Virtue Is The Key To Power

There are some things I would really like to say, I've really been interested in bringing out some thoughts pertaining to the things of the Lord, but you can't bring them out unless the Lord sees fit to do it. I can talk about them, for I can always preach a sermon. It's like a mechanic, he's a mechanic, he can always work on a car. I am a preacher, I can always talk about the Word of the Lord. There's so much to be said about it. Paul said, I'm a teacher and a preacher. I like to get into the presence of the Lord, start talking and asking God to help us, to really let the Spirit speak and bring out the deep things of God, the mysteries of God. That's the things that I like.

I say this so often, a lot of people feel like they come to church and they say, "Well, the preacher just didn't get anointed," or they say, "I hope he gets anointed." That's good, it's just ever how you see it. But like I've said so many times, to be honest with you, a preacher doesn't ever have to get anointed. There's no such thing as coming to church and leaving and the preacher not being anointed. There isn't any such thing. There hasn't been any such days as that and there never will be. In the Old Testament a prophet would get anointed, because the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, even though it had not yet been given, it was still the Holy Ghost that moved upon the prophets at certain times, and they were inspired to speak, and they did speak. But when you are a preacher, you don't have to get anointed, you are God's anointed. The Bible teaches that the minister is God's anointed. It doesn't matter whether you meet him on the corner, in the living room, the kitchen, out in the yard, down at the local service station, or anywhere you want to meet him, he's God's anointed. All he has to do is just start speaking and stir up that mind of Christ within him. David called it the pure mind, and the first thing you'll know, God Himself will be speaking to you because he is God's anointed. But preachers like to stir the congregation and they love to stir up the mind of Christ. They love to talk about things that are enlightening.

Someone has sent a note and it says, "Brother George, the Bible says don't know any man after the flesh, to know him after the spirit. Will you please explain it to us as to know the difference?" OK, there is definitely a difference. Let's read Saint Mark the seventh chapter. Now remember the Pharisees were they that believed in the resurrection, and the Sadducees were the ones that did not believe in the resurrection. The Scribes were the ones that wrote the law, a scribe like from the word scribble. (Bro. Pike reads: Saint Mark Chapter 7:1-24.) We speak of this a lot of times, as to the heart. Maybe we can comment just a little bit here, and in doing so, maybe we can answer the question you spoke of.

First of all, the heart, what is the heart? We talk about the heart, and we think of the heart in all kind of different ways. When you think of it scripturally you think of it in so many different kind of ways. But when you say the heart, then really in all reality if you look at it from the chemical side of life, as to human chemistry, it's nothing more than a muscle. From all scientific definitions of the heart it's nothing more than a muscle. It is a true fact that the heart as well as many other parts of the body are wonderfully made. David of old considered his state of being and he said, I am wonderfully made. So it is a true fact that a human being is miraculously and wonderfully made. Even until today, with all the brilliance of science, they still haven't really thoroughly understood the body. They're still in research as to certain things like enzymes and to the minute things as to pertaining to the body, their functioning and their values in life. But when you think of the heart, it's really nothing but a muscle, but it's a very amazing thing. It's astounding! The heart is a pump and there has never in the history of mankind come forth one pump that has the endurance and the lasting ability of the heart. There has been many pumps of all kinds made as to fluids of all kinds, as to water from the well. But it has been positively proven that the heart can last a hundred years and still be going strong; whereas, most pumps wear out after just a few years of pumping or operating.

So you can see the heart is an astounding thing, Just a little pump. It's just a little muscle, like the rest of the muscles of your body. The strange thing about the heart is that there is nothing, not anything at all, if you put it under a microscopic view, that is, a definement as to view it, you wouldn't find anything. There's not anything religious, there's not anything spiritual, there's not one thing that looks like God in anyway as to a spiritual world or spiritual thing, not one thing. Even though science says that they have found a little place down in the heart somewhere, a little empty spot they call the soul, which is foolishness. It doesn't have anything to do with the soul. But anyway that's their definition because they have to intellectually define. They can't figure out things when it comes to spiritual things because they can't understand spiritual things. The Bible says, concerning the natural man, he cannot receive the things of God. You take a man that is educated, that's natural minded, it doesn't matter how much skill he has or how much education or brilliance he has. It doesn't matter if he is a great scientist like Einstein, he can't even get near the things of God. So the natural man cannot receive the things of God.

That is beautiful to me, it goes back to the heart. It is beautiful because there are certain things in life that are made to be relative to certain things. The little atomic particles of which our bodies are composed and the world as to our environment are composed of, they either repel one another or they draw one another. And so in life there are certain things that would repel spiritual things and there are certain things that God has made that will draw spiritual things. Like a magnet, which will move over certain metals and never, ever affect those metals. Other metals you move that magnet over it and there's something that's in that magnet and in that metal that they are relative and they begin to draw each other.

I've often thought about man and woman. God has made man out of the atomic particles, and he lives from the cosmic energy. We brought out and explained some of these things as to the minute things of life as to the atomic particles and their affect on one another from a scientific side. But man is drawn to woman and woman is drawn to man. God has so created their body until the atomic particles of their body are relative one to another. Like the little atom we brought it out. There are certain ones that repel each other until they come in contact with certain atoms,and then they are no longer restless. They settle down after that and they are just as stable as they can be. They draw one another and they take on these things and they settle down and are not restless anymore. Man's like that. He is made to be drawn to woman and woman is made to be drawn to him. This is why you have to guard against lust. It doesn't matter if you are married and have a wife or a husband. That doesn't stop you at all. As you move through life these enticements of the opposite sex are there. The enticements of the human body are still there, even though you're married or whatever, and they draw. You have to have Christ's Spirit as to Christ's mind that you may have control, as we say, with mind over matter.

