to adjust ourselves for the time being to life in a right pattern. We if it's out of proportion, if it's overemphasized, we lose the rhythm of our living and we allow a thing which is legitimate in its first thought and it becomes obsessive. I know of a person, I'll say now say for instance in the business world. I grew up with him. A fine boy, good moral boy. But he got the idea of business. He went into business. He made money. Then he made some more money. And of course, you're supposed to be a Christian. Then he made some more money. He married. He built a very fine home, very beautiful home. And then he invested a little more. Well, if he had done that for the really the glory of God, that God was getting the whole thing and he's getting 2% for himself, that would have been quite fine. But I don't think God got the 1%. But he justified himself by his reinvestments. You see, he never did a thing wrong with it. Never gambled, never did what we would call the wrong moving of it. So he invested his money with two others in a big concern. Being an honest boy himself, he was every bit of him was thoroughly honest. He thought everybody else was honest too. Guileless, you know. And he had made his money in a right way. He'd worked hard for it. And so he went into business, you see, with the other two. Thinking, of course, everybody was as guileless as he. Bogs, the world's full of scoundrels, don't you know that? Not knowing that's the first thing you know. His investments began to go down, down, down, till the thing was almost nil. But what was it? It was his home, but now it had to be mortgaged to help meet the debt of the company. Well, what happened to it? Well, you see, by hearing the voice of the world through his business avenue, which was right and good in itself, had deafened his ear to anything of God, that when tragedy strikes, he hasn't any God. You see, he never had God in the consideration at all. Well, what did he do? He went out in the garage and hanged himself. That's all he could do. The blow was too severe for him, because he had a face, you see, before all these business people and friends, he had a face which was so-and-so, and to have loose face in the fact that he lost everything. He never got drunk, he never gambled, he never did outrageous sins at all, not a thing. But his life ended in a tragic, horrible ending, because he'd heard a voice that dominated him. It was the voice of the world taking a business form, which was legitimate. But you see, by and by, his possessions possessed him, and he lost his grasp. Now you can take that in any field, you take it in any seeking. Look at the people who hear the voice of the world in some, now here's another one, say pleasure. Well, now let's finish this one on business first. What did Jesus say about business? Well, when he was only 12 years old, he recognized the fact that he was born and brought here for a business purpose, didn't he? And he said, no ye not, I should be about my father's business. I mean, the activity, the flair of my expression in life in relationship to God, I've come to do that. That's my demonstration. That's my business pattern. It's all right, but when it's out of focus and out of line, it has an ungodly grasp on the life, and it ends in tragedy and trouble. Nothing wrong with business, not at all. But some feel, you know, just as soon as you become a Christian and seek a deeper life in God, one becomes spiritually minded. You make that pattern. You have got me in this. This is yours. Now show me how to handle it. And if you want it, you can take it. And I'll walk down the street with $5 in my pocket. But they aren't brought to that path. Now look at the voice of the world in what we would call the pursuit of pleasure and agreeable living. People have that all the time too. Look at the playboys and these women. What was that woman's name? Zalzar or Zuzu or Zozo or Boo Boo. I remember it was in the paper only just a few days ago. Anyway, she was one of the wives of this rocker. But they have all this pleasure. They're trying to find this adjustment in God, which should be in God on the lower level of something which is left. But pleasure is not wrong. Recreation isn't. It is wrong. There's no pleasure of it, of living. Nothing. At my right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. But where is the pleasure? It's in the consciousness that it's related to the Lord, even at his hand's breath. At my right hand, I'm not asking you to become a nun or a monk, shut up, in a stone prison house. I'm asking you to live a perfectly normal, healthy life. And in it, you'll have business to occupy you. But let it be so that you are not under the power of it. But it's held in abeyance to God. He wants it. He wants that. God would like a lot of real businessmen today. He would. There's a place in the business world for that. It's a little idea that you don't have to be normal, have the business pursuit, but it's held in God. It's held in God. Pleasure. Have pleasure. How? I have them as God dishes them out to me in his right hand. At my right hand, there are pleasures. I don't want you to go through life numb and dumb with no joy, no relaxation, no opening to the wonder of God. But when it matches you, it's the voice of the world, and full, in a room, five minutes, unless I gotta get some kind of a thing, more powering, have pleasure. But let it be. I'll give you all that you need. How many know God can give you some of the most marvelous, thrilling things right in him that satisfies every thinking? They're far more thrilling to me than looking at the thing played by proxy on a screen. How many know most of the people don't like to live themselves. They like it lived in someone else or through. Most of the living today is all a vicarious living. The man is too lazy, really, to play ball. So he pays so much to go and see the