Going On To Perfection

I had a good strong talk with the men at men's meeting on a Monday night, and then I had another good strong talk with them last night, and I think that Monday night and last night, I think, must have caused them to consider some things, to realize how easy it is to be in hypocrisy or how easy it is to think that you're walking right in the will of God and so many things hid within your life. See, we have to remember that this is a progressive thing, and we're growing day by day, and God is bringing us into the full measure of the full stature of the perfect man Christ Jesus, and of course, if any of you, along with myself, have already reached that then we don't have to worry about growing, but in my case I'm still growing, and if I measure myself, as I say, by my neighbor or by somebody else, then of course I might get the idea that I have somewhat, you know, to boast, but when I measure myself by Christ Jesus, I find out there's no room for me to boast, that I'm always coming up short and I need to move up in Him. I was trying to explain last night about a few things, that we have to remember, that though we're born again (I've been trying to differentiate between the new birth and change of the body), and I was trying to explain to them last night how that their body is still wretched. Only in the sight of God is it that your body is not wretched. By the works of the Lord Jesus and by the blood of Jesus, your body is pure and holy and godly and He sees you as the righteousness of Christ Jesus and God. But as to yourself, you need not think of yourself as being a holy person in the sense of your ability, because I tell you as your pastor, you are wretched. And because of this, that no matter how you conduct yourself or how you feel about yourself, you are nothing less than wretched. You always remember that.

So don't ever look on them that are without as being wretched and yourself as being holy, because you're only holy through the righteousness of Christ Jesus. That was the mistake of the Jews, their "more holier than thou" feeling, and it upset the Lord. And when the priests and the different ones got together, and they wanted to just stone the woman and take her life, Jesus said, You know if you're not wretched yourself, or that is, he that is without sin, let him cast the first stone. And each one, being convicted as they examined themselves, they realized that they was no more than her and was saved by grace, and probably she was a credit to a lot of them, as to the things they had done in their lifetime. But Jesus does take us away from evil and say, Go thy way and sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you; whereas, He told the woman the same thing. So when we're not habitual in sin and we're trying to do our very best, then if we stumble and stagger, all of it is covered by the blood of Jesus.

All right, so then we are here to talk to you about the righteousness of God. The Bible said to declare at this time His righteousness, that He might be glorified and that He might have the preeminence in all things. So that's why we're here, is to declare unto you His righteousness and to reveal to you your shame and your wretchedness. Paul said, Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And that's the way you need to think of yourself. And then remember Paul said, I thank God that what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, that is, it only came to reveal my wretchedness, what it could not do because I was weak, as to be able to perform it, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh, took it to Calvary, nailed it to the cross, made a triumph over sin, showed the Jews up as being wretched people, and walked off and left them in total darkness as to an eclipse. And as the Bible said they, going about to establish their own righteousness, stumbled at the righteousness of God which is by Christ Jesus, and the Gentiles, who sought not after righteousness nor did anything as to works of righteousness, hath found grace, when the Jews sought after Him and He sought after them all day long and the law was given to them and, as pertaining to the righteousness of the law, Jesus said, None of you keep it, or Paul did, None of you keep it and said, You destroy and kill everyone that comes to you with the Word of God, or with wisdom, and left their houses desolate unto them until the day that they would get their eyes open and they would say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

So then, we know where we're at. And as I told them last night, I said you're no different from what you was when you came to God. I said and as I was out there, I said, so am I the same. And I said you all are the same. And I said there's no difference. And we was talking about a few things, as to how that when I was boxing, they told me, said, "You've got a killer's instinct," and I said that's no different. I said I'm just like I was then. Things hasn't changed. No different. And yet I did not mean there was no difference, as to having a killer's instinct, because when you are a Christian, you don't have a killer's instinct. As I've said to my wife, when something happened out there, I would get bitter, and I would get bitter to the point that the only satisfaction I could think of was to get rid of my adversary. And this professional boxer told me that when we tied up there with somebody. And it was said to Brother Branham that he was the same way. He had a killer's instinct, but it was like a brother told me said, "Brother Pike, isn't that the same with all of the people that God called usually as a leader?" Which I thought about that.

It usually is, because like Samuel, he hewed Agag to pieces. He was a sweet man, very sweet man, but he cut him all to pieces, just hewed him to pieces. And as it was with Moses, he killed a man and hid him in the sand, and as it was with Elijah, he called down the fire and killed fifty, and then called down the fire and killed fifty, and as it was with David, David run through a troop and leaped over a wall, and on and on, you know. It's that way. You find it with Gideon, you find it with all of them. Even Father Abraham confederated with those that went out with him. He went out and slew and fought, won the battle and took back the spoil to free Lot. And it's the same way all the way through. But we are not murderers. We are not killers, and neither do we have killer's instinct. That body is dead by the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's buried and it is no more, but as to say as I told them, I am the same. I have not changed.

See, that is to say, God let them men have that just like He has any other that they would have a one way mind, as to a one way street, that when they went to do anything that it was locked in until death. And I'm the same. That's why that here, when we built this place without anything, we'd stay up night after night after night, and like my neighbor told me one time when I was building something, he told me in essence I was out of my mind. He said, "You'll kill yourself," because it was all day long and all night long and whatever and that's all I knew to do. And until we got things on the wing here and got it out, we were that way, and even in the past few years, we've still been that way. As of now, it doesn't look that way because I use to stay in the printing room all day and all night and then all the next day, and if I had to, all the next night again. And here, we were that way here and sometimes we wanted to work all day and didn't want to eat, and even though I'm not out there laying blocks and doing those things, it's like this morning, a little problem come up last night and it was, I tried to, I was going to lay down and rest. I went in at 8:30, and then this thing come up and I thought I'm going to get a little rest tonight, and of course this morning it was 4:30, about 4:30 when I looked at the clock when I finally got to bed to get some rest.

But see, that's given to us that if we meet opposition in the field or we meet dangers or whatever we meet, it's a drive to go on through. That we can't stop. It's not a matter of us being brave or having a special ability. It's something that God has made us to be to where that we won't fail in His program, to where we'll carry out His program. Like Moses, Moses was the meekest man in all the land, according to the Bible. The Bible said he was the meekest man in all the land. You could just do him anyway, but still that was in him to do what God wanted him to do. And I'm sure it must be in a lot of you. I know it must be in some of you I see and some of you that hear these messages, because God's hand's on you for a certain thing. But we're no different. We're just as wretched as we ever was. That is to say, I preach to you here: he that is born of God doth not commit sin. And we get the erroneous idea that what Brother Pike is saying is that we're so good and so pure and walk so holy that we never, we never do anything wrong. Folks, that's a state of ignorance when you think like that. I don't know anybody that's more contrary than religious people. Jesus even said to the Jews, one time He said, I've not chosen you because you are a holy people. He said, You are a contrary people, always mumbling and finding fault. And I've not chosen you because you are the greatest, as in number. He said, You're just a small group of people. Like the Bible says, few there be that find it. And He went on and on. He said, I've chosen you for one purpose, and that's to make a name for Myself, to raise you up to show My greatness, as He said concerning Pharoah, to make a name for Myself. As to, I've raise you up for this purpose; whereas, they couldn't get ahold of that. And because of that, finally God dismissed them from His presence, put them out into the darkness and wandered around and was killed and was in the holocaust and everything else, and then they realized what the Lord was saying when He turned them out to graze.

So this is where we are at as a people. So someone would say, "But the difference is Brother Pike," and as they were always trying to tell Job, Job was trying to explain to them, you know, that he was going to Calvary, that he had done right, but they kept on saying, Job, let me tell you, let me explain. You don't understand. You know, as they say to me Brother Pike, "What you don't understand is that we have the blood atonement, and that's what makes the difference." But that's where you don't. The world has the blood atonement too. He died to take away the sins of the world, and that's why they have all the medical aids, eat and drink, and that's why they are in heaven is because they have the same thing you have. Now there is a differentiating point as to this end, and there is going to be a change. And then of course, they won't have this benefit; whereas, we are born of that Shekinah, they're like Adam and Eve: they were just in the presence of it or just in the presence of it. Someday it will be lifted. They'll find themselves in the condition that Adam and Eve was in. So we have the inbred righteousness.

I just wanted to say this, that it is not because we are good people that we are righteous. It is because He is a good God and that is why we are righteous. We have been made partakers of His righteousness. See, it is His goodness, to declare at this time His righteousness. Somebody says, "But Brother Pike, I'm one of them different ones. I fast, Brother Pike." Well bless your heart. That's good. You get hungry a lot of times, you know, because that's all fasting is is doing without food, and of course you get hungry. And now somebody says, "Well, I pray." Good. You know, the Lord bless you. But the Bible said they did that to be called of men rabbi. They made long prayers for pretense and all these other kind of things. Somebody said, "But it's different with me because I called on God." They say, Wherefore have we called on You and You didn't take no notice to it? They called on God, too. Said, Is this the fast I have chosen, you bow down your head like a bulrush, spread sackcloth and ashes under you? He said that's not a fast unto Me. He said fasting is when you honor Me, conform to My way, do what I want you to, or that is, when you feed the hungry, take care of the sick, show the love of God. That's what? Then do we make void fasting? Absolutely not. We don't make fasting void. The Bible said the minister should fast often. We're taught to fast. We're taught to pray. Do we make void praying? Of course not. I wouldn't have been up until 4 o'clock this morning if it would have made it void. That's wonderful! That's profitable! That's great! That helps us. That subdues the body. That makes us conform to His desire.

