In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of the fourth dimension and how the mind is the closest we can get to experiencing it. He emphasizes the importance of loving our neighbors as ourselves and warns against discord and greed among believers. The speaker references Jesus walking on water and highlights the need for harmony and peace in order to produce fruitful lives. The sermon also mentions the book of James and addresses the issue of worldly greed and competition among believers.

Look in and you accept that. Look into it means you reflect it, a mirror reflects, this is what you are, this is your new self. When you find this new self, you walk in it. In walking in it, it changes your conversation, it involves your occupied interest, it changes your habits, your life in the world, it changes your attitude of service, that there is something in you that wants to help and bless those who are in need. And this is practical Christianity. James, I take it, has to write these things because somebody has to say that it is practical outworking. Paul does it incidentally, of course, talks about husbands, wives, servants, and so on, and Peter, they to some extent do, but James hammers on this, this is his message, it has a totally practical outworking, and it's a faith, it's a real living faith, it has a practical outworking. Now of course that could run us if we didn't know better than the bondage, but it doesn't run us if we don't know the liberty. It does run you if we see the bondage, well I ought to be that and I'm not, that's what we've already seen, but wisdom, I ought to know what I should do, and I'm all fussed up. But therefore it doesn't put you in bondage if you say this is what I am, don't say what I ought to be, this is what I am, this is what's happening, and where it doesn't happen, set yourself up again, stick to it for a moment, don't say that's what I am, don't say that's what I'm that, no, say I was tempted to have a double mind about it, no I don't take that, God will give me his wisdom, so you keep an ear, I am level, that's this life, we are level, the Christ, we are one, this is the secret, but his job is not saying too much about that, other people said that, except to present it in its perfection, and say now this is how it works out. Then he goes the next, first part of the next chapter, into this question, I don't know where it's from, it's too much, of class distinction among brethren, that doesn't mean you don't respect people in their titles, you respect the president, not because he's Mr. So-and-so, because he's Mr. President, that's why we have a very good title here, Mr. President, you don't respect Mr. Ford or Mr. Carter as such, it helps very much if you can respect them, you respect Mr. President, that's right, that's not a wrong type of respect, to give honour to one of his dues, the Bible says that, say I got out of the king's, well you're foolish, you don't have a king, it's your fault, but you have presidents and things instead, but you honour what you got, that's alright, that's not this at all, that's the right form, because you're not honouring the person, you're honouring the office. But there's another way, in God's kingdom we don't see offices, I might be respected in church, some too much, often given to elders and so on, we're getting out of that good year, I hope today, when we're all brothers, and a little respect maybe, but not too much, is that right brother? I'm teasing, but I don't know whether this comes in, in the past they could tell better than I can, whether there is this beware against honouring too much because you've got wealth and position and family and influence, and that poor fellow used to be in the slave days, we were up in Bermuda days ago, we're seeing the original Church of England there with the galleries, you know where the saints were allowed and all that business. That day has gone a good deal, possibly gone more in this country than in Britain, to which I belong, but this is raised here as a question, to watch against, maybe pastors need to, maybe there isn't some special respect because he's got the money, because he has the influence, because he's the old man, because he's so and so, and isn't the same honour and respect, everybody equally being sons of God, given to the other who hasn't got those things. It fits a little with that self-image, we keep up to a self-image, put it down, if you've got some ideas of your own, values on earth, put them out, or come up if you've got a low idea of yourself, you should have a higher one or something on, and here it is related to other people. So he speaks about that, evidently it was quite a thing in those days, he comes up several times about riches, the danger of riches, it's quite something, he has quite a social touch in this letter, as Jesus had too, basically for the poor, and so he brings it up here, and speaks about how the rich misuse the poor, he said, not so much, we've had that of course, we've had slave days, we've had sweated labour days, we've gradually come out of slavery, we've had race slavery days, and so on, but we're coming out of it, but there's always more to go, there's a point of suspicion in the way these things aren't there, and that's why he says, now remember he says, the law of scripture is you love your neighbour as yourself, that's the law, that means you love your neighbour, you see, when I really see it, we're all one person, I am you, when I really see it, the whole universe is one, and I am everything, and everything is me, it's a great mystery there, we haven't penetrated very far, everything is one, I think as we understand science, we understand every thought we have touches a star, we can't understand that, the speed of things has begun to touch us, we've got some idea of the speed of things, the speed of light and so on, even that's only in the third dimension, because the speed of light is only 186,000 miles a second, well that's peanuts in eternity, that's only in the third dimension, fourth dimension, the nearest we get to the mind, the mind is in place in the moment, that's the nearest we get to a fourth dimensional being, you can be here, be there in a second, where that happens, where there's a whole new dimension, we are there like that, um, like Jesus was trying to say in walking on the water, and a few things every now and then, appearances and disappearances, um, but I'm trying to say, uh, there's a secret we've hardly begun to learn, we are actually are each other, because all is one, that's a great help for us, that's what Jesus said, you love your neighbour as being yourself, you love your neighbour as yourself, and of course Jesus put it in a term, he said, if you don't visit a prisoner, you don't visit me, you don't feed the hungry, you don't feed me, don't kill the naked, don't kill, kill me, and there's several instances in scripture, of course, like at the roads of Damascus, why persecutors are thee, but Paul persecuted them and imprisoned them, and thought that the Christian is not Christ, but Christ and the Christian is one, so if they did that Christ was Christian, he was into Christ, so if I can begin to catch that, I'm very dimly catching it, I'm you, now that's what my judgment is, which I never judge myself, I'm always nice to myself, I wouldn't be nasty to you, so I, if I was nice to you as I am to myself, I'd be pretty nice, see what I mean, when I really see that, it stops me, I do catch every now and then, wait a minute, I'm that person, wait a minute, I'm that person, see from that point of view, don't judge them, take them as they are, that's what they're meant to be at the moment, and it may have those effects on them, but they're gods, and I'm god, and I'm with god now, and moving in until he gets them to know they're his sons, as I know I'm his son, now that's the royal law, and of course, the moment you say, oh, give us an example, that's an important person, you're in an important place in the fellowship, you're not loving him as you are loving other people, you're loving him not just as a common self, but as a special person, and that's why he says, don't kid yourself, all sins are alike, he says, if you have respect for a person, you commit a sin, and you're convinced that the law is a transgressor, and then he adds, he's sharp, he says, any lawyer will tell you, if you keep the whole law defended at one point, you're guilty of all, you're simply guilty of a broken law, therefore, he says, the person who said don't commit adultery, also said don't kill, but if you commit adultery, and commit no adultery, and do kill, that's the transgressor of the law, and so he says, so speak and so do as those who are judged by that law of liberty, so he says, that's something to be learned, a physical adulterer isn't worse than me when I'm saying unpleasant things about people, that's something, isn't it, that in god's sight, the expression of our attitudes and what may seem minor matters in god's sight, just as heinous as a murderer or the adulterer, that may help us to take some judgmentalism off, so he says, your standing is a perfect, your judgment is a perfect law of liberty, judge doesn't mean god's saying things about society, it means it shows, it shows you what, it helps you, that's, that's, that's what you are, come back, come back, it doesn't, the judgment isn't some awful thing goes up here, oh, I'm going to show you what you are, it's god's mercy saying, I come up, you sit a moment, okay, this is the law, this perfect love, which is god, you know, in everybody, for everybody, in this oneness, this is the law, operating on the level of it, and so if you sit, come up, take the judgment, take that as a standard, no liberty, um, and, uh, this is where he, he brings in this, uh, uh, this, uh, famous, uh, passage, um, uh, that faith is works, um, uh, Paul couldn't say that, because Paul had to contest, had to combat false works, so we build, we build that life on works, self-works, we carry that self-works right into our, our early Christian life, we try to, uh, uh, fight them, with conscious self-works, um, and Paul had to, uh, see, that's the thing that's gone out, um, and the law, that kind of law, which, which, uh, was there to oppose me, to make me know I wasn't one, well, that's gone out, why has it gone out, because it's coming, the law that has been crucified in the cross of Christ has been resurrected as me, I'm that law now, so I'm, it's fine, I'm free at the minute, uh, which came to me as an enemy, when he said, show me what I couldn't do, didn't want to do, uh, and made me guilty, and now Jesus Christ wiped out the, the guilt and the law, and the whole thing went out, not that he, that the, the law might go, come from outside into inside, I'm the law, and function as such, therefore James can say, now then, you're the law now, now, uh, uh, faith is, is operating on, on, on a given level, you're, you're functioning on a given, faith is, faith is being, it's, you've moved in some ways, you're being, the whole idea, uh, has to go, of faith as some kind of intellectual theory, this is the place where it differentiates between believing and, and, and faith, uh, here it distinctly says you can believe and not have it, because this is where it says, uh, you believe in one God, you do well, the devils also believe in people, so it makes a differentiation, because you believe in the sense, really, I'm saying I'm believing something, it's just, well, I say I believe it, uh, but, uh, faith is, uh, that's, that's an agency of faith, it's the whole being involved in something, faith is involved, all life is faith, and all, and all faith is works, you, we are here functioning this weekend, it works, because it's our faith, functioning, our faith, by our faith we came here now, our faith, it works, it's functioning in our cooperation, and fellowship, and food, and everything else that's going, this is, faith, it always works, works from the level of the faith, and, uh, so, uh, uh, James isn't pulling away from Paul, he's putting himself on Paul, he's saying what Paul wasn't there to say, Paul was there to get tremendous basis, right, now James probably doesn't operate that basis, you are operating, I see what you are, um, and, uh, he instants, uh, uh, two involvements, interesting, he went to two extreme involvements, uh, there are times where you say, well, when, then we get a little more into the depth of faith, where it isn't governed by ethics, it's governed by love, and love and ethics don't always work together, strange thing that they don't, um, and he, the two instances he brings out, of perfect faith, of Abraham, uh, killing his son, and Rahab lying to get the, the harlot Rahab lying to get the spies out, in both cases, God guiding a man to commit murder, to make his own son a burnt sacrifice, does he do it? Another case, guiding a harlot, who presumably was still a harlot, presumably that's why the young men came to that house, she was a harlot, and yet she was a believing person, and she was the one who operated for God, and opened the door for Joshua to move in and take Jericho, and start the, start the possession of the land, um, so here's, here, here's, uh, the Holy Spirit justifying a murderer and a liar, um, it's strong, you see, don't judge, don't judge, um, my friend, uh, talking with people by this morning, for whom I get great benefits, it's not always easy to read, that's the great Kierkegaard, one of the greatest, most profound interpreters of Christianity, some foolish man think he's wrong, he, if ever a man's right, Kierkegaard's right, he knew the truth, he made that stop, he has a tremendous book on, um, fear and trembling, the agony of faith, uh, was Abraham a