Love - Bond Of Perfection

...like for me to do it. That way it pleases God. We can always turn and say, Lord give me grace. And then if we truthfully stumble along the way, then we don't feel too bad about saying, God, give us grace. I'd hate to have a wife that you know all the time would come to me and say, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to flirt with another fellow. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mistreat you; but I know you'll give me grace. I'd hate to have a wife like that. I really would. That would be a miserable life, and I'm sure that God feels the same way. He doesn't want a bride, a wife, that's always playing around with the world, Brother Marshall, always doing the things of the world and then going back and saying, I'm sorry, but I know that your grace is sufficient. After all, He gave us grace when we were in our sins, when we were in our uncleanliness, and God had mercy on us. He gave us grace and He cleansed and cleaned us up from it. Not that we're cleaned up from it, then the thing to do is to leave it along and stay away from it. You know there's a good possibility that someday if we don't do that, we may stretch out a little too far, and instead of receiving grace, we'll find out that we've got some disgrace. First John, if you've got your Bibles, you can read with me. We'd like to read from the fourth chapter of first John. You know, I guess I'm a little bit strange in some ways in my ministry, and perhaps not so strange either, but for many long years of preaching, I never know where I'm going to read until I get up, never. As a rule, I never mark any Scripture. I never know what verse I'm going to read from. When I started out in my early ministry, I use to keep notes and I use to know where I was going to read and I had it rehearsed. It looked like that for a while that worked; and then after I got acquainted with God, it got to where I'd read one thing and preach on another, so I decided to let God just do it all; and I believe that we ought to study to show ourselves approved. Day and night we ought to meditate in the Word of God; but then we ought to give God the preeminence as what He would like to say to His people; and so I never bother to mark a Scripture. I don't know where I'm going to read; just like when I got up here, I had no idea what I was going to open to, but what He gave me, that's what I preach on. That's been my way for many years now; and I found out it works real good. The Bible said, It's not you that speak, but your Heavenly Father; so inasmuch as He's doing the speaking, I decided it would be better for Him to decide what He wanted to speak on. So, reading from First John, the fourth chapter, if you've got your Bibles, then let's read together. (Brother Pike reads from First John Chapter 4:1-21.) To me that's a beautiful, beautiful thought. I don't know of a better thing that you can speak on than love, for love is the cornerstone of the whole thing. I remember the teachings of the Scriptures how that it is pointed out by Paul, the great master builder, that those that sought to build the building rejected the chief cornerstone which was love. God is love and in Him there is nothing but love; and if a man is made perfect in love, then he'll find out that when he goes to sleep at night, he'll not be tormented by nightmares when he's asleep...... He won't go to sleep at night and roll and toss all the night, you know, with nightmares and being tormented. He won't go through the day with a dread of having cancer or having some dreadful disease or being afraid that some great peril is going to befall him; but he'll always have a consolation on the inside of him, the real, godly assurance that God is on his side. As the Bible said, If God be for you, then who could be against you? If God's on your side, the Bible said, your ways pleasing God, He maketh even thine enemies to be at peace with you. They might rise up against you one way, but they'll flee before you seven ways. The Bible tells us that a good man will fall seven times, but he'll get back up. A wicked man may fall and never rise again; but there's something inside of the heart of a Christian that makes him courageous; and though he might go down, he might look as though he's defeated because of sickness, but in a little while he'll rise back up and you'll find him going strong again. He might run into poverty and it might look like that he's being overthrown; and maybe for a period of time it will look like he's down for the count so to speak; but in just a little while, you'll see that same individual rising up and going again. And then you'll marvel and you'll say, Well, I just don't see how he does it; but I understand how he does it, because the Scripture has so ordained that though a good man fall seven times, he'll rise back up. The Bible said, God will make all of his beds in time of his sickness. He can get sick and have no money, have nothing to look to, but somehow that man will get by. Somehow God will make all of his beds in the time of his sickness. Somehow there will be some food that will come in. Somehow there will be some way to pay the bills and some way to manage and he'll continue to go because God gives him faith. Perfect love casts out fear. The Bible tells us that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but God hath given us the spirit of a sound mind. We are not foolish people; for the Bible said, All of the children of God are of a good understanding. We don't have the spirit of fear because God gave it to us, because God has not given us the spirit of fear, but God has given us the spirit of faith. And God expects us to exercise faith; but you