But folks, that has nothing to do with you being good nor being righteous, not one thing. When God saved you by the grace of God, you had not fasted a day. You was wretched and you was not good, and the Bible said He commended His love toward us while we were yet in our sins, in that God so loved us while we were yet in our sins, that He let the Lord Jesus die for us, that He might bring us to Himself and redeem us unto Himself as a holy, godly, peculiar thing. So then, we find ourself as to what? There's one term for you and I: O wretched man that I am! So then, what I could not do, Jesus did it for me, and today I find myself loving the Lord. I, as the world, I don't go out into the world to practice those things. I don't use my righteousness, as to the righteousness of God, as to a cloak to cover my maliciousness with, as to practice evil to turn the grace of God or that is. The day of grace into a time of a practice of maliciousness or the evils of this world. I don't do that. I try to live holy and godly. Now someone would say, "Well, why do you do that, Brother Pike? You teach us that we are perfect." I certainly do and there's no mistake about it. God has perfected forever them that are sanctified, sanctified them once and for all by the offering up of the body of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. I preach that because that's the Word, and the Bible said he that God sendeth will speak God's Word. That's exactly what you are. You are perfect, but not by anything that you done, not at all. There is none good, no not one. God has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Every man has turned to his own way.

So then, God has saved us while we were yet out in our sins. This is the thing that we want to remember: God has saved us. So He hath made us perfect. God is speaking altogether, as to a new birth which is your spirit becoming one with Christ's Spirit, of having been born into the kingdom of God. Your body is not yet changed. You have not wit the redemption. You are a wretch and one of the worse kind and I am the same. So that way, we can get along real good because when you look at me and see all my faults, or I look at you and see all of your faults, then all we're doing is looking in a mirror realizing what a wretch we are because you cannot see a saint of God in that he is spirit. That that is born of Spirit is spirit, and he's been chosen out of this world and out of the flesh and hid with Christ in God. And when you know him after the flesh, it only proves your ignorance and your wretchedness and that you've never been born again. So you're only looking in a mirror, seeing your condition, for the Bible said God has fashioned all men's hearts alike. So then we know where we're standing, and that way we don't throw any stones at each other. We help each other. And it makes us have a little understanding and compassion as to them that are without.

Like yesterday, there was some things that were happening, and a man he got out of control and out of sorts. I reproved him, but I did not feel bad to him. I loved him; still love him. I don't mean a make-believe, hypocritical thing of saying, "Well love your enemies. I love them, you know, that tried to cut my throat." I don't mean that. I mean that if you're born to love, you love. And if you are born of God, then you're born of love because God is love. And I just love them. I mean there's just a genuine love and concern for my enemies and for people that act out of sorts. And last night, the man and the people, men and women a like, boys and girls a like, I spent my time talking to God, telling Him how much I do love them and appreciate them and praying for them to be saved and for God to help them, because that is true and I believe that some of them will be saved, because I believe there is some real good character in some of them. So I don't judge people after the flesh.

Now, so I said that to say this, just talking with you here a little bit here like I do so often. This is where we find ourselves. Now then, we are perfect, as to that which is of the angelic inner being as to the innermost being, and there is a continual warfare, as to with a conflict as with the outer man and the inner man. The outer man is wretched. He's filled with maliciousness. His heart is deceitful above all things. The Bible said who can know it? Do thy diligence to keep thine heart, for out of it comes forth the issues of life. And God has put it out of His sight. He doesn't see it. It's buried. It's dead. It's gone. That's why you're righteousness. He looks at the body of the Lord Jesus across this great valley, from the mountain top of Calvary over to the mountain top of the sounding of the last trump, as to Thessalonian's change, and He sees us as the body of His Son, flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone. So to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world back to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; Father, forgive us our trespasses.

See, God can't even look at us, nor God can't even look at them people out yonder, for the Bible said God can't look upon iniquity and you're still shapen in the iniquity. As in Adam, all die as the beast, as the bastard child, as the bastard image. And the Bible said we know that God heareth not a sinner's prayer. He cannot hear their prayer out there. And you did not come to God because He heard your prayer. It's not possible for God to hear a sinner's prayer. It's not possible for God to look on sinners. He can't do it. His eyes are too pure. If God come forth, even at the end of the age when the millennium is over when God comes forth, He'll come forth. He is so bright, so great, so wonderful, as His Shekinah, until not anything will stand before Him. People won't stand before Him, the sea won't stand before Him, the mountains won't stand before Him, everything will dissipate. And all that will remain is you that dwell in the light as one with the light, that's been translated into the light. I don't; great is the mystery of godliness. I don't have time tonight, as any night, to go into these things and really detail them. But I say these things to you because, over a period of numbers of years, I'm sure that you've picked up different things and you've put it together like a puzzle. See and so then, somebody says, "Church of God, I'm UPC, Baptist, Methodist," you know, more holier than thou. Folks, all of you are just like a bunch of pebbles on the beach or peas that's shook up in a sack, six of one and half a dozen of the other. You could pull out either one of them and it's just like the other: priest, preacher, anybody else. But anyway, God can't hear the prayers of sinners. God is the great light. He's the great Spirit. Your words, because of iniquity, can't even get near God.

So then the Lord has taken His own Son, give His blood, and put a priesthood between you and Him that He might be a near kinsman, that He is made in the image of man and He is holy and He is godly and He is pure, and His body is the only body that is in any condition, as to be an open door between God the Spirit and you, or as to be an image of righteousness or the means whereby we can contact the heavenly Father. So then, the high priest, which is gone into the secluded thing, as behind the veil, maketh intercession for you and I. Now we say, "Lord, You hear me," so we pray. We pray and we say, "O Lord, this, and O Lord, that, and God forgive this, and God I want this." See, but the Bible teaches that God doesn't pay any attention to that. God doesn't have anything to do with that. That's just us, you know. That makes us feel better, you know. First of all, He doesn't have anything to do with it because whatever He is going to give us, He's already give it to us. All things that pertain unto life. So what could we ask Him for? And anything that He's already going to do for us, that could ever do for us, as to a tee-total, He's already done it for us in Christ. All things are ours. He's already made us perfect. And then He tells us, He said, Now as to you, He said, you don't know what to pray for. So let's listen to it. How can He listen to that old sinner side of those things? He said the Spirit within you, as to the high priest within the temple, He makes intercession for you with groans and moans that cannot be uttered. Then it comes to pass that before you call, I answer. Or that is, all these things was given to us in Calvary, and before the world ever was, it was given to us, as predestination, and He's already answered before you could ever call.

But on the other hand, now let's look at the other side of it. I say this to let you know how secure you are when Satan tries to bring to you your insecurities and how far off you are in your understanding when you're so sure that you understand and know. And as the Bible said when we think we know something we say, "Lo and behold, my God, I didn't understand it at all." See and when we submit ourself to the Lord and we look at the other side of it, then when we see the other side of it, we come to realize this; I say, "Go on to perfection." And somebody says, "My God, my God. I'm all mixed up. He says I'm perfect, and now tonight he preaches go on and be perfect." You know, and you got to admit, people all over the world, they say, "I've got it," and the next night, "I don't know if I've got it. I thought I had it," and then the next night, "I know I've got it," and then the next night, "Well, I just don't know no more. I just can't figure the thing out." See, but it is very easy to understand, but it has to be revelated. So then, only they that are elect will understand it. Said everybody hears it.

I have these, you know, these people that come in and these ministers and different ones and these saints of God, as it would be, they come and, you know, they think, "Bless God, I got it and I've been here. I've been here, I've been here and I'm going to leave with it. I'm going to do whatever with it, for I got it. I don't care what nobody says, I got it." And I just marvel sometimes, you know, when they're in my presence, when I pick up their spirit and knowing that they don't understand. See, but the thing is, when I preach to you as to your perfection, that is the Word of God. You are perfected. But you've got to learn to differentiate between the flesh and between the Spirit, as to the second man from heaven, which is your inner man as to the second man Adam, the quickening Spirit, and the first man Adam, as unto death, in that all that are born of Adam is of death. See, and then you've got to learn to differentiate to the extent that, you know, now by grace, you have received this thing through the righteousness and goodness of God and the finished works of your perfected high priest, see, who offered Himself once and for all for His sins and for your sins that it never be brought to God's remembrance again. Messiah coming, making and end of sin, for the priest of old continually, the seventh month and on the tenth day, they always had to bring back sin to God's remembrance as to make atonement for themselves and then for the people.

So this is the high priest, Paul said, according to the oath as God swear to Him that He had a great throne and ministry after the order of Melchisedec, who had no beginning or end. And said, Son, You'll fold them all up like that old cloth or garment and lay them away. So then He is within your temple. Temple? A tabernacle in the wilderness, as to your first birth and that as pertaining to the law of the letter, and you are a transgressor and judgment is upon you and there's no flesh justified by the law, so God had to kill you and do away with you or you would have met Him at the judgment as the world will do and be turned into hell. (End of side 1 of Tape 1).

