In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the power of God and how it can be both a blessing and a potential danger. He highlights the importance of experiencing God's power and love rather than getting caught up in theological debates. The preacher uses the example of Peter, who loved Jesus and was given power by God, but was rebuked when he tried to prevent Jesus from going to Calvary. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the simplicity and beauty of God's work in nature, using the image of a blind kitten nursing as a metaphor for our need to connect with God's resources.

I'd like to have my friends near me when I talk. I want to feel friendly with them, and feel open that we, that we share, we're open-minded. I think the Lord, I always want to help you. I suppose you think I have a strange way of showing it, but that's my thought. I want to share with you the truths that have been helpful to me. I've always loved the truth. And of course, after you get a taste of it, it helps you, then you want to share. This morning, I want to work a little while along the line of making or finding or sensing your difference between your nature and your character. So that that can help you over some places. When God is dealing in one field, you are praying in the other. And when he wants to get over there, you're praying over in this one. Now you've heard me talk a great deal about your character, and the building of character, and the reshaping. And then you've heard us talking about our natures, the old nature and the new nature. I want to straighten out one thing with you first of all. What do I mean by your nature when I talk about that? Now your nature is purely a gift to God. We are born with our human nature as a gift. That's the context in which we find ourselves related. We are creatures of his idea of the human being. And so our human nature is purely a gift to God. We have to learn to accept that. We accept it. That's our nature. Now what do you mean by your character? Is your character your nature? No. Your character is what you build, and is the result of your obedience to the will and purposes of God, which release in you the potentials for character display, personality development. So your nature will be always considered a basic gift of God. But he cannot give you character. He can't do that. Character is built by a response of your will to his in a field where in which he is dealing. We had a little story the other morning about God creating Adam. He was a partaker of human nature. That was purely a gift. God made him, created him. Adam had nothing to do with it. And God put his blessing upon him. He said it was good. He was pleased. But he was pleased with his workmanship, that he had created a human being. But the human being had not yet functioned. That is, it had not pushed up in the display of its purpose. God had made him that he might display in his character qualities the glory and wonder and mystery of God. And in the development of that character qualities coming up like this, there is a restoration. That is the image and likeness of God. But that God doesn't give him. Character is built under a law of testing and proving. Nature is not given that way. Nature is the gift. Your character is built. You build the character. I build the character. That is, well, there's nothing to me, but I am responsible for it. And that character can only be released. Look up. Become a reflector of the things of God through a law of testing and proving. And that's why in the second chapter of Genesis before it hardly gets covered, the law is introduced. Remember what it was? It was a law of testing and proving concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And there's your first law, and it's a law of testing and proving for the purpose of developing the character that God wanted, which God cannot give to him. God cannot give you character. You develop it through God's mercy and grace and all that he has to offer. But it is the result of a cooperation, an intelligent cooperation of your will being surrendered to the will of God, and you taking that will of God and allowing it to be worked in you. The forthcoming is the character which bears the likeness and the image of God. And that's what he wanted. He can't give it to you. You have to build it. A little baby can be born in a moment, but it can't be made into a man with all the pain in the world, and all the consecration in the world, and all the intense desire to... He's under a law. He has to grow. Grow up, you know, develop. You are required with those things. You never get under a requirement. The only thing is to accept them and become intelligent about them, and then adjust yourself to them. These are laws. There's the law of adjustment. Very simple thing, but a most basic thing. If there'd be no adequate adjustment, all the rest of the agitation, it means just absolutely nothing. But if there is an adjustment there, then the movements of God and your response to God begins to work and build the thing that God wants. He wants us as Christians to become manifestations of the likeness of God, likeness of Christ, the image of Christ. And so he calls us even epistles, which are well-known. The reflection should be so evident in us that people will sense we are different from people in the world. Well, what is it that makes us so different from the people in the world? Because we dress differently? No. That's an external affectation, that's all. It's not a reality. It's something you assume. To make yourself different in any physical thing that we have power over, that doesn't make the character at all. I could be with people who don't understand these things and dress with the most somber clothes and assume a very somber mood, and I could assume all that. How do you know that wouldn't make me humble? No, it wouldn't. It's an affectation. Humanity is a person. It's something within. And if you think you have it, I'll tell you you haven't. How do