In this sermon, the bishop encourages the students to trust in Jesus during their test, assuring them that if they write Jesus in every blank, they will be 85% right. He emphasizes the importance of knowing and experiencing the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering. The bishop then reads from Galatians 5:16-17, highlighting the freedom that comes from the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. He warns against relying on religious rules and rituals, emphasizing that true spirituality comes from the Holy Spirit. The bishop also discusses the conflict between the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit, emphasizing the need to choose the spiritual path. He concludes by addressing the hindrances to the death of the old self, such as self-will, pride in knowledge, and reliance on human reasoning. The sermon emphasizes the importance of faith and the need for a better promise than worldly possessions.

Hallelujah. Oh, it's been a good day. I don't think it can do anything but get better as we just come to love and to worship this great God. You know, I don't know, except you read back through the history of things, the Old Testament, the law was the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. You know, Calvary sits right between Malachi and Matthew. Malachi is the book of failure. Everything had failed. Everything that was sensual had failed. Those awful words, you're cursed with a curse. That marks the Malachi. But then you have the new beginning in Matthew. There's no more of them. They found the ultimate. Christ is all or all is nothing. On the other side, Matthew, we have that new beginning of Christ. There is no more. There's no new revelation. All now is just learning Christ. And the great Apostle Peter wrote that everything that pertains to life in godliness is in the knowledge of him. Just learning Christ. That's a lifelong lesson of the believer. Learning Christ as our life. Everything that pertains to life in godliness is in the knowledge of him. But how little that Christ is taught today. There's so much that's come into the church that has nothing to do with Christ. But Christ is all. This is a book about Christ. You cannot understand anything in this Bible until you ask yourself the question, old or new, what has this to do with Christ? Only then can you understand what this Bible is about. What has this to do with Christ? To know him. I met him at 27 years old. I was anything but a Christian. We were never Methodist, Baptist, Catholic. We were just heathens. I was the first one in my family saved. A man told me later, that's the way God always does it. He starts with the worst. Then it's easier to get the rest of them. But you know, I met him. I grew up in a world entirely different America than the America I live in now. Those days was a very wonderful world. Poor people called us poor, but we didn't know it. Everybody was, so we never paid that into mind. A boy was taught that it's wrong to cry. That's what they taught him. A boy, you don't cry. And so, all of my life, he said, bite your tongue, whatever you have to do, but don't cry. Well, when my son, my firstborn came, that was in October, and I remember looking at him, and I began to weep. Because I didn't want him to be what I was. That was a big thing in my life. I didn't want that boy to be what I was. But I knew, ultimately, that's what he's going to be, and I knew I couldn't change him myself. In my lifetime, I'd turned over a lot of new leaves, and they're just as dirty on the other side. Nothing, there wasn't anything to be found in ourself. That was in October, but in January, when that boy was four months old, I met this Christ. For 59 years, I've wanted to know Him. That's all. I never tried to know who the Antichrist is. The Bible doesn't tell us, so I never bothered much with people that's going to tell me, because if I was to know Him, then God would have wrote it, so I never bothered. Then Peter helped me. That prophecy isn't something God's trying to make happen. You just stay with God, it'll all work out down the road. Now, you learn Christ. That's what it's all about. I was in Kyrgyzstan at the graduation of the School of Christ. We had about 60 students, and I'm going to give them a test. There's 101 questions, and they're very, very nervous, the students are. The bishop got up and said, I know you're nervous about this test. I want to tell you it's Clint Dennon's test, and if you'll write Jesus in every blank, you'll be 85% right. Amen. I was as fine a compliment as he could have paid to me, because I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable to His death. That's been the goal of my life, to know this wonderful Christ. I want to read from Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. And my message to you this morning, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free. That life has made me free. I come into a world that men want to make me free by the rules of religion. You know, they operate in the past. They look back, they saw that when Pentecost came, men talked in tongues. So they'll teach you how to do that. But let me tell you something, folks, tongues never gave the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost gave the tongues. They saw that we danced and worshiped God. And so now we've got schools that'll teach you how to do that. You know, all of this imitation of things has cursed us in our time. I need us to come back to the reality, back to Christ. That is reality. Father, bless the reading, preaching, hearing of the Word of God today. In the name of Jesus, thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. You cannot do the things that you would. Now, you don't have to go any further than that to find the trouble with our lives. It is the interference of this thing called the flesh. You know, we talk about worldly Christians. You may as well talk about a heavenly devil. There are no such things. We're born from above. There's no worldly Christians. We came out from God, and everything about our lives must come out from God. In the fall, not only was man cursed, this earth was cursed. And any time we allow the lukewarm, indifferent, the fleshly, the carnal, to function in that church, you give the devil rights in that church. He collects it for worship. That's what he's after all of the time. All of the time. That's what cost him his place. He wanted worship, and God threw him out. And now he's here. And the whole thing, you let him usher in that isle, teach in that Sunday school, sing on that platform, that carnal, fleshly, lukewarm nature, and you've given Satan rights in that church that he collects for worship. I know we give offices to try to keep people. No, that's not the way you keep people. You get them born again. This is not a fragile experience. You don't have to have an ice cream party. We need to stuff tracts in their pocket, put them on the street. Iron will come into their soul. Here's a man, totally, totally demon possessed, 2,000 devils in him. Jesus cast him out to drown 2,000 hogs. I know there's at least 2,000. There's one forever hog, maybe more. I don't know. But this man, born again. Born again. Totally born. That looked like a one-day crusade to me. Maybe two, I don't know. But the man wanted to go with Christ. He said, not on your life. You stay here, preach to these people what good things I've done for you. He wasn't worried about the man leaving this. He had something. You