I refer to this a lot of times, science says mind over matter. Everything's matter or energy and the mind is the superiority, and it is mind over matter, that you can work with matter and do whatever you want to. But I've said this, that's not true. Even though scientists can work with the forms of matter and there's a lot of things that they can do. They even make atoms, there are man made atoms. But the thing is, when it comes right down to it, it's not man's mind over matter, unless there is another superior power; there has to be a superior power. Man's mind over matter, in the scientific world from the educated side of life, means the tree of knowledge, ever learning and never able to come to the truth. The word science meaning knowledge. Paul said it's knowledge falsely so called, or he used the words science falsely so called, ever learning and never able to learn anything, always just a corrupt dispute. But, man's mind was made to be over matter because in the garden God made it to be over matter. But the interference of the satanic forces, as to the infiltration, has gotten between man's world and man, and it has gotten between man and God. So then to have a true mind over matter you have to have the mind of Christ, because it was the mind of Christ that made and formed matter. It is the mind that can change matter, create matter, or speak matter out of existence. It is the mind that can take energy, true energy and mix it with matter as to change it's form because God is that source of true energy. Anything else is a perversion.

That's why you have so many mixed up cross breeds in people, animals and everything else. Satan can't create, so then he has to make believe, like a magician make believes. God is the true mind over matter. That is why the Bible uses the terms the bed of the married is undefiled in all because it is a divine ordination of God. The true spiritual energy that has so formed matter that men and women might reproduce and multiply in this world. He said, Adam, Eve, multiply and replenish the earth; whereas, a lot of times you run into people that speak foolish and they speak about the replenishing. They say "Now, God said, Adam and Eve you replenish the earth, which means there must have been a world before this that people came into the world because here He uses the terms replenish." I've said this a lot of times, all God was saying was, Adam and Eve, I made you, and when I made you, I plenished the earth with you, and I plenished the earth by making the beasts of the field. Now it is up to you and the beasts of the field to replenish by multiplying and replenishing the earth.

So we see that God ordained that man and woman be drawn to each other. He said, It's not good for man to be alone, so He made a woman. The woman came out of the man, which means she is part of the man. So that means that the man is drawing the woman because he has this power within him, in that she is part of him. The woman is likewise drawing the man because she came from the man. They're being drawn together, because man and woman are made for one another. This will always be because Satan has perverted things to where he draws people to one another out of wedlock. The true drawing together is of God, whereas to a true wife, a true man. If you meet somebody that was predestinated to be your companion, then the drawing is of God and it will neatly fit together. It will perfectly fit together, because it is love, it is the energy of God. It will draw you and fasten you together, it won't be like a puzzle with the piece put in the wrong place. It will beautifully and evenly fit together. Then you'll have a happy life because as you grow older, as you go further down the trail, you will love each other the more, because you didn't marry one another out of lust.

If it's satanic, it will be lust. You will be getting a new wife every chance you get or you'll be falling in love with a new husband every time you see somebody that pleases you. If their physique pleases you or if there's a little alluring of lust as to enticement, or to form or figure, fits just right, man or woman. You like the way they pompadour their hair or whatever they do you'll be drawn to them, and you'll be just head over hills in lust. You'll say, "I'm just head over hills in love with that person. I know that I have got a wife, or I know that I have got a husband, but every time they go by, I'm just head over hills in love with them." But, what it is, you're head over hills in lust with them, and when you marry, you'll find out. If you leave your wife or husband to get that one, it isn't long before the new wears off and you're head over hills in love with somebody else. People have been known to marry seven or more times, because they fell in love. David of old was always falling in love. Every time he saw a woman he fell in love, and the first news you know, he had one wife, two wives then ten wives. Solomon came along doing the same thing. The Bible says he loved many woman. Every time he saw a woman he fell in love, and he just had so many multiplied wives, hundreds and hundreds of wives and concubines. One day David fell in love with a man's wife and committed murder, and when God got through sticking the firebrand to him, David lost all his desire to fall in love. If you'll check, after that he didn't go seeking after anymore women or wives. There's no record where he went and tried to get him anymore wives or fell in love anymore. When God turned the fire lose on him, and death struck his family and sorrow and heartaches struck him, he got over that devil of lust that he had had all of that time, and he quit playing around. It had led him to murder.

The same with Solomon, of about seven hundred, he had so many that he couldn't hardly see one more than one day out of a year if he even got around to them. It wasn't long before this devil of lust that had Solomon caused him to take strange wives. He wasn't satisfied anymore with Israelite women. God had warned him against that. He said, If you marry these women they'll turn your heart away from God, and they did. It wasn't long before he built all kinds of places of worship for those paganistic women, and they were worshipping their god at God's expense. Solomon was spending God's money for their foolishness. So I said that to say this: you don't fall in love every day. "Oh," somebody said, "but you just don't know Brother Pike. This is just overwhelming to me. I just can't stand it. I feel like I could just eat her up." What it is, you're eat up! The Bible speaks of this: Who is this that eat My people like bread?