you know that this is true? It's the thing in which we are least conscious, because it's after our pure reflection of this strange ego, this strange creature that we are. So God desires now, since we are Christians, his main purpose now, having saved us, and filled us with his Spirit, and given us gifts of the Spirit, and every encouragement from his side, which I call the equipment from his side, he's given us all that freely. Now what is all that for? Its last analysis is its power and effect in transforming these creatures who we are to be. Now that's what he is basically after. He wants somebody to rule within another age. He even elevates the call, and he says we are even the bride of Christ. Well, that's an extreme picture, isn't it? How is that done? Well, he says the bride makes herself ready. Yes, she does. We can't make ourselves ready as Christians because we are sinners, and we can't make ourselves Christians, and we can't do that. That's the grace of God giving us as a gift the new nature. We are partakers of his nature, that's a gift. Partakers of his nature, that's a gift. But the development of it, that's all for us. But he gives us all the equipment necessary for its working, so that in ages to come there shall be a release and a setting free of what is accomplished in this little period we call time. It's very small compared with the eternal ages, but he has this objective that he's working on during this period. So let us not deceive ourselves in thinking, well, I'm a partaker of the new nature, and I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. We may be all that, and it's perfectly true that we are, but that is not yet the built character that he's after. How many of you can see that, or can't you? Can you see that? Yes, so I know you're with me. I like to feel that you're with me. I just like talking, talking, and I feel I don't know if they're getting anywhere with it or not. I want you to get started on that. How many of you can see where I'm looking now? The nature is the gift that he supplies fully in Christ Jesus. We become partakers of his divine nature. We have nothing to do with it, or we accept it. But the transforming of us into the image of the Son, he can give us that. That has to be the result of an intelligent, voluntary cooperation, surrender to his will, that he can build that in us. And that's what he does. That's why he says, grow in grace. Well, I have the grace. I am saved. I'm filled with the Spirit. That's only the beginning, dear. Every wave in Christ has that. To have all those gifts of God never matures us. That's our quantification field, that's all. Now he says, grow. Why does he make the gradation all the way through the New Testament? Paul's writing, Jesus' teaching, starting with what? Babes. He does. And Peter says it. Now he says, look at your analogy in the natural. He says, use of the day. How does it live? Well, it takes milk, a very, very simple diet, but it isn't able to take it anymore. It's not eating tree. Now he says, as a babe desires milk that he may wean and grow, he says, so do you. You now desire the sincere milk of the Word, which is the simplest, elementary revelation of truth. Desire that, that you may be blessed. You know, we are all going to be blessed, but that's not the opportunity. Not a thing. Desire all that hungering and thirsting after righteousness in the world. Why? That we may grow thereby. That's the objective. Well, I want to know the truth so I can do this and that and the other. That's good. I want you to do that, but you've missed your objective. Desire, even in the beginning, the sincere milk of the Word, that you may serve God better. No, you will do that automatically. If you have a good grasp of truth, automatically you will serve God better, but that isn't the point. That's not what he's talking about. He says, get hold of the truth and desire it with a hunger that a little new-born baby has that manifests that it could live. The desire or urge to live is fundamental and the basic thing in our whole moving here. The urge to live, to keep alive. That's the foundation, that's fundamental. You don't get anything in the world unless you're conscious of the fact that you have the urge and the baby has it. No mother takes the baby and says, now, dear, you'll starve to death if you don't eat. It's ridiculous. All the little baby needs is contact with the resources already provided. He came from his mother expelled, but he has to go back again for sustenance, and so God has made it that way. And so the mother doesn't say, you'll die if you don't eat. The urge is there. And no one ever taught a baby to nurse. That's a fundamental element in that creation. If we are really born again of the Spirit of God and in touch with God, there should be a strange urge in every one of us for God. That ought to be basic within us. No one ought to say, you ought to love God. You ought to want the things of God. No, no, no. There's been some kind of an abortion or something, some unnatural thing. But if it's been a real work of God, and you've been brought actually in touch with the living God, even as a beginning Christian, the urge to live is there, and you want God, and you want the things of God. You love Jesus. You tend up with Him. It comes. All that little baby needs is to be brought in contact with the resources, and he automatically nurses. He just does. That's all within nature. How many of you ever watched a little tiny kitten with its eyes shut and blind nurse? Have you ever seen it? Isn't it sweet? I see God in all that. That just moves me like a sermon. When I see an almighty, marvelous God moving in these strange, elementary, simple processes in nature, and saying, look, this is only a picture. Here it is in God. That's only a picture. Here it is in God. Do you ever see those little kittens, and they're blind, but they make contact. How many of you ever see them press with their little paws like that? How many of you ever see that? Come