know, one of the great problems of today is that the world is without faith. The world is without faith. One of the great indictments from God was that when He come back to the earth that He wouldn't be able to find faith in the earth. Isn't that right? God is looking for faith; and when He comes back into this world, if we're going to be saved, we're going to have to have faith. And it seems like that we've come into an age to where it is a faithless generation. It seems like people just don't believe anymore. They're afraid of wars. They're afraid of every kind of thing. They're afraid of diseases. They're afraid of all kind of bewilderments. They're afraid of poverty. They're afraid of the government. They're afraid everything is going into chaos; but you know, I believe everything is going to be all right. We sing a little song back home. Brother Taylor leads us in a little chorus back there. The title of it is, "Everything Is Going To Be All Right". I believe everything is going to be all right, and consequently because I believe everything is going to be all right, then it's going to be all right; because if I believe it's going to be all right, faith is going to make it all right. And so then, the thing that we need to do is to get in touch with God and have faith. The church today has very little faith, very little faith in the preacher, very little faith in each other, very little faith in God and very little faith or expectation that God's going to do something special for us. They come to church with very little expectation that God is in their midst, and as a consequence of that, they never have God to move for them. They never have God to heal their sick body. They never have God to take them out of their poverty and do something special for them because they go about in unbelief. I remember the Scripture in one place where Jesus went into a city, and the Bible said, Many mighty miracles He could not do because of their unbelief. If Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, it is the same today, God cannot do great things for us because of our unbelief; but did you know that God really wants to heal our sick body? God really wants to take us out of poverty and God really wants to establish a people in the earth, if we'll believe, Brother Phillip, God wants to help us. I've seen the power of the Lord put to test so many times in my life, and how marvelous it's been! I've seen God heal the sick. I have seen God do things that was outstanding that I've never, I could never comprehended had it not been that I believed in what Jesus Christ said. The reason the church today is absent of faith is because it is absent of love. The Bible said that faith worketh by love, and because the church has left off with love, then they've left off with faith. As Brother Berretta made the statement just a little bit ago, what we need in our midst is the Spirit of God, and God is love. And when we come back to the Spirit of God to where our hearts are literally overflowing with the love of God, then we're going to find a divine communion and we're going to be bonded together in a strength that cannot be torn apart by the hand of Satan. I've taken the Word of God on so many occasions and I put it to the test just to see what God would do with it. And I recall one instance where my wife and I was driving down the road and I noticed that right out in the middle of the road, a lady had stopped a car and was walking around the car. She had lost her mind. Think of that. There were the children, driving down the road, she had lost her mind, stopped the car right in the middle of the road, and was walking around, had several other cars stopped, and nobody couldn't do anything. And there she was; her little children screaming and pleading; and it was just a terrible sight; and Betty and I stopped to try to find out what was going on. And when I realized what had happened, I told my wife, I said, Betty, something has got to be done. I said, This is an awful thing. And I took Betty over to where the lady was. She got ahold of her and we finally managed to get her into the car; and when we got her into the car, we ask the children where the home was? And we began to talk with the woman, but she was out of her mind. She had completely gone berserk. There as we began to talk with her, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, said, Son, the Word is sufficient. And I began to speak the Word to her, constantly, constantly, constantly, though she was just out of her mind, I continually spoke the Word, spoke the Word; and within a few minutes the power and the impact of the Word broke the satanic powers from off of her and the woman was completely restored. Her mind was restored to her and she was in excellent condition. She, herself, showed us the way to her own home; and when she got home she fixed us something to drink. Her husband, bewildered and amazed, came in and said that the woman had been in an institution and he had never ant anytime known here mind to be restored when that had happened to her, unless they took her in for some kind of treatment or gave her some kind of strong medicine, by that they managed to bring it back; but by the Word of God, the Lord restored the woman's mind and made her completely whole, just by preaching the Word to her and offering to her a little love and a little consideration and a little concern. God did something for her. And if God could do that for her, then what could God do for us? A lot of times, we're too dependent upon medicines and too dependent upon the arm of flesh. And the Bible said, Cursed is the man that leaneth upon the arm of flesh or goeth down to Egypt for his help. God