murderer or guided? Either he was a murderer or guided, was he guided to murder? He did murder, and he meant to do it, because God had shown him, God had made him, said you ought to find out true life, eternal life, and you mustn't even leave your son behind with the idea, this is my son, this is, no, it's only causing suppression of eternal life, he's the, uh, transmitter of eternal life, and so you ought to take him and physically kill him and burn him up, and you ought to see him rise again, because then the resurrection will not be that burned body, it'll be my life in that body, that's a great secret for churches, nothing in the church, it's only his life coming out, burn the church, doesn't matter, in my mission I've again and again said when we had that big headquarters in, uh, we had, we had, they give us a magnificent, it's a 130-roomed magnificent headquarters in England, uh, it was quite a center for fellowship, so it was the headquarters of our mission, I was there at the opening, I said, oh God may we'll burn this up, because that's not the point, the point was, does the Holy Spirit come out of it, there's nothing in these bricks and mortar, because they're bigger, no better than a small hut, where Scott lived, in Africa, it's not bad, it's just the Holy Spirit come out, and sometimes God will lead you to some extreme, so the world may see it, sometimes God won't, as I say, destroy, I believe, that's why I'm a church destroyer, I say burn the lot, because they signify something which isn't God, oh, somebody yesterday was telling us, here, uh, one of your churches, where the people are so occupied in, in, in, in beautifying the building, that's a thing, oh my goodness, what's the building, wood is, double stuff, so it has to come in, and we leaders have to watch this, in the union life, got to watch union life, what's that, nothing, what's a magazine, nothing, unless it's Christ coming through, we've got to watch it, then it becomes union life, or some other stuff like that, sects or something, anyway, the moment they become dead, the point is, does life come out, and sometimes God will lead you to some extreme ways, to demonstrate that, and, uh, here he led, uh, and the, the, the phrase, of course, clearly God uses some phrases, uh, he, in this great book, it's a wonderful book on faith, the agonies of faith, um, what he calls, um, the, the, the night of faith as against the night of consecration, K-N-I-G-H-T, he says, oh, the world likes it, you know, in the old pictures, the old, the crusaders would dedicate that sword to go and kill people, in the chaplain there, you have pictures of them dedicating their sword, we all admire people who dedicate, dedicating yourself, faith is crazy, faith isn't dedicating yourself, faith is killing yourself, a night of faith, Abraham's a fool, head man, I doubt, I doubt he told his wife that one, I think he kept that private, she's done, uh, Sarah knew a thing or two, but this was a high thing, a night of faith, a person would be, go the absurd way, there's nothing in the glory of flesh left, that God's work comes through, that's a night of faith, as against night of, anybody, oh, look at that magnificent, dedicated person, that's still self, but the real dedication, so was the dying itself, Jesus was a night of faith, he died a criminal, he died a failure, God, Jesus didn't leave one success behind on earth, his success is only in that dimension, in resurrection, and, uh, so here God, uh, uses this phrase, the, the teleological suspension of the ethical, by which he means, the fulfillment, must suspend the ethical, the God's teleological is fulfillment, God's purpose is to fulfill, but suspending the ethical, the ethical was, don't murder your son, uh, don't lie to hide those, those, those, those spies, be true, suspend the ethical, that was the purpose of God's truth, you never know, so the, uh, the, uh, lesson to us is don't judge, we had it yesterday over Samson, didn't we, don't judge when he went and married a Finnish-sung woman, don't judge, leave a person to God, if, if we think they make mistakes, let, let God take them the mistaken way, that's how they're learned, and God's always beautiful, he builds up the mistakes, he doesn't destroy, he doesn't come to destroy, he comes to edify, he builds up the mistakes, darling, so he's saying that, uh, and he's saying, saying to him, what, uh, um, which his whole letter is now, uh, faith is something which is producing, well we know that now, we don't take condemnation, this is, we keep on, now we are producers, we are producers, if we're not, it's the Holy Ghost better get showing us, we won't get searching around for ourselves, we are producing the Christian life of Christ up to like, we have, okay, that's all, but he's just saying to us, this life itself, faith is production, faith is a new life lived, which has its inner background, and it's not the same as something which really is mentally affirmed, uh, can even produce a trembling like the devil's, but it's not followed through by the evolved life. Then he moves into a, uh, how does somebody want to go to the tongue? Again, he, the, the utter aspect, a tongue is a member, it expresses a mind, and a spirit, and a voice, and a word, they come down to the tongue, theology is on the upper level, the tongue speaking, what the tongue produces, because the tongue is the agent, like we're the agent of God, the tongue is the agent of what the spirit resides inside me, and the thoughts I have, and the expression that come up through my tongue. Um, he gets a little word, um, uh, about teachers there, um, it's an honor to be a teacher, but he says, you're a teacher, be sure you know what you're teaching. This is a little book he put, he puts in there, he begins to talk about this, he says, my brethren, be not many teachers, the word here is masters, means teachers, though you receive greater condemnation, judgment, they put in negative words, I mean, with a greater judgment of what you teach, um, for a million things we, we make mistakes, in other words, it's a, um, if you teach, know what you're teaching, that's all, be a teacher, if you're given that, be a teacher, I, I find that very much myself, I, I, I need to know what I'm saying, whether I'm mistaken, I must know I'm mistaken, I mean, I must be, to me, a truth, if it's mistaken, I must give what I see to be, so I'm not trying to pretend something, so I'm responsible, I give out, writing, because in those days there wasn't print, so we, we, our voice is expressed in, in books a great deal today, which couldn't be in those days, so we may say the tongue includes the printed words today, when they stream out, um, and he's saying there now, it's good, they said, if you are teaching, know what you're teaching, because you're, you're committed, you've been picked up, you're, that's, we believe in interchange, your, your brother picked you up, are you right, why'd you say that, what proof you've got of that, and you should know, and many of us who do, uh, we find that lots of us are coming, we'll be coming up, many of us are coming up, many of you are, thank God, don't be afraid, don't hold back, if you've got to give it, it's just a warning, be sure what you're giving is what you understand to be truth, not something just picked up and theorised, as far as you know, to you, this is truth, my great friend, King of God, again, said a word which is great to me, the truth that edifies is truth to me, the truth that, the truth that edits, that which feeds me, that's truth to me, may not be all truth, it might not even be truth, as far as I know, of course, we try to relate our truth to the word of God, that's why we keep the word of God, because our safeguards, but it, it, it must edify, I'll give you, oh, that's real to me, we only give what we've got really, you know, and if we give to the heart, the heart speaks to the heart, and the heart is edifying, if I give what's real to me, it's something that echoes in you, heart to heart, a mind bores so often, because you know it's only mind, and it doesn't necessarily come down into the edifying, I like that phrase, the truth that edifies is truth to me, and that's what I pass on. Then he speaks about the, the, universe, the power of the tongue, well, we all know that, I mean, we are, we are ruled by tongues, we're, we come here by invitation, most life is geared to what we've heard somebody tell you, advise and see, it comes from the tongue, the tongue, of course, can be devilish or heavenly, it can be stirring up hates and fears and pornography and all stuff, or it can be pointing, uplifting people in truth, so when you look at it, most come, everything comes from tongues, and so tongue, as he said, the tongue turns like the, the midget in the ship, like the rudder turns the helm, or like the bit in the horse's mouth, so the tongue is real, and then he says, he speaks of a lady, he says that there's a devastating tongue, is it set on fire of hell, a tongue of fire, we get a little touch of the spiritual there, because spirit is fire, God's fire, fire isn't this thing that burns, it's an outer form, the sun's an outer form, God is fire, life is fire, everything's fire really, that's why you scratch a thing, it's a spark, it's only how far hidden, atomic fire, it's fire, and so spirit is fire, and he says here, the tongue's a word of iniquity, and it defiles the whole body, set on fire of hell, so that's interesting, he puts hell where it belongs, hell isn't a place out there, a lake we can go to one day, it's here, hell is a condition, a spirit condition, a condition of self-service, hell is I'm for myself, therefore I'll hate this and love that and grab that and all this, all that comes out of self-governed self, behind that's a spirit hell, set on fire of hell, because that's all hell is, hell is merely what is in heaven, so it's not true, the only truth in the universe is heaven, heaven is God is love, heaven of course is the whole thing is heaven, this is the kingdom of heaven, heaven is God expressed in love, that's heaven, and we're heavenly people who make expression of God's love, the other, it's hell, because it's geared to selfishness and hate and jealousy and fears and lusts and things that stream out of our tongues, so he's saying, and then he adds, he gets a little closer to, no man can tame it, now he's getting a little closer there, no man can tame it, well then he says, what do you do, he brings it out very cleverly, he first says this tongue stirs the world up and sets you on fire, the tongue can set the course of nature on fire, burns you up, the angry things you said, the rotten things you said, they burn your neighbor up and influence things and stir the world and the tongue's a devil or an angel, and he speaks about the devil tongue here, set on fire and hell, then he says there's something more about time, you can't tame it, he says who's ever tamed a tongue, he says every kind of beast and birds and serpents and things of the sea, chapter 3 verse 7, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, the tongue can no man tame, it's an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, then he suddenly turns around and says, but you've got a problem, now you don't have a tongue like that, you're a redeemed person, you were born of the spirit and begotten, actually I missed one little thing when I was talking about proceeding from the big baguette into the law of liberty, it says watch for the engrafted word, it's very subtly put here, I'll go back a bit, it says listen to the engrafted word, now that's the inner word, so he slips in again, you move from the outer word, the word of truth of which we're begotten is the first fruit, that's wonderful, his own willy begot us, he began, now he says listen, don't get your own nausea tongue in the way, don't get argument, don't get rushing into forms of self and self-expressions which get in the way, listen, listen, for the engrafted word, that's in verse 121, in other words, engrafted, put into you, it's a part of you, that's the inner word, that's the inner Christ, that's the law of liberty, listen to that one, move into that one, that's where he's moving into union life. Now you see, he brings up this problem, well now what, you aren't like those we used to be, where the tongue is just a hellish thing, but he says we have an ambivalent tongue, we have a double tongue, he says here look, you know, we Christians now, we're pretty good at blessing God, we're pretty good at saying unpleasant things about man, but of course God doesn't say unpleasant things, God only sees blessing and cursing, the Bible never sees grey, never sees black and white, so to say an unpleasant thing is to curse him in God's sight, see, it says here, here thereby bless we God the Father, that we curse him, we don't go, think we curse him, but we are cursing him, we dare with faint praise, it's cursing, yes Shakespeare, he's done good things every now and then, so he says don't you, but what's the problem, we do that, now what, we ourselves, we're new people, and we praise God, and of course this is a part of union, took me a long time to see that, it's like that statement caught me for a long time in one John, where John says that if a man says he loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar, but here that love is not his brother we have seen, how could he love God we have not seen, I said that's not fair, because God's very nice and you're very nasty, so it's quite easy for me to love God, I can't stand you, until I find your God, see, then only when I say you're God, then if I don't love you, I'm not loving God, because that's what God is, oh that's a hot one, that's the union come out, and he