don't leave this very quickly. This is not a fragile something. You don't go to get saved Sunday morning and not be in church on a Sunday night. I mean, you don't forget this that quick. This is reality. And the only overcoming is to overcome yourself. Because it's surely as we, the body of Christ, are the, we the church, rather, are the body of Christ, that carnal nature is the body of Satan. I've pastored a church 35 years. And in those years, you can be sure the devil disturbed that church a lot of times. But he wore somebody's skirt or pants to come in there. He never come in as a spook. He had a body. He'd come in. He used a human to disturb that church inside and away. And so the overcoming process is to overcome ourselves, what we are now. Now, the modern religious mind has given us its own version of the true church. And it's a total misrepresentation of God. What they've given us is a total misrepresentation of God. The one thing which must always govern the teaching of the true church is that no man can be in that church that's not dead to sin and alive to righteousness. That's an ember. I'm going to talk about the entire sanctification. I know that this is both instantaneous and progressive. One day, I met Christ. I was born again. The Bible said Christ is our salvation. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 and 30 that God had made Christ. My sanctification. I didn't receive Christ over a period of years. I received him instantly. But sanctification, the progressive work of sanctification is a growth of that spirit. You cannot separate Christian education and sanctification. That's what's brought us to where we are today. We set the Sunday school 110, 150 years ago. I believe it was probably born in the spirit. But it's a long ways from that today. It's not teaching or discipling people that are born again. It's teaching ungodly people how to be religious without God. A great part of the Sunday school of our time is teaching men how to be religious without God. That's a tragedy of our time. We are all the way through. Now, we have those in the pulpit that have never, never been birthed of God. What a tragedy of our time. Since everything produces after its own kind. You know, the scriptures are very plain on this matter. He said, he that commit a sin is of the devil. Now, I want you to follow me closely. He that commit a sin. Now, the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ because you cannot serve two masters. The Bible makes that very clear. You can't live both worlds. But I see a church cross-eyed trying to live both of them. The great evangelist of the Old Testament said, Let the God that answers by fire. Let Him be God. If that veil is God, follow Him. If not, follow God. But you can't go to heaven and hell both ways. You got to make up your mind where you're going, who you're going to serve to get there. This is where God wants to bring His church back. Where we're focused with a single eye. That we know why we are here. We're not here to be religious or to keep religion alive. We're here to manifest the Christ. That wherever we are, He can ride airplanes, live in hotels, be anywhere because He is our life. Now, the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ. If the Son makes you free, according to the Word of God, you are free indeed. Now, that can be any way. That means not only in conversation, but in action. Free, where I go, what I do. It is the intention of God that this new creation grow where it commands the body and the soul. It takes that animal life and moves it. That's what the Bible means about saving your own soul. You see, that soul is prone to evil to the end. It's only as that new creature commands that soul can it be brought to God. And that's not done by the rules of religion. It's done by life from above. Now, when the indwelling Christ reigns in the heart, then sin no longer has dominion over you. Paul said in the sixth chapter of the book of Romans, he said, Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but you are under grace. We've come to a place now that that law has been written on the tables of our heart. It's the life of God. And now that life produces after its kind. As I learn to walk in the Spirit of God, then it's not I, but it's Christ that liveth within me. Now, the believer is commanded of God to be holy. Now, God never commands what he will not do. God commanded me to have the faith of God. That just simply means when I, in patient, total submission to God, cast myself upon Him, then that which is commanded comes from God. Amen. It comes from God. All He wants is us to will to do whatever He has commanded. Now, a believer is commanded to be holy, and he who has called us is holy, and we're to walk as He. We're to be holy as He who called us is holy, and the command of God is that we walk as He walked. Now, Christianity that rejects or makes light of the baptism of the Holy Ghost also rejects the truth of the entire sanctification. I've heard preachers preach, you've got to sin every day. Well, I'm not saying we're perfected, but I'm saying that it ought to be an uncommon thing for you and I to sin. That isn't the way we live. That's not the nature. Ever since I've been born again, that desire was perfected. I knew nothing about God. I went into that church one kind of a man. I come out another. I was running a drilling rig, had five men working for me, and they immediately said, What's the matter with you? You're acting different. Well, I didn't know the terminology. I said, I've got religion tonight. I didn't know born again. I said, I've got religion. Well, a Catholic man working for me said, I've had it all of my life. I never act like you act. But there's a new creature, a new birth, a new life. Things are different now. I'm not what I was. There's a new desire. And ever since 59 years later, you know, if I speak wrong to a man, I mean, if I let come out, there's not Christian life, there's a pain in that heart that says there is a perfection of desire, and as we grow in God, that desire becomes perfected in action. That's the process of sanctification. Now, those who plead for imperfection by preaching that you've got to sin every day denies the power of that cross to render that believer dead unto sin and alive unto God. That man that preaches this, I'm the true vine, Jesus said, and you are the branches. Now, this says that the life of the vine is the life of the Spirit of the branches, and the same fruit should come out of me that comes out of Christ. If this is Christ's life, if I'm full of the Holy Spirit and I learn to walk, and that's a process of life, learning to live by this life, this is not just Christ's experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is a life that I must learn to live. This is a continued education of life, learning to walk in the Spirit. The Bible said in Romans 8, 14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now, I married a very beautiful young lady at 18 years old, 62 years ago. Amen. She is at home today, but I married her. You know, after we got saved, and I read that in Romans 8, 14, I said, How can such a pretty thing as that be a son of God? She had nothing masculinity about her. She's an old lady. You know, there's nothing mannish about her. I said, How can such a beautiful thing as that be a son of God? Well, God has only one son to reveal, and if you walk in the Spirit of God, whether you're a man or a woman, it is Christ that's