Like some of the men years ago, it's not comical, but there's a lot to what they said. When I married my wife I felt like I could eat her up, and a few months later, I wish that I had. A lot of people are like that. The black widow takes on a husband, and when she gets tired of him, she eats him up. We brought out the revelation of the widow, how they devour. You can be of the devil and you will continually devour, You're never satisfied, you're unstable. But if you are really genuinely looking for something right, you'll find your wife. You'll walk in the mind of Christ and you'll acknowledge the Lord in all of your ways. He'll give you the right companion, and all of your life, you'll be locked together. The Bible speaks of the lust of the eyes and as to the lust of the eyes it doesn't matter what comes to you, you won't take to it. You will not allow for it, you will not give into it, you'll just keep on doing the right things. You'll keep on loving your wife and you'll keep on loving your husband, because these things are made to draw one another as bone of bone and flesh of flesh.

I am drawn to Christ Jesus. I see other people that don't want to live for God. They don't have any desire for God. They don't want to be part of the kingdom of God. They will not follow Christ. They're drawn to the world, through the alluring or enticement of Lucifer, they are drawn after the things of the world. They are not God conscious or God minded. They can eat, drink, revel, and go out in the world. They get excited over money, cars, homes, over forms, faces and features. They get excited over worldly talk and laughter, worldly music, prestige and the things of the world. They are carried away with it. I wouldn't give you fifteen cents for all of it, lock, stock and barrel. It doesn't even affect me, I don't care for it, it's repulsive to me. I am drawn to Christ. Christ is beautiful to me and all that He says is wonderful to me. Everything that God has planned for my life, or everything that I know of concerning Him, is a great excitement to me. I am excited over everything I do for God and I am excited over everything He does. I can meet a person that loves God, and if they talk about God or world evangelism or feeding the poor, the hungry, or the world to come, their conversation is in heaven, and I get excited. I can talk about revelation and like Moses on the mountain, eighty long days he was satisfied to be without food, water or anything else, just to be there in the presence of God. I could just stay with God for the rest of my life. For the years that I've served God, I've been contented just to stay with God like Elijah did, I'd been contented to do that. As a matter of fact I've been so tempted many times just to completely leave the sight of the world just to be away by myself with God. The Lord would tell me, But you can't do that. He said, You've got to preach, you have to be out there to talk to those people. So then, we are drawn one to another. If you are the body of the Lord Jesus then you are drawn to the Lord Jesus, and you love the Lord Jesus.

The reason is because you are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. A man will be out on the job working and all of a sudden he finished his day's work, if he loves his little wife, he wants to go home. He wants to go home to her and his children because he is drawn to them. He doesn't want to go see some other woman. He doesn't want to go off somewhere to a booze hall. He wants to go to his wife, he wants to go home. He wants to rest and fellowship with his wife. Because as I say we're bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. That is as to the natural, So it is with Christ. I'm drawn to Him. At night I lay down on the bed and while I'm laying there all of a sudden, Christ is drawing at me, and I think I have just got to get up and go pray. I say to my wife, "Betty, I just can't lay here, I've just got to go pray." It's because I am drawn to Him. All day long, out of my heart, I meditate in the things of God day and night, because my spirit is drawn to Christ, and Christ is drawn to my spirit. I am elect, before the world ever was, I was predestinated to love the lord. Like the man that wrote the song, Born to love the Lord. I was born to love the Lord. I am of His bone and His flesh. I love the Lord with all of my heart, with all of my mind, with all of my strength. I love the Lord, because there is something about His Spirit that draws every particle of my body.

This is the way it is folks! When you consider the heart, the heart is nothing more than a muscle. It is just a little pump, but within that heart there is a delicate operation. There is something on the inside of that heart that has to do with the human spirit. That spirit either belongs to God or it belongs to the devil. Because of that the water that that little pump is bringing forth, as to the natural, we know that it is blood, but as to the spiritual there is something else that is taking place. I say again, our brain is in our head, but our mind is in our heart. The Bible says as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. Your mind is in your heart, and Paul said, I serve God with my mind. For out of your mind which is in your heart comes forth thoughts of adultery, fornication, blasphemy, lasciviousness, and an evil eye of pride. Of all these arrogances of life, those thoughts, those impulses, and those reflexes come out of your heart. God said, David, thou art after My own heart. The reason is David sought to have a pure heart. He looked for a pure heart. The Bible says the pure in heart shall see God.

We die. To reckon ourselves to be dead in deed by the body of the Lord Jesus to sin and to corruption and to the things of the world. The writer said, I'm dead to the world by the body of the Lord and the world is dead to me. We're seeking to be pure in heart, for the pure in heart shall see God. God is a Spirit, so you are never going to see God you that are natural. The natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. You are never going to be able to see God with your natural eye. Even paul, seeing the bright light, it had blinded, naturally blinded him. The eye nerves cannot comprehend God, nor see God. The Bible says God is the great light, and that light shined in darkness, that is, as to intellectual reasoning. This great understanding that is called light came forth: but the Bible said that the darkness could not comprehend it. That is the intellectual could not understand. The Bible said the wicked shall not understand when the light cometh, or when the good cometh. For satan hath blinded his eyes, even the eyes of his understanding that he should not see when good comes. Solomon prayed, Lord, give me an understanding heart. The Bible says with wisdom get understanding.