But as the new birth and as God sees the body out yonder in the redemption as to the change, having born the image of the earthly tabernacle in the wilderness, now you are going to bear, and already do by foreknowledge, the temple of God, whose temples ye are, as to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, members in particular, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, not you living but Christ. See, in that you are the temple, then the high priest, even Christ's Spirit, is on the inside of you officiating and He's making intercession with moans and groans for you all the time, all the time. He did that while He was in the world. He made intercession for Israel, and said, as pertaining to you and I, Father, I have prayed for these. I haven't prayed for the world, but I have prayed for these. And He said, I've not lost a one of them. Everyone that You've given Me, I'll raise him up in the last day. His name is on the Lamb's book of life. Only the son of perdition that the Bible said it would have been better if that man had have never been born into the world because he was a devil from the beginning. The Bible said, before he was ever born, let another his bishopric take. As it said of Esau and Jacob, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated, the children never yet being born, having done no good or evil that it might not stand as of works in God's calling but as of election, that we are elect according to foreknowledge, sealed unto the day of the redemption of the body to where the evil one never touches us.

And we could go on and go on detailing those things. But I just want to clear something up. So then, why then, Brother Pike, that we are perfect? Why do you preach that we should go on to perfection? Not laying again the foundation of repentance of what's called dead works and dead faith toward God, let us go on to the resurrection of the dead. Why then do you do that? Because the body being unredeemed to the extent that we have never grasped the redemption; that is, we have never witted the redemption. We've never come to understand, to grasp, to know, to believe or to take hold of the body as having been redeemed and that it is without sin or whatever. Somebody said, "Well now, that's the difference. I done come to that, Brother Pike, and that's why I know I'm holy." No, you're just having strong delusions because you don't understand. See, you've not come to that. There won't be no days of coming to that. When the Jews come forth, the body is adopted according to the law. I told you that. If you get a child out yonder that's born in another family, as you have been born in another family, that is to say, of the first man Adam, and now by the washing of the regeneration we're changing over to the second man Adam, the quickening Spirit; born of the dust, of the dust thou art to the dust thou shall return, wretched, miserable and blind as to your first birth, hard-headed, contrary, stubborn, the love of the world and can't get it away from you, and even though you're ever so religious, you just want to mess around, as some would that would hear me and whatever, as with ball games and frolic and money and businesses and prestige and preeminence; and even in religion, preachers want to lord over the congregation and get what money they can, that is, for filthy lucre's sake, and they want to be famous and they want to do all these things and they want to have it to where they're the ones that's always talking, ever foaming out their shame like the restless waves of the ocean, not knowing what they're talking about. It is as Jesus said, Heretics, after the first, second admonishing of them, or admonition, reject them for they are heretics. They don't know what they're saying and they're confusing whole households.

But anyway, as to this, I say to you, I say we must go on to perfection. What am I then trying to do? Get perfect in the sight of God so that I'm going to be holy? Absolutely not! How can I work my way unto holiness when I'm already perfect? Someone would say, "Well, perfect but maybe not good enough." Well, perfect means you can't get any better, and God is perfect, and the Bible said every man that be perfect shall be as God. So you ain't going to get no better than that because the Bible said no man shall be above his master, but every man that be perfect shall be as his God, or as his Savior, because his God is perfect.

All right, so we see that we are one with God. Whatever He is, that's what we are. As in Christ so are we. He is perfect. He is the Son of God, so are we. He is perfect. He is a Son of God, so are we. He owns all things, so do we. He knows all things, so do we. And on and on and on. But what am I doing then with this body? I am bringing this body to the change. I pick it up as a dustling, and I'm taking this inbred, great, wonderful knowledge and understanding and revelated mystery of Almighty God that it may break forth from the inner kingdom within me, as it was with Stephen, to get into my genetics until my body shines as it was with Jesus, as it was with Moses. The illumination, as to it is illuminating. Wisdom makes a man's face to shine. That is to say, My Words are Spirit and they are truth, and if I preach to you with an oral expression as a word, then I'm going back to what it was as to the days of the prophets. In the beginning, God was the Word, or that is to say, not as to God the Spirit was a Word, and yet in the beginning He was, but I say again to you which say in the beginning was the Word, but I ask you the question, if in the beginning was the Word, I ask you this question a number of times and you just can't cast it off and let it be like that, in the beginning was the Word, but I say to you, what was before the beginning? What was before the beginning? Somebody would say, "You know you're eccentric, Brother Pike. You're crazy! You, Paul, you're beside yourself. You know much learning has made you crazy." No, it makes good sense to me.

You know, a little child down here that knows his ABC's, over here working formulas and getting into algebra, whatever it might be, that don't make no kind of sense to him. But to the person that's learned in it, it makes good sense. Now the man that's in algebra can look back on the ABC's and have them both. But the one with the ABC's can't look to the algebra and have them both. See, so the people of this world, all they can understand is this world. You that are Christians, you understand both the elementary side of life and the excelling side of life, as to the side of maturity. So I said that to say this, what is there beyond the beginning? God is beyond the beginning. Somebody says, "In the beginning was God, Brother Pike. Let's don't, let's don't, let's don't be silly! In the beginning was God." I don't dispute that. In the beginning was God. Just like in the beginning here, when I started this place, there was a borrowed pick, but what was before the borrowed pick? I didn't have no pick until I borrowed one. In the beginning, when I started this place here, that was Brother Pike, I was here, but what was I and where was I before the beginning, as to building this place?

See that is to say, in the beginning was God; that is, God was present. He came forth. There was darkness upon the face of the deep and God the great light came forth and said, Let there be light. And in the beginning God was the Word. There was the Word and the Word was God, because in the beginning it brings forth sonship. And the beginning, as we say with the borrowed pick, it was Jesus that came on the scene in the beginning. And it was said, Come and let us make man in our own image, which meant the great Holy Spirit, Christ, the great eternal light, was speaking as to sonship who was with Him in the beginning, and I also was with Him in the beginning, and I was with Him before the beginning, and Christ was with Him before the beginning. Someone would say, "Well, I can't get that." Well, it's true that my sons was in my loins before they became an image. "Well," somebody would say, "well that's crazy. That's crazy, Brother Pike. That don't have nothing to do with religious things." Well, why is it that Paul used the terms he spoke of Levi and said, Levi paid tithes while he was yet in the loins of Abraham his father? Why did he say that if there's nothing to that? When he met, when he met Melchisedec over in the Valley of Shaveh, as to the valley of the kings, see, so we are accounted for before an image. The prophet said, Before I was ever formed in my mother's womb God called me to be a prophet. See, that's before he ever become an image. So life exists before an image.

So in the beginning was the Word, for God said, Let there be and let there be was the Word and the Word emanated from God the great light. So before the beginning, what was there? The great light. When we say God the great light, we use that because we cannot approach the situation without some human vocabulary expression because we're human beings and this is our level. I say as to the measure of a man, as in heaven so is the measure of the angels. So then, there were angels over there. Somebody said, "Bless God. There wasn't nothing over there before the beginning." Oh sure there was. Let's be reasonable. If there wasn't nothing over there before the beginning, there would have never been a beginning. There had to be something before the beginning, or greater than the beginning, to begin something. Now that makes sense. If you're going to go to work on Monday and you're going to build a house as a carpenter, there's got to be a you in the beginning or there ain't going to be no house; that is to say, there's got to be a you before the beginning or there ain't going to be no house in the beginning because beginning, as Genesis meaning beginning, it simply means that whatever was there, as to the angelic forces, as to the great light it was already there. Because you couldn't see it, that didn't mean it wasn't there. It was great. It was mighty. God was there. His angels were there. These great mighty things were there even Lucifer.

See, but in the beginning, which means when God set time in motion and started to create and beginning to make man and gave forth a Word, that Word was the beginning. When it was a sound, it become a beginning. And that Word came forth and put on flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld it as the only begotten of the Son of God. He said, I am the beginning. And you'll find Him in the end. He is the end, for He is the only image of God. And when it was said, Let us make man in our own image, it meant make him after Jesus Christ's bodily image, for He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the express image of God, the heavenly Father, and the brightness of His glory. And He that is in the bosom of the Father, as to say, within this great light alone He dwells, He hath declared God, which means God is a revelation or God is a declaration, as to the expression, because you cannot see God. No man has seen God at anytime. He's the great light unto which no man can approach, unto which no man has seen, Moses or anybody else, or nor can see. So then God is the great light. Before the beginning, we say God.

I cannot say before the beginning God, because the word God is a manmade application as a vocabulary description of this great divine being, and again the word being is something that comes from our school. So when I approach unto Him, I don't know what to say. Somebody said, "Well, He's God. Man, let's be realistic." Well, Moses talking to Him out there at the burning bush, He said, You go down there and tell them thus and thus. But Moses said, But if I do that, said, What must I tell them? Who shall I tell them sent me? He didn't say, Tell them God sent him. He said, Tell them I AM. So now we're confused, as we would say. In the beginning was the I AM and it wasn't God at all. So then, we don't know, because we read over there again and it says, I am God and there's no other besides Me. Show me another God. So we're confused again. Now we say we got two Gods. We've got one I AM and then we've another one that's God. See, and that don't add up to the Scripture. So then, it isn't as foolish as somebody thinks. It's only foolish in the minds of them that are in a state of ignorance. Ignorance is not a hard state, to say, "You moron." But ignorance is like Paul said, I would not have you ignorant. That is to say, you are unlearned in these things, and if you wasn't unlearned, then you wouldn't think I was so foolish in trying to say what I'm saying because you would understood what I'm saying, as two scientists one talking to another.