on, own up. Have you ever seen them do that? Yeah. Isn't that marvelous? Why, that moves me as much as some very shaman or some godly person. I think, be still. Let me look at a kitten. Really, I'm that way. I get more out of some of those strange, wonderful things in God when I do a lot of howling and banging and discussing some deep theological problem nobody knows anything about anyway. Bones of contention with 2,000 years, and they haven't even seen a kitten yet. You get me or don't you get me? I've been in that, and I'm out of it, thank God. And now I'm watching all this lovely movement of God. God's all around us. So, he says, as newborn baby, desire is the sincere milk of the word. It will keep alive? Mm-hmm. It will keep alive. But it will do something to you. It is the releasing agency that he has. The power of the Word of God and the cross of Jesus Christ have been the two instruments that have released me more than anything I've gone through. The revelation of that Word and the ministry of the cross of Christ cancelling, slaying, but resurrecting into life. The Word and the power of this cross have been the most delivering agency I can give as a testimony of anything that's touched me. We begin with that baby, that she may grow. Well, by and by, he talks about children. Then he even talks about little children. And by and by, he talks about sons. And sometimes he talks about what? Grown-up sons. And then sometimes he talks about fathers and mothers in Israel. Do you see a gradation? Do you see a development? Certainly. That's God. There's nothing static in it. So he has given us a new nature, a gift of God, the grace of God. Now he says, grow, grow, and come into the fullness of the stature of Christ. Let me conform you and shape you into his image and likeness. And so by the cooperation and surrender of all that we have, and our wills and our desires and our thoughts, and he sifts them all out and cleanses them out and sorts them all out until he can get the basic things that we need. He spends some time with us sometimes getting the supposable stuff out of the road, not wicked stuff, but the non-essentials. Now he says, let us grow. Then we come on to another one, let us grow in grace. And grow in love. Grow in love. That's our role, isn't it? Now I'll let you learn something that has helped me in my own experience in God. There are two words that have helped me. And they're in the word of God, and they intrigue me. One is to grow, and the other is to learn. I want you to see that in either field that you look, grow, learn, there's nothing that we would say is an instantaneous acquisition or grasping or holding. Salvation can be in a moment, but the growing, the learning are processes. I was glad to find that they're even related to our Lord in his human aspect. When he took up the human concept to manifest and show to God what the Adam should be, he was restricted to it. And so he grew in stature and knowledge and wisdom and all that. He grew. He learned. And though he was somehow God, yet learned the sins of God through a law of suffering. Well, that's the lovely Christ we have. Do you think we are exempt? No, he says. No scholar is above him. If that is the characteristic of the development of that man, and he puts it as our pattern, then those two words intrigue me, because I know growth is always there, and we can grow just as much as we want to. We can grow just as much as we want to. And we can learn just as much as we want to. For both of them are divine arrangements. They involve a process, but not immediate possession. I can be saved in a moment, but it takes my lifetime to develop the thing that God is after. A bird can be born in a minute, but it takes him many years to come into maturity as man. Why? Because they're close. So this morning, I want to talk to you about just this one side of the question, the character, the character that God is seeking to develop in us. Fundamentally, it will have a description, of course, but I'm only going to give you that as your outline, as your thought, because all the silly meaning comes in afterward. What would you give as a definition of a character? The character that God is after. The character. The thing that he wants to see brought up to its fullness. I have a text here. You don't need to look at it now, because I don't like you reading when I'm talking. If I were teaching the class where we were going to give an exposition of the world, then we can work our work together. But when I teach, I don't like people reading in their Bibles. Do your reading at home, but not when I'm talking. I have the same kind of Bible you have, so I don't believe that's in the Bible. It is. But I'd like a reference. Get your reference home. I'm going to read you a text, which to me is the most sublime and the most perfect description of character. It's given to us for manifest in Christ, when he gives us the material by which it can be manifest again in us. But God has not given us a spirit of fear. So he sweeps away this idea of fear, and that's all negation. He sweeps that out of the atmosphere when he's going to begin to deal with us. For he says that is not in God. If you said the other day, fear is not a word in the vocabulary of the Christian. Perfect love casts us out of fear. Fear has torn him. Fear is a result of the disobedience laws of the sin problem. He has not given us that. But here is something that he has given us in Christ. All this is in Christ, but it has to be worked out in us. Given a spirit of power, of love, in our poor old English translation, a sound mind, which is very foolish. We'll get into that in a minute. What are they? We have provided for us in Christ, and given to us as the material by which we can build this great and glorious thing that he's after, through requirements. They are fundamental, but they are the three basic requirements to make this lovely character that God is after. What does he begin with? He says he has made it manifest in Christ, and