said quite the same here, you know, oh we bless God the father, I rule, I don't good, I can't stand that person, I'm cursing him, double talk, how's that, now he gets, this is where this again, again the subtlety comes in, unspoken almost, catching the logical how to see it, and you have to go back to your answer to Paul really, he says look here, he says how can there be, he says you can't have a fountain sending out two waters, he says here you can't have a fountain that sends out at the same place sweet water and bitter, can't do it, or he says you can't have a fig tree bearing olives, or a vine bearing figs, so he said a fountain can't put out both salt and fresh water, see the logic, you've got something wrong, you can't, we're not both, you see the point, you can't be both, you're not both, you're one, come on now, you're one fountain, you're the new fountain, you're the fountain of the spirit, and the pure fountain of the spirit produces the positive word about mothers and sisters, as it does the positive word about God, and therefore the other, not the fountain, it's a little mud coming en route, as the water flow out the fountain, you've got a little mudded en route, that's all, don't mistake the mud for the fountain, you see, back again, find out what you are, you're not a double person, you've not got double partialities, or double estimates about who people are, or double questionings about God's guidance and so on, you're not a double person, you're a single person, you're in the law of liberty, and so don't say you're double, say you've got a pure, a firm, you've got a pure fountain, a fountain of love, a fountain of appreciation, and we grow into it, we grow into it, we do, and we, I think as we go on, little more, little more, we speak positively, and I find I check myself much quicker, I check much quicker than I said something, now I know I really, that's quite a message to put that side of that side, because I see, I should put God's side above the person, well you check up, but that's not me, that's the other coming in, the false thing coming in, the double coming in through the flesh, through the, tempting me, this is something that my outer mind sees, and my outer response, that's not I, I say that's not I, don't take that, if it's said it's forgiven, don't take it, and stay on the positive, you're a fountain, a fountain can only produce one type of water, you're a tree, you only produce one kind of fruit, so you see I catch it in each time, and brings it back out of the double, from the double mind, from the double, in such it, all right, involvement into the single, and then he says, and there's a, there's a heavenly wisdom, and a hellish wisdom, which comes out of the tongue, he says, have your conversation, in meekness of wisdom, have a good conversation, show your, it says, now show us a good conversation, your works in meekness of wisdom, heavenly wisdom, so that the, the, the outstream is mainly, it's pure, because it's genuine, it's peaceable, it's meek, it's peaceful, it can be entreated, you can, you can listen to what other people say about what you're saying, it's producing peace, and it's sincere, and honest, impartial, and this, that's the sweetness of heaven coming through us, that's the, that's, what's called the, the wisdom from above, he doesn't say the wisdom from, he only speaks about wisdom from above, he says, this wisdom, the wisdom that is from above, is pure, is genuine, and peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, that's the character, gentle, easy, can accept words from other people, and listen to what they say, is genuine, is not partial, and meekness is peace, this is the heavenly, and we know it ourselves, we know it ourselves, this is the heavenly wisdom, this is Christ, in the way, ways we, sometimes the challenge comes, but we don't live, live peaceably, sometimes you must move, as we see in 2 Corinthians, sometimes you have to move to challenge, but you don't live, even then you do it with tears, as it were, even then the point isn't the challenge so much as the love, but this is the heavenly wisdom, and we know it ourselves, he says there's another kind of wisdom, he doesn't give it, he just says, it doesn't dissent from above, he doesn't say any more, he just doesn't say anything, that's, well there's bitter envying and strife, what strife, we know it, what's his arguments, envying is a bad word, because we hate more than we think, I'm not so conscious of that one, envying, that, um, because basically we feel somebody has got more than we have or something, so that doesn't come and produces the discord, and so the real is the concord and the discord, generally speaking, ours is a word of concord, peace, love, the other word is discord, watch it, and they say that produces, uh, uh, uh, peaceable fruits, by, uh, uh, operating on the peace level, we produce, we, we produce a flow of life, um, uh, the fruit of righteousness is sown by that, meaning that, uh, as, as harmony, um, so that's what he said about tongue, um, how about it, I better try, I don't know, there's a little more to say, we'd stop there for a moment, uh, a little more to do on James, covering the last two chapters, um, um, apparently among the believers, uh, there's a great deal of, um, worldly greed and competition going on, we'd almost think it's strange, perhaps we shouldn't, perhaps I live in a kind of atmosphere where I don't meet that as it is, but here it was, and he was speaking to the believers and said, you get fighting among yourselves, because you, you, you have desires, you want certain things, and you desire, but you can't get them, and then you even kill to get them, for you might kill the person's reputation as well as their body to get them, and then you can't get them, and then you get fighting, and, uh, uh, then you, you haven't got them because you ask, because you don't ask, then you can't get them, when you do ask, you ask for wrong motives, a pretty gloomy picture, that's these first four verses of chapter three, because you're, uh, out for your own self-interest, of course that wasn't true, you see, it's always the same thing, it's how they were captured by the flesh, and this, but apparently the flesh is offering, perhaps it does on some, so we have, uh, desires, earthly desires, and, and, uh, ambitions, and covetousness, for this and that, and even, even, uh, uh, usually, uh, gets fighting, uh, fighting about whether it was in church affairs or not, I wouldn't say so here, and, um, uh, and even using prayer as a means of getting what I want, this isn't a, uh, a passage on the technique of prayer, it's on the misuse of prayer, um, and then he comes right out and says, you see, uh, if you have any other love for Jesus, you're an adulterer, straight out, this is where he says, you are adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the principle of the world is enmity with God, whosoever is a friend of the world is an enemy of God, no two measures, um, so there's only one love, your love isn't your husband or your wife or your children, it's only Jesus, it's only them as they're given to you by Jesus as forms which you can love, persons you can love, you've got the sole love and the sole, uh, involvement in life, that's Jesus, God, Father, Son, Spirit, if you have any rival love, he's an adulterer, if you give way to it, of course, you'd be tempted there again, he doesn't touch that, but, uh, uh, it doesn't even imply, implies that they went much farther than temptation here, and he should be going in for things which were, were, um, um, divided, uh, objective in life, as he says, so, uh, get it clear, you can't have two loves, you can't love Jesus and then have, really be grabbed by some love of this, of this world, maybe do with finances or position or persons or family, you can't have, so it's drastic, if you've got any other love, it's a rival of Jesus, you're an adulterer, you're having an affair with another woman, you can't have that, so that's a strong measure, isn't it? Of course, we need it, even though we may say we don't seem to fit in exactly into fighting to get some personal ending, yet you never know in life, uh, betterment in business or better salary or bypassing this person or downgrading that person to be able to slip into his position, so these things can rise in subtle forms, can't they? Uh, or, of course, uh, in friendships, rival to somebody, want to cut somebody out of a friendship, or, as I say, even, even the, the wife and husband and the children taking, uh, to, uh, a place which only belongs to Jesus as a, as a, as an exclusive place to Jesus. Well, of course, if you're a eunuch, you must say that, because eunuch is that, eunuch is, you're not you, so poor you, if you're not you, which I've seen you, you're finished, that, that you are, you are, you are that love, isn't really love with a person, it's like you are that person, it's, it's, uh, I admit the duality in the eunuch is that when you have the eunuch, he isn't like you love him too, he's, uh, people who don't know you, they get mistaken about that, they say, well, yeah, but I, uh, I have gone, I'm going to meet you face to face, and Jesus, how can I say I'm one? You can't say it, you don't know it, but it's, of course, the same principles of trinity, heart and trinity, one and yet three, they're one, yet they're three, yet they're one, so you can't argue those don't know duality, you only say they can only pick something up from you, you know that this is your, your, the centre of your peace and your, your, your sufficiency and all, I'm not I, I'm this person, did it through me, uh, and therefore, of course, I only have one love, because I am that love, I'm wished up in it, I can't have a rival love, I'm very tempted, I can't have it, if I don't know that, I can't have rival loves, that's what you're getting at here, any of those who have this divided outlook, they haven't recognised, I haven't let that divide out, it's a false thing, it was crucified with Christ, it's not real, days of Christ, Christ had crucified the flesh with his affection for love, God forbid, that's a glorious end, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ, but I'm crucified, the world, the world to me, I am crucified, John, uh, the relation of sweet Aldoa said, I'm crucified, the world's crucified, and I've crucified the flesh, so they're not, it's not real, what's crucified isn't real to me, it's way up there, so it's a, it's a falsely rival love, but it doesn't appear rival until I know this union, then I say, ah, I'm not that, so again you come back, the only answer is to know the union, and because they didn't know you, and they were being caught up by some of these things, and to some extent they were, uh, involved in the, uh, rival loyalties, and even twisty ways of doing things, and gaining things, uh, which, by which they can be said, you're an adulterer, you, you're in love with another woman, that woman is the world, so it's good just not to be searched, because I trust that we've been searched, but say, hey, I'm not, I don't accept that, uh, I may have had temptations that way, I don't accept that, or, uh, we can appear to be caught out, it's an appearance really, it may be real to us, we may really have a rival love, and do battle with it, and our trouble is doing battle with it, of course, because we've mistaken an illusion for reality, so it is possible, if we don't know the union, that we are grabbed by, uh, rival affection, uh, rival anything, and we know that, I've known that, I've known that, but don't take it, point is, you take it, you fight it, you take it, that's it, and, um, you say, no, that's not real, I just don't, that's not, I only have one love, that's God, and my love is to love people for their sake, not for my sake, there's a lot of things for the advantage, not for my advantage, for, uh, others' advantage, then you're free, because the other loves are always free, um, so it may be, and they, they were caught up by rival loves, and didn't know how to fight them, and they had to admit, falsely admit, that they were slaves, adulterers, slaves to rival love, and so, in this case, uh, um, James Austria put it drastically, wasn't it, and he says, I've got to be exposure, and cleansing, and humbling, and crying out to God, um, he says, uh, don't you know the, the spirit that dwells in you lusts it to envy, it's a queer phrase, and there are two interpretations, one is that it's our spirit lusting for, it shouldn't, I don't think that's right, he says, don't you know the spirit of God's in you, lusting to get you right, he's, he, he's, he's jealous for you being wrong, and he's there working on you, I like that much more, don't you know the spirit of God's working on you to, to deliver you from these false things, um, and then, and then he says, it's there, of course it is, God gives abundance of grace, um, God, uh, he says, he gives more grace, abundance of grace, and again, the second group, uh, area of grace, he says, God, plenty of grace for God, of course, it's not explained, the grace we know is to be brought to the recognition, affirmation of the union, the recognition, the realization of the union, then the illusion of the other, it's just in the cross, but they, he doesn't explain that, he says, but God does give grace, and he says, and he says, you've got to humble yourself, you, all right, we'll hope that the believers, they were humble, we hope that, it doesn't imply they were, that they knew they had no business to have these rival loves, so God resists the proud, but if you come down and say, yeah, I shouldn't have it, now you're sorry, then you submit yourself to God, and they say, if you do that, the devil, you