So out of my heart comes forth the daily issues of life. It's out of my heart that I think, and those things determine my lifestyle as to what God is going to bless me with as to a heavenly reward or whether I'm going to be evasive of God and be negligent toward God, whatever it is, my heart determines that. My thoughts determine that. Do thy diligence to keep thine heart, for the Bible says out of thine heart comes forth the issues of life. Jesus said, Why do thoughts arise within your heart? He talked to the Pharisees and Scribes and while He was talking He could perceive their thoughts. The Bible says He perceived their thoughts in His Spirit. Many times the Christ of my heart hath perceived the thoughts of human spirits. Many times I've perceived the thoughts of human spirits and told them their thoughts. The Bible says the word is a discerner of the thoughts and of the intents of the heart. When you walk with the word, live in the word, the word abides in you and you abide in the word. That is, you abide in the ways of the word whatever it commands, and the word abides in you, and the word is Spirit and life. So you walk with the word and as it was Jesus became the word, and then you become one with the word according to your measure, and then you discern according to that measure. As to the discerning of the thoughts and the intents of the heart; I can take the word and I can discern your heart. I can discern what you've been doing, what you're going to do, or what you're doing right now in your lifetime by the word of God. Out of the heart comes forth the issues of life. The heart, the Bible says, is desperately wicked above all things, who can know it?

I say I'm a Christian. Someone said, "I've been serving God for thirty years, I'm a Christian. I'm a good person," whereas Jesus disputed that, and He said there is none good but God. If God is in your heart, if God has become one with your spirit, if you are an interwoven being on the inside with God, He said, Then are you good, for he that is holy is holy even as He is holy. There is no goodness except of God's Spirit. There is no fasting that can make you good, a few days or many days. There is no praying that can make you good, short prayers are long prayers. There is not one thing that you can do that will make you holy. Not one thing that will add any virtue of life to you, not one thing so far as you being holy. It takes God, for God alone is holy, God alone is good. I am good only because God has become one with me and I have become one with God. I am holy only because I have become one with God and God has become one with me. That is, God is a Spirit.

I've said this before, we say that we are saved by faith. We say, "Well, faith saved me." No, that isn't right, faith didn't save you. God saved you, and God is a Spirit. I said this the other night, God is a Spirit and God purifies your heart with His Spirit. I know the Bible says God purifies our heart by faith, but, it is the Spirit of God using faith to get to you. It is God's mercy, God's grace. The Bible says we're saved by the grace of God. I am saved altogether by the grace of God. It is His Spirit and by His mercy He has given me His Spirit. His Spirit comes to me through faith in the Word of God. As to what the Lord Jesus has done as to pertaining to my salvation in that He hath finished the works I do what He has done before God by believing it. They said, What must we do to work the works of God? He said, This is the works of God that you believe on Him whom the Father has sent, even the Lord Jesus Christ. For the works were finished from the foundation of the world. I'm a Christian not by something that I have done, but by something God has done. I have become a Christian, and I am Christ like because His Spirit is on the inside of me. I've received the Holy Ghost. We sing that song: For He hath placed the Holy Ghost within. I've received the Holy Ghost and I have it on the inside of me. This great, wonderful Spirit lives on the inside of me. That is my hope of glory. Jesus stood in glory on the mount with Moses and Elijah. I am transformated inwardly from glory to glory. My hope of that glory is Christ within me, for I have no hope of the things of God through my own ability. It is Christ that gives me that hope. The things that He has done in my behalf hath brought me the hope of glory, that is, the glory of God. The Bible says God has called us unto glory and unto virtue. I am called to godliness. The Bible tells me to add to my experience godliness, patience, and all of these wonderful things, because I'm called to godliness, and virtue.

The world isn't looking for virtue. The one thing the world doesn't do is seek after virtue. Paul said, If anything have any virtue in them, think on these. But the world doesn't seek after virtue. As a matter of fact they've even got non-virgin clubs. They're not seeking after virtue, because the devil doesn't want you to have virtue. The devil will take any virtue that you do have from you. As long as you are a virtuous person you are set apart from satan, and satan cannot get to you. The days of the Gentiles are at an end now, because the virtues of the earth are gone. There were virtues in the earth. There were decent men and women in the earth. There was God virtue in the earth, but the virtue is being taken away. It's gone, it's leaving! Because of that God can't abide in the earth, because He can only abide where there is virtue. If you don't have virtue God can't abide in your heart. It was by the virtue of the woman Mary that God was able to fellowship her and the divine conception of God's human form came through a human life, all because of virtue. Not this trashy, make believe thing that we've got today of people who pretend to be virtuous and are as wretched as they can be. Virtue is not some special activity of being active in some religious thing or participating in some church activity, that's not virtue. Virtue is in the heart. It is a Spirit, for God is the Spirit of virtue. You have to have virtue in your heart, if you are ever going to heal anybody. You're never going to heal anybody by believing.

Somebody said, "Well, I believe. That takes care of it." Well, that's fine, I'm glad you do. The Bible says if you believe there's one God you do well. The devils believe and tremble. That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean that you have any virtue. Someone will say, "I really, truly believe, Brother Pike." Well, that's fine, The Bible says faith without works is dead. All of your believing is not worth fifteen cents unless it is in line with God. It's like a preacher came to me the other day and said, "I want you to know one thing Brother Pike, I'm with you. I don't care who forsakes you, I'm with you." He was talking about these very things. He said, "I've learned something Brother Pike." He said, "Just going out trying to have faith, and trying to do things, that is not the answer." He said, "Just going out there and by faith you're going to drive it through and you're going to do these things," he said, "that's not the answer." He said, "The answer is finding out the will of God, walking in the will of God and doing what God tells you to do." He said, "I've learned that!" He's really been down a hard road. As a matter of fact, he has lost about everything that he had. He had a great empire, and we looked and saw it falling and saw that these things were going to happen to him. I told the brethren, I said, "It's at hand, it is going to happen now." It fell, from millions of dollars, but he learned something.

