The Body Of This Death

How many of you care for the Word of God? Could I see your hands? You really care for the Word of God, really concerned about the Word of God? I know some of you are not truthful. I know you're not. Your lives show it.

But I know some of you are truthful and some of you do. You really are concerned about the Word of the Lord. If you've got your Bibles, turn over with me to the, well let's see, over to the book of Romans. You'll have to let me find it. I'm one of the world's poorest Bible scholars. The book of Romans, the fifth chapter. Talk about the Word of God just a little bit tonight. Take our time and discuss a few little things. You know I guess the thing that moves me more than anything else that I know of in the ministry is the lack of hunger and thirst for Jesus, and the great hunger and thirst for the things of the world. People are so thirsty for the world. They know that it's at an end. It's evident that it's at an end. But they're just grabbing with both hands. You know like they've got to really live it up in the last few minutes.

Was talking to somebody the other day and I was talking to them about Jesus; telling them about the things of God and how that they really needed to serve the Lord and every way that I went, they had a shrewd answer and being backslide on the Lord too, they, you know they told me that they'd tried it and give it their best try and that it wasn't for them, and they just passed it off you know, and just like it wasn't anything. And some things is for some people, and some things is for other people, and that ain't for me. You could tell that their hunger and thirst for the world was just bubbling like a little brook, And you know, just got to do lots of things. Got to have a lot of the world, got a lot of living to do. I listened. We talked on and finally when we got around to a few things I wanted to say, I wasn't making any headway at all. Just a big world you know, and a lot to do, and a lot of living to do, and christianity is a wonderful thing but it's not all that important. I said, "Well, I guess maybe that's the way it is, but" I said," By the way there's one other thing, "I said," you probably won't live long." And when I said that it changed the entire scene. It changed the entire setting, it turned everything around, and the interest that wasn't there, all of sudden come there, and all of the life and living that was to be done was forgot about, and suddenly the individual realized that people die.

We forget about death, and we forget that there is, there is an end of the world out there, and we just get into that thing you know, of we get a lot of living to do and make some money and buy some land and get some houses and we going to do a lot of things, and we got a lot of frolic and a whole lot of other things you know; and ain't no need of you bothering us about this thing called religion. But I want to tell you something folks, you are going to die. Did you know that? You are going to die. Everyone of you are going to die, unless you make the translation, you are going to die. I say this so often, there's a little hole out on the hill that they're going to put you in and throw dirt in your face. So you can want to live all you want to and make all you want to, and do all you want to, and be all you want to, but they're going to throw dirt in your face one day, and you're not going to be able to sit back, you know, when the preacher talks to you about God and think about all the living that you're going to do and that you have got to do and that this thing is some kind of optional thing you know, whether if you want a chevrolet, you can get it, if you'd rather have a ford buy one of them. And you're going to realize that God Almighty has a plan and He has a creation and He has seen His creation drop in to the mires of sin and He has sent the ministry to tell them to repent or He is going to put them into the flames of hell, and blot their name out of the book of life and that you don't sit around and talk to the minister like that. You don't sit around with that attitude. That you're going to die and if you know something about God, you are going to die quicker most likely than anybody else. Because you shorten your days by your disobedience and when you know to do good and don't do it, it is a sin and the soul that sinneth will surely die. And when you know about God and you don't serve God, you're going to die a quick death. Now if you don't know something about God, you've never come to know God, then you got a pretty good chance of living a long time.

But you know Jesus said, "I would that you were hot or cold." He pointed out in His Word, "I would that you were hot or cold." Now the reason for that, if you have anything that you want to preserve, if you put it on ice you can preserve it. Or if you'll steam it up real hot, cook it, you can preserve it. But if you get something in a lukewarm condition, it'll just breed worms and you can't preserve it. So as long as you're cold and out in the world, God can preserve you to the extent that you don't know what you're doing and He can be merciful, and if you get heated up and real hot and fervent in the Spirit God can preserve you unto eternal life, but if you get religious and lukewarm and then you want to dabble in the world, God will kill you. Somebody said, "Now God won't kill you." I didn't say the devil would kill you I said, "God would kill you." The Bible said, "Beware ye that forget God, lest I tear you into pieces." He didn't say "The devil would tear you into pieces." "All nations that forget God shall be turned into hell." God said, "I'll tear you into pieces." So then we've got to remember that God tears people into pieces. God said, "I wound, and I bind up." So God does what He wants to whenever He get's ready, and it's up to you and I to submit ourself to Him, or He'll just make our pilgrimage here a short one.