ball all played for him, and doing the things which he really would like to do and should do. Disappointed people who can't take the frustration or what I call the denial, they'll substitute by going to a movie and seeing it all rehearsed, that they can get the emotional reaction sitting in the seat that's thrown on a screen. How many know that's true too? Of course it is. Why do they have this? It's because that has to be done for them, the lazy thing. And he doesn't live at all. He's living by proxy. He's living by, well, it's a substitution. It is. It really is. I know one person who has had a rather disappointing fare in her romance, and she's satisfied the disappointment by going to any of the movies that Carrie, they always know because she's there. Well, I always think, poor dear, you're trying to get what you didn't get. So you're getting it on a screen to recapture the emotion. Is that right or isn't it? It's right whether you like it or not. These analysis are terrible. So I'm rather analytical. I'm rather analytical, but I get somewhere after I see through this thing. I must be about my father's business. That's right. Pleasure. There are pleasures forevermore. Captivating things. I'll look at them. Here, for instance, is this idea and this pleasure thing. Here's another thing I noticed I think is rather good because we're all made this way. We're all human. With some it's a little more pronounced. Did you ever notice that the fact of the necessity of pleasure and a release, an outlet, we were made for it. Man was never made to be wound up and just kept under one intense pressure of living, living, living, living. We were made that we should have outlets. We're made. We are extroverts. Dr. Rogers was my Hebrew master. I did my Hebrew work under him. He's a very gifted scholar, very fine. He lectured in Oxford almost every summer. They dragged him over to England, and they paid any sum to him. I have the joy of sitting. I'll tell you something and you'll know it too. Do you know there's a dispensing of truth and a dispensing of life through a dynamic personality, sometimes even more than the book that you study? Now, I've forgotten much that I learned. Technically, I've forgotten. Of course, I'm rusty. That's 34 years ago. I'm rusty in that, but the impact of that man upon me, that's never left. The impact of that personality given to God left something on me, and I carry it around with me. It's still on there. Dr. Curtis was the same. I gained more from those two men. They were mighty men in God, too. It was years ago before a lot of the higher criticism and all that German philosophy got over here. It was before that. They walked in the simplicity of the old orthodox fundamental thought of God and redemption. I was glad to get under them, get their teaching, but I learned a lot of things from Dr. Rogers. Here's one talking about the legitimate flair of the out, the out fart. One day, he came into the class one morning, and he was always very meticulous. He had a great beautiful red rose here on his lapel. Well, imagine the professor coming in. You're all smiling, aren't you? Of course, he all felt sheepish. He said, I know why. He says, you're quite ... He says, I have a right to because this is one of my ways out. There are two things I want you to remember. Never be ashamed to be sentimental. Imagine a dry old authority on the ancient languages, a world authority, a world authority. He always was in Europe at all those council tables on the early translation. He could read all those. Imagine him saying that the sentiment must be in its place. Never get so booked and so firm and so deep that you can't open to a sentimental thing. Now, he says another is, don't be afraid to have a hobby of some kind, which is your outlet. I said, this is my outlet. This is my hobby. I'll tell you why. I get very tired sometimes in intensive work. He was a great student. He says, I have to have a place of release. I have to get out of it. He says, I do roses. I know the soil, the proper soil, the combination of soil, the kind of roses, what one rose takes. I have done that now for a number of years until that's my outlet. That's my hobby. He said, boys, what's your hobby? Well, nobody wants to own up. Well, have one. Let it be a legitimate thing because he says that's a good avenue of escape. Have the escape. Nothing wrong in that, but don't let that master you so there's nothing left in life, but that thing overgrown, but carry it to its place. I remember so well, see him coming down the side aisle. And now just that morning message gave me two things that I've not forgotten. I'm glad to have known and to have seen it. Have something that interests you, that entertains you on the outside. Oh, but you're so holy and so consecrated. No, be holy, be consecrated, fall in love with God, and at the same time say, Lord, isn't this a wonderful rose you helped me get? Share it with him. It was his outlet. But some are afraid, even of lovely, the little pleasures that he gives us. I remember speaking in a camp meeting and it was a dear soul there, a woman who had been wonderfully used of the Lord in what we call pioneering. And she had done some pioneering in a country where there was a great display of God's handiwork. It was phenomenal, like Yosemite, where people go miles to see what they should. And casually I said to her, I said, Mrs. So-and-so, Sister So-and-so, did you ever see So-and-so where you were? It was right by Yosemite. She was very holy, very sanctified. And sometimes she scared me. And she just turned to me and she said, Brother Fulett, I didn't go to lay my life down there to see the scenery. I went to save souls. Well, that shut me off. Well, I thought, why not save the souls and see the scenery too? But she thought she was putting herself, you know, in a very dedicated place, a very dedicated place. I