resist the devil, because the submission is resistance, when you can't see two ways, you submit yourself to God, you can't, it's the devil, not busy, you don't see him, he's gone, because the devil's out, he was put out by, put out, uh, uh, works were destroyed by Jesus Christ, and, uh, so we're not, we have nothing to say to the devil, he's out, but we, we resist him by affirming who we are, not by fighting him, the more you fight the thing, the more you make it real, we resist, the more you resist the thing, the more you affirm it, that's why you don't answer temptation by resisting it, you say, not there, um, uh, that's why I use that, that phrase that Jesus used in, uh, the Sermon on the Mount, he says, um, uh, um, if, uh, your adversary, he says, agree with your adversary quickly, why is he in the way with you, your adversary's someone opposing you, because you don't agree with him, he'll grab you and put you in prison until you pay up those filings, and the idea is, if you're, if you, um, uh, fight your adversary, or, and your temptation, uh, something grabs you, you fight him, he gets you. This is the end of tape one, please continue to tape two. Our hearts are purified, but they've got to find out, they've got to go this way, maybe a period where they've got to get things cleaned up, they've got to cry to God, it is why he says, stop, stop being happy, he's strong, he says, be afflicted and mourn and weep, stop your laughter, turn your laughter into mourning, and your joy to heaven, humble yourself in the sight of God, and he lifts you up. So there are, sometimes, that people have to do business, that there are, like, look in, and you accept that, look into it means you, you reflect it, you, you, what you, a mirror affects, this is what you are, this is your new self, when you find this new self, you walk in it, uh, it walks in, it changes your conversation, uh, you've got new things you're interested in, it evolves your, the occupier interest, and it changes your habits, um, in your life in the world, it changes your, your attitude of service, uh, that you're something in you that wants to help and bless those who are in need, and this is practical Christianity. Uh, James, I take it, uh, has to write these things because somebody has to say them in practical, uh, uh, uh, outworking. Uh, Paul does incidentally, of course, he, uh, talks about husbands, wives, servants, and so on, and, uh, Peter, they to some extent do, but, uh, James hammers on this, this is his message, it has a practical, a totally practical outworking, and it's a faith where it, it's a real living faith where it has a practical outworking. Now, of course, that could run us if we didn't know better than the bondage, but it doesn't run us if we don't know the liberty. It does run you if we see the bondage, whether it's true, well, I ought to be that and I'm not, that's what the rest of, we've already seen that, but wisdom, I ought to, uh, I ought to know what I should do, and I'm all fussed up, uh, but, uh, therefore, it doesn't put you in bondage even though if you say this is what I am, don't say what I ought to be, this is what I am, this is what's happening, and where it doesn't happen, shut yourself up again, that's all, say, oh, I'll sit for a moment, okay, that's what I am, don't say that's why I'm that, no, say, I was tempted to have a double mind about, no, I don't take that, God will give me his wisdom, so you keep on the, I am level, that's this life, we are level, the Christ, we are one, this is the secret, and, um, uh, but, uh, his job is not saying too much about that, other people said that, except to present it in its perfection, and say, now this is how it works out. Then he goes the next, first part, next chapter, into this question, I don't know where it's from, it concerns too much of a class distinction in, in, among brethren, that doesn't mean we don't respect people in their, in their, in their titles, we respect the president, not because he's Mr. So-and-so, because he's Mr. President, that's why we have a very good title here, Mr. President, we don't respect Mr. Ford or Mr. Carter as such, it helps very much, we can respect them, we respect Mr. President, that's right, that's not, that's not a wrong kind of respect, to give honor to one who is due, the Bible says that, uh, fear God out of the kings, well, you're foolish, you don't have a king, it's your fault, but, uh, you have presidents and things instead, uh, but you, you honor what you got, that's all right, that's not this at all, that's the right form, because you're not honoring the person, you're honoring the office, but there's another way, uh, we have, in God's kingdom, we don't see offices, I might be respecting a church that's humbled too much, or forgiven elders, and so on, we're getting out of that good year, I hope today, when we're all brothers, and a little respect, maybe, but not too much, uh, that right, brother, but, uh, I'm teasing, but, um, uh, I don't know whether this comes in the past, I can tell you better than I can, well, there is this, uh, he beware against honoring too much, because he's got wealth, and position, and family, and influence, and the, that, that poor, poor fellow, they quite used to be in slave days, we were up in, up in, uh, Bermuda, there to go, we're seeing the original Church of England there, with the galleries, you know, where the slaves were allowed, and all that business, um, and, um, uh, uh, that's, uh, uh, but, uh, I tried, that day has gone a good deal, possibly gone more in this country than Britain, to which I belong, but this is raised here as a question, um, to watch against, uh, maybe pastors need to, maybe those are, but there isn't some special request, request, uh, respect him because he's got the money, because he has the influence, because he's the old man, because he's so-and-so, and, uh, isn't the same honor, respect, everybody equally being sons of God, given to the, although hasn't got those things, it fits a little with that self-image, we keep up to a self-image, put it down, if you've got some ideas of your own, values on earth, put them out, or come, come up, if you, if you've got a low idea of yourself, you should have a, a higher one than something on, and here it is related to other people, uh, so it speaks about that, um, everything, there was quite a thing in those days, he comes up several times, oh, about riches, the danger of riches, he is quite something, he has quite a social touch in this, um, uh, letter, as Jesus had too, basically, for the poor, um, and so he brings it up, brings it up here, um, and they say, it speaks about how the rich, uh, let's misuse the poor, doesn't so much have been so, we've had that, of course, we've had slave days, we've had thwarted labour days, we've gradually come out of slavery, thwarted labour days, we've had, uh, race slavery days, and so on, but we're coming out quick, but we've always want to go, the point is for us Christians, in a way, these things aren't there, um, and that's where he says, now don't, now remember, he says, um, the law of scripture is you love neighbours yourself, that's the law, um, that means you love your neighbour, you see, when I really see it, we're all one person, I am you, when I really see through the whole universe is one, and I am everything and everything is me, it's a great mystery that we haven't penetrated very far, everything's one, I think as we understand science, we understand every thought we have touches a star, we can't understand that, we've got, the speed of things have begun to touch us, we've got some idea of the speed of things, the speed of light and so on, even that's only on the, uh, in the third dimension, because the speed of light is only 186,000 miles a second, well that's, that's peanuts in eternity, that's only in the third dimension, in the fourth dimension, the nearest we get to the mind, the mind is in place in the moment, that's the nearest we get to the fourth dimension of being, you can be here, be there in a second, the way that happens with us as a whole new dimension, we are there like that, um, uh, like Jesus was trying to say walking on the water and a few things every now and then, appearances and disappearances, um, but I'm trying to say, uh, there's a secret we've hardly begun to learn, we are actually are each other, because all is one, that's a great, that's what Jesus said, you love your neighbour as being yourself, you love your neighbour as yourself, and of course Jesus put, put the term, he said if you don't visit a prisoner, don't visit me, you don't feed the hungry, you don't feed me, don't clothe the naked, don't clothe me, and there are several instances in scripture, of course, like at the roads of Damascus, why persecutors are thee, but Paul persecuted them and imprisoned and slaughtered the Christians, not Christ, but Christ and Christians are one, so if they did that to Christ, the Christians did it to Christ, so if I can begin to catch that, I'm very dimly catching it, I'm you, now let's talk about judgementalism, I never judge myself, I'm always nice to myself, and now to you, so I, so if I was nice to you as I am to myself, I'd be pretty nice, see what I mean, when I really see that, it stops me, I do catch him in the eyes, wait a minute, I'm that person, wait a minute, I'm that person, see from that point of view, don't judge him, take him as they are, that's what they're meant to be at the moment, and it may have those effects on them, but they're God, so I'm God, and I'm with God now, moving in until he gets them to know they're his sons, as I know I'm his son, now that's the royal law, and of course the moment you say, oh give us an example, that's an important person, you're in an important place in the fellowship, you're not loving him as you're loving other people, you're loving him not just as a common self, but as a special person, and that's why I said, don't kid yourself, all sins are alike, and he says, if you have respect for the person, you commit a sin, and you're convinced that the law is a transgressor, and then he adds, he's sharp, he says, any lawyer will tell you, if you keep the whole law at one point, you're guilty of all, you're simply guilty of a broken law, therefore he says, the person who said don't commit adultery, also said don't kill, but if you commit adultery, commit no adultery, do kill, you're still a transgressor of the law, and so he says, so speak and so do as those that judge by that law liberty, so I said, that's something to be learned, a physical adulterer isn't worse than me without saying unpleasant things about people, that's something isn't it, that in God's sight, the expression of our attitudes and what may seem minor matters in God's sight, just as heinous as the murder of the adulterer, that may help us to take some judgmentalism off, so he says, your standard is a perfect, your judgment is a perfect law of liberty, judge doesn't mean God's saying things about society, it means that shows you what, it helps you, that's what you are, come back, come back, judgment isn't some awful thing, God's up here, oh I'm going to show you what you are, it's God's mercy saying, I come up, you sit a moment, okay, this is the law, this perfect law, which is God in everybody, for everybody, in this oneness, this is the law, operating on the level of it, and so if you sit, come up, take the judgment, take that as a standard, the law of liberty, and this is where he brings in this this famous passage, that faith is works, Paul couldn't say that, because Paul had to contest, had to combat false works, so you build, we build that life on works, self-works, we carry that self-work right into our early Christian life, or we try to fight them with conscious self-works, and Paul had to, see that's the thing that's gone out, and the law, that kind of law, which was there to oppose me, to make me know I wasn't one, that's gone out, why is it gone out, because it's coming, the law that has been crucified in the cross of Christ, has been resurrected as me, I'm that law now, it's fine, I'm free at the minute, which came to me as an enemy, when he said, show me what I couldn't do, didn't want to do, and made me guilty, and now Jesus Christ wiped out the guilt and the law, and the whole thing went out, not that the law might come from outside into inside, I'm the law, and function as such, therefore James could say, now then, you're the law now, now faith is operating on a given level, faith is being, you've moved inside with your being, the whole idea has to go, of faith as some kind of intellectual theory, this is the place where it differentiates between believing and faith, here it's as thick as you can believe and not have it, because this is where he says, you believe in one God, you do well, the devils also believe in devils, so it makes a differentiation between believing and faith, really I'm saying I'm believing something, it's just when I say I believe it, but faith is, that's just an agency, faith is the whole being involved in something, faith is involved, all life is faith, and all faith is works, as I understand it, we are here functioning this weekend in works, because it's our faith functioning, our faith, by our faith we came here now, our faith it works, it's functioning now for cooperation and fellowship and food and everything else is going, this is, faith it always works, works from the level of the faith, and so James isn't pulling away from Paul, he's putting himself on Paul, he's saying what Paul wasn't there to say, Paul was there to get the tremendous basis right, now Paul, James didn't operate that basis, you are operating, I see what you are, and he instanced two involvements, interesting, he