All right now, I like to look at it like that because we have more interest in the Word of God when we look at it like that. You know when you look at it like this thing of everybody just do whatever you want to. Have a good time, don't worry, it's just one big, big frolic in life. And the Lord He loves you and He's grace and you just do what you want to and if you don't like His way, well, do what you want to. He understands. I don't like that kind of thing because when it's like that, then the world rots. That's what's happened to the world today, the ministry has set them up a little money gimmick and a little machine and a little enterprise to get their hands into people's pocketbooks and to pacify them as they drop into hell one after another and the Bible said, "They creep into a house where silly women are laden with sins, say a few good things to them and rob them of everything and go their way." And they've got the whole world in a rotten condition before God and God describes it as saying "All of My tables are full of vomit in that I will spue you out of My mouth because you're lukewarm."

And the whole world is in a mess. If they had a kept preaching the gospel like Peter, James and John did when they commanded the people to repent of their sins, and when they told them they had to repent or perish. Said, "You will repent or all of you will likewise perish." And they made the people to understand that this wasn't some kind of game and that God had not created the world down here for them to homestead and to have a good time in. That God made the Garden and that man fell out of the place of homesteading and that he got down here in a hogpens and God's trying to get him out and the ones that won't come out of the hogpens, that He's just going to let them do them like the swine. For the Bible calls them swine. And unless they can do like the prodigal and get up and go home, He's going to leave them with the swine and the end of them is going to be death.

So people need to hear the real gospel of Jesus Christ and wake up. Their children need to wake up. They need to wake up. Their loves ones need to wake up. They need to get this thing in their mind. But you know a preacher can get up and preach like I'm preaching right now, boy, and you can feel the devils and the demons swell up like an old toad, you know, like I don't like that kind of preaching. The devil don't like that kind of preaching. Because he would rather rock you to sleep in some cradle that's filled with lies until you drop off into the fire. And the devil certainly don't like it, and if somebody comes into your midst that's carnally minded, they just swell until they just like they're going to bust like an old frog. You know the lowest form of life is a frog as far as scientists can tell. And the Bible speaks of the unclean spirits being like frogs. Said, "They came out of the mouth of the false prophets and whatever and when they get into your midst, when unclean spirits get into your midst in people. They're like old frogs, they swell up you know and they just. It's a bad situation.

But I thank God for the real truth and for some people in the world that God had that loved the Lord enough to stand up for the truth that I might know and that I might understand, and I promised God when he made me to understand that I was going to stand for the truth whether anybody liked it or not and make others to understand. And the ones that want to swell up can go right on into the flames if they want to but them that are looking for God, they're not going to swell up. They're going to follow Christ Jesus. And I got a lot of them here at Bethlehem that swells up. I thought I had fewer than I ever had and I'm beginning to think I have more than I ever had. But at the same time, I've got some that love Jesus. That's the good part. I have got some that's coming on through the fire and they're developing and they're coming right on. And I've got some that's so carnal that I can feel your spirit like a weight on top of me. It's just like you had a thousand pound weight on top of me. Your evil spirit of carnality, of compromising, of worldliness, lack of spirituality, but there is few."

Jesus said "Few there be that find it." There a few, that I can feel your spirit with my spirit and I can feel the love of God and I can feel the hunger of God and I can feel the thirst of God. A very few of you, but I can feel it. And I can feel that thing that's knitted together with Christ on the inside of me that says, "I'm with you Brother Pike, and as sons of God we'll see this thing through." Even some of you that sit around in my company when I talk to you about Revelation, you sit there and I talk to you about Revelation for hours and you don't never swell up and rise up and you just, you just like you're in a gallup, but I get you in here and start preaching and you swell up like an old frog. You haven't got anything from God. You might sit there all night long, but you haven't got anything from God.