didn't go. Well, I thought you wouldn't be what you are today if you'd only looked at it. Because there was a crampness in her and you could feel it. There was a bondage in her and you could feel it. There was no release. There was no freedom in God. Everything had to come into a little stereotype pattern of, um, oh, just kind of a morbid holy living. It was very morbid. No, she says, I didn't go to look upon scenery. I went to save their souls. It shot me right dead. Well, I, I don't think that. Do you? I don't. I really don't. I think that looked like a silly little child that was overdosed with responsibility, helping poor God out. And she couldn't take an afternoon and look at his handiwork and come back refreshed. Uh, I remember in school, this was demonstrated too. We were having, um, a lovely winter. Happened in Rochester, by the way. And, um, it was a good cold crisp winter and they were skating. It was good skating. And so the topic came up in the Bible school, where there are holy students and holy teachers. The idea of skating came up and they discussed it. And I'm, I'm right out flat. I never know whether I should scream the thing or shouldn't. I just generally get in and that's doing it. They said, well, let you skate. Oh, I said, I love it. They said, can you skate? I said, sure. I was apparently born on skate. I said, I've skated ever since I was that. I just think it's marvelous. Would you go with us skating? And I could begin to feel two or three of them. Holy, holy, holy. And I thought, well, now maybe if I go, they'll all lose their experience. Well, if somebody's experience in God hangs on a skate, you'd better give the skate a good shoot. Let it go. So I said, I would go. So these other ones didn't. And to prove it, they had skates. And I remember that boy in, he took his skates down and rolled them up and took them out and put them in the garbage can. A great triumph over skating here. And great victory. He didn't sing the doxology that I think inside he probably wanted to. So he just took those skates, poked them down. Poor sinners. I want to go fish him out and skate out. But I didn't. I wouldn't dare do that because then I would have gone to hell sure. So go this afternoon with the students and skate. And I did. I went, borrowed some skates and we went down and, oh, we had the loveliest time skating and all. We were so all fresh and happy with the good, fresh air. We came home. And that night they had a party and I'll never forget it. All those who had been doused got blessed, actually. And those three sat there dead as three mackerels. They couldn't even bless themselves. And I thought, I hope. So after that, they never said anything about skating. I went and looked and I never found those skates again. And I think secretly, he repented of his devotion. Well, now, pleasure is good. The joy of living is good. But it has to be tempered. Taking in God. God could bless us. And he did bless us. I used to go to the Y. Imagine though, we hadn't any place for exercise. You remember how shut up we were on 34 Long and then the East Avenue and just cooped up in there with a bunch of boys all sitting up in those rooms studying, studying. No exercise, no anything. And Stanley Rowe, do you remember Stanley? He was Dr. Rowe's son. Well, Dr. Rowe, of course, was a very fine physician in Brooklyn and they were a very fine cultured people. Well, they got the baptism. Of course, Stanley felt the call of God on his heart and he said, well, go get a hold of Glenn and go over there where he's teaching. So Stanley came to, you remember Stanley? So Stanley came to our school in Rochester. That's where I gave him his first year of training. And of course, he was sort of an athletic big boy, you know. And to be cramped up in that room all afternoon, he just felt... So he came to me and he said, say, Fletch, do you think it would be awful if we went over to YMCA and took some exercise every week and a good swim in the pond? I said, don't ask me. You know where I am. You'd better ask somebody that's under the law. I'd love to go. Well, so he says, let's ask Miss Sue. And she was sorry. So we went and I sort of fixed it in good color and I pled the cause of these boys who were cramped in the schoolroom, didn't have exercise. And I was putting in one for them and two for me because I wanted to go too. So, well, she says, I think if they're with you, you know how far to tamper with, how far to go with them. Says, I don't know. Pray about it. Well, I hope it wasn't that I wanted him to say yes, but he said yes. And so I went over to the Y and made arrangements with the gymnasium director. And he says, that's wonderful. He says, we're having a class here twice a week by the young theological students from the Baptist Seminary up the avenue. And he says, there's plenty of room on the gym floor if a few of you want to come. We didn't have to mix with a lot of fellows and people in the world and smoking and all that. We didn't have to mix with them at all. Here was a lovely class already organized of the young ministers from the seminary. And he says, we have room, would you like? We say, sure. So we brought all our apparatus and trunks and shirts and gym slippers and all the rigging, you know, and we had quite a nice little company. We'd go over every Thursday and every Saturday for a workout, we called it. And then we'd have a good shower, all of us in there showered and all jumped in the pool and had a little swim and come out. Well, now we did that and never, there was never any consciousness that this is worldly. This is like the people in the world. I didn't feel that. And I think I was honest and open to God. Neither did they. And God blessed it. I don't know why he shouldn't. There was a little relaxation with the joy and pleasure of fellowship. And then Theodore, Ruth Clifford, and I were very good