Following Christ, that's the answer. I can believe, but I must believe in harmony with the Word of God. I can pray, I can fast and it can be a great value to me. and to the kingdom of God, but not unless it is in harmony with God. Like Brother Branham said one time, doing God a service without His will. Just going around fasting and praying, people have got hung up on that. There are a lot of times all you do is just kill out your body and injure your health. Paul said, After about fourteen days of fasting or more he said, Take something for your health's sake. You need to eat something. This thing about fasting and praying, Jesus said, You pray, you desire the salutations in the marketplaces. You just want men to say, "Rabbi," or, "Look at him. Man, he prays. Look at all of those prayers." That's nothing, that's vain glory. Fasting, he went on a seven day fast, fast a fifteen day fast. It's not worth a dime, you're wasting your time. A lot of people do that as I said the other day to lose weight. I went over to a place, Frank might have been with me, some health place we stopped in there one day and somebody was asking about something. I walked along and they were just talking about this person that went on a twenty-one day fast and that they found that this was really good for you, that you could lose weight and all of this kind of thing. So, that doesn't mean anything folks.

What does mean something is to walk with God, be in His Word, have God's Word in you, and to honor God. A three day fast is better than a twenty-three day fast if it is something of God. One thirty minutes of prayer is worth two days of prayer if you're praying in the Spirit. Paul said, I pray in the Spirit. If you're talking with God, doing things in the Lord, having a gift from God, isn't worth anything to you, if you don't have God's leadership. Though you have faith so that you could move a mountain, if you have not charity, it profiteth you nothing. You come to church, somebody jumps up and speaks in tongues, and they think they are real spiritual. Like the man that was speaking in tongues the other night, he was trying to be spiritual. I never did feel a connection with him. The time when he was here before, he did the same thing, I never did feel a connection. But you can be in the audience and the Spirit of God can move upon you and you can come up speaking in tongues, prophesying or doing something and it will edify the whole church. The Bible said if you speak with tongues, then you should have an interpreter. Because if there's no interpreter, the Bible said, let the man keep silent and speak to himself and God. You don't quench the Spirit, but you're to speak under a low voice, not to speak out.

I'm speaking of the virtues of God. When Jesus came close to the little woman, the little woman was healed, by the virtue. A lot of times you say, "Well, I can't get anybody healed." That's because you don't live right. Paul said, Make straight paths for yourself, that the lame be not turned aside, but rather that he be healed. Another form of virtue, another way to get virtue is by being straight with God. The Bible says if anything has any virtue in them, if they be lovely as to the things of God, or the right things, then think on these things that be of virtue. If you're going to fast, fast for God and move with God. And if you're going to pray, move with God, so that you can build virtue. The secret of power is virtue, for power is virtue. Jesus went into the wilderness and for forty days and nights He was there with the wild beasts. Somebody goes on a forty day fast. They say, "Well, praise God, at last I'm equal to my master." Why, you haven't- I'll tell you what, you are so far from being equal with Christ with a forty day fast, if you had have went ninety days, it wouldn't have been anything. Who is that man overseas that fasted eighty or ninety days, Mahatama Ghandi or something they call him? That doesn't mean anything folks.

Being equal with the master, the Bible said, everyone that be perfect shall be equal with his master. You need to be perfect, you need to make straight paths for yourself. You need to be clean and upright, you need to get rid of your gossiping, your backbiting, and your evil surmisings. You need to have your conversation in heaven. You don't need to be in the flesh. You need to walk in the Spirit. You need to abide in the Word and let the Word abide in you. Jesus was with the wild beasts for forty days and nights. It was a test, a contest of courage, strength, perseverance, and trust in the Heavenly Father. There with those wild beasts that would have tore Him apart. Like Daniel in the lions den, the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. To build faith you have to live right and then you draw virtue.

When this little woman that was sick in her body got near Jesus all of a sudden she said within her heart, If I can just get close to Him and if I can just touch Him, I just know I'll be healed. If I can but touch the hem of His garment, and she kept pressing in. She wasn't even suppose to be there, she was suppose to be unclean because of the issue of blood, but she came anyway, in violation of the law. She slipped in and kept trying to get closer and closer and all of a sudden she got just close enough that she reached out right quick and touched the hem of His garment. Just as quick as that little woman touched the Lord like that, He turned and said, Who touched Me? The disciples were puzzled, they couldn't understand. They said, Lord, People everywhere are touching you. What do you mean who touched you? Why you're in a crowd, you know you're just bumping from one to another: like when you go to catch a plane or make a trip and you're caught in the traffic. They said, What do You mean, who touched You? Jesus said, Somebody touched Me, because I felt virtue go out of My body. That was the healing. It wasn't that she touched the hem of His garment. Her faith was if I can touch the hem of His garment, I just have so much confidence that I'll be healed if I can just naturally touch the hem of His garment. But the natural touch didn't do it. It was her faith that just made her believe that if she could just, like when she touched the hem of His garment, she reached over and touched Him, and something on the inside leaped up and said, Oh my God, my God, I touched Him. I'm well, I'm well. Hallelujah! It was her faith, and then that faith reacted on Jesus or God's Spirit. And the Spirit of God, the virtue which was in Christ just flowed right out through the Lord and right into that little woman and the virtue healed her.