went to two extreme involvements, there are times where you say, then we get a little more into the depths of faith, where it isn't governed by ethics, it's governed by love, and love and ethics don't always work together, strange thing that they don't, and the two instances he brings out, of perfect faith, Abraham killing his son, and Rahab lying to get the spies out, in both cases, God guiding a man to commit murder, to make his own son a burnt sacrifice, does he do it? Another case, guiding a harlot, who presumably was still a harlot, presumably that's why the young men came to that house, she was a harlot, and yet she was a believing person, and she was the one who operated for God, and opened the door for Joshua to move in and take Jericho, and start the possession of the land. So here is the Holy Spirit justifying a murderer and a liar, it's strong, you see, don't judge, don't judge, my friend, I was talking with people this morning for whom I get great benefits, it's not always easy to read, that's great Kierkegaard, one of the greatest, most profound interpreters of Christianity, some foolish man thinks he's wrong, if ever a man's right, Kierkegaard's right, he knew the truth, he made that stop, he has a tremendous book on fear and trembling, the agony of faith, was Abraham a murderer or guided? Either he was a murderer or guided, was he going to murder? He did murder, and he meant to do it, because God had shown him, God had laid him, said you ought to find out true life, eternal life, and you mustn't even leave your son behind with the idea, this is my son, this is, no, it's only because he's the expression of eternal life, he's the transmitter of eternal life, and so you ought to take him and physically kill him and burn him up, and you ought to see him rise again, because then the resurrection will not be that burned body, it will be my life in that body, that's a great secret to churches, nothing in the church, it's only if life's coming out, burn the church, doesn't matter, in my mission I would again and again say, when we had that big headquarters, we had, they gave us the magnificent, the 130-room magnificent headquarters in England, it was quite the centre for fellowship and so on, the headquarters of our mission, I was there at the opening, I said, oh God, may we burn this up, because that's not the point, the point was, let the Holy Spirit come out of it, that's why they use bricks and mortar, because they're bigger, you know, better than a small hut, where the sun lived, in Africa, isn't that, it's just the Holy Spirit, come out, and sometimes God will lead you to some extreme, the world makes it, sometimes God wants you to, as I say, destroy everything, that's why I'm a church destroyer, as I say, burn the lot, because they signify something which isn't God, oh, somebody yesterday was telling us, here, one of your churches, where the people are so occupied in beautifying the building, that's okay, oh, my building, what's the building, wood and stuff and stuff, so it has to come in, and we leaders have to watch this, in the union life, we've got to watch union life, what's that, nothing, what's a magazine, nothing, unless it's Christ coming through, we've got to watch it, then it becomes union life, or some other stuff like that, sects or something, anyway, the moment they become dead, and the pointers of life come out, and sometimes God will lead you to extreme ways, to demonstrate that, and here he led, and the phrase, of course, clearly God uses some phrases, in this great book, it's a wonderful book on faith, the agonies of faith, what he calls the night of faith, as against the night of consecration, K-N-I-G-H-T, he says, oh, the world likes it, you know, in the old pictures of the old crusaders who dedicate their swords, go and kill people, go in the chapel, there you have pictures of them dedicating their swords, we all admire people who dedicate, dedicating themselves, faith is crazy, faith isn't dedicating yourself, faith is killing yourself, a night of faith, Abraham's a fool, Abraham, I think he told his wife that one, I think he kept that privately done, hell, I knew a thing or two, but this is a high thing, a night of faith, a person who goes the absurd way, there's nothing in the glory of the flesh left, that God's work comes through, that's a night of faith, as against the night of, anybody, oh, look at that, magnificent, dedicated person, that's still death, but the real dedication, so it was the dying itself, Jesus was the night of faith, he died a criminal, he died a failure, God, Jesus didn't leave one success behind on earth, he was only in that dimension, in resurrection, and so here God uses this phrase, the teleological suspension of the ethical, by which he means, the fulfilment was to suspend the ethical, the God's teleological is fulfilment, God's purpose is to fulfil by suspending the ethical, the ethical was don't murder yourself, don't lie to hide those spies, be true, suspend the ethical, God's purpose is to fulfil, you never know, so the lesson to us is, don't judge, we had it yesterday over Samson, didn't we, don't judge that he went and married a feminist woman, don't judge, leave a person to God, if we think they've made a mistake, let God take the mistake away, that's how they learn, and God's always beautiful, he builds up the mistakes, he doesn't destroy, he doesn't come to destroy, he comes to edify, he builds up the mistakes, so he's saying that, and he's saying to them, which his whole letter is now, faith is something which he's producing, well we know that now, we don't take condemnation, this is to keep on, now we are producers, we are producers, if we're not it's the Holy Ghost better get showing us, we won't get searching around for ourselves, we are producing the life of Christ, like we have, okay, that's all, but he's just saying to us, that is it, that this life, faith is production, faith is a new life lived, which has its inner background, and it's not the same as something which Millius mentally affirms, can even produce a trembling like the devils, but it's not followed through by the evolved life, then he moves into a, well some of you want to go to the tongue, again the utter aspect, a tongue is a physical member, it expresses a mind and a spirit and a voice and a word, they come down to the tongue, theology is on the upper level, the tongue speaking, what the tongue produces, because the tongue is the agent, like we're the agent of God, the tongue is the agent of what I mean, the thoughts I have and the expression that come up through my tongue, he gives a little word about teachers there, it's an honour to be a teacher, but he says, you're a teacher, be sure you know what you're teaching, this is what he puts in there, when he begins to talk about this, he says, my brethren, be not many teachers, the word here is masters, means teachers, they receive greater condemnation, judgment, they put in negative words, I mean with a greater judgment of what you teach, for a minute we make mistakes, in other words, if you teach, know what you're teaching, that's all, be a teacher, if you're given that, be a teacher, I find that very much myself, I need to know what I'm saying, whether I'm mistaken, I mean, I must be to me a truth, if it's mistaken, I must give what I see to be true, I'm not trying to pretend something, because I'm responsible, I give out, rightly, because in those days there wasn't print, so we are voicing expression in books a great deal today, which couldn't be in those days, so we may say the tongue includes the printed words today, when they stream out, and he's saying there now, it's good, they said, if you are a teacher, know what you're teaching, because you pick it up, we believe in interchange, your brother picked you up, are you right, why did you say that, what proof you got of that, and you should know, and many of us who do, we find that lots of us are coming, we'll be coming up, many of us are coming up, many of you are, thank God, don't be afraid, don't hold back, if you've got it, give it, it's just a warning, be sure what you're giving is what you understand to be truth, not something you just picked up and theorise, as far as you know to you this is truth, my great friend Kierkegaard again, said a word which is great to me, the truth that edifies is truth to me, the truth of evidence, that which feeds me, that's truth to me, may not be all truth, it might not even be truth, as far as I know, because we try to relate our truth to the word of God, that's why we keep the word of God, it's our safeguard, but it must edify, I'll give, oh that's real to me, that's real to other people, we only give what we've got really, and if we give to the heart, the heart speaks to the heart, and the heart identifies, if I give what's real to me, it's something that echoes in you, heart to heart, a mind borrows so often, because you know it's only mind, and let's come down into the edify, I like to explain, truth that edifies is truth to me, and that's what I pass on, then he speaks about the universe, the power of the tongue, well we all know that, I mean we are ruled by tongues, we come here by invitation, most life is geared to what we've heard somebody tell, advise and see, it comes from the tongue, the tongue of course can be devilish or heavenly, it can be stirring up hates and fears and pornography and all stuff, or it can be pointing, uplifting people in truth, so when you look at it, most come, everything comes through tongues, and so tongue, as he says, the tongue turns like the bitumen in the ship, like the rudder turns the helm, or like the bit in the horse's mouth he says, so the tongue is so real, and then he says, he speaks of a lady, he says there's a devastating tongue, is it set on fire of hell, a tongue of fire, we get a little touch of the spiritual there, because spirit is fire, God's fire, fire isn't this thing that burns, it's out of form, the sun is out of form, God is fire, life is fire, everything is fire really, that's why you think it's a spark, it's only how far hidden, the atomic fire, it's fire, and so spirit is fire, and he says here, the tongue is a word of iniquity, it defiles the whole body, set on fire of hell, set on fire of hell, so that's very interesting, he puts hell where it belongs, hell isn't a place out there, a lake we can go to one day, it's here, hell is a a condition, a spirit condition, a condition of self-certainty, hell is, I'll tell myself, and therefore I'll hate this and love that and grab that and all that, all that comes out of self-governance of, and behind that's a spirit of hell, set on fire of hell, because that's all hell is, hell is merely what is in heaven, so it's not true, the only truth in the universe is heaven, heaven is God's love, heaven of course is the whole thing is heaven, this is the kingdom of heaven, heaven is God's expression of love, that's heaven, and we're heavenly people, we make expression of God's love, the other, it's hell, because it's here, there's selfishness and hate and jealousy and fears and lusts and things that stream out of our tongues, so he's saying, and then he adds, he gets a little closer to it, no man can tame it, now he's getting a little toucher there, no man can tame it, well then this is what you do, this is how he brings it out, very cleverly, he first says this tongue stirs the world up and sets you on fire, the tongue can set the course of a race on fire, burns you up, the thing, the angry thing you said, the rotten things you said, they'd burn you up and burn your neighbor up and influence things and stir the world and the tongue's a devil or an ancient one, and he speaks about the devil tongue, then he says there's something more about the tongue, you can't tame it, he says who's ever tamed a tongue, he says every kind of beast and birds and serpents and things of the sea, chapter 3 verse 7, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind, the tongue can no man tame, it's not only evil, full of deadly poison, then he suddenly turns around and says but you've got a problem, now you have a tongue like that, you're a redeemed person, you were born of the spirit and begotten, actually I missed one little thing when I was talking about proceeding from the being give and get into the law of liberty, it says watch for the engrafted word, it's very subtly put here, it says listen to the engrafted word, that's the inner word, so he slips in again, you move to the outer word, the word of truth which is the word of begotten, that's wonderful, the old willy begot us, now he says listen, don't get your old noisy tongue in the way, don't get arguments and don't get rushing into forms of self and the self-expressions which get in the way, listen, listen to the engrafted word, that's in verse 121, I've gone back there, verse 121, engrafted put into you, it's part of you, that's the word, that's the inner word, that's the inner Christ, that's the law of liberty, listen to that one, move into that one, that's where he's moving into the union of life, now you see, he brings up this problem, well now what, you aren't like those, well you used to be but the tongue is just a hellish thing, but he said we have an ambivalent tongue, we have a double tongue, he says here look you, we Christians now, we're pretty good at blessing God, they're pretty good at saying unpleasant things about man, but of course God doesn't say unpleasant things, God only sees blessing and cursing, the Bible never sees grey, never sees black and white, so to say an unpleasant thing is to curse them in God's sight, see, it says here, here thereby bless me God the father, that we curse them, we don't go think we're cursing, but we are