When a man's spirit don't bear witness with the Spirit of God he hasn't got anything from God, no matter what he thinks he's got. Like a brother that come to me the other day and he said, "Brother Pike, he said, "I've made the greatest mistake I have ever made in my life." He said, "I made a lot of mistakes, but this is the greatest mistake I ever made in my life." And he said, "One thing that I don't understand." Said, "I've been asking myself the question, how was it that I'd gotten some revelation and then was as blind as I was?" He said "It was obvious that I was blind after that I had a chance to see." You know, and that's the way it is with some of you, you need to wake up. All of your praying and all of your fasting and all of your studying and all of your sitting around and all of your going to church and all of your giving ain't worth nothing if you're not born again and you don't have the Holy Ghost on the inside of your heart.

I want you to turn to the fifth chapter of Romans with me and we'll talk just a little bit and see if we can help you. Now what we need is a hunger and thirst. You know, I don't have to say these kind of things to children of God. These things you don't say to children of God. You kind of have to snap the children of God out of a little lethargy once in a while, but you don't have to say these things to children of God because they love Jesus and they have a hunger and a thirst and they've seen something so great and so mighty until you don't have to anything to them. They're just, they're just ready to press in and get a hold of God. But a person that is lukewarm, that won't get ahold of God, they're always just, you ever heard of surfeiting. Some folks like to surfeit. They like to get out on the ocean you know and just lay down on their tummies and just ride the waves. That's the way a lot of folks are. They just like to surfeit, that's all. The kind of people we need is them kind that Jesus spoke about that launches out into the deep, that let's down their net for a draught. Get way down into the deep, they don't like to ride surf board, you know, and just have the thrill of splattering in the water.

Romans 5 reading in the first verse of the fifth chapter here. I'd like to read just a little bit of this and I'm always reluctant to try to bring out anything here that would be very deep or very, very strengthening because we have so many surf-riders that it's hard to get enough spiritual strength in the motors, I say, to make it up the next hill. But, we've got to get this over to the ones that's going because there is some of them that's going and they've got to get it and the ones that's got to get it, they've got to get it, so we've got to say it, and the rest of you will just have to endure it. All right, in the fifth chapter of the book of Roman...I want you to listen teal close if you will... (Brother Pike reads scripture Romans 5:1-21; 6:1-23; 7:1-15; 8:1-39. Tape turn over).. chapters

There, don't usually do it, but I felt like doing that. We're told here that we have a justification by faith with God. And He is explaining here in maybe a more simple term of putting it. God is trying to tell us that if by the sin of one man, whose name was Adam, that all men had to be put to death, how much more by the righteousness of one man, by the name of Jesus Christ, shall all men receive life. That is to say if those that had not sinned or was not guilty of transgression after the similitude of Adam's sin if they still had to die because Adam sinned then it seems reasonable, Paul said, to think that God will take one man even the second man Adam, who the first man Adam was a figure of, to take that second man Adam, Paul said, it seems reasonable that God will take Him and let Him live a righteous, holy, overcoming life and then impute His righteousness unto all of us that are willing to believe on what He hath done, that we might live rather than die. In that Adam is responsible for our debt, whereas the Bible uses the terms, "In Adam all die, but in Christ all is made alive."

So then we see what a grand and a glorious thing that God hath done. People who do not have a thirst for God, people who do not have a hunger for God, they will never be able to see the beauty of what God has done. It is so astoundingly great that even the greatest teachers that live in the world today don't understand it. Many great mighty men that have studied all of their lives still don't understand it. But to us that love Jesus, God hath revealed it to us by His Spirit, made us to see it, and it is fantastically wonderful. Nothing less than wonderful in what God hath done for them that love Him. To think that God has worked out a system, worked out a plan, that He can kill my body, completely kill my body and yet let me live and let me breathe, let me continue on in the world to eat and to drink and to sleep, and to do what human beings do, but still He hath killed my body, and my body isn't alive, and my body cannot displease Him, and my body cannot transgress the wonderful ways of God. Though I breathe, though I walk, though I see, though I talk, I am still dead and cannot transgress the lovely ways of God. It is impossible. There is no way.

Paul when he summed up the great things of God, he looked at them and he summed them up and he saw the warfare, the continual warfare that is between the inner man and the outer man, between the body and between the soul. And Paul said, "When I would do good, I have on the inside of me a heart that wants to do right, but I see another law in my members, in my body, and that spiritual power is warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and death, to condemnation, and I can't get out from under it. He said, " It's oppressing me to death. It talks to me." I feel the weight of it every where I go. "And the condemnation hangs over me like a dark cloud, Paul said. " And there's no way that I can get out from under it." For when I would do good and I have a desire to do good, evil is present with me. I find then a law. There is a standing law of life, that when I would do good and I have all intentions of doing good, that evil is present with me.