So then, in the light of these things, would then you say, as Bethlehemites, or you that are hearing me as Christian, would you then say that, "Well, Praise God, Brother Pike, there was something before the beginning because there would have not been a beginning had there not been." So then, when we say in the beginning (I tell you these things so that you can understand), when we say in the beginning, we are saying in the beginning of you and I, in the beginning of our world, in the beginning of our life. Not in the beginning of God, for the Bible said God is without beginning. He is without end. How could He then be the beginning? It is true He is the beginning of all things and the ending of all things. But as to Him having a beginning, there is no such thing. And if, as I say, if our beginning back to Genesis, that in the beginning He created the world, as to tangible existence, if there wasn't a God before that, how did He do it, to make a beginning in the beginning when He made man and made the world? Or how is it that we say that there are angels? Somebody would say, "Well, I know there's plenty of angels." Well, would you say to me that they were not before the beginning? Somebody would say, "Well, maybe in the beginning He made the angels." Well, show me the record of it. Said, He that God sends would have the record to tell how it all happened. I'm telling you how it all happened. If this isn't right, then you need to tell me how it all happened, whoever's listening to me.

So then, you see Paul was not mad. Paul was not crazy. Paul was not beside himself. It was just that those rulers, though they were the very cream of the crop, they were just plain ignorant. They were like little babies. They just didn't understand. And God had let Paul get into this complicated system, or situation rather, that he might be held in prison that he might talk to them and try to straighten their minds out. That's what it was for, to get this thing up into the upper echelon, to bring it into kingship that He might transfer it over to America that it might be a religious nation, even in the governments and every other walk of life, and in Catholicism, even along that side of the ocean. Even though they perverted it all, it went off to a pervert, but it's coming back to its originality. See, like I've said of the brethren here, I've said brethren, you come together in a cluster. You come together in a unit. You come together to do something for God. We stayed in a unit. We had strength. We built this campground. We done things for God. Isn't that right? We didn't go out here and pierce each other through. The Bible said when I bring Zion again they'll not pierce each other through. They'll walk hand in hand. They'll speak the same thing. They'll see eye to eye. See, that's what will bring the rapture. As on the day of Pentecost, one mind and one accord.

So then, they didn't go out here somewhere, trying to be a contractor and a business man and getting over here with somebody out in the world, you know, and somebody says, "Well look, ah, ah, ah, you with them dogs out yonder, them Bethlehem dogs." "Oh no! No, I occasionally go out there. I know about it." You know, the liar. Pardon my expression. "Yeah, if you'll just give me five hundred dollars worth of credit, you know." And I think how cheap you are. You know, Judas sold out for thirty pieces of silver. We wasn't like that. Our people didn't care whether you give them credit or nothing else. They stood for God. But that bunch of compromisers is only symbolic, or just a forerunner, of all of them that's going to stick out their hand for the mark of the beast. They'll compromise when it comes right down to what the world calls the nitty-gritty.

So our people wasn't like that. Then God began to bless. Prosperity came. They went their way. This man to his house. Every man run to his own house and let the house of the Lord lay waste. And this thing that was holy and godly and pure and rich, mighty, as to true riches of the God that made the stubble of the earth and the grass and the hay of the earth and everything in the earth and the gold and the diamonds and the silver, that Paul called beggarly elements of the earth. Men that are billionaires with their banks full of rubbish that will be burned, that that they call monetary values, as to satisfy their gullible fleshly lust and desire. All of that, Paul said, is as nothing when you understand the true riches. You understand what I mean? They stood out there, these men stood out there and sold out, looking at a dirty pig wallowing in the mire and a dog lapping his vomit and putting down something clean and holy. In that you do it to the least of these, you do it to God. And the only thing in the earth that's clean and holy, that's going to last forever, that's going to dwell in a palace with streets of gold and gates of pearl, a conglomeration of color as to the attributes of God that is so fascinating that the very intent of the heart will be satisfied. And then going out there with their stench, pulling out their little diplomacies out of some pig-pen called a college or school, and devils getting together, one devil with another and the Bible said and devils getting together one devil with another, and the Bible said and in these bodies, getting together and comparing themselves one with another, or belonging to some religious stride of life as to some church; whereas, Jesus said they're dead, having a name, they're dead, twice dead and plucked up by the root and laying out there for the buzzards to eat over them.

Folks, I'm telling you, this is the way it is from heaven. That's the way it is. God has seen it. And not only dead, but twice dead and plucked up by the root and rottening along the way, and devils eating, as buzzards, off of their bodies. It's sad to say, even religious people, it's sad to say, that some of them's got mixed up with Bethlehem. See, coming to reality, and they sold out out there, but not my brethren, the true brethren. The hour is come now as to the casting out of Lucifer, because this is heaven. This is heaven. People of the world are in heaven, as to the second heaven. How much more are we? And we're moving into the third heaven. The woman, heavy with child, is in heaven, ready to be delivered, as to the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation, as to Christ being formed within you, and as to the child, being born at this time, to be caught up to the throne while the red dragon, as to the fleshly life, as I always say, of its ball games and churchism and frolics, prestige and foolishness out in the world, is trying to get this child to take a diploma, trying to put him in college, make a professional ball player out of him or give him some kind of prestige as to a business. That is, the red dragon,the old blood life, the educational fallacy as to the tree of knowledge, that old mind of the devil reaching out there, trying to get control of him and swallow him up and getting him into a religious state of hypocrisy, to make him think that if he is a governor and then he goes to a certain church, this adds prestige to God and to God's kingdom, when the Bible emphatically states that He's turned them over to a reprobate mind, to believe a lie and to be damned, sending them strong delusions, causing them to believe a lie and said emphatically, He stated in the Bible, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. All of your education, all of your diplomacy, all of what you think you're being wise in when you make money and do these things and plan your little program, as to convenience, He says, Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion, all of this, He said, your wisdom is foolishness to God. He said, For in the wisdom of this world, that God who made it came down and walked in this world, and you never did even recognize Him. So it pleased God that even by the foolishness of preaching that men should be saved. It's foolish for a preacher to have to get up there and holler and scream at somebody. You know, when you get around the altars, and they say, "Oh God, save him. Oh God, save him," you know, but nevertheless this is the way the situation is.

And not only that, but He said, If you would be wise, Paul said (and Paul had been on both sides of the fence, that's why God chose him), wise in the world, so wise they said, Paul, you've gone crazy you've studied so much, so that they couldn't deny him. When he come up with the great scholars, they couldn't say, You fisherman, like Peter. You ignoramus. God picked him to go to the Gentiles because the Gentiles seek after the things of the world, and God wanted him to be polished on their side so they couldn't just put him off like that. They knew he knew both sides of it, and Paul called theirs beggarly elements, and that giving their mind to it that made them the bondschild, as being in bondage to the beggarly elements of the world, as to their appetites, as to their human senses, and these kind of things. Religious all your life, mother and daddy religious, none of them know nothing about God, understood God. Somebody says, "But I know." No you didn't. No you didn't. Somebody says, "Oh bless God." You can bless God all you want to, like the Jew said, You didn't know nothing. The Bible said salvation is of the Jew. If anybody would have known anything, it would have been the Jew, and he doesn't know anything. He's blinded in part. He just knows in part because of Moses.

See the Bible said on the sixth day, it was toward the last of the week, that God made man. And it's just now in its last move of God, as to a day with a thousand years and a thousand years as God, it's just now that He's making man. They shall be all taught of God, and it's just now. Somebody said, "Well, what about that man He made?" He made that back there. That was the beast. You're born as a beast, in the image of the beast, and in the end you're going to take the mark of the beast because he's going to be your head, because he was your father. Jesus said of the devil, of the beast, the devil working through the beast, you're the seed of the serpent and the will of your father you'll do. He said, Because your father is the devil and you're the son of the devil. I've chosen twelve and one of you is a devil. And when Peter reflected that of the devil, as to his flesh, He said, Get behind Me, Satan. Because it was the devil with the flesh, and the flesh had not been redeemed. Okay, let's talk a little further, say just a few more things. Out on the field I don't get to talk to people like I talk to you here.

Jesus preached to them people out there and upbraided them, called them hypocrites and a generation of vipers and whatever, to bring the elect out from among them. Here, when He got away with His disciples, as here He talked to them, He expounded the things. He made them to understand. And when they understood, they said, Them people don't understand. How could they have known that them people did not understand, had they themselves not understood? But in that they understood, then they knew that those others did not understand. So Paul says, as in chapter two, here I'm just going to read here, it says in the fourteenth verse: "Of these things, put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their words will eat as doth a canker:" (so then these he goes on to say)" who concerning the truth have erred." (II Timothy Chapter 2:14-18.) I say to you, say rightly dividing. So that's what we're trying to do. I want to close in a few minutes. I just want to get around to saying just a few little things here.