seen in that life. That is what makes us the son of God. It's God's Son revealed in our life, and I realize He looked better in her than He did in me. Amen. That's the way this thing works. Amen. As we learn to live and to walk in the Spirit of God. Now, knowing this great truth, the Apostle John wrote to all who say that they abide in Christ, that he ought himself to walk as Christ walked. Now, the Apostle John said, now that you have this life, then you should walk like Christ walked. Now, to say that this new creature who is in such union with Christ must be a servant of sin as long as he lives is to say that Christ must partake of your corruption. He doesn't do that. I said, He doesn't do that. No, no. I know we fail. You know, I had a man working for me. I tried him in four countries, and it just didn't work out. And so, I just had to let him go. I realized later that he had been sanctified and couldn't sin anymore. You know, he'd got behind all that. I want to know why he didn't walk on the water. You know, I mean, here you are. You already arrived and where I'm trying to get to. So, you understand where I'm coming from. There's a progressiveness about this life totally becoming our life. You know, that is the key. That's the growth of Christianity, and that's what spiritual education is. It's growth of the Spirit. It's absolutely nothing if it's not that. Now, to say that this new creature has partaken of that, then is to make Christ a part of that corruption. It is supposed that to describe this new creature as poor, blind, imperfect, and that therefore nothing perfect can come from him is supposed to be some kind of humility. You know, this is supposed to be humble. Amen. But the problem with this preaching is describing the old man. It isn't talking about the new creature. If any man be in Christ, there's a new creation. And two times the Apostle John said that he cannot sin. That new creature cannot sin. That's the testimony of this Bible. The only sin that ever is committed by a Christian when you, under provocation or some reason, allow that old man to come alive. See, there's two people in there. One of them cannot sin. The other can do nothing but sin. And if you don't know that, then the epistle of John, the first epistle, is a total contradiction to the human mind. Amen. You've got to know that to understand what the man of God is trying to tell us. Now, no man speaking by the Holy Ghost ever mistakes the old man for the new man who is created in righteousness and true holiness. You never mistake the two. You know when one's foot in the best foot falls. Always, if you know that. Now, the blindness that appeals to our fallen nature as proof of our weakness and corruption naturally rejects Christian perfection for the old man cannot attain that. He can never be anything but what he is. If he could be saved, he would have been. But in the fall, after becoming altogether a different man, then God created him. His spirit died toward God. It sank down in subjection to his soul and that man who was a spirit being become a soulish creature bound to his own appetites of the flesh. He become an altogether different man beyond ransom and God drove him from that garden which symbolizes the presence of God and said to him, your kind can never come back into this presence. That old creation. Now, faith comes by hearing, the Bible says. But the Bible says also that the just shall live by faith. How can a man live a just life if the preacher tells him it's impossible? If you hear from the pulpit that it's impossible to live this overcoming life. But the Bible said only the overcomer is going to be a part of that bridal coming. To him that overcometh will I give to sit with me in that throne. Only that overcoming life. Amen. Now, faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. How can a believer have faith to walk worthy of vocation wherewith he's called if he's constantly told he must continually seek? How can the overcomer come? I must know that this is an upward walk all the way. See, there's two words that describe this life. Ascension and translation. Ascension is instantaneous. You know, we're born again. Come into this life. But translation is ascension, you see. But translation, ascension ends in rapture. The translation, that's progressive. We walk with God. And if you're not living ascending life then you are not rapture material. See, because basically we've been raptured all the time. As we walk with God, it's an upward, onward walk with God. One day Enoch was not because God took him. But he said Enoch walked with God. That's an upward walk. All of the way, it's upward, that walk. Now, Satan is a father of wives and though his power was broken at the cross he lies to men about Calvary's victory and denies his own defeat. He's always, that's where he is. Now Satan could not have come up with a more clever way to keep Christian enslaved who would have big droves in them and tell them that it's a natural thing. You've got to sin every day. It's always got to be this thing in your life. Now, if our faith is to overcome the world we're going to have to have a better promise than the big lot that this has given us today. You know, we had a couple of young men go through the school in America years ago and on their way home they were talking about how God had so lifted them up. They'd been renewed. They'd learned things that they didn't know. They'd been revealed to the overflowing. And they stopped at one of those road marks to rest themselves and they were in washing themselves, washing their hands, and were talking about this perfection. And the man in one of the booths down there got out and said, I'm tired of hearing all of that. They said, sir, we're not talking. I'm tired of hearing about this perfection. There ain't no such thing as perfecting up completely angry. You see, it'll always be that way with the carnal and the unborn that leave their savings. Because they cannot move beyond what they are except by this life of God. I must learn to live this life and it is an ascending life. All of the time. Men ought to, every day, all the time, learn and see more of Christ in our lives. You know, except a man be born again, the Bible said he cannot see the kingdom of God. Words cannot be plain. Without this new birth, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Just as clear are the words of John, that which is born of God sinneth not. Because he has the nature of God. That old man has to be allowed to stand up if there's going to be sin in our life. Now, under provocation sometimes, we don't commit adultery, we don't steal, we don't lie, but sometimes we don't act like we ought to act. I'll tell that wife, I'm sorry, I said, no longer tell that husband the same thing. You know, I spoke unkindly, or those kind of things. When Paul said, the evil that I do, you know, that trouble me till I look that up. And the word evil, now that means those little things that happen to us, that's not really Christlike. One, that he's committing adultery, or killing anybody, but he lets those things cause that old man to rise up. Now, just as, you know, on the other hand, we have a truth just as unalterable. That which is born of the devil can do nothing but sin. He that sinneth is of the devil. That's that old nature. Amen. When that's allowed to come alive, then that's what sin is now. All questions concerning this truth of entire sanctification are answered in the great truth that