is willing to help us. This little lad right here, last night, was just literally burning up with a fever. We prayed for him. I felt God heal him. Today, he seems to be doing fine. God wants to heal. God wants to save. I remember a couple of little boys that we prayed for. One of the eyes was crooked, turned into their nose, but just a simple prayer, and shortly after that, the eye straightened up and remained straight. I remember some wonderful things happening, and even back at the tabernacle. Not to long ago there was a lady that she was just crawling around on the floor; she just had to kind of slide around on the floor; and she couldn't get up and do anything. The doctors accepted it as a hopeless case. But while, while her son came back to the tabernacle, he made request that we do something for the mother; and we prayed and sent out a handkerchief. You know, Paul sent out handkerchiefs and aprons from his body; and the Bible said, God wrought special miracles by them. And we prayed over it, and I felt God bring the healing; and I told the people, I said, I definitely felt God do something for that woman. I believe God has healed that woman. I told her son, and though she was over in another state, the man conveyed the handkerchief to her, and he took it to her and then left, and shortly after that he returned to find to his utter amazement, his mother was up off of the floor. She was canning and putting stuff in the freezer with the dad and she was perfectly made whole. God is a healer. God is the same. We had a man not too long ago. He came under the tent where we was at. He was really critical. He came there critically. He came under the tent, brought his wife. He didn't feel like he saw anything happen that he wanted to see happen. He went back and in a day or two or maybe it was the next morning, I believe it was, he went back and his wife was scheduled to go to the hospital because she had cancer of the breast, and they was going to have to remove the breast to do something for her; but to his amazement that morning the wife got up screaming and praising God; and he said that he thought she had lost her mind; but that he found out that she had been completely healed and the cancer had gone from her breast she was made whole. That's what Jesus does for those that believe. So many multiplied things down through the years that we could write numbers of books of the mercies of God and the kindness of God; and how that He has done so many miraculous things for us. I've seen my wife so many times when we needed food, and when God had to do something special for us, in such great, outstanding, miraculous ways, God met our needs. We've been stranded in the desert; we've been stranded in great snows in the mountains with no one to help, but God always came to our rescue. You know why? Because we believed. Today, I still believe. We're over here in the islands because God told me to come by faith. I didn't have the money to come. There was no way I could afford it; but God said, Go!, so I came anyway; and God has graciously met the needs without us having to ask anybody. He has abundantly made a place for us to stay. He has abundantly given us food to eat, and has taken care of us in transportation, and here we are preaching to you today. Why? Because we believe. Back home we've got a great, big cathedral. It's a big, beautiful thing. We started right there without anyone to help us; borrowed a pick and stuck it in some of the hardest ground that I ever tried to dig in; because God said to me, There will be a tabernacle here and twelve trailers sitting here and be a campground. I told the brethren, I said, I believe. I said, God said it. It's going to be that way. Today, there is a tabernacle worth an awful lot of money, some have said, a half of a million, some have said, a million dollars. It's setting there with twelve trailers on it; and it's setting there with a little parsonage down at the end of it; all because I believed. God placed it there because I believed in the Lord; and so then God is looking for faith. He wants us to believe. And the thing that I want to point out in the few minutes that I have to discuss this with you is that there is no way that you can believe unless you have love. Faith worketh by love. And if you're to have real, God faith you're going to have to have the love of God. If you can get a hold of the love of God, you'll find out that love worketh no ill to it's neighbor. Love fulfills the law. Love does not covet that which belongs to it neighbor. As a consequence of that love eradicates all condemnation from the heart because love fulfills all of God's pleasures and desires; and if all condemnation is gone, then you'll find yourself automatically believing. You know, a lot of people misconstrue faith, and they have the idea that they're saved, and they go around believing that they're on their way to heaven when they're on their way to hell. They believe that everything is well with them when everything isn't well with them; and the difference is they find themselves with an intellectual concept of God, and an intellectual concept of faith; and perhaps have been taught by some denomination or some idea, you know, some ideology, and they go about with this kind of thinking, and they believe that that's sufficient to take them to heaven; but you know, believing through here isn't sufficient. It's going to take believing from here. Jesus didn't say, As a man thinketh in his head; but as a man thinketh in his heart. The Bible doesn't say, With the head man believeth unto salvation, but with the heart man believeth unto salvation. I can join the church. I can get me a minister. I can pay my