So then, we understand that the world is in darkness and the world hath no light, as to God understanding, but you are children of light. You have the mind of Christ, and you understand, which means rightly dividing the Word, and this Word, as God in the beginning. So then, when you say God, what do you mean? You mean a body, a human form, Jesus. Don't worship the stars, don't worship this, I'll bring you the image, as the image that is God. Lest you believe that I am He, Jesus said to the woman, that is, lest you believe I'm God, you're going to die in your sins. And she said, Well, Messiah's coming. He said, I that talk unto you, I am He. So then, when she saw this, then we understand what God is. God is then the image. That's why the Word can apply to God, as to our vocabulary expression, because He is of our world. He is a near kinsman. That's how God was able to redeem the world back to us through Christ, because He was a near kinsman. He had to bring it back to Himself who created it, but He had to bring it back to the man image because He had put the first man over it and Adam was the prince of the world, and Satan took it away from him. So the Prince of Peace, as to Him on the inside, came and restored it back to the family, being our near kinsman, and so now, He is the head of it and you will rule out in the millennium as the head of it until it's all changed and glorified, to go into the celestial, and then the Bible said the Son, that is to say, the body, will then be subject to the Spirit because you spirit people then will be in rule and the great light will come and everything will change (End of Tape 1 side 2) into the celestial city, not old Jerusalem, not the restored earth, but the celestial because you are celestial, and the Father will be all in all, and the Son, as to the bodily part, as to the natural part, will be subject to the Spirit or the great light. And throughout eternity, the Father will continue to rule as you and I, being His children, will continue to enjoy things.

Like I told David Paul today, we were there and my little grandchildren out in the front yard, they were just playing, you know, they were having themselves a big time throwing water in the balloons and bursting the water, and a lot of times down through the years my wife has wondered why I don't get out there and play with them, and she wondered, of course, why David Paul wasn't out there. And I said, "David, it doesn't work like." It's true you might step out there and enjoy those things, I said, but with you and I, I said, with me, I said, my enjoyment is to pray, to fast, to conform to God, to subdue this body to His pleasure and to go out and preach the gospel and convert people and get them away from sin and give my life, to stay there praying, that God would grant repentance unto life for them that are without, to save them, to save them that they might get out there and do that, for that's their life. But my joy is doing this, that they, that I might see them do that. It is with any mother and daddy that provides for their children. They don't want their little ones going down there to try to work, to try to make an old living, except a bunch of devils.

So then, as we go along here, I wanted to get to a point if I can. I may not be able to get to it, but I think it would be beneficial to you if I could. So we see then that these things are taking place. We've got a high priest. Now, God cannot hear those people, so what must be done? In that God hears not a sinner's prayer, then He says to you and I, You are a royal priesthood, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, members in particular, and He said, You being a royal priesthood, you should make intercession with God, for in Christ Jesus' absence, you are in His stead, beseeching the world as a priest to be reconciled unto God: that is, we talk to them to call on God, and when we talk to God, to listen at them. To pray that God will grant repentance unto them that are without because He cannot hear the sinner's prayer.

And so then, He has put the blood out there to where it is possible for the high priest, which is Christ that is within your heart, or you as a conforming body, that you may pray and intercede that the great light through the beginning, that is to say, Christ, I am the beginning, I am the resurrection, through the beginning might be able to look upon them and not see any iniquity before His blood took away the sins of the world, and that's the way you got in. Somebody prayed. Somebody prayed. You say, "But somebody had to be before that, Brother Pike. And there had to be somebody that wasn't right that prayed to get this thing started off." No. That's not right. That cannot be. If you can prove it, then I'll preach it. But that can't be. There never was nobody that wasn't right that started this. That's why it took all the way to Calvary for God Himself to come in a body, that He was right, to become a near kinsman to start it praying, Father, I pray not for the world but I prayed for these, and that today He is still making intercession through the members of His body as you and I, as the great high priest, as to the shedding of His blood to take away the sins that it may give them a chance through the shed blood of Christ, as our prayers for the world, to bring them into a place that they may call on the name of Jesus, that God may hear them through the high priest. There is no record at any time where anybody was allowed to go into those closed quarters where that ark was behind the veil. Never. Show me one place in the Old Testament. Even them that took it down and put it up couldn't even look upon it lest they died. See, there's no place. So that means that if there was a place, then the types would be different. That means that it would be different today.

But when the thing was unveiled and the veil was rent in twain, then we have the boldness to go in where they could not go in. Somebody said, "Now there you are. We can do it and they couldn't do it." No. What it is, our high priest has gone into it. Now, if you could go into that earthly tabernacle because the veil is rent, there is nothing to it. But if you go into that great place, the only way you can do it, you have to go in through Christ, for no man goes to that great light, or the Father, except by the Son, or He said, I'm the door and no man goes in there except through Me. So then, that is the heaven, that is the door in heaven that John saw, and that is the heaven that was revealed from within Him when the veil was rent in twain, when John wrote and said the ark of His testament was seen. That is the fission, that is the splitting of the atoms, as the two Adams, as to a natural unto death, as to one as unto Spirit, and of course we could go on, and I see that I'm not going to get to finish this because I still need probably, I still need a little while because I haven't brought out my point yet.

Well, let me say this: then we, we find ourselves that we are in this condition. And that is, that this ark of the covenant, as to that behind the veil; that is to say, His flesh, or your flesh, His body, that is to say, the veil rent in two, Paul said, His flesh, making a new way to get in there to that. He hath now rent the veil in two, and your flesh is separated from your spirit to the extent now you can pass right through the veil into your innermost sanctuary, as within this veil, the kingdom of God within you. As to scientists, with their minds going down, as I said the other day, pulling it down to ten millionths of a centimeter to see the flow of the electrons or to bring it down to a world that's minute, as to ten thousand times smaller than the little scope that was way back there many years ago, when they could see the little micro creature in a drop of water.

So we are going inward, inward, inward. Paul said, I keep under this body and I bring it into subjection, lest after I preach to others I myself become a castaway. So we're withdrawing from the world, as to the outer crust, and we're going inward and inward and inward and in minute and minute and minute until we get down into the nuclei and within the tabernacle, as to the first dimension, the second dimension, and into the third dimension. That is to say, going into the holy of holies. So we find that this is where it is, and when we want to give an expression, as to the world, the only means is by parabolic expression. We go down to the minute until there is no more, then what is there that is left? The light. Even scientist know that beyond the beta spark and the alpha spark and the gamma ray, it is light. It is light. So then, the world is completely eradicated. It goes out as I brought out the other night. We are the people that's doing that. Not the world; the scientists are doing that as to the natural, as to a type. All of the invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly understood by the things which do appear, even to the eternal Godhead, so that we are without excuse; that is, we're educated accordingly.

So then we find ourselves, we find the preacher preaching that we should perfect the body. Perfect the body. Why should you perfect the body? Because you are a wretch. And though you say that you are something as religion, the Bible said that you're lukewarm and I'll spew you out of My mouth and you're vomit on My table, all My tables. Somebody said, "Well, that was the Baptist church and the Methodist church." He didn't say that. He said, All of My tables are filled with vomit. Somebody said, "Well, that ain't His table." Why isn't it His table? He got up over there in the synagogue, where the Jews was, and said, This is My Father's house, and took a whip and run them out of there, and they were peddling over there. Why wouldn't He accept that as the Methodist and the Baptist?

So then, we see that what I'm saying is this, that I am trying to perfect my body. What is perfection in my body? Complete surrender, complete conformity, as to the light, and what is the light? The understanding. If I walk in the light; that is, in the understanding, as He is in the understanding, that is, in the light, I'll have fellowship one with another, we'll have fellowship one with another. I'll fellowship my brother. I'll esteem my brother better than myself. There won't be anything to cut me off from my brother. Somebody said, "Well, he might cut you off from him." Well, he ain't my brother. I'm talking about my brother. The devils might cut me off from it because they can't stand the light, because the light eradicates them. Where there's no light, there's no devils.

So then, there's no sickness. There's no shadows. There's no devils where the light comes, for light and darkness hath no fellowship. And neither does God join light to darkness, whether it be marriage or whatever it is. You may take the vow, but God don't do it. You are at liberty when you leave that, as of darkness, when you marry someone in darkness, to marry somebody in the light, for the Bible said for you are at liberty only as to that which is in the light, or that which is of the body or that in Christ. All right, so I say that I need to fast. I need to pray. I need to do all I can with my body. I need to study. I need to listen. I need to pull in tight. I need to cut myself off from the world and from the things of the world, and I need to get out of the world. I need to come out. I need to be ye a separate people. All these people going around with their religious conviction, what they call faith, that they're going to be Christian and they're playing volleyball and doing this all this with televisions and jokes and gossip and backbiting and all the things of the flesh, they are fools. They are not Christians. They have a name that they live but they're dead, for he that lives in sin and pleasure is twice dead, plucked up by the root.