"Paul said I can't understand, or I could not understand till God gave me Revelation why it was that I wanted to do good but all the time this evil was present. "He said," and then God opened my eyes and God made me to understand that within my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. That to will on the inside of my heart is present. "I have a will to love the Lord." I have a will to do the things of God, but that on the outside, I see another law warring against the law of my mind and my members and my body and it's bringing me into captivity to condemnation and the law of sin and death. When I am struggling, trying to do my very best, trying to please God with all my heart, doing my very best to do the things that would please God, but he said, "the crushing impacts of doubt and condemnation, bewilderment and evil and lust and frustration and fears and anxieties, they're pressing constantly like a great weight." "Oh wretched man that I am," Paul said "Though I fast, though I pray, though I do everything to please God, as far as my ability, but a wretched man I am." I am so wretched," he said, even at my very best I am a wretched man. For all of this is going on in my members and warring against the law of my mind. " O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? ", he said. And then he used the terms, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" "Who shall deliver me from this body?" He said, "I lay it on the body."I blame it on the body." The body is to blame for it." Because in my heart I don't feel that way." In my heart and in my mind I don't want that kind of things. So he said, "There's some kind of power that's warring against me." There's some kind of evil that's, that's interweaving itself with my membership, with my fleshly body, and taking advantage of my human appetites and my human infatuations and I'm finding myself all out of sorts with God. And he said, "Yet in my heart I'm not out of sorts with God."

David termed it like this, he said, "I know my ways don't please you Lord," but he said, "My heart is perfect before you." And so then Paul knew that his heart was perfect with God. Now a lot of hypocrites of our day, a lot of people that call themselves great Bible scholars. They take that and not understand, Peter said, "They take the things of God and they wrest them to their own destruction and they say this means that God knows we're born in sin, born in iniquity. And we can't help but sin a little bit. We can't help but do these things a little bit. God knows that and God has let Jesus die for us. That isn't true. The man that said that is a liar. God wasn't saying that. Neither was Paul saying that. That had nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact to the contrary in this same teachings, and that's why I read all of the scripture, he said, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body to obey it in the lust thereof." Don't give place to it at all he said. You're not to sin at all. "Know ye not that to whom you yield your members as instruments to obey, his servants ye are." Whether you yield those members as instruments unto sin to death, or unto righteousness unto life, Paul said, "Whatever you yield your members to by that ye have been overcome."

So then Paul wasn't saying that we're suppose to sin and that God has made a way for us. That wasn't what he said at all. That wasn't what he meant at all. He meant for us to live an overcoming life. He meant for us to walk perfectly before God. He meant for us to cast down imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. But he did acknowledge this one thing, and that is that the body is yet without redemption as far as man coming to the knowledge and faith to change his members into the celestial condition. Paul acknowledge that though we be celestial on the inside, though we've been translated on the inside into the kingdom of God, yet it is a progressive thing, so far as the transformation of our mind into the mind of Christ. That is from understanding to understanding, from faith to faith, from glory to glory, and that we have yet wait to receive the change of this mortal body that it might be changed into immortality.

For there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. There are bodies that are terrestrial and there are bodies that are celestial. Paul said, and the glory of the terrestrial is one and the glory of the celestial is another. Every star differeth in glory. There is one star that hath one glory, another star hath another glory. Now you say, "Brother Pike, what do you mean by that?" In the day that we're living in, we can understand it; because in the day that we're living in, we know that one is called Mars, one planet is called Jupiter. They have learned there is a difference between them. As they have thoroughly examined them, they have learned there is a distinction between them. Which means they have a different glory, they have a different make up. a different beauty, a different admiration about them.

And so then Paul here is trying to tell us that God is going to do something for our mortal body, but as of yet at this present time it is still in that unregenerated condition as far as being changed into a celestial condition. And just as long as it is in that condition that it is like a dead man that's buried out in the ground somewhere, and the skin worms can work in that body. If we're not careful the skin worms will get in there and work in that body. Now let's just look at it for just a minute. Paul said, "That one time were under bondage to the law of sin and death."

What is the law of sin and death? It's the ten commandments. It's the law of Moses. Because the law said, "Thou shalt not do this and thou shalt not do that. "Thou shalt not lust." "Thou shalt not covet." "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors." Anything that is thy neighbors. "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shall not steal."