given it to us in him. Now he says, you take these elements and work them out in your own heart and mind. And he says, just as they worked in the Lord Jesus, and in other great characters that he has been pleased to touch, he says, it will work in you too. Now, here is another divine arrangement. We talked about it the other night about the Beatitudes. Never recast them because you say, well, blessed is the man with this, and blessed is he, and blessed is he, what's the matter? But I'm not having any of those, I'm just going to bless him. Well, you can't do that. The Beatitudes have a sequence, and you have to begin with blessing the poor in spirit as the basis for all the other blessings coming. And you can't change that. You can't change it. Now, here is another arrangement. We had one the other night with the Old Testament. You, getting this experience in God, that was the first thing you found? Light, didn't it? He didn't find love. He says, God is my light, that you have to have to get the whole thing going. He is my salvation. He is the strength of my life. Because the full stream of the conception of God is always in the Trinity. Now, here is another arrangement. You can't change this. To build this strange mystical thing, the transformation of what we are by nature into this glorious thing exactly, he says, I'll give you, first of all, power. Love from mind. Now, why does it begin with power? Because power is the dynamic by which the whole thing is made manifest. No need to mess around trying to get love or some of the other things. The whole scene depends upon a dynamic which God furnishes, which is power, which is the Holy Spirit. Now, let's move it back again and see that same sequence, the same order in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and in your heart and life and in mine. You see, everything that we have from creation down is through the power of our spirit, the spirit of God. Old Testament, Ruach. New Testament, Yuma. We both have the same idea of birth, of life, don't we? We remember that. The out-breathing, Ruach. The breath of God. That spirit, that's life. In Yuma, life. Birth, pneumonia, pneumatic tires. That all comes from the same word. Yuma, pneumatic, pneumatic tires. Yuma, air, air, breath, spirit. Why? Because you can't get anything in creation without it. Way back in the creation of the world. It's the truth, it's the spirit. Spirit, spirit, spirit. Do you have it in the life of Jesus? He's conceived of the spirit. He is born of the spirit. He is baptized in the spirit. He ministers in the spirit. He says that his whole life moved within the realm of the power of God, called the Holy Spirit. And he lived in it, and moved in it, ministered in it. And even when he died, do you remember how he was resurrected? By the eternal spirit. Well, if all of that in the life of Jesus was so dependent upon how much more is that necessary for every one of us? We can't get anywhere home without it. So he says in the building of this man, he says, I'll give you the dynamic by which it will be done. That is the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, which is the period of witness, it's the witness of God to the world through an instrument. What instrument did God use in the Old Testament as a special manifestation of his power and a manifestation of his entity, who he is? What did he use? His own people, didn't he? That's what they were called for. From all the nations of the earth, he took the Jews, Israel, he said, you are my people, and you are going to be the media through which I will reveal myself and through my revelation through you, climaxing in the gift to my son, that's my visitation of light, and light to the world. But he had that as that witness. Israel is the witness. He said so. You are my witness. I've chosen you as a witness, a testimony in all the nations. And the manifestation of who I am, even through you, will be the manifestation to the world. All the religions about him, how distinct he made Israel, didn't he? He just made them so very distinct in every way. He said, I wanted to tell in everything, from your clothes to your food, to everything. You are not like that. You are like this. He gave them a witness, a wonderful witness, all the time through the power of the Spirit. Israel is the nation of miracles. The Jew requires what? A sign. The Greek, what? Wisdom. And the Gospels, what? The power of God in the revelation. And God recognizes that in all the people. And he makes his appeal to them. And so he said Israel is that witness. Then he turns to another manifestation. Out of that issues the Christ. And so Christ comes out of that manifestation and has a dispensation of his own, which we would say is a dispensation of the Son. And in that we find God again moving. Moving. Why? Because Jesus is the great witness of God to this world, bearing again a special message and a special concern of Israel having her period. Now he says the Christ will come and have a special dispensation, a special objective. Through this witness I'll bring redemption, ends in the revelation. What is the first name that's given to Jesus in the revelation? What is the first name? The faithful witness. That's what he is. He is many things. He's a revealer. He's a king of kings. That's all very true, but that's not his first name. When he is honored in glory in the unveiling, he says, he is my true and faithful witness. And that's exactly what he does. Then when he goes away, he turns to his group of people, his little handful, who is to become his mystical body in the earth. He says, I'm going away and experiencing that I should go. But I'm not going to disappear absolutely and cut off all contact. I'm going to project this through you and you will become my body, my mystical body on the earth. I'll be the living head for all direction, for all vision, for all knowledge, all that will be invested in the head. But you have to become my body through which I flow and minister and live and