So then that means that I must bring my body under subjection, lest after I preach to others I still be lost. The body's got to be subjected. Now, we're at this point to where I might say this much, remember this body of change will not be until Thessalonian, but as to comprehended, as to subdue it, to bring it to what God wants it to be, means that you have an ability, as to thirty-fold subduing, as to sixty-fold, as to an hundred-fold, as to the full measure of the full stature of the perfect man Christ Jesus. The full reward is that you get the inner full measure of the reward of Christ coming forth. We get it anyway, collectively speaking, we're ordained to that, but we get it as to you that be perfect be as his master. And you get that full reward of that Spirit, that God, that power, that thing that's released on the inside of you to flow through your outer man to do those things. You get the full benefit of it if you'll have a full conformity, a full surrender.

But if you're going to hold back for your little programs, your little businesses, your little ideas, your little things as I saw the, I told the brethren the other night, well that means that you just ain't going to be the bride of Christ. I mean, let's face it. This sounds hard. Somebody thought that it sounded hard when I said something here a while back about being the bride of Christ, when I said if you go in and out and mess around with the world and come back, you got scars on you and Christ's bride isn't going to have any scars, and so they got all shook up over it. Even my Gracie come to me and said something about it. It shook her because she said somebody asked her about it. They were shook up about it. But if you think that's tight, it's like I them the other day, you got to bring every thought into subjection and find a full reward to be the bride of Christ. And you got to be, as I told them, if I found my wife at my house on Monday and couldn't find her there on Tuesday and I found her there on Wednesday and I couldn't find here there on Thursday and I found her there on Friday and I couldn't find her there on Saturday, you know, I don't know how I would act even for one week of that, let alone as a habitual practice. Someone would say, "Well, what do you mean?" Like I told the brother the other night, when you get up on Monday morning and you say, "I got to go to work." You say, "I got to look after my business. I've got to be over here. I've got a responsibility over yonder. I can't help it. I can't come to church. I can't do this. I've got to go." Folks, let me tell you, the bride of Christ don't live like that. The bride of Christ is with Him every day of the week, all day long, twenty-four hours around the clock. She doesn't say, "I have to do anything except His desire and His will whenever He gets ready." I don't care about your employer. I don't care about your responsibility. I don't care what you got to do, if they was fixing to bomb this side of the world and they had the bombs coming and you was the man that mashed the button to stop those rockets, you would have to leave that, as the bride of Christ, if you was to be there on Monday morning and have to mash that, you would have to leave that. If God said, Don't go, you don't go if the whole world blows up, or you're not the bride of Christ. You don't go to work regular on a job and you don't do these things, as to commitment to people, as to your wife, feeding your wife's belly or your children's belly or your belly or committing to your employer and doing these kind of things as to your commitments. You don't do that and be the bride of Christ. There is no such thing.

One thing I learned, that to become the bride of Christ, you leave everything. That's why I let my wife throw a pan in the back of the trunk of a car. I took off and I forgot about everything, and I still am the same way. It don't matter what it is. If it's fix the washing machine or whatever, the water just run out in the floor unless I feel at liberty to do it. Somebody said, "You're crazy, Brother Pike. You wouldn't do it." Ask her how many times did she mop the floor when it run out and you'll find out it's true. One time, two times, numbers of times it's tore up but God always provided somebody that's got the skill to fix that machine and they are in the will of God doing it because God led them to do something for God. You understand what I'm saying? Somebody said, "Well, I feel like when I fix my own washing machine, I'm doing something for God." Well you're not. When you work on the job and you're making money to feed your belly, you ain't doing nothing for God either. You're out doing something for your family. I know the Bible said a man has to provide for his own. Somebody said, "Well there you are right there. Bless God, if I got to do it, I got to do it because I got to provide for my own." Well, why did the Lord say, Take no thought for tomorrow what you're going to eat and drink? I clothe the lilies. I take care of the sparrows. You ain't got no business doing that. He said, You seek the kingdom first and I'll add all the other things. You delight yourself in Me, I'll make you rich. I'll make you ride upon the high places of the earth.

Let me tell you folks, I ain't got nothing to do but what He wants me to do, day or night or whenever or whatever, and I don't make no commitments other than that. Now, I should have been in church on time tonight, as to naturally speaking, but I wasn't. I would have been because my wife. She's a good reminder, and you can be sure that most the time we're late, it's not because of her. But I understood the Lord talking to me and I heard the voice say, Leave the ninety and nine that's safe within the fold. They're worshiping God, saying these kinds of thing. Said, You talk to this individual that needs God. So I did and I knew the Lord would bring me on time so there wouldn't be any confusion. Somebody said, "Well, bless God, Brother Pike, if I made a commitment to that man that I'm going to be there on Monday and I'm not there on Monday, then that's confusion." I agree. You should never have made the commitment. Somebody said, "Well, I couldn't have got the job." So what? That don't mean nothing. Somebody said, "But you're crazy, Brother Pike. We'd starve to death." I never have starved to death. When God called them out of Egypt, they didn't have no jobs out there. They didn't starve to death. You mean to tell me that you ain't got no more confidence in God than that, when He rained manna down out of heaven? Somebody said, "Well, I can't pay my hospital insurance." Well, they didn't have a lick out there, and their feet never swelled and they didn't need a hospital. Didn't need no pills. They didn't go hungry. Somebody said, "Well it's a different day." I know it is, but the Bible said Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. A different people, but folks, I'll tell you one thing, if God ever does the same things that He done to the early church, we're going to get back and be the same way the early church. God's got one principle. He works on that, and that principle is all or nothing at all. And if we don't get all or nothing at all, that means we ain't going to be the bride. You understand that?

God is a reasonable God. You can go out there, you can work five or six days a week and He'll let you go out there with them, you know, and do that. Daniel took care of the king's business, but when things was contrary to what God wanted, Daniel just more or less said as the world says, it could run out your ears as far as I'm concerned. You know Daniel said, I'm going to pray. They passed a law and said, You can't pray. Daniel, as the world says, I could care less. I'm going to pray. And three times a day he prayed and he went into the lion's den. So then, the Hebrew children go into the fire. But it didn't make any difference. The three Hebrew children said, King, be it known unto you this day. We want you to have a clear understanding. That is to say, We work for you and we are in preeminence and we are the rulers. And I know your kingdom's got to go on. All this ain't recorded but this is the way it was, and so it was with Daniel. I know your business has got to go on, but now king, you're talking about God's business and you're telling us that your business is for us to bow over here to that idol. Said, We're not planning to do it. Won't be no days like that. And said, God may not deliver us out of the fiery furnace. Said, He can. He's able if He wants to. Said, But if He don't, we're not planning to bow down at the image anyway. Someone said, "Well bless God, I ain't bowing down to the image." That's what that is is the image of the devil, the sons of the devil. The world is of the devil. The love of the world is of the devil. And the Bible said that if the love of the world's in you, you savor the things that be of the flesh. All that's of the flesh. So then, make God first. All that's secondary.

Let me close with this folks. Let me say this to you. I'm talking about being the bride of Christ. I'm talking about a full reward. I'm talking about getting the full benefit. When your wife persuades you, when your employer can persuade you, when your husband can persuade you, when your children, even being hungry, can persuade you and you're not willing to put that child on the altar and let it lose its life for Christ's sake like Abraham was; somebody said, "Bless God, Brother Pike, I know you're crazy now. To let it lose its life." No, let's go further than that. Abraham said, I'll just take its life. Walked up there with a dagger and was fixing to plunge it. Now, how does that sound? Somebody said, "Well, we got to be reasonable with these people. These people out here, they're educated. They got good sense. They know you got to go to the doctor. They know you got to feed them." You know the children's program and whatever. What would Abraham have looked like in the day that we're living in? What would he have looked like? Somebody said, "What are you going to do, Abraham?" He wouldn't even tell his wife because he knew that she wouldn't even understand. That woman would probably have had a fit. Said, You ain't fixing to kill my youngster. But he didn't tell her. He didn't even tell them down at the bottom of the hill what he was going to do. But he did have enough faith that when he told them, he said, I and the lad's going yonder to worship. God said, Go kill the child. He said, I'm going up to worship. Said, We'll go up to worship. Said, I and the lad will return to you.

See, now what kind of faith is that? God said, You go kill him. He took the wood. He took everything and took Isaac up there to kill him. And somebody said, "Well, he was just playing a game." No. No. The Bible says as the hand of Abraham actually came flashing down to kill that child, that it was with accuracy and it must have been with speed, without hesitating, that it came started down and God sent that angel and screamed out said, Abraham, Abraham, don't do that child no harm. Why would God tell him not to harm him if he wasn't planning to harm him? That wouldn't make no kind of sense. He was going to kill him because that's what God told him to do. Now, you go to your psychiatrist of today and you go to your analyzers of today and you go to your body of whatever they are today. Abraham was at the head of the tribe. He's the father of all faithful. And a voice said, Abraham, I know you fear God, when you won't even withhold the life of your only son, as to that that God had given. He said, I know you fear God. And then he and the lad returned to the bottom of the hill through the great faith of Abraham. The lad said, Where is the sacrifice, father? I see, I see the wood and all these kind of things. He said, Don't be troubled. The Lord will provide a sacrifice. And sure enough, by a miracle on the top of that mountain, there stood a symbol of a Son of God who was caught in those briars, that could not get out. Isaac being a type, and here that lamb took the place of Isaac, and Abraham become the friend of God.