handball players. I don't mean, how many of you know what handball is? You see, when you're caught with your stiff wall here and stiff wall and you have that hard ball to bounce and you have a glove purposely for handball and you bounce it against the wall and pick it. And then sometimes you glide up and pick it off the wall. Oh boy, didn't I like that. And we were both experts on the handball. It never hurt us. Pleasure. Well, there was a pleasure at his right hand. I believe it. I believe that was a pleasure which the Lord arranged. And he says, it's at my right hand. You want to have that pleasure? And we said, yes. We didn't get hungry. We used it. It refreshed our bodies, gave us strength and a real joy. So now here's the world calling. But look at those who can't take it. Look at the people who today are bound under, we call it the sport or the pleasure, voice. Just bound under. Bound under. They've never heard anything over the earth. Bound under. We'll use it. None of these things are wrong. Business, pleasure, schooling, and daily work. Pleasure, Psalm 16, 11. Business, Luke 2, 49 and Romans 12, 11. And he commands us, he says, be not flowful in business, be alive. Don't cancel it, but be in business and be alive, studious in it, but let your living be unto God. Now here's schooling, for instance. We were talking about this last night. The voice that calls for our, say, our education in schooling. That's good. But people can get under the power of it because it's fascinating. I like studying. I like schooling. I'm more or less a student. I like it. It's natural in me. I like it. Father was a teacher and student. It's in me. I like studying. I like it. I like studying. I like being, I like it. But the Lord had to stop it because I would have run, you see, I would have gone wild with it. I just want to take more and more and more and more and more. Well, you don't need the more and more and more and more. You trust God and he will give you what is sufficient to carry you in your pattern, in your pattern. Now, that's the question today with our movement. It's getting more, isn't it? More and more. Now, we'll turn, we used to have little simple Bible schools and some people even couldn't take them. And you remember when our little Bible school was almost poohooed by Pentecostal people because it was a place where you studied. And now that you have the Spirit, you need no one to teach you. Oh dear. Well, we had to fight through all that to maintain a little simple Bible school with a very simple course, but it was good, but it was simple compared with what they have now. But now, you see, more, more. I hope it won't get completely out of bound. I don't depreciate education. I do not. But I don't want it to be pushed out of bounds so the emphasis of the power of the Spirit and the necessity of the Spirit is lost. The Spirit can use a trained instrument where he can't use an untrained one. I know that you do too. God could do through Paul what he couldn't do through Peter. Both will have their rewards. But he had to select Paul because of that, the natural deposit in background. I've never known him to choose an instrument for singing the gospel and being blessed with that, unless they had a bird born in their throat. That's right. But he picked up that which was in the natural deposit, sanctified it unto God, anointing it and filling it with the Spirit, and it began to move to the glory of God. Paul moved to the glory of God because he surrendered unto death all that he did have in his schooling, and he was a real philosopher. Had he not come into the Christian teaching, we would have heard from him because he was a born philosopher. That's why God can use him to organize our Christian teaching as it is. He could do that. That's the way he is. But schooling is good, music is good, but see what it demands of you. It carries them into such a one-track thing after all. They are dedicated to it one thing, and that's their God. Great musicians are dedicated to it. They dedicate their lives. They surrender. They sacrifice. Don't you worry. Look at things they have to sacrifice, and Paul says it, for a crown of faith. Perish it. But they dedicate themselves to it. Well, the thing isn't wrong, but don't let it use up its place. We don't really have to have too much, because God can use even what's limited in us for the passions. I don't think he wants to make another Paul out of any one of us. He had Paul. He may want to make something out of us, but we can dedicate what we have. Now this business of living, it's summed up in this. Whether we eat, or whether we drink, or whatsoever we do, that's the business of living. Let it be done how? Under the glory of God, because he is the objective. This is lived unto God. I get a reaction because it's my way of living, of course. I get a living. That is it. It's lived under the glory of God. So there's the voice of the world calling its appeal to this natural man, daily living, Colossians 3.23. Now let me take up one more voice. I think we can handle one more. Here's one that's a little hard for us. Romans 12.11. Be not slow to go, but fervent in business. Well then, if he tells us to be fervent in business, how can the business and the voices go on? That's just it. That's just it. It is the legitimate thing, but it's the overemphasis. Now can you give me an illustration in the word where we see this very teaching that I'm giving this morning proved out? How many of you remember Demas? Remember Demas? Well he was a saved, sanctified, baptized, called servant of the Lord, and he worked hand in hand with Paul, Demas. But what happened? The text for that I'll give you in a minute. It's 2 Timothy 4.10. 2 Timothy 4.10. 