move, and you shall become my wife. My witness in the world, the same as God had a witness in Israel. God had a witness in the Son. He has a witness in the body, which is the witness of Christ and to Christ. You shall belong to me, my witness in the world. I'm going to be the living witness to this passion world through you. You are my witness. You, you, you are my witness here. I leave you here. He gave them power to serve before Pentecost ever came. He called them apart before Pentecost ever came and gave them power for their ministry and for their service and they went out and demonstrated it. They don't talk that in Pentecost, but it's in the Bible. It's in my Bible, Hallelujah. That's in my Bible. I'm Pentecostal, don't worry. But I wish Pentecostal people would get their things straightened out. We wouldn't be in the mess that Pentecost is in today if we never paid attention to the world. We wouldn't. But you get under traditional patterns which will curse you as much as sin. He says, you shall be. Not you shall do. You shall be. He'd given them power for their ministry, grow and heal things and teach and preach and they did, didn't they? Hallelujah, they did. How many of that's before Pentecost? Let's own up to it now. Let's be brave. How many were owned up to the fact that was before Pentecost? You get it? I'm going to handle this in. Maybe I'm going to be back here and you won't like me anymore. But I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to tell you what's on my heart. And I'm Pentecostal. But how many of you know they had power to do all those things before Pentecost came? How many of you know they did? And they went out and manifested it and came back and brought witness to it. And he talked to them about it. Go out and do all these things. And they came back and there had been a demonstration of their power for all that new strength. They had power for that and gave it to them and they used it. But he says, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Before you go out now with all this business, this great commitment, I want you to carry and I will pour out upon you the gift of a Holy Spirit which will be the dynamic, the power by which you shall become my witness in the world. How many get something now? Do you get it? That's the truth. That's the truth. Do you know that's in the Bible? You never heard Pentecostal preachers tell you that. No, because they're all bound by tradition. They don't want to go to the Word of God. It upsets some of their traditions. And who wants a thing that falls far? I'm glad I have the Bible. I don't have a lot of notions and theology. Now why did he do that? He says, carry until that falls upon you and ye shall become. He never said a thing they would do. He didn't tell them a thing they would do. It's not a verb of action. It's a verb of being. Now there's going to be action of a million more people. How many of you know he was not talking about that? That's coming. That's coming. But don't you get the cart before the horse. That's coming. He says now, under the power of this dynamic, you shall become unto me, my witness. You shall become. It's a verb of being, not of action. However, great action will follow. But don't you get that? He doesn't tell them a thing. They already have that power for action. But he says, this body has to be built. My body has to grow. My body has to be ascended. It's going to be composed of people down the line for two thousand years. But it will all be accomplished under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit has come as the power for. It's the power for. A power for. Ye shall become my witness. And so God has projected this body, this mystical body, down through two thousand years. And whatever has been pleasing to him and acceptable has had to come through the power of the Holy Spirit. Anything aside from that has been, of course, a manifestation. But the only thing that he can bless is that which is birthed or born of the Spirit. Ye shall become. Now that means a process. So in the building of this character, and I'll come back to our study of the character that God is making in you and in me. How can that be accomplished? Through the power of the Spirit. The new creation is never affected or doesn't come forth by any energy or flesh, even the best flesh in the world, because it belongs on another level entirely. But he says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Everything is born of flesh. All the good, glorious, wonderful things that are born of flesh, he says it is still flesh because it has its origin in that realm. But that which is born of the Spirit, though it be the simple thing as giving a cup of cold water, correctly motivated, there's a Spirit. And I offer upon a little cup of cold water. In Niagara, it's very spectacular. But the little cup of water isn't so spectacular, but it's very essential. You hold a cup under Niagara Falls, how many of you have knocked about clean out of your hands? It has such power. But how many have a little cup that's held up by a chalice? He'll fill it with his love and power and it's all the difference in the world. All the difference in the world. I have given you a power that you, as an individual, may become my witness. You become. You become my witness. As I minister in you and through you and transform you and do a thousand things in you, you become, in this world, my little testimony, my witness. How many can see that? That's what God is asking. That's what he's seeking. All I need is you have to have power. And I'm supposing he does give us all this power that people are asking. I am, I suppose, a real heretic. I'm a heretic in the sight of some people, but God doesn't call me a heretic, he just shows me things. You have to bear a little stigma, for his name's sake. I get it plenty, don't you worry. I suppose he wouldn't have, no more have me mad to Christ until I know it. That's true. Do I get peed? No, I weep over it. I say, oh Lord, isn't that... No ears