both of these persons live in one body. That old man, that new man. That's where that warfare, that must be resolved, the flesh against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, these are opposites. And until we settle that warfare, then this is where all of the struggle of life comes. Now, the preacher teaches that this new creature must continue in sin, that grace may abound, is doing the devil's work. No matter who he calls himself, he's a Pharisee. The same one that Christ had to deal with. That says, how foolish to pray, give us this day without sin, if that isn't possible. And I said, if that isn't possible. How foolish is it? For us to pray such a prayer. If we overcome sin for one hour, then I can overcome sin for one day. And if I overcome sin today, I can overcome sin tomorrow. If I stay full of God, walk in the spirit of God, then I will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, the Bible doesn't mean what it said we're to see. But if it does, then the possibility is there in our lives. And that's what the world is looking for. They're not just looking for people that perform miracles, although that comes out of our lives, but people who are a miracle. That kind of a life is not limited. But people who are what they preach. We are what we are proclaiming. You know, how foolish to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, if those on earth who represent heaven must live in sin every day of our lives. Why would you pray such a prayer if such a prayer was not possible? Now, if the bullpen believes and preaches that Christians, as long as you live, must some degree or other be led by the lust of the flesh, lest I, the pride of life, why bother to pray to overcome if that's the way I've got to live and that's the way it's going to be? How has such a doctrine, as we've here discussed, found its way into the church? How has it done it? Well, number one, we haven't. You know, instead of life, we've made religion a set of rules. You know, we've learned what men do that are full of God and walk with God, how they act, they get happy, they dance, so we teach them how to do those things. But you can't long keep that old man down. You know, you may put him under restraint, but he'll keep breaking down. So, there's no possibility of living this, so we come up with a doctrine that you have to sin, which you're talking about the wrong side to that human being, the wrong side. As we grow and more and more to the image of Christ, that's a spiritual and moral image, not a physical, we'll one day have a body like his glorious body. But now it's spiritual and moral. And the more that I live the life of Christ, then the less of the failure of the flesh to be found in that life. That is a progressiveness of sanctification. Now, how or why? Because the church for the most part is no longer a habitation of God by the Spirit. That's the reason that this fleshly thing has come in, and the doctrines that we preach have become what they are, is because the church is no longer now a habitation of God. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is no longer believed to be mandatory it's optional in the Pentecostal church today. But this is a part of the ongoing salvation. The Bible said it's only as we walk in the Spirit that we overcome this flesh. And Paul listed there in the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians all the works of this flesh and said they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That's as simple as you can put it. But he said if we walk in the Spirit. But today it's preached optional. There are symbols of God in other great organizations by their own testimony. Only about 20% of them are filled with the Holy Spirit. Then you're no longer a Holy Ghost filled organization. No longer Pentecostal. See, God's Christ come to live in me by the Holy Spirit. When the Bible said in Matthew 28, 18 all power, Jesus said in heaven and in earth has been given unto me, unto Christ. Now in Acts 1 and 8 the Bible said you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Now the literal rendition is you don't receive a power you receive a person who is all power. Jesus said he that's been with you will be in you. And when you're baptized in the Holy Ghost you receive a person who has all power and if you're willing to die to who you are and let this Jesus live in the power of that light. So this is not optional. We're building together for our habitation with God out of the Holy Spirit. Now this never could have come into the church had we not lost that. The baptism is no longer a man's or it's optional. The faith of the church is no longer in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit but in worldly power fleshly learning and carnal wisdom. We've come a long ways when we tell a man you get so much education and you're ready to preach. They believe by education now I'm not making no appeal for ignorance folks. But I'm telling you that it's not word only. See Jesus said you search the scripture because in them you think you have life. You can know everything that Paul knew but you don't have what Paul knew. See knowledge is not possession. Amen. You can know all about God and go to hell. You've got to know God personally. He said. That's the key to this life. But that's all been lost. Now in the absence of the Holy Ghost the imperfection of the old man in worldliness gossip self-seeking pride, anger envy, division and immorality abound in the church as it does in any other fleshly institution. In the Corinthian church they were enamored by the power of this world and there was sin in that church that could not be named. That wasn't named in the Lord. Sin in that church. There's as much divorce in the church as it is outside of it. Of one of the biggest preachers in America a few years ago at his big mega church charismatic church finally confessed openly he's a homosexual. Now that's what comes out wherever you allow that world the works of that flesh to come. Show me a preacher more interested in a golf game than he is a prayer meet. Now show me a preacher got his eyes on somebody else's wife. Church you're in this building this morning you cannot allow the works of that flesh allow that flesh to operate without those works showing up in that church. And today every day every day there comes in the headlines that all of this filth has found its way in the church because it's a fleshly institution. It's no different. See but when it's of the spirit of God then it's God. That's all it is. Mr. Falwell is dead tonight but his moral majority which wasn't moral or the majority for the most part they were going to picket the holiday inns because they were showing 3X movies. I don't have no idea what all that is but they said they're going to picket them until they took those out. And the holiday inn said to him Mr. Falwell we'll be very happy for you to do that because we'd like the world to know that we sell more of them at a preacher's convention than any other. That's what we are. You love that flesh Ian. That's exactly that's exactly where we are. You know it is a fact that the basis of the Christian life is constant meditation on and a simple acceptance of everything this Bible said. Now that's the essence of the Christian life. But as Christ's work of redemption in the flesh was only preparing us for his indwelling work within us by the Holy Ghost. His time. Paul said we don't know that Christ in the flesh no more. But that was only