Whereas Paul used the terms in his writings said, "In all of you at one time was of such." "Fornicators and liars and such." But now you're clean. "Now God has made you clean, and He's brought you into the kingdom of God." We are free from the law of sin and death. That is if sin gets its strength by the law which brings condemnation to us. Whereas the Bible said, "The law is good and if there had been a law that could have saved mankind, redeemed mankind," the Bible said, "Jesus would not have died, nor would it have been necessary for Him to have come into this world and die." But inasmuch as there was no such law, and God could not do that by the law; therefore He had to sent a human sacrifice into the world.

Now we say. "Why a human sacrifice?" First of all, as I said the other night, the life that was shielded or enveloped by the Shekinah glory of God in the Garden, that life that was completely enveloped, protected, that life had been led astray from the covering of the Shekinah glory of God; and God had to make a temporary covering. And the way He did it was use, He used animal blood. The only thing He could do. He allowed the life when Satan through his enticing words, his warped up concept of God, when Satan took his mind that relates to the tree of knowledge and deceived Eve, and worked through the weak part of Adam which was his wife to get control of that life. It was led astray, enticed, taken from out from under the covering of the Shekinah. Led out from under it. It had no, no covering. It had no place to dwell. It could not be enveloped anymore by the Shekinah glory of God. And life would automatically perish, but God suffered the blood of a beast that it might enter into the blood of the beasts to be protected down through the years, and that is why that God allowed the beast to be in the Garden. That's why that God allowed the thing to happen as it did.

As I said the other night, Lucifer learned to late that he was a reflector. Lucifer also was deceived again. When he enticed Adam he thought that Adam had this life on the inside of him. He thought he had that Shekinah life, that eternal life on the inside of him; but too late he learned that Adam was dwelling in the presence of that Shekinah and that Shekinah was just a covering for that life. And when he enticed Adam out, he found that it was the same as it was with him that he following the same thing that he had fell from covering, or as we say the covering cherub, the covering of the Shekinah, and there it went into the beast blood. It went into blood life, which was nothing but a beast level. That was a beast level. Blood which is nothing but a beast level. That's why the Bible refers to mankind some of them as brute beasts, made to be taken and burned. Refers to them as a generation of vipers. The Bible says, "Who hath warned thee to flee from the wrath of God to come, ye generation of vipers?"

Now God wasn't talking about His people. He wasn't talking about sons and daughters of God because sons and daughters of God are not vipers. They're not a generation of renegades. But He was speaking of the beasts. People who are not sons and daughters of God are beasts. People who are not born again that are not the predestinated, they're nothing but beasts. And they will, they came from the dust, they go back to the dust. But as I said the other night, God could not say to the second man Adam, from the dust thou art, to the dust thou shall return. Adam was taken from the dust, God could say, "From the dust thou art, to the dust thou shalt return." God can not say to a son of God, from the dust thou art to the dust thou shall return because he is not of the dust, he is born of the Spirit. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.

That's why I say that those who hunger and thirst after God; they understand; they see; they see the glory of what God has done; and it is so exceedingly great that there is no comparison in colleges, in teaching, in money, in wealth, in fame, in popularity. There is nothing to compare with it. It is so great and magnificent. But God, as I said the other night, that little blood cell, that life came from God. It came from God. It did not come from the dust. That body was not made from the blood of Adam which come from the dust. It wasn't of the beast lineage. It was of God. That life that was taken out, that life that was taken away from the Shekinah. Out of the presence of the Shekinah glory of God, that life that was pulled out of there, that Adam lost.

God had to kill beast all down through the ages. An atonement, a beast, all the time, killing a beast, killing a beast thus signifying a releasing of that life, that that beast which had taken control of that life that someday God would free that God life. And that life would go back to God who gave it. And He would always kill the beast. Which signified that this old outer beast that someday He would bring forth a human beast that which was made sin, though He took on the likeness of the beast. He took on the likeness of mankind. He knew no sin. But He was made like unto the beast that God might make Him a lamb without spot, without wrinkle, and without blemish, and He was likened unto the serpent in the wilderness.