to hear, no hunger to be fed. Now that doesn't mean the whole group. How do you know there are always some hungry sheep hidden away somewhere? There are some hungry sheep hidden away somewhere. And God lets me contact them sometimes and we have a good time feeding them. So he says you have this power. And so as he pours out the power of mine, he pours it out of his pentecostal, he pours it out again. And he says I'll pour it out upon all flesh. And I said Lord, you sure do. How do you know he does? Don't you know he does? He doesn't pour it out upon our king, do you? Upon the mature people who know all about it? How do you know he pours it out upon us in our stupidity? He pours it out. To be baptized in the Spirit is never a sign of great maturity in God. How do you know that by this time? Somebody said amen. Glory be to the Lord. How do you even after a most marvelous blessing of baptism do you ever have your father to leave? Well, of course. He doesn't wait until there's perfection. He pours it out upon all flesh. We do flesh. But you don't even have to redeem your flesh. This great business hasn't been matured in any one of us. It's in the process. People who have arrived always disturb me. If you know what I mean, how do you know what I mean? People that have arrived. I can't only talk a few minutes and I say, Merry Christmas. Goodbye. And then I go on and say, Lord, where are you? There's no one who arrived. We're in the process of becoming. So it pours out this great and glorious power. Well, power is a terrific thing. It can be a great blessing. How do you know it can do great damage? Easy, kid. Love and power. You can do terrific things that you never think you can at all. And yet it is the power he is given. How do you know all the power the devil has? God gives him. Did you know that? No. But how do you know it's misused, prostituted in all horrible ways? That the devil can't create, power can't create anything. The devil can't make his blade of grass. Right there, look, blade of grass. How do you know the devil can't? How do you know he can destroy? That's what he's come for. To rob, to kill and destroy. That's his vocation. He never has come to create and bring me to God. He's antagonistic. God has come that you might have life and that more abundantly. He has come that you might have death and terror and fear and anything that can destroy the things of God. So here is this great power. Now, what is the next thing he says is manifest in the character building? He says we are given this great power. He said no. Now you get your word love in here. Well, why does he say that? Now, don't get your word love just mixed up with an emotional word, phileo. Love, as God uses it, is not only an emotion, and a manifestation, but it becomes a motive. Love is a motive by which the thing becomes operative. You can have it, but if it is not operative through the power of love which is the motive back of it, how do you know it brings disaster and confusion? 13th chapter, 1st Corinthians, which people usually take out of its second and pin it on the wall. Love, love, love, love. You get real lovely with it. That's a very silly thing to do. Because when he's talking about love there, he is not talking about an emotion. He's talking about a motive. Love is a motive. Not only is it an emotional experience and a description of God in the essence of his being, but it is a motive by which certain activities move. He says in Galatians, have faith. And he says it is faith that worketh by love. Well, he said how it works. It isn't just faith, but he says faith that worketh by love, meaning that is the motivating power for the faith. You'll get that in Galatians. Love, of course, but it has to become the motive for the faith that wants to raise the dead. Faith. Now let's take it in a second that we have here for a minute to go. In Corinthians, why did Paul write that collective epistle to the Corinthians? That's your thirteenth chapter. Why did he write that? That is wholly collective. How many remember it is a collective epistle? He says distinctly, they came not short in any gift. Where was that? Corinthian church. It came not short in any gift. And they thought they loved the Lord. And they had all the gifts uprooted. He says so. They came not short in any gift. And look, Paul has to come in there and just skim right down. Just like that. And he says, though throws the whole thing into possibility, meaning it's possible, though I have all the gifts, and I can speak in tongues of many angels, and I can remove mountains, and heal the sick, though, though, though, meaning it's possible, I have all of that great manifestation, and it is the power, it is the power of the devil, it is the power which God has vested. If I have not loved that whole thing into religious display that no glory to God. That's why he corrected them. This is hard teaching, but you're sitting nice and listening. I want you to know these things, because when you get out, no one will preach it to you. I mean, no, they won't. They don't dare to. But how do we know this is true? They have all the gifts and have faith to move mountains. But he says, if you have not loved Agapa, the love of God, as the motivating power, motivating, how many feel it's just wreckage? It's just wreckage. It's wreckage. Though I have power, that's what we started with. Power, I know, dear brother. He's got the power, that's right. He's given me the power. Hallelujah! I got that power. Woo-hoo! I said, I know. Sit down a minute. You have that. That's not the argument, and that's not the point at all. I don't know, we have hundreds of folks like that all over the world. But he says, you may have that. It's very possible. And you may have a great display of it. Though I speak in the tongues of many angels if I don't have that of love, Agapa, the love of God, that, he says, becomes a thinking spindle, a rattle, a confusion. Not to people, because they don't have ears, but to the ears of God. But to people, they