preparatory to his indwelling us and living through us and doing his work through us. Amen. Now all of that. So the written word of God is only a means to all the inward teaching and powerful working of the Holy Ghost within us. So you just have a head knowledge of it changes nothing. I said it changes absolutely nothing. But it only reveals of what God wants to do by the Holy Spirit. It's fatal to rest in the mere letter without expecting through the indwelling spirit a real experience of all that the Scripture holds out to be. The truth. I mean it. I must. You know I look at the Bible I read the New Testament the book of Acts. I'm blessed. I thank God that Bartholomew received the sight that Mary Magdalene got rid of all the devils in her. And I'm thankful for what he did in that first century. But I don't live in the first century folks. I live in the 21st. I want to know is that God the same today? Is he the same today as he was then? And that will be when we come back to allow the Spirit of God to be the life of his church. Now nothing of divine love life or goodness can have birth or place in us except by the power of the Holy Ghost in our heart. None of it. Amen. They never one time took knowledge that those disciples had been with Christ until the day of Pentecost. And then God began to be seen in and through their lives because Christ had come back down to live his life in and through them. That's what the Holy Ghost is all about. Now the Bible should be revered as doing all that words can do to bring us to God. That is point the way to what God wants to do. But a mere knowledge of the word will not do that. There must be the Holy Ghost giving life to that word. Now the life given by Christ does not reside in Greek or Hebrew syntax. No, no. But in the quickening of the Holy Spirit. For the gospel Paul said is not preached in word only but in power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. It must be demonstrated alive. What a tragedy that we preach such a depravity in spiritual thinking and believing that a preacher is taught by a certain level of education to be fully qualified to engage in that ministry for which the apostles had to receive the Holy Ghost. That's where we are today. That a man by just learning now is supposed to achieve the ministry that the apostles achieved only by the Holy Ghost. God says by their fruits you shall know. The flood flood of immorality in that church is evidence absolute evidence the failure of man's effort to build that church apart from the Holy Ghost. The immorality the things in the modern Pentecostal church for the most part there's no connection between believing and behaving. You know they go to church on a Sunday but you don't know the difference between them and that world on a Monday. I mean it's all the same. We have discipleship that's come one hour on a Sunday morning. You'll hear some kind of a Dr. Phil message a psychological deal that has nothing to do with the changing of a human heart. This has become a religion of our time. The gospel is not preached that way. The only alternative to the Holy Ghost is the flesh. There's absolutely no other. With its scholarly worship of the letter which opposes the minister of the Holy Spirit therefore the Holy Ghost is not honored not sought after. The flesh and its programs and schemes abound in the modern church and so does immorality. So does a Phil that comes in with that flesh. Everywhere everywhere all the time. You know when I come into this Pentecostal church divorce in that church was scarce as chicken feed. It just didn't happen. You know there wasn't there wasn't no such thing. But we didn't have some psychological counseling. If you and your wife were not getting along in that church they'd get both of you involved. They'd say to you both you get right with God you get along with one another. Amen. The whole trouble is somewhere at the end of the beginning that I've had a man come into my office one day and said I'm going to divorce my wife. I said why? He said don't love her no more. I said then for God's sake man love her. Love not a thing is what you do. I said you treat her. Go back like you did when you started. I can tell you if you treat her I married a lot of them. I'd say if I'd married these two I just couldn't get there. I'd have told him I said now if you'll always treat this pretty lady like you treat her now when you're trying to get her to go home with you 60 years from now you'll be on a honeymoon. Amen. You'll always treat her. If you carry over the mud now carry her over 50 years from now if you can. Some things wear out with time. Amen. Wherever the flesh has come from the works of God in such an outpouring atmosphere produced by the absence of holocaust the truth of God has changed into a lie. See the truth of God will not allow the behavior of the modern church so we change that truth. We got a new gospel a different Christ all of a sudden there's a new message coming from the pulpit and they say well this generation can't live like the older generation but the Bible said seek you the old path. Go back to God. What we need is to try one more time. We need to just call that church back into that altar keep them there until we pour enough oil in them that it flows out. Then we found the answer to every single thing. Amen. Wherever the flesh is controlled in such an atmosphere produced by the absence of the Holy Spirit neither priest nor people will tolerate the scriptural teaching of victory over sin because it would condemn them. The preacher doesn't preach it because he's got sin in his own life. So he can't deal with the people. He's got to get right first. Now at all costs the life of the old man must be defended and the life failed and constantly inspired by the Holy Ghost must be put down as fanaticism. Now why is it necessary for that new preacher to be baptized in the Holy Ghost as it is? Why is it as necessary for that new preacher to be baptized in the Holy Ghost as it is for that unregenerate man to be born again? You see this is where we lost in that New Testament. That revival at Samaria. Thousands have been saved and baptized, been healed but as yet the Holy Ghost had fell on none of them. So they were concerned that that revival may break up before they're filled. So they sent James, Peter, John down there to see that they're filled before that's broke up. Paul finds him, the Upper Ghost of Absalom, his first question. They're believers. He said, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? They knew this is an absolute must because for this reason you were born. That's the reason to be possessed of God. That's the whole reason. You know Europe knows a lot about being possessed people. What it needs to know about is not possessed. And that's what we're here for. To be possessed of God at all costs. Now a sincere intention to make Jesus Lord and the ever precept of the gospel is a precept which a man can scarcely, you know, is a precept which a man can scarcely be called without such a precept be called true Christian. If this is not sufficient in itself a man may believe it, he may read it, he may see it. You know, men of great willpower may by determination produce, you know, something that looks good, you can dress it up to look that way, but sometimes you find a corruption under that beyond word. You know, when self crucifies self, then it produces another self that's worse than what you started with. It's a religious self that