2 Timothy 4.10. Well what has happened? Here is Demas called out of the world. He's brought into salvation, a dedicated spirit, baptized, and even in the ministry with Paul of such a caliber that he could work with Paul. Now we don't know how long he has worked in the ministry, but you know all the time there has been a voice sounding. You don't always twig the power of the voice. This is such a gentle, almost a re-echoing. But all the while Demas is ministering and working with Paul in the service. God bless him. Unconsciously, that way down somewhere in him, there is a groundwork of reception. There is something that can hear that voice. I don't care how frail it is. It's the voice of the world that's calling, and it finds a little echo in him. Now it isn't dealt with evidently, but it is allowed to vibrate. And he hears that voice, continues the ministry, hallelujah, he's blessed. But the vibration of the call of the voice of that world has echoed in his heart until it has gotten possession of him, and it is stronger than the call of God. It's stronger than the call of the service to which he is dedicated. And finally, he breaks. And he can't stand it in the presence of Paul anymore. He goes where he finds the satisfaction and the answer, the re-echoing of that voice. And these are the sad words that Paul has to write. For Demas hath forsaken me, having got drunk, oh don't, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica, Caesarea of Tychus, Tychus unto Elysium. What aeolism. Demas hath forsaken me. Because he got drunk? He didn't do a thing that you would call outrageously wicked and vile. But he heard a voice. Now the word there, the voice of this world, in our Greek, we lose the significance of a lot of things that Paul is teaching, and even the Lord, because we don't have very good words in our English to translate it. For instance, here we call the world, the world, the world. There are at least four different words to tell that. If you're talking about the world as a, as a, of the earth, the substance of the world, the earth, it's gay. Gay means the earth, the substance, the earth, it's a planet. Gay. That's world. We call it the world. Supposing you're talking about the world as the habitat of man, it's the world is the place where we live and have our activity. That's oikamini. Oikamini means the world is my home. That's where I live. Supposing you want to think of the world as God's creation, with all of its adornment, with all of its beauty, with all of its creation, mystery even. That's cosmos. Cosmos. But it's world. That's world. And it's translated world. But that means the adornment. You ladies ought to know this. Can you think of a word that comes from cosmos that means adorning? Cosmetics. Cosmetics. The same word. Exactly the same word. We get our word cosmetics from that word cosmos, which means the adornment, the made beautiful, the world, which is his handwork. It is his footstool. It is his handwork. Cosmos. Well, now supposing you're talking about the world, which is this one, the world, which has its dominating spirit. What is that? Age. Aion. Age. The spirit of the age, not the spirit of the world in which we live. Love not the world. Well, then some poor dear has to get holy so they can't look at the beautiful things like that woman couldn't. Love not the world. Don't look at his handiwork. He's using the word ion, which means an age, a period. Well, every age or period has a dominating spirit that corresponds to the period in which we happen to be living. The spirit of the age. We call it the world spirit, but it's the spirit which dominates in the world. Be not conformed to this world, to this age, with its philosophy, with its vision, with its objective. Don't be conformed to this world. Well, then people say, well, I can't dress like somebody in the world. I can't conform to this world. They're wearing ruffles and that's the world. And so I'm not conformed to the world, so I don't put ruffles on. How many feet, how many million miles that is what he's talking about. He's not talking about that at all. He doesn't use that word. He says be not conformed to this ion, to this age. Be not conformed to the spirit of this time. Don't be subject to its philosophy of living. It's always in antagonism to the thing that God is doing. And Demas having loved this present age, what the age had to offer him, he loved better than what God had to offer him. It wasn't because Demas liked an automobile. No, the spirit of the age had captivated him. And the spirit of the age, its philosophy, its outlook, its impact, its power, the spirit, we're all conscious of it. Everyone who's lived at all, a little while ago, how many of you know the awful antagonism between the simplicity of the spirit of Christ and the spirit of this age? Why it says, mine is day and night, day and night, absolutely. And he says Demas having loved this present spirit, the spirit of this age has captivated him. It wasn't that he got worldly and dressed like the world. Dear Lord, when will we ever learn anything? He's not talking about that. Having loved the spirit of power, what it had to offer him, appeal to him. Now I was thinking of that and I was asking the Lord about it. I said, well Lord, how does it come that a person can be saved, baptized, even in the ministry and serving as he, remember he's a human being. Yes, I will. Remember he is but dust. Yes, I will. But he's holy sanctified. He is dust. He's a human being. He's susceptible. Well, what made it Lord? Because in the searching out of his heart before the Lord was your army. You can't search it. Let him search it and let him expose it. Kind of pretty terrific. But you see, wherever there's anything in there as a possibility to have an appeal, if it's not dealt with, when the appeal moves, it may be months and years after your holy consecration and baptism and glorification. If that item in there, in the interior, I call it the interior life that all has to be laid and exposed to God. If there's any item in