See, like somebody told me here a while back was talking. We got to go to the psychiatrist. We got to do these kind of things; and I am going to let you go. Just sit steady, don't, don't get weary in well doing. I ain't been here that long. And he said, "Well, there's one thing about it." He said, "We got a psychiatrist in the family," and he said, "it look's like from what I can see of my family they're in worse shape than anybody else." So it's for sure that ain't the answer. All right, so Christ is the answer. Now let me say this to you in closing. The one thing that we've got to do is perfect this body, subdue this body; not that it has anything to do with our salvation. But we've got to perfect this body. Someone would say, "But Brother Pike, if I'm going to go to all that trouble to live right and do these things, then it couldn't be that I'm already righteous because that's what's going to make me righteous." Works of the flesh cannot make you righteous. Keeping the law cannot make you righteous. By the law nobody can be justified. Somebody said, "Well, why in the name of reasoning am I doing it?" Okay, you ask me that question and I ask you this question: if you plant an apple tree and by and by, it comes to pass that there's apples on that tree, and during the time of the growth of that tree, you saw all kind of buds and things coming out, as the blossoms heading toward conformity as to an apple, then I ask you the question: what made that apple tree do that? Why did that apple tree do that? Why did that apple tree do that? Somebody says, "Well, you know, it was doing that so it could prove it was an apple tree, that it was an apple tree." It is true that it showed forth those things as to proof, but it was only the proof of the nature that was in the seed where the apple seed was planted. Them apples, you know with any common sense that them apples didn't prove nothing, as it being an apple tree, to the extent that it was an apple tree before it ever had a blossom on it. Was it a peach tree and then brought forth apples, or was it just a wild tree that couldn't produce nothing, and all of a sudden, it just decided it would be an apple tree and it brought forth them apples to you know say, I can prove it to you?

Now see, all we do we are bearing fruits. And when you are born of God, the love of God constrains you and folks, you can't do nothing else but present or bring forth the attributes of that life and nature on the inside of you, as moving toward the full measure of the full stature of Christ Jesus, and if you don't do it, then you're not; you're not that kind of tree. The tree is known by its fruits, as to recognition. But it brought forth apples not, as to say, "I am an apple tree," as to prove it was an apple tree. See, the reason it brought forth fruits is because it was an apple nature. And it is been said the same about people. I look at people, and when you don't live godly and move toward perfection and have holiness in your life, it is a positive proof not having the fruits of holiness, as the end thereof eternal life, when you don't have the fruits of holiness, it means that you are not born of holiness. And God is the Spirit of holiness, and without holiness no man will see the Lord. And God said, Be holy in body and in spirit.

So then with these last remarks, you have five human senses that are subject to the world by your first birth, and that's death. And that life within you, as the creature subject to vanity, it is by reason of birth, as to the first man Adam, and this has (End of Tape 2 Side 1) control of your life through those five senses. And your life is under the control and your life is under the control of those five senses, as to human desire: to eat, to drink, passions, whatever it might be, as to smell, as to taste, as to feel, as to see. And the devil is your master and he's got control of you. Even before you ever come to know God, he's got control over you in this manner, that he is the prince of the powers of the air and the god of this world, as to the fall of Adam and Eve. And he's got you enslaved and you can't do nothing about it. And if you ever come to the knowledge of God, as to a true knowledge, and don't go on with God, then he's not just around you and over you, as into a state of ignorance, as to a childlike state, you then come to the knowledge of right and wrong. There's no more sacrifice for you. He enters into you and he's got control of you and you are thus then a devil, one with your master. And there's no chance of you ever becoming a Christian. There's no place for repentance.

But if you do come to God and you learn about God and then you take the mind of Christ, as to a little baby, Christ within you until He be formed within you. The way we recognize Christ within you is as to a mind, because the way we recognize them out there that comes to that point of understanding is as to the mind of Lucifer, the mind of Satan that's got control of their temple, setting in the temple which is made for God, as to the bodily dispute of Moses showing it. See, sitting there showing himself that he is God, predicting the weather, saying what it's going to be and we're going to do this and we're going to run the nation like this and we're going to have this leader and we're going to have this president. We're going to have this governor and I can handle it, he says. All intellectual, and you're subjected to all of those vanities and can't do a thing about it, not a thing. See, so you're under the control of that until death, until death. And it will be that way, because to be carnally minded is death. It's Satan interwoven, using the body and all of the appetites and you'll never escape it.

But if you ever get the mind of Christ as to Christ being formed within you, I recognize him as a little fellow or a little bigger or thirty-fold or sixty-fold as to your mind as to your mind. You have a little fellow, he has a little bit of mind of Christ, but he's been born again. He doesn't know much. And then some brute beasts come out here, some intelligence as to a wind of doctrine, a scientific ignorance as so called understanding, and they begin to talk to him and they move him from his understanding because there's nobody to watch after him. He's a little baby. Somebody grabs a little ten year old girl, ravishes her and then kills her, as they did a little eleven year old girl a few days ago, to be specific. So mama wasn't watching. But see, that little one we're suppose to watch him. Jesus said, Feed My babes. Watch them. When you know they're just born again and they're little ones and they don't know much, you be right there as a father, as a parent. You know, like a hen, you start after that hen's little chicks and she'll scratch your eyes out, you know. You be there. And when this fellow starts messing around with the mind of Christ in the heart of that little one, you pull your sword out and you just gently take his head off and leave it there like David did that giant. Somebody says, "What do you mean?" I mean you plow his understanding until his brain is like a watermelon that somebody squashed. You go in there with the Word of God and when he gets through, he ain't got enough sense to know whether he's going or coming, as to religion, and you turn him as the old saying is, every way but loose, and he'll get out from there.

Like I told you about that man, Betty remembers him in Chicago, when the drunk man came into this great huge place as a theater, and them women down there dancing in the Spirit, as it would be, and he come in there drunk and he was grinning and heading down there, and you remember what I told you, he got down there, he thought it was a square dance, you know, swing your partner, and he grabbed one of them, and boy he square danced. He went around like a top, them big husky women. Some of them were black women and they were husky, you know, they worked for a living. And man, they could have threw him on his head. And they grabbed him and give him a spin and I watched him and he spun around and another one grabbed him and spun him again and another one grabbed him and spun him again, and they had him so, you talk about being drunk, he was sure enough drunk. I mean he couldn't go no which away. And when they finally got through spinning him and spinning him and spinning him, one of them grabbed him and spun him toward the door and he went out there. He was going every which away and he said, "They're crazy. They're crazy," and out the door he went.

You know, that's the way to do the devil. When you catch him, if you have to gang up on him, if you can't quote everything that needs to be quoted to put down his brilliance, his ignorance. The Bible said if you want to be wise, become a fool that you might be wise; that is a fool to the world, just give him what they call the spin out. So when this little mind is there, you protect it. And you that have this mind, folks, when you get to where that you conquer that flesh, see, and the mind of God has got control of them human senses, then you don't live by feeling anymore. If Esau's father would have gone by faith instead of by feeling, he would have never give Jacob the birthright. But he went by feeling and God had him subdued because of that. See, so if I'm going to get healed, as long as I'm subject to that mind of intellect out there, as to Satan, I'm never going to get healed because I'm going to relate back to the medicine, back to the doctors, back to their diplomacy, back to everything that they've said that puts God down, that does away with God. You're never going to be healed.

It was like Brother Jim when he was bleeding to death. Jim was intellectual. He couldn't get his healing. He couldn't do nothing. But when the gospel came and he said; one day he heard that sure Word of prophesy. He said something went slap through him, all over him, and he lost his intellectual reasoning and believed God, and instantaneously he got healed. See, the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. Now I know some of you would like for me to close and I am closing. You just don't have enough discernment to know it, but I just picked up a woman's thoughts then, she'd like to get out of here, but let me tell you, let me tell you this to you, I love you with all purity as a sister in Christ, but you're one of the women that they saw at the morgue that was dead. I just say that to help you. See, a lot of times you think that we go a little too long and you mess with the table too much, as the vision showed it, and your mind is on them human senses as I said, and Satan's got you, and because of this I just want you to know while you're restless tonight, you can go on and we're fixing to close, but I want you know you with the even with closing, you was one of the people that was seen at the morgue that was dead. Someone said, "You mean I'm going to die?" You don't have to. If you're in a hurry to get away from the presence of God and not doing the things of God, not living right, you're dead while you live because you're eating and drinking in the world of the flesh. You're at the fleshpots down in Egypt. You understand what I'm saying? And I say again, because Hezekiah took a few moments for God, as some of you have taken from time to time, God give him fifteen more years to live.

All right, so then, the last few words here, and that is to say, when we come to this place, then you have pain and then you have misery, you can get your healing. You know healing seems hard to get, but it's all because of you. It's real simple. So then, you get your healing for one simple reason, and that is that your mind does not confess anything as to your first birth, as to your first understanding. You have cast down imagination and every thought, and now is the mind of Christ and you meditate in His laws. You think about Him. You're not conforming to anything. You don't promise nobody nothing except on the basis of Christ Jesus: "I'll be there if the Lord will. And if the Lord won't, then I won't be there." So then, the Bible said if you're going to do something, as on to tomorrow, say, "As to the morrow, I will if the Lord will." See, so when this mind comes over me, or I am born of this mind and then I am completely free from the other mind, my five human senses then are turned into the direction of heaven and no more, the just live by faith, no more am I subject to vanity, which means I'm not subject to death, I'm not subject to poverty, I'm not subject to nothing because faith, seeking faith, brings all things and adds all things unto you. He that believeth, all things are for him. The world lieth ever.