don't know the difference. Well, they sit with a tongue hanging out. No, he says, in the sight of God, he says that's a thinking spindle. It hasn't struck reality because the motive, back of it, has been something else. Then in that 13th chapter, he says, now, the correct motive, does this, but never that, and that, and that, and that. How many members of that 13th chapter? Analyze it. The corrective, correct, motive of love. Love never does this. Love does this. What's he doing? He's opening that whole thing to the church, and he says, among you, I find all of these things. But love of the mother is the only prompting thing that I can deal with, the only thing that we have. Love is the motive. You can go in there more, but I don't want to. But how many know it's a very wonderful field, and how many know it's true? It's true. It's very heavy. No one gets up and hollers, howls, and shouts, and crawls around, and jumps out the window and reaches out and adds to all. You see? Because it brings us down to reality. To reality. I remember, I guess, I've given it to every student I've had, and I've had dozens and dozens and dozens of students. I always give them a quotation, and they put it in their books and it's used around the world. I think I can almost quote it by heart. You see, this word, love, is measured by its law of sacrificing death. God so loved Agapa that he gave, he gave even to its death. And whenever that love of God, if it is real, is only measured by a law of such intense sacrifice that it will give even unto death. How do people measure life? By success. The more they can get, the more they can have, the bigger display, the more promise, the more, well, that's life. And it isn't to God at all. It wasn't to Jesus. He came and canceled that whole philosophy. He says, if you really want to save your life, lose it. Well, I've been all these years building it. If you really want the thing, lose it. That's a strange paradoxical thing, such a philosophy, but it's the only philosophy that God has for us. They measured life by all the externality. This old monk who wrote this, he said, measure thy life by loss, not by gain, not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For a love's strength standeth in sacrifice, and he who suffers most has most to give. Isn't that sweet? How do you like that? I just love it. I've got it stuck in every place I can find it in the books. I feel, oh, that's so sweet. Measure thy life by loss. Let him strip you. Let him strip you. Love. Measure it. Measure your life by all you can lose, not by gain, not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth. For a love's strength standeth in sacrifice, and he who suffers most has most to give. I love that. That's my philosophy. That's my philosophy. I believe it. I believe it with all my heart. I believe it with every fiber of my being. I believe that's truth. Because I find it in Jesus' teaching. I find it in teaching exactly the same thing. So I follow along. So we have power? Yes. I will give you also my love to settle in your heart as a motivating power that you have to see to it that it's exercised. I leave that to you. You do your own building. And then the next thing he did is very necessary. A sound mind. Now, it hasn't anything to do with your brains and crackpots and funny folks and getting crazy. It hasn't anything to do with that at all. But God is merciful. How many people, you remember, have been healed by claiming that promise over crazy people? God has not given him the spirit of fear because he's given him the spirit of a sound mind. And Lord, we claim that this man shall have a sound mind. Have you ever heard prayers like that? Of course. And how many more were answered? They're answered. How many more people have been healed over a verse that hasn't anything to do with what they're thinking about? Now, you say, how could that be? Shall I tell you how? That is possible because God knows the intent of your heart and not how much wisdom you have as to the analysis of the verse. He sees, I mean, he does. He sees the intent of your heart. And he sees your faith reaching him. And when you're reading a verse that hasn't anything on the heavens relative to it, but he says, I'm not bothered with that verse. It hasn't anything to do with it, but I know your heart. Isn't he wonderful? All the patience he's had with me. Oh, he's had such patience. I've wept before him and said, Lord, how do you take up with me? How do you take up with me? I'm so dumb. I'm just nothing. How can you do it? Stupid? I don't see. Because I love you. He says, I don't see a lot of things you're looking at. I'm looking at you. Are you having a good time seeing all those funny things? No, I suppose. He says, don't look at them. Look at me. Isn't he wonderful? But there is a certain reaction, psychologically speaking, for the introspective type who enjoys, you know, a diagnosis of that type. Sorry, but he doesn't know. It isn't that way. It isn't that way. So he has great patience. But don't claim that promise over the next person who is feeble-minded or having a mental breakdown because he isn't talking about that. Now, in your original, it means a disciplined spirit. And it's a military term meaning a general who is thoroughly disciplined so that he can give orders. That's really what it means. You go way back and get the roots of the thing. A disciplined spirit. Disciplined so that it can give orders. Now I begin to see something. Power! Well, get back of it. The love of God as a motive that will correctly put itself. Now back of that, a disciplined spirit that can trace between and above to know where your motivation should really go. You've got to have that too. Let me give you a simple illustration of it. You remember, say, with the Lord Jesus and dealing with his disciples. Now Peter loved the Lord, didn't he? Yes, he did. And God had given him power to go out and serve and minister. That wasn't a question at all. And one time, right at the very