there, not wicked, but an item which is susceptible to this external influence and power, if that's not dealt with in God, it remains a dangerous factor. And when this thing sweeps, how many of you see it has something to catch on to? Do you remember that lovely testimony of Jesus? And when Satan came to him and threw over him all of the alluring things, he found nothing. How many see the terrific cleaning? How many see the terrifying cleaning of the interior that night? That there was not one thing to which this could make its appeal? Well, if that could have in the beginning been taken to the Lord and said, Lord, this isn't bad, but I'm afraid of it. I don't want it. I don't want it, Lord. It hasn't hurt me yet, but it's something. Deal with that, Lord. Deal with that. And if God can have a chance to deal with it, you're freed from a terrific thing that the enemy may involve you in, because that has been dealt with. And he came to Jesus and found nothing in him. He couldn't hook a thing on, because his life had been poured out before God, surrendered, in all of the searching, in all of the terrific trial, in all of the terrible temptation to which he was subjected. He came through, and after that temptation, all the inner convictions of the thing which God wanted, I think, were solidified. They were hardened like steel, so that after that temptation, though the onslaught was many times, how many of you know there was no flame? Now, that comes rather close to it, because if we're honest with God, sometimes he will show us a most trifling thing, which in the life of one, they would think might be bad, but in the life of another, it isn't as bad. Now, there are things that some people can do, I can't do, because I know it's dangerous to me. And to them, it is just silly. They have a picnic in that thing. I can. I can sail by, and have a victory in a glorious time, and people say, how do you do it? Well, God does it. God does it. But I have my danger spot. Now, personally, there is a line of thought in reasoning, and I reason, and I can't help it. Oh, let me help you with something. Right now, how many of you know there's a difference between rationalization and reasoning? Shall I help you with that? Reasoning is legitimate. Rationalization is dangerous. We have been given a reasoning power. That is, we should reason. Come, let us reason together, sir. Oh, let us discuss this thing. Let us look at it from every angle. You offer what you have, and I'll offer what I have. Let's discuss this thing. Let's reason this thing together. That's right. We should. We are reasoning agents. That's good. Now, when a difficulty comes, which in reality, we would like to defend if we could, although we don't know that's the basis of it, and it's very bad. But if it's a thing which we like to justify or defend, and sometimes we feel we have a right to, then we bring in a chain of thinking, an arrangement of thought to justify or defend that. That is rationalization, which is dangerous. That's a dangerous thing. When we rationalize, God had said to Adam and to Eve, no, hadn't he? That's definite. No. Now the enemy comes in and counteracts that. So, in his influence over her mind, she saw, she reasoned, she came into that scheme, to that net, and became involved. And in the real original, it is a deception. Well, now, how did he do that? Has God said, let me see, start a rationalization right away. So, rationalization. Did he say that? If he had said that, he must have meant this. He doesn't want you there because you will get this, and if you get this, you will be there. It's all rationalization to defend his deceit. And so, rationalization usually is the pattern for people who get into trouble because they will not be obedient to the conviction of what God says. I don't want you to go there. That's enough. But, Lord, this is here, and he goes there, and that is like this, and I would like, let me see, I'm going off right away. You rationalize yourself into a justification because you want to defend something. And I know people who can rationalize themselves into sin. Rationalize yourself into sin. And if it persists, the devil knows, how many know, there are a lot of people who think that black is white. They can do it. Black is white. Distinguish. Reasoning is all right with God in all our situations, but rationalization is usually the process we use to justify a point or to defend. Now, there are things I don't dare to think along because I know if I persist in there, I'm going to be defeated. I just know it. I know that. And just as soon as the temptation comes to think along that line, I just have to stop it. Well, why? Because that's one of those little catches that's in my makeup, that if that is not dealt with and handled and taken care of, when the swing comes in, it'll catch right on there. And I'll... He says, I'm going to do something very strange for that, and I wish you'd pray. And I said, why? He says, I have to throw this pocketbook into... I don't want to die. How many can see there was a reason? He says, as soon as I handle that, it arouses in me a whole chain of thought and difficulty. And if I am freed of it, I don't have the temptation to indulge in that. Well, now there's nothing wrong in a pocketbook, good heavens. But I'm used to something disastrous could come from it. And so he had to, what? Rid himself of it. He burned it up. I remember having some letters in a trunk. Now, they were not tied with a blue ribbon. They were not love letters, I'll tell you. But I had some correspondence, some letters. And I knew that if I undid them and started reading, I would be defeated. Is this silly or isn't it? Is it silly? I don't want to be silly. But that's an exposure. I knew that. I had them there. As I say, they were not tied with blue ribbons. It wasn't that. But it had a content. And I couldn't get through till