That's why people don't get healed. They jump up and make all kinds of noise. They play the organ, they scream, they run, they knock you down and they do all kind of things to be spiritual. They try to speak in tongues and they try to prophesy, but there's only one thing that can heal you and that is the virtue that comes from God. The Bible said Jesus, forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, and then it said He returned in the power of the Spirit. It wasn't that He went to the wilderness to get the Spirit, He had the Spirit. The Spirit, the Bible said, was on the inside of Him, but it was to build virtue on the inside of the body, to test His faith, to strengthen His faith. To put His faith to the test that He would deny fear and the feelings of security. So that He would deny Satan when Satan came and said, If you be the Son of God. To build His faith to the point that when He came back out, my, how did He feel? You just think, now remember He was a human being, Jesus was a man. What if you and I went out into the wilderness and stayed there for forty days with the wild beasts.

Think how Daniel felt! When Daniel came out of that lion's den he probably felt like he could do anything. His faith was at an all time high. When Samson reached and grabbed that lion and just rent it, he probably felt like he could handle the world. God builds faith. When you stay with God, and love God, walk right, and do right, you get to feeling strong and more powerful. When Jesus came out of the wilderness His faith was so powerful. He could walk up to a human being and there wasn't any doubt in His mind because He had already defeated the devil. The devil had aggravated Him for forty days. He was tempted of the devil for forty days and forty nights and He mastered the devil. When He mastered the devil as concerning one human body, that meant He was master concerning all human bodies. He said, I thank thee Father that Thou hast given Me power over all flesh. When He would meet a human being, He would just command the devil like that, and when the woman touched that garment, the power of the Spirit was there and that virtue went out. Jesus said, I felt it go out. Have you ever done that? I've prayed for people many times and felt virtue go out of the body. If you walk with God you can feel it.

I said that to say this, out of the heart comes forth evil thoughts that defile the man. God has to destroy the temple, He can't dwell in it. This is what it has to do with as to knowing someone after the flesh or after the spirit. We are not in the flesh. The question was to explain this. We are not in the flesh. I am not in the flesh. I am in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth within you, He'll quicken your mortal body by His Spirit. But you are not in the flesh, I have chosen you out of the world. If you were in the flesh you would be in the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, and I've hid you with Christ in God whom the heavens have received until the time of the restoring of all things. I've been chosen out of the world. I'm not in the flesh. I've been baptized in the name of Jesus, filled with the Spirit of God, and at death as to reckon my body to be dead by the body of the Lord Jesus, my spirit went back to God who gave it. The day that I contacted Christ in faith to understand what He was saying in my behalf, my spirit went back to God who gave it. So today I'm one of those that dwell in heaven. This is what confounded Nicodemus. Jesus said, Nicodemus, art thou a ruler of the Jews and you don't know this? He said, Nicodemus, No man has ever ascended up into heaven.

That's a big statement right there. Somebody said, "Well, what happened to Moses, Enoch and Elijah?" He said, No man has ascended up into heaven, except the Son of Man, speaking of Himself. He said, This Son of Man that came down from heaven. He said, Ye are of the earth, ye are of the world, but I'm from heaven. He wasn't of the blood lineage of man, so He said, the Son of Man that came down from heaven. He looked at Nicodemus and said, And who is in heaven. That is to say, Nicodemus, I not only went to heaven and came down from heaven, He said, but while I'm talking to you, I'm still in heaven. So then we are hid with Christ in God whom the heavens have received. He hath chosen us out of this world, hid us with Christ in God. Our body is now dead, buried in the watery grave and it is no more I that liveth because I am dead and buried as to the flesh. It is now Christ as to His foreknowledge of what I'll be at His coming and all this other of me as to the natural, He doesn't see me anymore. I am now a quickening spirit. I was a living soul. I was born a living soul, now I am a quickening spirit. Oh my, I wish we could go into this and talk all night long. When you get right along there you really need to.

But trying to stay with the theme of our thought, we are those that have virtue. We have the power of God. Behold, I give unto you power over all the powers of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you, which means we have power over death, the last enemy for the world to conquer. We've already conquered it through Christ Jesus, so we have power over death. I've destroyed him that hath power as to death, Jesus said. So then, you and I have power over death. You and I cannot die because we've passed from death unto life. We have power over death. We shall never die, never come into condemnation. If we go on to understand what he's saying here, we won't even sleep. Paul said, I show you a mystery, we're not even going to sleep if we go on to understand the mystery of what He's saying because we've already conquered death.

So going on from there, let's get on to our original thought here. So my heart is drawn to Christ. Some people's heart repel Christ, but mine is drawn to Christ and Christ is drawn to me. Out of my heart comes forth the holy thought of God. For out of the same fountain or same well of water you can't get bitter and sweet water. You can't get bitter and sweet out of the same stream. You don't get it that way, it's either sweet or it's bitter. Out of my heart comes forth the sweet waters of God. I have the problems as you have in that the skin worms seek to devour the body. The things of the world come to your mind and they harass you. They come presenting themselves to talk with you, but we don't have fellowship with that. Light hath no fellowship with darkness and I am a creature of light. The temples of God have no fellowship with the temples of Belial. A lot of you go out and fellowship the world because you are temples of Belial. You're not temples of God. If you were temples of God you could not stand to be around the stench of the world. You could not stand worldly music and those television shows, magazines, pictures, and conversations that are non-virtuous. You couldn't do that, there's no possible way that you could do that. We are a different people. We don't know a man after the flesh.