cursing, we dare with fake praise, it's cursing, Shakespeare, he's done good things every now and then, so he says those two, but what's the problem, we do that, now what, we ourselves, we're new people and we praise God, and of course this is a part of union, it took me a long time to see it, it's like that statement, it caught me for a long time in 1 John, where John says that if a man says he loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar, but he loves not his brother we have seen, how could he love God we have not seen, I said that's not fair, because God's very nice and you're very nasty, so it's quite easy to love God, I can't stand you, until I find your God, see, then only when I say you're God, then if I don't love you, I'm not loving God, because that's what God is, that's the union come out, and he says that's the same here, you know, oh we bless God the father, oh I don't good, I can't stand that person, I'm cursing him, how's that, now he gets, this is where this again, again, the subtlety comes in, unspoken almost, catching the logical out to see it, and you have to go back to Paul really, he says look here, he says how can that be, he says you can't have a fountain sending out two waters, he says here you can't have a fountain that sends out at the same place sweet water and bitter, can't do it, oh he says you can't have a seed tree bearing olives, or a vine bearing figs, so he said a fountain can't put out both salt and fresh water, see the logic, you've got something wrong, you can't, we're not both, you can't be both, you're not both, you're one, come on now, you're one fountain, you're the new fountain, you're the fountain of the spirit, and the pure fountain of the spirit uses the positive word about brothers and sisters as it does the positive word about God, and therefore not the fountain, it's a little mud coming en route, as the water flow out the fountain, a little mud is en route, that's all, fill up the stick in the mud for the fountain, you see, back again, find out what you are, you're not a double person, you've not got double partiality, or double estimates about who people are, or double questionings about God's guidance and so on, you're not a double person, you're a single person, you're in the law of liberty, and so don't say you're double, say you've got a pure, a firm, you've got a pure fountain, a fountain of love, a fountain of appreciation, and we go with it, we go with it, we do, and we, I think as we go on, we get a little more, a little more, we speak positively, and I find I check myself much quicker, I check much quicker, I said something, now I know I really, that's quite a message to put that side of that side, because I see, I should put God's side about a person, well you check up, but that's not me, that's the other coming in, false thing coming in, the double coming in through the fresh, through the, temptingly, let's say something that my outer mind sees, and my outer tongue responds, that's not I, I say that's not I, don't take that, if it's said, it's forgiven, don't take it, and stay on the positive, you're a fountain, a fountain can only produce one type of water, you're a tree, you only produce one kind of fruit, so you see, I catch it each time, and bring them back out of the double, from the double mind, and from the double, that's it, all right, involvement into the single, and then he says, and that's a heavenly wisdom, and a hellish wisdom, it's come down to the tongue, he says, have your conversation, in meekness of wisdom, have a good conversation, show your, it says, now show us a good conversation, meekness of wisdom, heavenly wisdom, so the out stream is mainly, it's pure, because it's genuine, it's peaceable, it means peace, but it can be entreated, you can listen to what other people have to say about what you're saying, it's producing peace, and it's sincere, and honest, impartial, and that's the sweetness of heaven coming through us, that's what's called the wisdom from above, he doesn't say it's a wisdom from, he only speaks of wisdom from above, he says, this wisdom, the wisdom that is from above, is pure, and genuine, and peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, that's the character, gentle, easy, can accept words from other people, and listen to what they say, is genuine, it's not partial, and meekness is peace, and we know it ourselves, we know it ourselves, this is the heavenly wisdom, this is Christ, in the way, sometimes the challenge comes, but we don't live, live peaceably, sometimes you have to move, sometimes you have to move a challenge, but you don't live, even then you do it with tears as it were, even then the point isn't the challenge as much as the love, but this is the heavenly wisdom, and we know it ourselves, he says there's another kind of wisdom, he doesn't dissent, it doesn't dissent from above, he doesn't say any more, he just doesn't dissent, that's, that's, well there's bitter, envying, and strife, what strife, we know it, what's his arguments, envying is a bad word, because we have it more than we think, we're not so conscious of that one, envying, that, because basically we feel somebody has got more than we have or something, so that doesn't come and produces the discord, and so the real is the concord and the discord, generally speaking, art is a word of concord, peace, love, the other word is discord, watch it, they say that produces peaceable fruits, by operating on the peace level, we produce, we produce a flow of life, the fruit of righteousness is shown by that, meaning that harmony, so that's what he said about tongue, how about it, I better try, I don't know, a little more to say, we'd stop there for a minute, little more to do on James, covering the last two chapters, um, apparently among the believers, there's a great deal of worldly greed and competition going on, we'd almost think it's strange, perhaps we shouldn't, perhaps I live in a kind of atmosphere where I don't meet that as it is, but here it was, and he was speaking to the believers and said, you get fighting among yourselves, because you have desires, you want certain things, and you can't get them, and then you even kill to get them, because you might kill the person's reputation as well as their body to get them, and then you can't get them, and then you get fighting, and then you haven't got them because you asked, because you haven't asked, then you can't get them, when you do ask, you ask for all motives, a pretty gloomy picture, that's the first four verses of chapter three, because you're out for your own self-interest, because that wasn't true, you see, it's always the same thing, it's like they were captured by the flesh, and this, but apparently the flesh is operating, perhaps it does on some, so we have desires, earthly desires, and ambitions, and covetousness, this and that, and even, even, uh, you know, get fighting, fighting our neighbors about whether it was in church affairs or not, I wouldn't say so here, and even using prayer as a means for getting what I want, this isn't a passage on the technique of prayer, it's on the misuse of prayer, and then he comes right out and says, you see, if you have any other love for Jesus, you're an adulterer, straight out, this is where he says, you are adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is the enmity with God, whosoever is a friend of the world is the enemy of God, no two measures, so there's only one love, your love isn't your husband, or your wife, or your children, it's only Jesus, it's only them, as they're given to you by Jesus, as forms which you can love, persons you can love, you've got the sole love, and the sole involvement in life, that's Jesus, God, Father, Son, Spirit, if you have any rival love, it's an adultery, if you give way to it, of course, you'd be tempted, now again, he doesn't touch that, doesn't even imply that they went much farther than temptation here, and he'd be going in for things which were divided objectives in life, as he says, get it clear, you can't have two loves, you can't love Jesus and then have, really be grabbed by some love of this world, maybe it's to do with finances, or position, or persons, or family, you can't have it, so it's drastic, if you've got any other loves, if I were Jesus, you're an adulterer, you're having an affair with another woman, you can't have that, so that's a strong measure, isn't it, so first we need it, even though we may say we don't seem to fit him exactly into fighting to get some personal ending, yet you never know in life, a better man in business, or a better salary, or a by-parting with a person, or downgrading that person to be able to slip into his position, so you see it can rise a subtle wall, can't they, or of course in friendships, rival, because somebody wants a couple of years out of friendship, or as I say, even the wife and husband and the children taking to a place which only belongs to Jesus, as an exclusive place for Jesus, well of course if you're in union, you've not said that, because union is there, union is you're not you, so poor you, if you're not you, which of course I say to you, you're finished, that you are, you are, you are that love, it isn't a real love with a person, it's like you are that person, it's a bit of duality in unity, that when you have duty, he isn't like you love him too, people who don't know you, you get mistaken about that, you say, well yeah, but I, I have God, I'm meeting face to face with Jesus, how can I say I'm one, you can't say it, you don't know it, but it's of course the same principle of trinity, how are trinity one and yet three, they're one yet they're three, yet they're one, so you can't argue with those who don't know duality, you only say they can only pick something up from you, you know, that this is your, your, your centre, your peace, and your, your, your sufficiency and all, I'm not I, I'm this person did it through me, and therefore of course I only have one love, because I am that love, I can't have a rival love, I'm very tempted, I can't have it, if I don't know that, I can have rival loves, that's the getting at here, getting at those who have this divided outlook, I haven't recognised, I haven't that divided outlook, it's a false thing, it was crucified with Christ, it's not real, there is a Christ, Christ has crucified the flesh with his affection for love, God's the midnight glory, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, I'm crucified, the world, the world I am crucified, John, the relationship of three times over, I'm crucified, the world's crucified, I've crucified the flesh, so then that's not real, what's crucified isn't real to me, it's way up there, so it's a, it's a falsely rival love, it doesn't appear rival until I know this union, then I say, oh I'm not that, so again you come back, the only answer is to know the union, and because they didn't know you, they were being caught up by some of these things, and to some extent they were involved in the rival loyalties and even twisty ways of doing things and gaining things, which by which they can be said, you're in love with another woman, that woman is the world, so it's good just not to be searched, because I trust it would have been searched, but to say, hey I don't accept that, I may have had temptations that way, I don't accept that, or we can appear to be caught out, it's an appearance really, it may be real to us, we may really have a rival love and do battle with it, and our trouble is doing battle with it of course, because we've mistaken an illusion for reality, so it is possible if we don't know the union, that we are grabbed by rival affection, rival anything, and we know that, I've known that, I know that, but don't take it, point is you take it, you fight it, you take it, that's it, and you say, no that's not real, I just don't, that's not, I only have one love that's gone, my love is to love people for their sake, not for my sake, or to love things for their advantage, not for my advantage, others' advantage, then you're free, the other love's always free, so it may be that they were caught up by rival loves and didn't know how to fight them, they had to admit, falsely admit, that they were slaves of others, slaves of rival love, and so in this case, James Godfrey put it back to me, and he says, I've got the exposure, and cleansing, and humbling, and crying out to God, he says, don't you know the spirit in the dwellers, you lust it to envy, that's a queer phrase, and there are two interpretations, one is that our spirit's lusting what it shouldn't, I don't think that's right, he says, don't you know the spirit of God's in you, lusting to get you right, he's jealous for you being wrong, and he's there working on you, I like that much more, don't you know the spirit of God's working on you, to deliver you from these false things, and then he says, it's there, God gives abundance of grace, God, he says, he gives more grace, abundance of grace, and again, the second group, the area of grace, he says, we've got plenty of grace in the world, of course it's not explained, the grace we know, it's the recognition, affirmation of the union, the realisation of the union, then the illusion of the other, it's just in the cross, but he doesn't explain that, he says, but God does give grace, and he says, you've got to humble yourself, all right, we're hopeful that the believers, they were humble, it doesn't imply they were, but they knew, they had a business to have these rival loves, so God resists the power, but if you come out and say, yeah, I shouldn't have it, now you're sorry, then you submit yourself to God, and they say, if you do that, the devil, you resist the devil, because the submission is