tithe. I can do anything that I want to; but brothers and sisters, unless I can have faith from my heart, I am not a Christian. I have got to come to a place to where I have accepted God with all of my heart. The Bible said, Love me with all of your heart; and I've got to come to a place to where I can love God with all of my heart, and surrender my whole body, soul and mind. The Bible said, To love Him with all of your strength. And so then when I come to that place, I surrender to God; and when I surrender to God, down deep in my heart, there is a love that rises up, and the spirit of God comes into my heart; and all condemnation is gone and I find myself not trying to believe that I'm a Christian. I find myself in a position to where I can't doubt that fact that I'm a Christian. I don't try to believe that I'm a Christian. There is something in me that won't let me believe anything else. If I had to go around trying to convince myself that I was a Christian, that would be the best proof I know of that I was not born again; but there's something on the inside; whereas, Paul said, The love of God constrains me. I keep His commandments. There's something on the inside that's crying out that tells me that God loves me and that I've been born again, and that I've got His Spirit in my heart, and that I'm on my way to heaven. There's something that does that for me, and I don't have to work up anything or try to convince myself. It's there all the time. The Bible tells us that the seed of God remaineth in us and we cannot sin; that is, we cannot disbelieve. How many of you know that sin is unbelief? Is that right? You cannot disbelieve because the Word seed of faith remains in your heart; and every time the devil comes on the outside and tries to cause the storms of life, you just pull down the shades come right on the inside of the sanctuary with God, close yourself in, and that seed of God on the inside will say, Don't worry. Everything is going to be all right. Everything's going to be all right. So every time you find the devil trying to make you disbelieve, there's something on the inside that still believes anyway that everything is going to be all right. The love of God-I wish we had the time this afternoon and the voice to be able to speak to you long enough to really indoctrinate you with the things of Christ; but I'm sure that many of you are indoctrinated in that you understand; but we come here to try to share with you what we understand of the Holy Scriptures. And I'll tell you what, if you've never lived an overcoming life with God, my friend, now is the time to start. I don't know of a better time to start. The thing that we need to do is to accept the simplicity of the Scriptures, and when Peter commanded them to repent of their sins, just simply repent. There's nothing hard about that, is there? Just repent of your sins. Do away with them. You can do it. Repent of your sins. You say, Well, how can I do away with my sins, Brother Pike? When Paul was in the way and the great light shined out and about him, then what did the Lord say? The Lord said, Arise, Paul, and wash away thy sins. Isn't that right? How can you do that? You say, Brother Pike, do you mean to tell me that I can go down there to the ocean or to the river and wash away my sins? I certainly do. You mean to tell me that you believe that the water will just wash my sins away? I certainly do, if you do one thing. You just have to do one thing and that's go down to the water in the name of Jesus. The Bible said, There's salvation in none other name and it's in the name of Jesus Christ that the water will wash your sins away. all you've got to do is just go down there, have somebody that loves God, somebody that's called to preach the Gospel and let them take you down to the oceanside, down to the river somewhere and bury you beneath the water in the name of Jesus Christ, and when you come up, you'll be a new creature in Christ. Behold old things will have passed away and you will be in a new world. It will be so different when you do that. I wonder if you'll stand with me. You love the Lord? What a wonderful opportunity just to be able to preach the Gospel. What a wonderful opportunity to be able to come together and exhort one another the more as we see the day approaching, and I do see it approaching. I see that the end of the world is upon us. We don't have very long to do what we're going to do. Our testimonies, our sermons or sermonettes, whatever we offer to the people, we're going to have to do it in a hurry. So then, if you don't have the love of God, then you need the love of God my brother. You need the love of God. I believe with all my heart, that Jesus died for all mankind upon Calvary, and I believe that redemption is in His blood. How many of you believe that? You believe redemption is in His blood? But I believe that remission is in His name. Do you believe that? Hallelujah! Salvation is in none other name. Remission of sin should be taught in His name; and the Bible said, To be baptized for the remission, and it said, Whosoever sins you remit, speaking of the minister, then God will remit them. Is that right? But just get him to take you down to the river, if you've never been there, and put you down in the lovely name of Jesus to be identified with Him in His death, burial, that you might be identified with Him in His resurrection and life and you'll be in a new world. What a happy, happy day that will be. You love the Lord? Praise God! Let's sing a little chorus together just before we turn it back to our Brother Marshal. Can we do that? (They sing: Pass Me Not)

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.

Holiness Unto The Lord