I hear things sometimes that are so ignorant. Like somebody said, "The black man just doesn't have a soul." I look, I marvel and I think, how ignorant can somebody be? What's wrong with people who talk like that? They may be the finest kind of people, but they are ignorant. Paul said, I would not have you ignorant. They're still carnal minded, they're still natural minded. Paul said, I'd like to speak unto you as unto spirituals. Can a man be so ignorant that he thinks because of the pigment of a man's color, that is as to his skin is different that he is some beast or doesn't have any soul? If there is no soul to the black man, what about the yellow man or the red man? What makes us think that the white man has a soul and the others don't? See, what it is, it's knowing somebody after the flesh. That's what the Bible means, you know them after the flesh. Because their flesh has a different color, it's yellow, it's red. Hasn't God made animals all kind of colors? Look at them, birds, all kind of colors, does it mean that one bird is not really a bird? To know somebody after the flesh, to look at a man, to look at his color, why that's ignorance: to know him after the flesh. The thing is he's a human being. Besides that, if you say that the black man doesn't have a soul, what are you going to do about the black Jew? The Jews were God's chosen people. I just came back from Israel a few months ago and we went right down through the village where the whole village is black, they're black Jews. They're not brown, they're not light colored, they're black. People are ignorant who talk like that. They may not know that they're ignorant, but they're ignorant.

God doesn't look on the outward appearance. Isn't that what the Bible says? God doesn't look on the outward appearance. He made the outward appearance, but He doesn't look at that because God is a Spirit. God doesn't care whether you have the face of a giraffe or a monkey. You know, that is speaking of the animals, and people relate to beasts. He doesn't care, He thinks just as much of the giraffe as He does the monkey. The giraffe has got a long, slender neck. He's a funny looking fellow, but God doesn't think different about him. The monkey hangs by his tail, but God thinks just as much about him as He does the lion. God looks on the heart. God is looking for the pure in heart. If you can be pure in heart, I don't care what your face looks like. There are people who have had their faces blown all up, scarred up, they are freaks, but if they have a pure heart, they are beautiful to God, because flesh is nothing. Mind over matter can change that quickly and make him the most, the finest looking thing in the earth. God beautifies the meek with salvation.

By being pure in heart is how I get revelation? Where does revelation come from? What is revelation? It is God, for I'm seeing God. God is a revelation. God has been declared. God cannot be seen with eyes. He is a declaration. It is something that is declared. Jesus Christ hath declared God; and the only body that God has is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Oh," somebody said, "well, I know Jesus is God, I know that, I understand that." But has it ever occurred to you that the Bible said, He called you gods? "Yeah, but Jesus was the Son of God, not a son." I know, but have you ever noticed that in Genesis it says that Adam was the Son of God, not a son? So, I'm saying this; if Jesus is God, if that's all there is to it, and there is no difference, then what about some of the Scriptures that I brought out where Jesus made the statement, Feel of Me. They said, A Spirit. John said, God is a Spirit. Jesus said, Feel of Me, a Spirit has not flesh and bones as you see Me have, and the many, many things that He said, where the Bible said and God cannot be tempted, neither does He tempt any man, and yet, the Bible said Jesus was tempted in all ways the same ways that we are. Do you understand what I'm saying?

God is a Spirit. God is searching the heart. God is not interested in the human form. He even smote the form of Jesus, and it was marred more than any man as to the countenance, but He's interested in the heart. God is a Spirit, a declaration, a revelation. You comprehend and you see God through the eyes of your understanding. What is heaven. Is heaven something that you can reach out and feel? No, heaven is a Spirit, it's a spiritual dimension. The kingdom of God is a spiritual dimension. And you transformate as an angelic being, into that angelic world where there are angels. He said, I make My angels spirit. That is a spiritual dimension. It's a spiritual world. We are suppose to be spiritual. Paul said, I'd like to speak unto you as unto spiritual. Pray that God will grant unto you the Spirit of revelation.

People that are natural minded, the Bible said, they receive not the things of God and they can't know them because they are spiritually discerned. All of those things are spiritual. You have to get in there by a transformating power of the Spirit. We could go on and on, but I wanted to point out something. This is why that men don't have power. They can't utilize power because they've got some idea that if they fast and pray over here that they're going to become some great, great person in God. Elijah fasted forty days but that wasn't what made Elijah great. Now come on folks, let's be realistic. You mean to tell me that Elijah didn't work any miracles before he went on a forty day fast? Why he just went on a forty day fast because he couldn't get any food between the time the angel gave him that food and the next meal, That's the only reason he fasted forty days. He had a long journey and the angel said, You better eat twice here, just to have the strength to go where you're going. Moses didn't go on any eighty day fast. He had to be in the presence of God that long because it took that long to do what he was doing.

See, that's not the answer. Those men lived with God and stayed away from the world. Come out from among them, be a separate people.Touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you, thus saith the Lord. How many fasts did Brother Branham go on to be a prophet? You don't make prophets, you don't school prophets. You don't lay hands on people and say, "Thus saith the Lord, you've become a prophet." Prophets are born, they're not made. You are a prophet before you are ever born into the world by the foreknowledge of God. The prophet said, Before I was ever formed in my mother's womb, He called me to be a prophet. You don't get salvation and the gifts by coming and crying to God. Those things are by foreknowledge. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Which means you don't get them through repentance. I'm trying to say one thing, God is a Spirit. All these things are of God. What you are in God is not because of your fasting. Brother Branham saw visions when he was a little boy. He sat there and saw thirteen or more people killed there on that bridge that was to be built as to maybe a number of years later, and he saw it. As far as I know he never fasted a day in his life, along then. He probably didn't know what it was as far as really understanding those things, so that's not what it is. You use fasting and prayer to develop yourself, to sanctify yourself, in that setting yourself apart to try to draw virtue from God. These things are helps to you. But whatever you are that's a calling.