resistance, when you can't see two ways, you submit yourself to God, because it's the devil, not me, you don't see him, he's gone, because the devil's out, he was put out by, put out, and it works to be destroyed by Jesus Christ, and so we have nothing to say to the devil, he's out, but we resist him by affirming who we are, not by fighting him, the more you fight the thing, the more you make it real, the more you resist the thing, the more you affirm it, that's why you don't answer temptation by resisting it, you say, it's not there, and that's why I use that phrase that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, if your adversary, he said, agree with your adversary quickly, while he's in the way with you, your adversary is someone opposing you, because you don't agree with him, he'll gladly put you in prison until you pay the utmost fine, and the idea is, if you fight your adversary and your temptation, something grabs you, you fight him, he gets you, this is the end of tape one, please continue to tape two, our hearts are purified, but they've got to find out, they've got to go this way, maybe in a period of when you've got to get things cleaned up, you've got to cry to God, it is why he says, stop being happy, he's strong, he says, be afflicted and mourn and weep, stop your laughter, turn your laughter into mourning, and your joy to heaven, humble yourself to God, and he lifts you up, so there are areas sometimes that people have to do business, that there are great, that's why I use that phrase that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, if your adversary, he said, agree with your adversary quickly, while he's in the way with you, your adversary is someone opposing you, because you don't agree with him, he'll gladly put you in prison until you pay the utmost fine, and the idea is, if you fight your adversary and your temptation, something of gravity, you can fight him, he'll get you, put you in prison, he'll say, okay, you're there, but you're not really there, okay, I'm tempted, that's not what I really am at all, and you agree with him, but he can't fight you, you say, you're there, I don't take you, because I'm in the other, in Christ, so you resist the devil by submitting to God and doing that to God, but he does say, he says, clench your hands, he says, purify your hearts, he double-winded, double-winded comes in again there, afflicted, mourn and weep, say again, he doesn't say how, our hearts are purified, but we've got to find out, we've got to go this way, maybe a period where we've got to get things cleaned up, we've got to find a goal, it is the way, he says, stop being happy, he's strong, he says, be afflicted and mourn and weep, stop your laughter, turn your laughter into mourning, and your joy in heaven, humble yourself in front of God, and he'll lift you up, so there are areas sometimes where people have to do business, that there are great breaks, aren't there, when people have been broken, they have to admit, I've been wrong, I'm on the wrong path, God have mercy on me, I'm going to start again, I'm a Christian, find a way, because the actual fact when you get there, you don't purify your heart, it's purified by faith, the great scripture on purity of heart, in Acts 15, those who don't know the union, still bring up that Jeremiah's statement, oh I gain all the time, oh but the heart is sinfully wicked above all you who can know it, that's unsaved of course, your heart's like that, that's not saved, when you're saved your heart isn't wicked above all, it's purified, Acts 15 says that, that this is true, when you have the Holy Ghost, this is what happens to you, you know it, Peter's speaking of a bit of Cornelius, God which loatheth the heart, bear the witness, give him the Holy Ghost, as he did to us, putting no difference between us and them, purifying the heart by faith, and the word of the Greek said, aris kem, which means the thing is done and finished, purified, done, finished, that's Acts 15, 9, why, because of course a pure thing is a thing which is single, I mean, pure water, you don't see, there aren't foreign matters, you can't see any foreign matters, it's like pure water, it looks like that anyhow, pure, single, so a pure heart is a single heart, and when of course we moved into union with Christ, we were a single heart, because our hearts have been, his love shall be born in our hearts, and may the love of God take us over, we've got the single heart, which is God and his love, and so on, this is a single heart, the actual fact is everybody's a pure heart, in which way? Kierkegaard has a great book on that, on the purity of heart, purity of heart is to will one thing, heart is where you choose, you will one thing, that's purity of heart, and we used to will self, so we were pure on behalf of the devil, if you were pure on behalf of the devil, must you be pure on behalf of God? And Jesus Christ cut that off when he died on our behalf, died and took out this false love, that's a sin, a false love, and there came in a new love, now the change of purity, our hearts are now single, if our hearts are single for God, well it's well and well and well, so in actual essence, you don't purify your heart, I suppose he means more in the sense of the affections there, but the actual purity of it, is you are pure, you're made pure in Christ, so he speaks strong words to the man, there may be the times when that type of heart searching and breaking down and confession and restoration on the stepping stone in this, actually we all do it, if you come into union somewhere, you've been this way somewhere, or you've searched and thought and been mixed up in self-condemnation and so on, until finally the truth has been revealed to us, that's the last of the doubles he mentions, then he adds a few more in the way he does different comments, he again mentions, comes back and says, oh this tongue, he's very sensitive about the tongue, but speaking evil about another, he hadn't actually said this before, but he says it's here, but don't speak evil about your brother, and he puts it in his way he does, unusual way, makes you think, if you speak evil about it, you judge the brother, you're speaking to the law, that's a glorious statement, don't speak evil about another brethren, if you're speaking to your brother and judge your brother, you're speaking to the law, and judge the law, but you judge the law, it's not a doer, the law will judge, now of course our old idea of the law you see is something out here, it doesn't make sense to judge the law out here, but of course you see we are the law, what he means is the perfect law of liberty, if I judge a brother and that brother's expression of this law of liberty, I'm judging the law which he's expressing, I'm not judging him, I'm judging that which he's expressing, so don't judge your brother, that's God's business, if he's the one who claims at least that he's Christ's person and so on, don't judge him, he's claiming all that, there's Christ taking it that way, there's Christ taking it that way, don't judge him, if you're judging your spiritual law, he's being controlled by the law, the law is of course one, it's having God in him, that's the law, the law of liberty, it's the living God, it's the law of the universe, it's best for him, don't judge that, so it's a rather subtle way round of saying now when you judge a person, you're judging that which motivates the person, that which motivates the person is Christ in that person, so you're judging Christ as the superior Christ, don't leave that alone, just leave Christ to do his own merciful, positive, edifying operation in life, because he's ever destructive, he says there's one law giver who's able to save and destroy and so on, who out there are judges and all that, but there is of course another area, if he keeps wandering in his mind around there, he knows his people, where they were just slapping up, and that was the casualness in recognizing and living a guided life, where we would again say, that's not a thing that touches us much, he's saying now you people, don't you people say well now tomorrow I'll go to Sun City and I'll stay there a year and I'll make money, the idea is I'll get my own game there, but you don't want to, well it is a moral, because you're actually a vaper, that appears at times anxious to worry, and you ought to say if the Lord will, you live and do this and that, rejoicing in your own choices, that's evil, so he's saying essentially this, I would think that we who moved into this life had that normal, we don't always say if the Lord will, but we mean it, at bottom, we're always meaning to do what we understand to be Lord's will, we aren't casually I'm going off in a big game to root about God, so again there's a division here, it's a double-mindedness, if you're in the one, you're not always saying the Lord wills, the Lord wills, you're just taking that to be said something, you say it because you think the Lord will, you say it because you're going to all, but underneath, in your inner conscious life, as far as you understand it, all being God acting through you, whatever his ways are, but where there's a double life, again you get it, that comes in this false notion, oh I must have, I could make some money there, I'll go and get on with that for years time, I haven't even started God, that's what you're getting at, and you're enjoying the fact that you may be able to make some cash on the side or something, whatever it may be, he said this is evil, he has a final passage then again on the rich, again it doesn't seem to come close to us, because it speaks of rich men in their worst form, as those accumulating masses of money, and it says rust on them and burn them, and those who get their money by their cheap labor, so there's a certain social touch here, the higher the laborers who reap down your fields higher against you, and they come to the ears of the Lord, the Lord of hosts, rather the Old Testament idea, you haven't paid them their wages, or again you use your, you use your money for your own sensualities, you live in pleasure, you're wanton, and nourish your heart and so on, and you condemn to kill the just to make your way, this is a picture of course of, there's plenty of it in the world, there's been plenty to wish for hasn't there, obviously which is our, and a danger how hard it should be, which is Jesus said so, that's so, so it may not very directly appeal to us here, but it helps us to watch, to see that we're good too, is what we have got, because what is his point was here they're storing up this wealth, it'll burn you one day, it'll turn to curse you, it'll rust on you, you store up your wealth, instead of using your wealth, you've got it wrongly, you use it, that's all I suppose it says, as far as we're concerned there, that insofar as we have any prosperity, that our privilege is to see how, how, what we're prospered with can be to the benefit of God and his, his purposes in the world, then he moves on to a word, a final word among patience, there was a persecution, now again it doesn't touch us these days very much, there's a patience for the coming of the Lord, the idea being of course they were under different pressures, they would be, look for the Lord's coming, when we finally read Paul, Paul did that, under great pressures, he longs to go, but he likens, he likens our condition, waiting for the coming of the Lord, to the, to Job particularly, this is where Job was mentioned, and to the prophets who suffered affliction and had patience, and they said you're kind of, you're happy in enduring, that's a good phrase in chapter 11, in verse 11, you're happy and you endure, you heard of the patience of Job, Job got so much better, so remember patience didn't mean everything, it included joy, I mean Job came back to a joyful life, and can we praise what we're doing, so let's be more occupied, I would say praising the Lord now, and being occupied in the present coming, and having fulfilled what God would do by our present coming, than to be too much occupied in the, in the future coming, we must each go the way we're led that way, many of God's people are enormously intrigued by the second coming, I think they say that that book by that's gone into two million copies hasn't it, to my mind a lot of it is just cinema, it is Christian movies, you see that's my picture, see I don't live an attached life, I don't live in what's going to happen one day, I'm living very much what's happening now, I don't personally wish to be too interested in that, it'd be wonderful when he comes with perfection, that's not my basis, and yet I find on the whole it is the main basis of most of the evangelicals, that they're interested in what they can say about the tribulation and the judgment coming, and also makes you very negative, it makes you think that God's judging this world, well if he is, it's a pretty good lot of blessing packed up in the judgment, that's all I can say, because this is a day of blessing, a day which we're able to move out with the gospel, a day of freedom, a day of response, it's a tremendous day worldwide, I'm not going to mission affairs now, I'm a missionary but I've done mission affairs over there, tremendous days in Brazil and Africa and Indonesia and even countries like Japan are moving and Thailand, all over the world the spirit of God is moving through the people, so there's streams of blessing today, and I think that's more to my mind in the foreground than the judgment, that's why personally I somewhat doubt their interpretations, till the present working out as they for 50 years said they had, I mean they said the kind of thing, when I was a boy I heard these kind of things just happening, well they