The serpent as we say, the brazen serpent, or the king snake as they say that swallowed up all of the other evil spirits. That great brazen serpent that hang in the wilderness, that when serpents were biting all of them, when the fiery serpents pounced on the children of Israel in the wilderness, that they looked on this brazen serpent and God healed every one of them. And it's true today that when a spirit, a fiery serpent in this journey through the wilderness of this intellectual wondering, when these fiery, evil devil and demons attack you and bite you that if you look on Christ Jesus tonight every wound will be healed. And God will deliver you from all kind of spirits, and you'll find yourself full of the life of God going right on into Canaan land.

Now, the life that was in that beast had to be released, and God took domestic animals; He took tamed animals; and He spilt the blood of goats and spit the blood of bullocks and spilt the blood of sheep. He spilt the blood. Burned their bodies without the gate to signify that body was to blame, that the beast was the one that was to blame for it. That He someday would come down and pay the price for the innocency, for them of Adam because of the innocency of Adam when the Bible said, "He was not in the transgression." Adam was not found in the transgression, but the woman which was the beast was found in the transgression, which denotes the flesh part found in the transgression, not that the woman's anymore beast than the man's a beast, but the woman represents the beast.

That's why there's so much trouble out of women. You have trouble out of them. In every case you have trouble out of them because they represent the flesh, man's flesh, which is the woman part, the feminine part. If that woman will listen to her husband, if he lives for God, if she'll honor him, reverence the ministry and obey it, there won't be any problem there. She'll be likened unto the church, and she'll be likened unto the virtuous one that God used to bring forth His Son into this world. But if she doesn't she represents the great whore and her many daughters. The Bible teaches " that shall be turned into the fire, for I shall burn their flesh with fire."

So then the life being brought from Adam went into Eve and as the black widow swallows up her husband, so did Eve become filled with darkness, and that dark intellectual veil fell over Adam. And Adam was no more. He was in that veil of darkness. That spider had woven the web and caught him in it and swallowed him up; and though the inner man is not guilty and the life is not guilty, yet the flesh is guilty, and Paul says, " I am free by the body of Jesus. I am free." That life leading up to Calvary had to be set free and when Jesus died at last that life that was in that beast was taken out, the veil was rent. Out of that blood came that life. For at death the spirit goeth back to God who gave it. Out came that life, but God could not take it out of that blood until He had another place for it. It would have perished. He had to carry it all down through the years. Blood, blood making an atonement, because the blood had to be spilt for the soul to show that the life had been released, because man was called a living soul. The life in the soul, the living part of man was caught in the red dragon. And the red dragon was the blood life, that which is experienced of man and woman coming together rather than that which is an inspiration of God that comes from the Word of God.

Somebody said, "Well, Brother Pike, it was Cain because of the beast." I asked the question the other night, if that is true, then what happened to Esau and Jacob? "Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated." Where was the beast in that part of it? What it is, as in Adam all died. The blood life, the head of the serpent, he'd taken on the mind of the serpent which denoted the weakness of the woman in that everyone died, and everyone that's related to it, is a generation of vipers. Loving the world and the love of the world is in them, but they come on down and when God got ready to release that life, He rent the veil. He spilt the blood. He had the Shekinah glory waiting. Because Jesus made in Himself twain both Lord and Christ. And that Christ on the inside was that Shekinah glory of God that was the covering of that life in the beginning, and when that life was released, it was before it was ever released from the human body it was placed inside of that Christ and then that beast body was smitten and God killed you and I. Nailed us to Calvary, buried us with Christ in baptism, that that body of yours might be dead in the sight of God, to never live again in the sight of God.

That old wretched one that caused all the misery and all the trouble and at death the life goeth back to God who gave it and the life went back to Christ and went into the Shekinah glory of the covering of Christ Himself. This time not covering as it was with Adam in the Shekinah covering but rather being born of the Shekinah glory. Today I am born of the Shekinah glory of God. I'm not covered with it as you are in the days of grace as a people, but I am born in my spirit of the living life eternal existence. I am born of the Shekinah glory of God. My life, my spirit, my inner life has been interwoven within His great Christ, His Holy Spirit, and sealed as it was back there when the covering was over it, but this time sealed permanently, not with covering over it, but an interwoven covering, that's interwoven with my very life that we are one.

The Bible said, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit," the Spirit of Christ, whereby you, that is your life and spirit, whereby you are sealed unto the day of the redemption. Your life is sealed and the Bible teaches that he that is born of God keepeth himself and the evil one toucheth him not. He is without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish. That life can never be touched again. It can never be contaminated again.