I burned them up. I'm like a boy. I said, Lord, I'm not going to allow this to become a snare. There's nothing wrong. Nothing at all. But it can be used by the enemy as a little snare in here that when the temptation for something so-and-so-and-so sweeps over me, it'll catch on that and I don't want it. Burn him up. Burn him up. The voice of this world. Demon. Demon. He's forsaken me. He's left me. Because he loved this present age spirit and captivated it and it's defeated God's purpose. So there, we won't pick up anymore of these voices. There are a couple more. Do you like these voices? I want them to help you. I want them to help you. Because we're all very human and we're subject to these things. And when we get a little inner knowledge of what God is doing, it doesn't scare us. It doesn't make us afraid. Sometimes it makes us very shameful. I know we get very humiliated. Well, that's good for us. But it need not make us afraid. We can go to him. To the throne of grace. Bow to him. Blessing to you. Now, Lord, here we've been wandering around again this morning. Take the word. Bless it to our good. Make us honest with thee as thou hast desired to be honest with us. And may even the little lessons of this retreat be carried with us in the days to come. And when thou dost approach us to love us, to reveal thyself to us, to invite us to take still another step in the ways of God, we shall not hinder thee. The thought of God shall not be frustrated because perhaps of ignorance in us, but make us wise as it turns. Harm us as it does. Give us the insight into the realities that we shall profit by them. That in the end, thou shall be glorified. And each little light here shall become an instrument which reflects God and pushes his influence and power out over the face of the earth. When in body we may be hidden away, but in spirit, in prayer, the outpouring for the well-being, we may move. We ask it for Jesus' sake. I was just thinking, isn't it wonderful? I read it. I think it was a little verse. I wish I'd cut it out now, but I think it was a little verse. It had such a comforting thought. We are so limited. We're so bound. We have no great feel for our ministry. And it was the story of the tree. He was so bound, he couldn't move, but his only joy was that he could grow a branch that would throw a shadow where he never could go. So I've often thought how sweet. Grow a branch, many branches, which will cast the shadow where you will never touch, but you throw your shadow. Part of that I'm going to put, the teaching of that, I'm going to put when I finish my poem. Another poem to start. I love the soft gray shadows on the monastery wall. You know, these shadows, you know the old mission, and you know how a pepper tree planted near them can give the most elusive shadows. You know that. Those elusive shadows on the monastery wall. I love the soft gray shadows on the monastery wall. Soft shadows, elusive. And how they talk and what they say. Oh, I've got about that much written on it. And it's going to be about this tree, this pepper tree. And he sways and he swings. He never got over the wall into the court, but an old monk used to come and sit in the shadow to do his reading, the breviary. You know, the monk has the breviary, his everyday reading. He never saw the tree, the wall, which has a high. But he did so enjoy the shadow that was cast for its refreshing. Don't that make a nice bit of material? All of you pray that I get it out sometime. But I want to because I see some nice things in there. Nice things. I love the soft gray shadows. Did you give a fourth part of daily living? What's that? Did you give a fourth part of daily living? Oh, that was the fourth one, the daily living. That would be all done under the glory of God. Eating, drinking, whatsoever. You see, that's a general occupation of life. It's focused in God. Do you want to sing a little chorus? A little chorus? Yeah, now that's right. I'm going to have you learn Bride of the Lamb. I'm going to read this and then we're going to have the companion song of the one we know. Bride of the Lamb, only take me where Jesus is. Thy home is called Bride of the Lamb. So I'll hold these verses. Do you want to try it? You know the tune so well. Then let's sing it. Don't you like those words? All these words are just beautiful. Now this character's way back. Oh my God, this song is difficult. That character's 40 years, but it's still going. Now it's Bride of the Lamb, here this morning. One only take me where Jesus is. Thy home is called Bride of the Lamb. I would say you lose the philosophy. But all that, I'm just glorious to it. With every crowd, not for our sake, but because it's ours to share. Thou wouldst march amongst us. Exultation or an upheaval in our life in any way. All those high things in us that exalt themselves against the Lord. All those high places of resentment. And my dear, you know I know the resentment that is in our hearts against the Spirit of God until God begins to deal with us. We think we're yielded, but when God begins to deal with us on certain lines, then we find out how yielded we are. And we want to reason God out of the thing that he's asking of us. And the claims that he's making on us. And his will that is being laid on us. We'd like to reason with the Lord. And maybe he doesn't understand our circumstances. And we find in a certain resentment that we didn't know was there. And rebellions that we weren't conscious of. Little do we realize the far-reaching effects of the fall in our natures. We have no conception of what the fall has done in us until God, by his Spirit, exposes the old nature. And we see the depths of the curse. But I'm so glad far has the curse is found. Hallelujah. So far has his redemption reached. And he can bring down that exalted thing in us. The thing that raises up its head against God. He don't mean