hates everybody and is not like they were. You know, sanctification doesn't work in some of us as fast as it does in others. So you can't judge a man by looking at it here. Only the fruit is only known by the second generation by what it begins to produce and what comes out of it. You just can't look at that man, been born again in a couple of months, and make him because he isn't perfect. You know, when I was first born again, like everybody else, you know, there was great struggles and a lot of outward things. Well, some folks in the house said it wasn't saved yet. But you know, my problem didn't cause the church any trouble, but their tongue did. They were worse than I was. They're in the Hamlet people because they're not like they are. But that's not the way of this. This is a life, and as it grows, it produces. Everything produces after its time. You plant cabbage, you get cabbage. You plant Christ, you get Christ. If you cultivate that life in the Word of God, ultimately the image of Christ begins to show up in that life that is filled with the Holy Spirit. They begin to take knowledge that we have been with this Christ now. The man feels this call from within. He turns from his thoughts outwards. This is the Word we own. Having grieved the Holy Spirit by difference to him, the new Pentecostal has left his members at the beck and call of every opinion. Some man comes down to Florida, he's a man in people, and he winds up a drunk in immorality, you know. But tens of thousands are running off down, ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth, never coming to know the real Christ. If you knew Christ, you didn't have to look at that for once. No, God's not in a thousand miles. Just looking at that, I know God's not there. That's not what he produces in a new creation. But yet, this is all because this happens sacrament. When a man feels this call from within, he turns his head outward, away from the monocular Christ spirit within, runs after some religious guru, to learn some rule of outward conduct, to follow in his own strength. It don't work. It don't work. You'll find that the very ones that's pushing that on you, is wishing they were perfect themselves. Here lies the cause of man's blindness and misery. He lost the knowledge of God essentially a living thing within. He's lost that. Everywhere Christ is there. No matter he lives in me by the Holy Spirit and whether on an airplane. If I'm not just as holy in that trailer over that night, as I am in this pulpit, then that holiness is a facade. I would have gone for 500 preachers and I was preaching the pretender dealing with that and I said in that message I said to that preacher I said you know I'm one of you. I know very easy for me to get up here and let a tear come trickling down this cheek, get a little infraction in this voice and make you believe I'm a holy man. I said does your wife believe you're holy? Does your children think you're holy? Do the people you live around, everyday walk of life, do they think you're holy? If that holiness is not as real and ever stress of life as it is in this pulpit then it's a facade. This is a life that's lived. Christ is everywhere all the time and that's how he makes us free. Now, by falling under the power of an earthly fleshly life, thinks that God is living in another world. That's what you have out there in the religious world today. So he seeks opinions, doctrine, theology to set up an image of an absent God instead of worshiping the life of God and power that lives in him by the Holy Spirit. Amen. He's trying to find some way to please an absent God. That's how they worship the devil. Always he'd go to the heathen lands, they're always leaving out something. That's when the rat become a god in India. They left the food out for the gods, the rat ate it, so he must be a god. You know, that's how all that works out. Well, you don't find it that far pressed in a lot of neo-pentecostals but almost the same. Christ and his apostles taught nothing but death and denial to self and the impossibility of having any virtue except the miracle of a new nature. Nothing about that old man is allowed in here. They taught it. Jesus was the firstborn of a new race. How did he get there? He left us an example that we should follow his steps. God become a man, come to this earth, walk this earth, left footprints for me to follow if I'm ever going to arrive where he is. Now those footprints are so simple. First of all, he was born of the spirit of God. For God to become a man, he had to be born of the spirit. He appeared to the Virgin Mary and said to her, you're going to have a baby. Well, he never said anymore until she answered. And Mary said, how can that be? I've never known a man. Then the angel said, the power of the most high is going to overshadow you. That holy thing within you is going to be the son of God. Christ was born of the spirit of God. Now you must be born of the spirit. You go nowhere until you're born again. There's no amount of religion. I've watched 90 percent of the Pentecostal church. They don't believe in Darwinian's evolution, but they believe in the spiritual evolution. They believe you'll go to church long enough, finally you'll have this life. It's not that away. You're born again instantly of God. That's the only way that this works. But that's he was born of the spirit. So he said you must be. Not only was he born of the spirit, he was filled with the spirit. When he come up out of the baptismal waters, the Bible said the Holy Ghost came on him in the form of a dove and remained there. Now the Bible says the command to that new creature, be born of the spirit, you must be born again, but then the command to the new creature, be filled with the spirit. That's not a suggestion, folks. That is an absolute command of God. And if you're ever going to get where he is, you're going to be filled with the spirit. Now don't come to me and tell me somebody wasn't. They're not the criteria. The criteria is this book. The Bible said he that overcometh will sit with me in that throne. And the Bible said the only way you're going to overcome is to be led by the spirit. He must be in. The third thing, Christ was led. When the Holy Ghost came on him, that third chapter of Matthew, verse 16 and 17, verse 1 of chapter 4, he was led of the spirit into that wilderness where he was tempted of the devil for 40 days. Then he left in the power of the spirit, that means he's led of the spirit, went to that Nazareth, climbed the pulpit steps to preach, opened his text to Isaiah and he said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. For he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, open the eyes of the blind. Then he closed the book and sat down. Then the Bible said in Acts 10, 38, how Jesus, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost who went about doing good, healing all that were possessed or oppressed of the devil. Hebrews 9, 17 said it was through the eternal spirit that he went to Calvary. All the way to that cross, he was led by the spirit. Now if you're ever going to get where he is, that's a footprint you're going to want. You're going to be filled with, led by. You're going to be born out filled with and led by. Jesus was born a baby. The Bible said he grew not only in stature but in wisdom and understanding. Then also he learned to be used with the things he suffered. He said he was tempted in all points as we are. He overcame by the power of the spirit of