haven't happened, and instead of that has come a great enlargement of the workings of the spirit of God, so I'm more occupied than that, and nor do I think we ought to be saying we should escape tribulation, I had a link with a great soldier, C.G. Studd, who believed in serving for Jesus and giving highest honor to suffer for Jesus and giving life for him, so he was so contempted to those who wanted to escape tribulation, he had a beautiful society for those who wanted to escape great tribulation, but no one joined it, he said go through tribulation, glory in God, and be glorious in your suffering, let people see Christ coming through you in your suffering, that's much more the tone of the Bible I think, than having an interpretation, oh good I should go up, I don't mind what happens to the people left behind, I should go, that's not the gospel, escape, it's being with them, so I doubt the whole presentation itself, I think it's more speculation than interpretation, or so-called interpretation than necessary truth, but others don't see that, so God blessed, follow what you got, and if you're one who gets crazy ideas, well give what you got, and use what you got, and God values it, many people have been bought face-to-face, I need a Christ to appreciate the second coming, so there's room for everything, and it moves on to just a final word or two, a little touch on language again, don't swear, now he isn't talking about vile language, when Jesus said don't swear, and here he gave, it puts above all there, he said don't swear, now that my heavens, what he's referring to is the weakness which revolves in saying a thing, and having to have something to confirm it, that's really what it is, it's a mission if you're not confident what you're saying, don't have to put in something as a confirmation, by God I say this, because we wouldn't say that, the world says that, by Jesus, we may use different phrases, which really, we use to confirm our word, and John says, James says, yeah, good enough, if you're sure, just say what's true, and say the truth, yes or no, you don't have to add this, cause you're a little weakened, and need some little confirmation to put it on the side, that's all he means there, and then he has this well-known statement on sickness, which I think has to do with something to do with it, he's saying that if you're sick, you pray, practical, if you're merry, sing songs, sing songs, if you're sick, what does it say, it says if you're sick, if you want to have out of symbolic help, symbolism, call the elders, and not they call you, you call them, and get them to pray over you, and get them to anoint you, Lord, and the Lord, the prayer of faith to save, not heal, isn't that a little twist, isn't it, the prayer of faith to heal the sick, he said the prayer of faith to save the sick, and the Lord to raise him up, raising up isn't necessarily physical, and if he had committed sin, the center was getting inner healing, the center wasn't the physical healing, it's the Lord will save you, and put you into a saved relationship, a liberated relationship, if you've got sins blocked away, they disappear, so actually in Christ, and that's what really matters, that our true health is being in Christ, and when we in Christ, that may come down to the body, and he doesn't use the words we use, say, Peter, then it speaks, it seems to turn generally then, not necessarily to the sick person, he adds a confession, falls one to another, and pray to one another, that's going beyond the question of the elders and the sick person, it moves into a new section now, I think, although we use it with you together, pray to one another, you may be healed, and then it speaks of the affection of firm prayer, the body, what does the matter of body matter, the healing is to be healed for the whole person, the whole person is a person for whom Christ is manifested, and it may be to a sick body, or not to a sick body, physically, it's a minor matter, you find poor men very little of it, after all, can you get a better, one of the teachers, he said, my outer man perishes, my inner man is renewed day by day, and he says, Christ will magnify my body, whether by life or by death, he says, I shan't die, he says, all I've said is that I die glorifying Christ, magnifying Christ, and of course the thought of the flesh which comes up as sick for him, so I don't believe the major point is a person should be healed of their body, of course we're human, and we're hurt, and we want healing, but if you look into this, the danger is the first objective, I want healing, so we're back on surfaces again, isn't the first thing, I want the will of God, I'm God, God said to him, I want the will of God, and Paul, very plainly, he had warned us that there's not time of healing of the body in your life, and Romans 8 is a victory chapter, more than conquered, and so on, and that's where he brings it, right in the middle, he says, yes the world's flattering until it gets released from the sons of God, and we're heirs and co-heirs, we're more than conquered, he says in his chapters, we're more than conquered to him that loved us, then he says the world groans and shudders in pain until the final release comes, not only they, but ourselves also, Romans 8, verse 23, which are the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves grow within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body, we're saved by hope, hope to see is not hope, what a man sees, why do we get hope for, if we hope that which we see not, then we be patient, wait for it, so the salvation by faith of the spirit, saves my hope of the body, he doesn't say salvation by faith of the body, salvation by hope of the body, so we're not given a total redemption of the body, and I say, why bother about the body, why not just be occupied seeing whatever I am, Christ is coming through my body, actual fact is, when we've healed spirits, it does affect us, the quickening goes on, the word that Paul does give, is quickening, quickening isn't healing, it's life in spite of the condition, quickened body, short of quickening of a mortal body, it's a shell, probably the real meaning of that verse is resurrection again, but we often use it, I think it's true to say that when we're at rest and peace and joy and free spirit, it doesn't affect our bodies, we're not thinking, we're not fussing about our bodies, and spontaneously things happen which quicken our bodies, so I don't see it, the new testament is putting an emphasis on physical healing, it's thought and we hear, and finally he says, pray and don't get answered, he makes a final reference to Elijah that we had this morning, you can pray and get answered, and the highest thing of all is that you can be a means to bring other people back to Christ, so he keeps adding these different passages, and there he finishes, this ends, no other ending, no final greeting like Paul would give, and that's his letter, so that's what we've got to say, James. We hope you won't mind our including on this tape some of Dan Stone's thoughts on freedom that he shared with a group in Louisville in 76. I'm very much this morning like the guy who was being tarred and feathered and ridden out of town, the reporter asked him what he thought, and he said if it wasn't for the honor of it, he'd rather not be here. One thing about teaching, unfortunately it requires the English language for those of us who speak American, and the very use of English language tends to complicate that which is not that complicated. For instance, I could say what I really want to say in one sentence, and that would be a blessing, but I've done that before, and then I get the riot act read to me for not taking any longer. So I'll go ahead and try to drag this thing out. This is new material that I haven't used before. I have notes, and I hate it. I don't want to use them, but I don't want to say off-center what I mean to say on-center. I'm afraid you're going to hear it as law, and it's inner principle and not out of law, and I always have to trust that hearing. But what I want to talk about this morning is does union life encourage license? Of course, the one sentence answer to that is what others call license we call growing pains, because we don't see outer, we see inner, and what is inner is already done, and the only place it's worked out, though, is in the outer. And there is this period in our lives, it's not chronologically ordered at all, but it is confined to this arena of time and space where we now find ourselves in our humanity, and it does require us coming into an awareness of our fixed inner consciousness. Until we move into a real fixed inner consciousness, we do have periods. Someone was talking about their earthen vessel a while ago. We do have periods of exaggerated concern with the vessel, and we do have periods where we are really seeing separation again outwardly, and we do have problems from time to time with this. So I want to share it with you today and see where it takes us. I hope you will allow me to refer from time to time two notes. I appreciate something that's happened already today, because Bill was using passages of scripture from 2 Corinthians this morning a great deal, and I've already found some 2 Corinthians passages and Laurie's one on telephone. Okay. So maybe we'll be using some of the same material. Well, does union life encourage license? My immediate and first response is geared to the one that Paul gave in the 6th chapter of Romans, the 15th verse. Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? May it never be. But the question is a natural one for this day and time in which we are living, for we all have just been a part of a decade which was very permissive in outer conduct, and permissiveness became the new form of conformity. And if you were permissive, you had your own peer group that applauded you and awarded you for being permissive, while your parents stayed home and wept because you were to them permissive and were not conforming. But, of course, to the other group, you were very much of a conformer. Now we're seeing it in our generation, the decade we're now in, we're seeing our society more willing to accept structure. Really, we're seeing our society more willing to accept control upon themselves. And in religious circles, we're hearing that word bounced around about discipline and submission, which is nothing more than our desire for someone to tell us what to do, how to do it, when we can do it, and how often we can do it, we do it one more time, it's wrong. But the outer conduct is something of a trickster. For we really know that we cannot trust outer conduct to produce inner spiritual life and character. It never has. I'm always aware of the word never, but it never has and it never will. It will produce outer conformity, but it also produces a great deal of inner nonconformity. And we all know the difficulty of living in that duality. The same time we're conforming outwardly, quite often there is deep within us an unsettledness and a dissatisfaction and a great deal of nonconformity that kind of has the lid twisted down on it tightly, and as that pressure builds up inside of us, sometimes it bursts, and when it does, it splatters all over the place. So we can't trust outer conformity to produce inner character, no way. But we know that we all start, and this is within the Christian framework, we all start with outer conduct. We all start hearing about the Christ who died for us, the Christ of the past and the Christ of the future. And that is the outer Christ, and we make our initial response to the gospel that's presented to us. My very body movements illustrate that that concept is outer and the word is presented to us, and we hear the word and we respond with a great sense of relief and relief that our sins have been forgiven. So we all start there. But we know that the sequence of spiritual truth is from outer to inner, and we're never really fixing anything that's outer. We can always be swayed from outer teaching. We cannot be moved from inner truth, because inner truth is my I, my pronoun I. And when I am expressing that, as Bill was saying this morning, that's me. That's when my me is my I. And in essence, that's what I'm really leading into today, that there is a period in here when our me isn't really tracking with our I. And we know it, and we're concerned about it, and we're seeking to bring these two concepts, these two tracks, so to speak, in line with each other so that our I always coincides with the word of God that is being spoken to our inner person. First, let us talk about it like this. For a time, to many people, union life may appear to encourage license. And this is important to discuss, because if you've been involved, any length of time at all, first of all, you've probably asked that question yourself, or you've probably made that accusation yourself about union life. If you've been in it very long, someone's made it to you. Now, the reason we said that and others say it to us, I've already alluded to. We begin to hear truth, but we don't hear truth inwardly first. We hear truth here. We hear truth through this ear, or we look at truth through our outer eye, and we begin to see outer conduct entirely. For people like this, probably 2 Corinthians 4.18 should be translated something like this. We look at the things which are seen, but not at the things which are unseen. For the things which are seen are important and permanent, but the things that are not seen are foolishness and not worth pursuing seriously. That's what we all saw. The first thing we want to know after conversion is, now what must I do? This is the end of side one. Please stop your machine and turn the tape over.