to be rebellious. We don't mean to be resentful. God. But we just don't really realize what the curse has done to us. And we must bring it to him. The thing in reasoning and I can see a mountain there. But the Lord's every one of them. I'll make a way. I'll make a way. A way through to us. God can take even our mountains and make them a blessing if we'll let him. If we'll let him. Don't fight with yourself. Don't fight with yourself because of what you find in you. God doesn't condemn us for what we are. When he came and picked us up, he knew what we were. He knew what he was picking up. He knew what he had set his love on. He loved us with a never-lasting love before we knew anything about God. Before we had set his love upon us, he knew exactly what he was picking up. And he knew he was able for that lump of clay. He could bring down those mountains. That was a little thing with him. Oh, just think out there, out there in the physical world. How long would it take God to deal with this ridge of mountains out here? The psalmist tells us of the mountains shaking and quaking. Oh, Sinai, he says, what's the matter with you, Sinai? Why are you shaking? And all the foothills around Sinai, he said, look at them. They're skipping like little rams. What's the matter with them? Look at you, Jordan. Why do you stand back? Why does the Red Sea act as it does? Look at nature. Look at creation. Look at it trembling and shaking. What does all this mean? Oh, says David, I understand the presence of the Lord has come down. And when God comes down, nothing can stand before him. We want him to come down, don't we? We want him to come down and move on my mountains and my little hills, however little or however big that he can bring them down and prepare a way for the Lord. Make every crooked thing straight. Make it straight. We don't see the way we should see. Aren't you glad when God straightens out our crooked thoughts? When he turns our ways that we understand the ways of God. Paul thought he was doing God a favor when he was persecuting the church. He thought they were just a bunch of upstart fanatics and he thought he was doing the religious world a favor and would do God a favor if he'd throw the whole crowd of them in jail and get rid of them. Well, God just laid his hand on Saul and picked him up out of the dust of the road and told him that there was a man in the city who lived on straight streets. Well, from that time, Saul was an entirely different man. God says you shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free, free from all of our ignorance, our ignorance. And we may be fighting for something dogmatic about something. We're so positive of it. We're just so sure about it. We just stake our life on it. And it can be just as wrong as can be, just as wrong as can be. But God is faithful. If we're honest, if we're honest and want to know, God in his faithfulness will come and just a little ray of light. Oh, God, I didn't know it was like that. But he'll let us know. He'll let us know. He'll make the rough things in us plain and our old desert to blossom like a rose. All the dry waste, arid, barren, unfruitful places, he'll make it beautiful with his glory. The desert has its own beauty, hasn't it? It has its own beauty. It has its, its, all the depths of possibilities. How many times in passing through the desert someone will say, I wonder what would spring from this soil if it just had a little moisture on it. I've always wanted to see the desert in bloom. As many times as I've gone from the east to the west, I've never been able to pass through the desert just at the right time to see it in bloom. Well, that's all right. If the Lord wants me to see it in bloom, he'll let me see it in bloom. But, oh, within you, the desert within you cries out, doesn't it, to lift up something to God, just to lift up to God. Oh, just something, something that is a result of his seed, something that is a result of his spirit. For whatever the desert produces, it is nothing of itself. It's the moisture of heaven upon it that calls forth out of it blossom and bloom. May God send upon us the moisture of his Holy Spirit, the dews of heaven, the rains from above to water our earth, cause it to bring forth for his glory. He says he will. He says he will. So don't be discouraged. Just be comforted, be comforted, and commit your whole earth to the Lord, that the glory of the Lord might be seen upon us. In the name of the Father, say it with me, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain shall be brought low, the crooked shall all be straightened, the desert blossom just like a rose. Father in heaven, Father in heaven, we thank thee. Father, we thank thee. Father in heaven, we thank thee. He laid thy word upon our lives. We lay it upon our earth. We lay thy word upon our upheavals. We lay it upon our barrenness. We lay it upon our disappointments and our fears. We lay thy word upon our past. We claim it for our future. We take it for tonight. Oh, we would wrap it around us. We would clothe ourselves in it. We would gird up our loins with it. Oh, Father, we want to eat it and drink it until thy word is made life and truth and real within us and the way of the Lord is prepared and his glory shall be seen upon us. My Father, speak the word only. Let the dues of heaven fall upon us and the word of the Lord come to us. We ask for a visitation of God. Blow, oh breath of God. Oh, blow upon us all winds of heaven that came into that upper loom upon that assembled host, oh God. Oh, wind, sweet wind, sweet, pure, holy breath of God. We thirst for you. Our parts of earth wait for you to come. We lift up our faces towards you and long to feel the breeze of heaven blowing in our face, cooling and refreshing. Our higher being, send us the light of rain. Pull out thy spirit upon us. Bring the clouds over us. Let them come over.