You know, there's one thing that we learn in this world and that is that we can be overthrown, we can be destroyed by sin, we can be destroyed by storms, we can be destroyed by diseases, or whatever. A disease can get down into this blood and it can kill the life out. Isn't that right? It can come down on the inside of the blood and literally kill us. They've got bacteria that get in there. They are called bacilli and spirilla and cocci. These bacteria can actually get in your life and destroy it. Like when you have a typhoid fever or some great inflammation; some diphtheria, something like that, if you've got a dreadful disease. That dreadful disease has gotten into your body and the bacteria bacilli has got in there and it's killing you. And if you get pneumonia, you have what they call cocci. A bacteria that's gotten in there and it's killing you, but that represents sin being able to get in when the life isn't sealed. But we are sealed in with God. No spiritual bacteria can get in to hurt my life. It can't touch me because I'm sealed in with God. I'm sealed. Nothing can get in there to my life and get in there and touch me because I belong to Him. I am His. Glory to God! I'm His. I'm sealed in with Him. And that life is protected.

Wouldn't it be wonderful today if medical science had some way to seal your life in that no bacteria could get down in there and touch you. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But see they can't do that. There ain't no way. There's multiplied bacteria in there all the time, maybe not, not any real serious bacteria, but there's always bacteria in there. But see we are free from sin. Paul tried to express that my body is dead, though it threatens, though it says things, though it does things my body is dead... (tape turned over )..spirit. I am free.

Who shall deliver me from the death of this body? O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the bodily death, from this death, from the body, this body that's causing death, the one that caused the problem, from the feminine part that swallowed me up. Who shall deliver me? Paul said, "I thank God that I'm not in the body any longer." I'm not in the flesh any longer. I'm in the Spirit. Reckon yourselves to be dead by the body of the Lord Jesus by the act of Calvary, baptized into His death, having put on Christ. And that your body is dead and hid from the sight of the Almighty God and He never sees you in your sin in that beast anymore. He don't see that old beastly image of your first birth anymore. Though you were shapen in iniquity He don't look at that shape any- more, but all He sees is the likeness of your resurrection out yonder on that grand and glorious day with Christ Jesus, when we shall be in His likeness and when we shall be in His image for we are free from the law of sin and death. I am not under the law. I am not under sin. All that's fallen from grace are under the law, but I am not under the law because I have not fallen from grace. I am a partaker of grace. I am born of grace. I am not under the law of sin and death. I have nothing to do with the law of sin and death. I am free from the law of sin and death. My spirit tonight is free. I am free in my spirit. My spirit to night is free.

If you could understand what I'm saying, that you don't have anymore sin. There is no more sin for you. There is no way you can ever sin again. Big sins or little sins or any kind of sin, never again can you sin. Never again throughout eternity can you sin. He that is born of God cannot sin because he is born of God. The seed of God, the hope of glory, Christ in you remains there and you cannot sin because you are born of the living God, therefore I cannot sin because I am born of God. If I cannot sin, I cannot be lost. What a consolation: what a consolation! What a consolation! You say, " Brother Pike, if only, if only I knew I was going to make it in," How can you believe anything else and be a born again believer? Brother and sister, if you're a born again believer you couldn't believe anything else. The fact that you don't believe, it proves that you're an unbeliever. And the fact that you do believe, it proves that you're eternally sealed in as a believer to never be lost. We are sealed in. Glory to God!

Not one little sin, nor big sin, and from eternity to eternity we've never sinned. There has never in the sight of God, He hath never even before we was born into this world, He'd never let us sin one time. In His mind we've never had a spot, never had a wrinkle, never had a blemish from eternity to eternity. There's no such on the sons of God. He charged it against the beast. Wrote it off and marked it off and said, "It's gone!" And the one that's guilty paid for it and My Son is not guilty of this thing. "Somebody say." I love Jesus. "Hallelujah!" We're not guilty of that thing. The beast did it. They blamed it on the beast. Jacob said, "Surely some beast has torn Joseph to pieces and the brethren went free." Don't you love Jesus? Glory to God! Glory to God! Some beast done it, but I'll tell you what, you that are not with Christ Jesus, you are not born-again, you that have not had that, that life exchanged, that had never come down to that exchange; oh my brother, you just don't know what kind of condition you're in tonight. You don't know what you're missing. This is not going to be heaven. This is heaven. This is not going to come into the kingdom of God, this is the kingdom of God.