God. That new creature was born a baby. Paul said we're babes in Christ. But we weren't meant to remain babes. You know, you have children born to you. Most of them, you know, maybe they're grown now. But that little boy, he wasn't born. You know, I know of my friends, boys, when I first met them down here. Now they're about six inches taller than I am. But they weren't born. See, they're fine little boys. I've eaten in his house many times with them, fine little boys. But they weren't born to be little boys. They were born to be men like that dad of theirs. And if they never made it there, they failed in life. And Paul said we were born babes in Christ, but we weren't born to be babes. We must grow up into the fullness of Christ, and that cannot be done apart from the spirit of God. That cannot be done. Now, the new creature was born a babe. He too must grow in wisdom and understand it. He must be tempted, and in the end he must overcome. Many won't. It's a test, the trials of life that many of them fall down. Now, for this new creature to become what he was born to be is impossible without the Holy Ghost filling and possessing him. Because it says as we behold him, Christ, in the spirit, we're changed. We're changed. Only as we behold him in the spirit of God can this change be effected. To learn the new creature must be taught by the Spirit. He, the Holy Ghost, will guide you into all truth. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I've said to you. Amen. John chapter 14 verse 26. His wisdom must come from God to him personally. Any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. James 1 in 5. To become what God purchased him demands the Spirit. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans 8 and 14. Now for the power to work the works of God, the new creature must be filled with the Spirit, for it says you shall receive the power to do this after, not before, but after the Holy Ghost is come upon you. To know the doctrine and mind of God demands the Holy Spirit. At that day, the day of the Holy Ghost, you will know. John 14 and 20. To truly know Christ, you must be filled with the Spirit. He shall take a mind and show him unto you. John 16 and 16. To love as Christ loved the new creature must be filled with the Holy Spirit, for the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost according to Romans 5 and 5. In this mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost, the new creature finds his destiny fulfilled. He was created to contain the Creator. That's the reason we were born. That in us God's Son may be displayed. No other reason for this church but to contain the Creator and that God can manifest His Son in and through our life. The Bible says to Him that overcometh will I give. Now look, seven times this New Testament is used in the second and third chapters. This statement is used in the New Testament in the second and third chapter of the book of Revelation. It's only used in speaking to the church, not talking to anybody but the new creature. To Him that overcometh. There's a promise that there is this command, there is this and he says to Him that overcometh will I give. And then that follows. There's this great promise. The church has lost something that she must recover or she will lose her right to be called the church. Christ said He removed that candlestick. Now what the church had lost was life. The Ephesian church fell in love with the work. They lost their first love which was Christ. They were enamored by the work. Most preachers are there. They're caught up in the work. Christ is secondary to what they're doing. They wonder why we're not affected in our work and in our life. Now born in the fires of Pentecost that church turned the world upside down by the power of life. She moved in life and when you move in life you know where God is and what God is doing all of the time but it's because she moved in life that she was able to do what she did. In a few short years though, born in the fire of Pentecost she wandered into that far country, the world, and wasted her living, that's the Holy Ghost, on the foolishness of religion. She wasted that young church. She became formed without power. That's what Paul said she'd become. Amen. Learning how to be religious without God she'd become a cesspool of iniquity. An absolute opposite of what God intended. Jesus looking upon that apostate mass said to him, to the individual that overcomes I'll give. That giving included everything including the rapture. To him that overcoming, you can be overcome by the system of religion, you can be overcome by world, or you can overcome it by walking in the spirit of God and all the promises of God is to that overcoming. Not to that religious man. Not to the man that started. You didn't run well, what hindered you? You know some people think you can't get in, can't get out. I wonder what do they think Adam fell from in the first place? What did he lose? He lost this holy life. He lost the image of God. Something redemption means to bring back to, bring back to that place where that image is restored in man. That's what being born again is all about. That's what he fell from. Now, in a few short years, she wandered into that far country. Now, those who think the church system, rules, orders, creeds, opinions, programs, entertainment, can do from him today what only the Holy Ghost can do for those first Christians have turned from the truth phase and built a religion of self-effort that can do nothing but curse the world. Can do nothing. Can do nothing. But curse the world. I was in a church and they preached against women wearing totally shoes, you know, and the preacher was telling me, you know, that they preached against. I said, you know, a woman with totally shoes don't positive, but a man left after her toes posited me bad. You know, something bad wrong here with you people. I don't care how religious you are, I don't care how religious you are, I don't care how religious you are, I religious you are, I don't care how religious you are, I don't care how religious you are, I religious you are, I don't care how religious you are, I don't care how but I don't care how religious you are, I are, I don't care nothing, just because that one finger, I'm crippled. What do you think? When you're not there with that measure of faith, when you're not there with the life of God in you to add to that, to become, to give that that might be, amen. Then who knows how many people have been lost simply because your favorite television program was on that night or something else. This is a tragedy. This is where the church is of our time. We've become all in them. We kept the rules. We looked at, but yet, all of it. I was up in the Hammonite, not the Hammonite, but the people that still ride in buggies. Yet, Amish people, they don't have television. They have it in the closet. Amen. I found they have it in the closet. They don't let you know it. They have a rear view mirror on their buggies. Worldliness, that's what worldliness is. Listen, worldliness is to be influenced by the wrong system force. Amen. This is separation under God. Everything I do must be what would God do. That must govern every act of our spiritual life and our life, governed by God. You know, pride shuts every man up in himself and brings death to all that is of God. The supreme enemy that rolls out of the fall, called the antichrist, is self-exaltation. That's what it is. This is satanic, natural