end, very end, when he was about to go to Calvary, Peter was very agitated about it. And he thinks, this is a great injustice. He is the Messiah. How should he have his life taken in this Calvary business and lose our Master, and lose our Messiah? And he takes a hold of the Lord, removes him and says, Master, let this be far from you. We don't want a dead Messiah. We want a alive Messiah. Oh, he's just going to take the Lord in hand and tell him. What does the Lord do? He said to Peter, now he just said, he said to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan! And he called Peter Satan. Was Peter Satan? No. But how many can sense there was a satanic projection through Peter to defeat Calvary. And he projected it through Peter. And Jesus had to rebuke him. And he says, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savourest of the things of flesh and of this natural thing. And that's the things of God. Now, this is what I'm asking. How many believe he had power? Yes, he's given them that. How many believe he had love in his heart for Jesus? Didn't he love Jesus? Well, in fact, he wants to protect him as a sign of his love. But how many can see there was no disciplined spirit to detect back of that? Come on, now, how many can get that? This is teaching this morning. I'll wake up. How many can see back of that? There was no disciplined, understanding spirit. Back of his love. He just loved the Lord. He just loved the Lord and broke the whole thing through. Watch it again. He's going to Calvary. Oh, he never covered his ear off. Didn't he? He swung his sword like that in his defense. Lord, do you want to defend? I love you. I got power. Go, sir. You don't know what you're talking about. He zipped and he cut the ear right off of the man. And the Lord has to go and put the ear back on again. But now, laugh. But how many get to pay? What was that? Did he have power? Surely, he showed it. Did he have love? He's going to defend the Lord. But how many know he had no disciplined spirit that discerned to appreciating values? He didn't have that. And yet, he corrected. But you'll find that two or three times he gave them power and they went out to minister. They went out to minister. And they came back and he said, Lord, even the demons are under our command. We've healed the sick and we've done all these things you told us. You gave us this power and it's wonderful, Lord. We healed the sick. And he said, Lord, those were people who wouldn't listen to us. They wouldn't listen to us at all. They had no use for you. And we want to defend you, Lord, and honor you. Should we call down some fire and just consume them? How many know he had power? How many know he had love? Well, we can see that. Didn't he love the Lord? How many know he had power? What did the Lord say? Yes, I'm very helpless. Slay them all. No, he didn't. He says, I appreciate the fact that you defend me. And of course you have power which I've given you. But you know not the spirit that you are of. How do you get it now? There's no illustration. Go in the Testament and start reading. It's a very interesting book. I've studied a lot of things in it. It really is very interesting. It's very interesting. He did not condemn them for power nor rebuke them. He didn't say, Well, you have no power to do such a thing. He had given it to them. He didn't rebuke them because of their love. He says, You don't love me enough really to kill me. He says, I'll tell you something. You know not the spirit that you are of. Do you see? That's back to that. So we can go on. How are you getting anything this morning? It's kind of heavy. But are you getting some things? Oh, I want you to think about them because this is truth I'm handing out this morning. And sometimes it has a little different texture but it's truth. I haven't told you anything this morning that I have found in this wonderful word. It's all in there. But don't read traditionally, not presumptuously because you have to read. Read with him. Say, Lord, if you upset everything I know, tell me how it goes. If you upset everything I know, tell me how it goes. I want the truth now rather than someday wake up to it and find that I really didn't have very much of the truth after all. I want to know it now so that my life can be adjusted and I can grow. Grow into what? The ideal Christian who is the example of the power of God, the love of God, and the disciplined spirit that God would like to put into every one of us, found first of all in Christ when put at our disposal to be brought out afresh in us. Have you been helped? I want to be sure you're helped. I want to be sure you're helped. Our precious Lord, we thank thee that thou hast loved us enough to bring us in face-to-face with the truth and the world. Grant that we shall please thee by growing and becoming what thou didst have us to become. We want to be the witness in this world today against all that there is here, a witness unto thee of what thou art, transforming, reshaping, recasting, and thou hast made all the provision, grant that we shall be glad and happy to surrender our hearts and lives to thee to work it out to thy glory. For Jesus' sake. Amen. Have one more meeting, but tonight I want to be real good. That is a hooker. I want to talk to you of something encouraging. You said, could you ever encourage anyone? And most of you think I never could encourage you, do you? Well, I want to encourage you this evening. I want to encourage you. It makes me think of something. I had some meetings. And I didn't know what to say. I said, Lord, now I don't know these people at all, and you do. And I'll tell them anything you can. And so the Lord gave me a speech, which I thought was encouraging, because I was showing him, and I was trying to encourage him to see all that we had. Yes, she said. All right. She said, how do you like it? Well, she said, I thought I knew something. I've been baptized for 20 years. She said, I just was a believer. Bless the day. Oh, it was so lovely.