I am not preaching as Satan said, "The day that thou eatest thereof he knows that your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods." Satan said. I'm not preaching that ye shall be as gods, I'm preaching that when your eyes come open in God, ye shall be gods! Jesus said, "Ye are gods! " Not as gods. "But ye are gods!" It's true that they became as gods and they knew right and wrong but Satan didn't tell them that when they knew as God and could think as God, they'd die as a man. He didn't tell them that, but beloved friend when you come into what we're talking about, and you don't know as God and see as God you become God manifested in the flesh. He said, "Father, make these one as we are one." I wish we had time to really go on tonight. But He said, Father make these one even as we are one."

I am free tonight from the body of sin. The motions of sin cannot work in my body anymore, because I am free from the law of sin and death that caused the motions to work in my body. When God saw me in the light of the law, I was a guilty man. For by the law shall no flesh be justified." But in that God had taken away the law in Christ Jesus, folded it up and laid it away and I am dead to the law, therefore there is no motions of sin working in my body that God can see. Oh what a wonderful thing. "O wretched man that I am." Paul said, "If I look at myself and my ability." But he said, "Oh glory to God, when I remember that I'm not in the flesh but in the Spirit, I am free from the law of sin and death." I am free from the law of sin and death. Hallelujah!

Tonight I am the predestinated of God. Predestinated, justified, glorified, hid with Christ in God whom the heavens have received until the redemption of the body. Let's stand together. Faith cometh by the hearing of the Word. When we really get to where we love Jesus and really want to live for Jesus and we're willing to give up everything for Jesus. Not being double-minded, looking back today and doing a little for God tomorrow, and looking back the next day and always in and out, and up and down, but I mean really mean business with God. Ready to sell all and purchase that field of great price. You know when we get that way then we begin to see what kind of treasure we've got. That's why Paul said. "I have a desire to be with Christ which is far better. To abide in the tabernacle is better for you, needful," he said. "But to be with Christ is joy unspeakable and full of glory." And to think tonight that we, somebody said, "If I could only make it." To think that in Him we made it! We made it! We made it! The eighth day of the circumcision was Calvary. And in that day God done away with the old body, killed it, buried in the water. The atonement of the blood was there no more, no more is there death. No more is there the veil and the covering of death, but today we are free from the evils of death. Let's sing a little chorus together. Let's sing this little chorus, " They that wait upon the Lord," can we? (Brother Pike sings song.)

Oh tonight, what would you rather have? Some of you probably got another ten years to live, some maybe five years, some twenty years. Some may live thirty years if Jesus tarried any years. The Lord was a friend of Abraham even at ninety - six years old. At a hundred years old he still had strength and Sarah at ninety. And the Lord would come and talk to him. Eighty and ninety years old, God would talk to him just like He did when he was a real young man. Visit with him in great meetings, loved him so dearly and God prolonged his life. You could prolong your life by talking with Jesus. But you got a few years to live, what would you rather have? This wonderful promise of God and this wonderful exchange and this wonderful changeover to where you know that you're eternal and that you've got eternal riches and power and splendor and wealth, youth and happiness without end, or had you rather have a few days and full of trouble with all of the problems of life and having a little bit of this world of frolic and whatever that will satisfy you by letting sin or the motions of sin reign in your mortal body, which would you rather have?

I'm free from sin by Jesus' death. I'm free from death because He died to taste death for all men. I'm free from death. Beloved friend I don't intend to trade it for anything. You can have the gold and you can have the silver and you can have the frolic and you can have the wealth and you can have everything, the fame the popularity and have it all. I don't intend to trade it for nothing. This is the most beautiful, glorious thing that's ever been given from heaven. As the song said, "I'll live on, I'll live on, through eternal ages I'll live on. Oh I'll live on and on. I'll live on and on. Through eternal ages I'll live on." (Brother Pike sings the song.) Boy that makes me feel good! Glory to God! What I feel in my heart and in my soul, running up and down the avenues of my body, I'll tell you right now I wouldn't trade it, there ain't nothing in this world that could entice me to want to go any other direction. Let sing that again. (Brother Pike sings song.)

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

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

Holiness Unto The Lord