self, must be denied and crucified if Christ is going to live. He will not share his life with your life. No, no. Two people with different personalities and different wills can't live in peace in the same body. We have the allegory of Abraham. And, you know, there was absolute peace. I think, if I'm right, Ishmael was about 14 years old when Isaac was born. No trouble in that tent at all. But when Isaac was born, the problem began. When the spiritual man come in, then all the problem began. Now one of the other has to go. There'll never be peace in that household till one of the other gets out. That's just telling us about these two people enough. What is it in the human that, more than anything else, hinders the death of the old man? What is it that above all strengthens and exalts this life of sin? It is the imagined genius of self-will, the glory of learning, and the conceit of natural reason. Man believes because he knows that he has. That's been the problem. I drove to Baton Rouge, which is a three-hour drive from my house. A great missionary friend of mine was supposed to be preaching in the church that night. I'd been to Mexico City with him. I hadn't seen him in a long time, so I told my wife I'm going. Well, I got there, and he wasn't up to preaching. So another man preached, and I never heard. You couldn't call it preaching. But he got up, and his message was, God gives the Holy Ghost to them that ask Him. And he went through extortion after extortion. And finally, he called everybody with the Holy Ghost. Twenty-seven people came, had them on the first rows right here. And he said, I want you to lift your hands and repeat after me. So they very obediently lifted their hands and repeated. And the prayer was, Lord, I'm asking you for the Holy Ghost. He said, now put your hands down. You got it. God said, if you ask, He'll give it to you. So then he began trying to teach them some kind of a time. Well, a man came to me when it was over and said, is that all there is? I said, that's all he knows. Well, I got a three-hour drive, and so the pastor lived very close. He said, I want you to come over, all of you, and we'll have a sandwich, cup of coffee. And so I went over, and I'm sitting by this man preaching. And that Angels on the Sun, that facade that had come out years ago, he endorsed that book. And I said to him, sitting there, sitting by him, and I said, you know, I saw where you endorsed that book, Angels on the Sun. Well, he said, some of that, I don't believe it now. I said, no, it's not, question one, but it says there that you're the graduate of two theological seminaries. Well, I said, actually three. I said, you've been through three theological seminaries and don't know what the word ask means. Oh, my. I'm telling you that, you know, that sweater she's got is pale besides how red he turned. The anger rolls up. I know what ask means. I said, no, sir, I heard you tonight. You do not know what the word ask means in this Bible. He said, I guess you know. I said, yes, sir. I never went to a theological seminary, but I know. I said, do you like to know? Oh, he's angry. I said, you read Psalms 2 and 8. He did. Ask of me, I'll give you the answer. He said, who? I said, who's he talking to? He said, why? He's talking to the Christ. He's getting angrier all the time. I said, what did it mean for the Christ to ask? He said, you tell me. I said, he had to die. He had to go to Calvary. He can't have us heathen unless he goes to Calvary. And I said, God said, I'll give you my life on one condition, that you die to yours. That's what ask can mean. You ask God for this Holy Ghost, you're telling him, I'm willing to die to everything that I am if you'll give me your life. But he will not share his life with your life. Amen. Amen. Whatever the prideful self has given any place in the service and the worship of God, Satan always collects that for worship. The results of this intrusion of the flesh is everywhere to be seen. Where there ought to be temples of the living God, self sits there in the natural man, obsessed with his own natural abilities. When the Holy Spirit's inspiration and guidance were rejected, when the church no longer believed in the absolute necessity of that believer being filled with the Holy Ghost, she became a product of the flesh whose character was no longer the holiness of God, but the filthiness of this world. Once we believe we can do this without God, then we have cursed the whole program. We must return to Pentecost. God ever told me to say anything in this convention. We must return to Pentecost. We must bring those vessels back to that altar. We're going to have to do away with a lot of these haggards that we've been fornicating with, these programs. We've produced a house full of ishmaels, but nothing that really walks with God. You know, the international airports today is a circus. You stay there, you'll have a layover in Seddon. I'm in Seddon and one of the busiest in the world, in Atlanta. Here comes a boy. Comes down there. His pants are down here. He's walking on them. I said, they're going to fall off any moment, you know. His hair is spiked, and every spike's a different color. He's got four earrings in his ear and one in his nose. And he's going along. You can tell he'd be an intelligent lad. You know, you want a week to look at, why is he this way? Well, if you sit there long enough, there'll a girl come. You can tell she could be pretty, but she's worked hard to be ugly. I mean, you look at that hair, the way it is and everything. Her blouse is here, her skirt's here, and here, you know. And I said, why, why would that be? You know, and God, God just gave this answer. In thinking on that, gave this answer. He that's joined to a heart is one spirit. I said, what are you trying to tell me? He said, at this promiscuous age, these young people have had sex with everything and everybody, and they don't know who they are. They don't know who they are. That boy with that spiked hair is trying to find some kind of an identification. That girl's trying to find some kind of an identification. She don't know who she is. You know, the whole life is changed in that act. And when Adam knew Eve, she really, truly, then they become one flesh. See, there's a whole world changed in that. And he said, in all of this, they don't know who they are. But then he said, I mean, that's not the tragedy. The tragedy, my church is fornicated with this world. She don't know who she is. So she has rock and roll nights. She has entertainment nights. She has all kinds of things, trying to find some kind of an identity. She's fornicated with the world and doesn't know who she is. God is asking us in this room to change that. Sure as you sat here today. Sure as you. Five wise virgins made it, five foolish did it. You know what made them foolish? They heard and didn't do it. Jesus said, he that heareth these sayings of mine and doesn't do them is foolish. Foolish people will never be in that rapture. To hear what God is saying to our heart, no matter what that cost, I must do. I must be. I cannot worry about pleasing man. I must please this God. Whatever it takes for this will to break, I must be willing for that to happen. Folks, God brought us here for a purpose. His church is sick tonight, but he wants somebody through which he can recover that vessel. And he's asking you, would you be that vessel? Let it stay. Hallelujah. Oh, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Hallelujah.