Out of your heart, if you are clean on the inside of your heart, you have God's Spirit and that means that you're holy and you're going to be holy, and you're going to be saved. And remember this in closing, you say, "But Brother Pike, what about all those people that I know were clean? I know that they were Christians, and then they fell away from God." I'm telling you again, that Christians don't sin, there is no such thing as a sinning Christian for Christians never sin, never at any time. They are predestinated unto the works of Jesus Christ, and God never sees their works, He sees Christ's works. God never sees their life, He sees Christ's life. We are complete in Christ which means without sin. We are one in Him. We're bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. All that He is, that's what we are. He was made our sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. We're made His righteousness. Whatever He is that's what we are. There is no sin to Jesus. He that is born of God by faith in the finished works of Christ keepeth himself and the evil one touched him not, never at any time, so then, we are predestinated.

You say, "Well, what about these people, Brother Pike? I know that they come in here and I know that they shout, they sing and they do things just like a Christian." Many of them are believers and they get in the rain. They're partakers of the Holy Ghost, partakers of the Word of God, they taste of the power of the world to come. Not partakers in the sense of being filled with the Holy Ghost as to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Even though Zechariah and some of the others were filled with the Holy Ghost in the sense that the Holy Ghost was in the days of the Old Testament. They were filled with it like the wind blowing through the house but they didn't have the gift of the Holy Ghost. They could not retain it because it had not yet been given. They come, they are believers and they get an experience and might have gone on for ten years. The rain being on the unjust, they may do many religious things, good things through the inspiration, but the thing is after awhile they'll drift away. They get enticed and they go back out there and then they begin to sin, because they never were born again.

But a person that's genuinely born again doesn't do that. They may drift and get cold and they may get careless. They may get unconcerned because they may see the preacher living like the devil and it tears them up so bad that they withdraw from church, and the first news you know they don't have any strength to to on anymore. It might be something some way or another that disturbs them, it tears them up, or they just get careless and they drift back. But you don't find them going out and indulging in sin, they just get cold and go off to themselves. They stay there and after awhile somebody comes by or something happens. Or another preacher comes through town or they hear about him, or they drift over to see what's going on, and then the fire is stirred up within them again. There's a world of difference, folks, nothing less than a world of difference. Do thy diligence to keep thine heart, for out of it comes forth the issues of life, as a daily newspaper as to the issue. Whatever comes out of that heart, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. Whatever it is then that's what his life is going to be, that determines his lifestyle and his reward as to good or bad. So you can think what you want to, but I'm telling you.

To know a man after the flesh is to know him as a doctor, or a lawyer with his diplomas and whatever. To know him as an office as to a dignitary or celebrity. To know him after the power of wealth or the conglomeration of things as pertaining to riches. To know him after his facial appearance, or his physique or a woman after her form. To listen to words, songs, wooings, or many other things is to know an individual after the flesh. But to know them after the spirit is to find out things, to weigh the spirit, to know them that labor among you. Find out what their conversation is, as to whether it's holy or not holy. As to what their interest is in, whether business, money, or whatever. To learn about that person as to their prayer life, fasting, seeking God, to study, or as doing things that pertain unto godliness. To know him after the spirit is to be able to differentiate between what is the love of the world and the love of God. If the love of the world is in you then the love of the Father is not there. Satan savors the things that be after the flesh, whatever the flesh has. God desires the things that be of an eternal source, and eternal endurance, and eternal value. To know somebody after the flesh is to be caught in the web of the weakness of intellectual reasoning which is referred to as darkness. To be under the constraint and control of Satan as to the beggarly elements of the world, you're in bondage, because of your desire for those things.

But to be a Christian, to know a man after the spirit, then you understand certain people, and you say, "That's the devil." Jesus said, Twelve of you, I've chosen but one's a devil. He knew them after the spirit. To know a man after the spirit is to understand what he is. Jesus said, Who do men say that I am? To find out what he is, he may be a devil or he may be an angel of God. The Bible said be careful how that you entertain strangers because some have entertained angels unaware. And inasmuch as the Bible teaches that the angels of God encamp around about us. Many times a man will come up and the angels of the Lord are with him because those angels encamp around about him because he is a man of God or a woman may come as a woman of God. Where two or three are gathered together Christ is in the midst and the angel of the Lord about them. You never know when you're entertaining angels unaware when you're conversing with somebody.

I hope everything is well with you. Tomorrow brings another challenge. Everyday is a new challenge to the Lord. A new challenge, as to whether you and I are going to be ready, or whether we're going to meet it with real God perseverance or whether we're going back into the same old routine of life as to excuse ourself and say that the Lord will give us mercy and truthfully He will give us mercy. God will give us mercy, but we should show mercy. Mercy rejoiceth against judgment. We should be merciful to the extent that our whole lives are living sacrifice to God, that we might be winning souls. The Bible said hating the garment that is spotted with iniquity, pulling them out of the fire. You have the ability to pull people out of the fire. I appreciate your kind attention tonight. We might have taken a little long. I didn't mean to. I know that people are tired a lot of times in mid-week services, but I'm asking you to do something for the Lord. Give God a chance at your life. Tomorrow, give God a chance at your life. Do something for the sake of the Lord Jesus. If you don't have anything to do, come down and help us. There's a lot of things to do. We're trying to get things ready by the time we go overseas so we need all of the help that we can get. Do whatever you can to work with us. If you bid it godspeed, you're partakers of it and you'll be rewarded and we'll be rewarded together in the day of judgment. May the Lord bless you tonight, may He be with you.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

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

Holiness Unto The Lord