So then, I said that to make a specific point here, and that is the ultimatum of victory as to say this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith, or it would say that you can have your healing without a lot of conglomeration. See, so if I have a pain, I say, "Oh my God, a pain, a pain." Now, I can't help but know that that pain is there because this body is still subject to vanity. It hasn't been changed. But I say, "No. That body is dead. That body is buried. That body is gone. That body is no more." Somebody said, "But what if it's a heart pain, Brother Pike?" So what? Somebody said, "So what? Then you die." So what? You haven't got the pain anymore. Let's give the Lord a hand. Everything's working right on time. So we're all working together. See, and if you don't die, you just say, "That's a lying vanity. That's a lying vanity because by His stripes I'm healed." Somebody said, "Well, that's a good game, but I can't get it to work." But I'm not talking about Scrabble. See, I'm talking about confessing the Word of God as to what God did for you in Christ, that it is absolutely a truth. Somebody says, "But Brother Pike, do you want me to go around being a liar?" Are you a liar? All liars have their part in the lake of fire. "So what if I say I'm healed when I'm not healed? I'm a liar." If I say by His stripes I'm healed, I'm confessing the truth. If I acknowledge the other, that's what makes me a liar. I'm confessing vanity. I'm lying against the truth because I'm a child of God. You understand? How could I be a child of God and confess the lies of vanity? Solomon said, All is vanity. Vanity, vanity, all is lying vanities. And the Bible said you forsake your own mercy by observing lying vanities, or the observation of that which is natural that you see and feel. The mercies of God are in Christ.

So then I say, "No. No. I am healed. I'm not playing a game. I believe the Word of God." Somebody said, "Are you really telling truth?" I'm telling the truth because I believe the Word of God and that's what the Word of God says. And if I believe the Word of God, isn't that the truth? Somebody said, "Well, maybe you don't really believe that?" Then I'm an unbeliever, because that's what the Word of God says. And I can openly tell you that I do believe the Word of God. I do believe the Word of God. And as a result of that, somebody said, "Well, we just have to go around and live with it, you know and say, 'Praise God! I believe'." You know you're lying and that against the truth, because if you believed God, it would go away. So you are a make-believer. Not an unbeliever, neither are you a believer. Somebody said, "Well bless God, bless God, bless God." See, it's just a true simple fact that when we get the mind of God and we get away from that, we're going to be just like Jesus because we are born into this vanity, as to the mind of Adam, and this thing has got control of us and it's killing us, or Satan is killing us. Paul said, And the body of this death, the body of this death is killing us, and we're going to have to come to the place to where we can be like Jesus, because Jesus was not born into this fleshly lust. He didn't have to contend with that, though He did, the battle, as the storm without the building, He did tempted every way as we are, but not anything interwoven with Him, as the first birth, and His faith was perfect and wherever He went and whatever He done, He said it thus and thus and it will be and there was no faking about it any other way. And He did not listen to the storm on the outside. He was safe in the house. So then, you and I are bringing this little house from the place of the dust, as by measure of measure proportionally speaking until we come to the fullness of this perfect body, as bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, as one with His glorious image, that we may be in the express image of His glory or person as to the brightness of His glory. And folks, that puts us in command, as to say what you will and it will be done. Decree it in your heart and don't doubt, it'll come to pass. Ask what you will, it's yours. As long as you abide in Me and My Word abides in you, whatever I do these works that you'll do and greater works than these because I go to the Father, or that is, I'll come back within your heart.

Of course we could say a lot of things about that, but I'm going to close right there because I feel like that I have up here in recording as to what I want to say, as to one person hearing it or ten million hearing it, as to help them to understand. And of course, as to you my children that are listening or that are looking at me, these things I say unto you because they are true. You know, the beautiful thing about this ministry is always I challenge people. Not to be smart and be great or intelligent or to prove my point, but I challenge it in this way. Somebody sits or somebody listens and says, "Bless God, I wish I could come and tell you, you just give me a chance." I challenge you anywhere in the world. Where this goes, I challenge you at Bethlehem, I challenge anybody that sees me, hears me, around me at anytime. I challenge you in the name of the Lord, prove, not that it would be wrong, but I challenge you to prove one iota of it to be wrong, one jot or one tittle to be wrong.

Let's everybody stand together and let's sing together. I make mistakes as a man, and I stumble and stagger, and I might say red when I meant to say blue. The brain under stress, lack of sleep, whatever it might be. Sometimes you might bobble and you might see it and you might say it. Even the Bible, you'll find these things in the Bible, as to David, he said, I said it, I did it but said, I did it in my haste. He wasn't intending to do it. And even as Peter that did what he did, having the keys to the kingdom, Paul said, I blame him to his face because he was in error. And as to the many things that happen, as to the Bible saying in the light and they heard a voice and immediately says they, in just exactly in the reverse, but nevertheless it's right. If you understand it, it's right. It's right. And it can be explained in a sensible way. Somebody says, "Well, what do I have to do, Brother Pike?" Exactly what I told you, to believe. And if you believe, you'll practice. If you've got the nature of the Lord, you don't have to strain yourself to try to do something good. Jesus went about doing good because God was in Him. If God's in you, you'll come to it. Nobody will have to make you do it. You won't have to say, "Man I want to go sin, I want to go sin, but I got to live right. I want to go sin, but I got to live right. I want to go to the movies, I just want to go the movies, just eating me up, I want to go to the movies, but I can't go to the movies because I'm a Bethlehemite." There won't be no days like that. Somebody said, "Well, that's the way it is with me." Well, when I said there's no days like that, I was speaking days like that with the children of God. There is no days like that with the children of God. There is never a time in the life of a son of God, never at anytime, that he thinks like that and desires like that. And there never has been a time, and there never will be a time. There are places, things in religious the minds of religious people, but not in the children of God. There is never at anytime, not at anytime in the life of a child of God that he desires to go to do wrong. Never. Never.

All right, so then we have the nature of Jesus. And that nature never at anytime desires to do wrong. It is possible that, as to the nature being given to you by measure, that you'll have a conflict with what is referred as your old man, as to that of Adam, as to a repercussion or a flashback, as a person that's been on dope, as to having a flashback, but that doesn't mean that you have to go after the dope. Many a person has had a flashback that's never went back to dope. Many a person that's sucked on cigarettes that Satan has come and said something to them that they did not go back to cigarettes. Somebody said, "But there you are. They had a desire to." No they didn't. If they had have had a desire to, they would have went back to it. Satan brought it to their mind and tried to stir up the lust of their flesh, and they put it down by faith in the mind of Christ and froze it out because, see, they don't have any desire. If they had a desire, then the conscience of sin would still be there. And the Bible said where these things are there is no conscience of sin. I'm not even conscience of sin anymore. If you are a Christian, you're not even conscience of sin anymore because there is no sin to me. Sin is forever gone. Death is forever gone. I'm not even conscience of death. That's why I have no fear of death. See, so in that I'm not conscience of sin, I'm not conscience of death, see I have no desire. I have no desire to die. I have a desire to live. Somebody said, "Well, nobody has a desire to die." Then why do they blow their brains out?

Let's sing a chorus, can we? Let's sing I Love Him. Somebody said, "If you're a healer, why come you don't get rid of that cough?" Now you didn't know I was brilliant enough to catch that, did you? That's not being brilliant. That's just the understanding that God let's a man know that all hearts are fashioned alike in the way they think. I have gotten rid of it a number of times. "But why don't you just shake it off and get rid of it?" Done it all my life. "Why ain't you doing it now?" Because I'm doing something that's giving place to it, not that I mean to, but I got to choose between that and this, so I chose this. That's why, or it would have been gone like that. "Can you explain why it's like that?" In perfect detail, exactly why it's like that to a T. I'm not going to bother to do it here, but if you'd like to hear me explain it, come, we'll talk. I'll be glad to. All right, let's sing together. (They sing).

Now it's late and the doors are open. So if you would like to come to the altar, as to those that don't want to go out the door, we're going to sing another chorus. A lot of people don't like the way I say things. You know, they say, "You speak with great plainness of speech." That's what Paul said. Some say, "But you're rude." Paul said that, rude in speech but not in knowledge. The things I'm telling is knowledge, they're not rude. Speech, it does sound rude, but I'm not saying it to be rude, I'm only bringing you to reality. If you think like that, why not offer you the opportunity? So then let's sing Sweep Over My Soul. Glad to see Danny here again tonight. (They sing: Sweep Over My Soul). Can you sing it with me? (They sing). Sing it again. (They sing).

You know, we worship together and some people leave and they go their way, they have things that they have to do, and whatever their life is ordained to, as to the purpose, they have to fulfill it. And it doesn't mean that their bad because they leave. It doesn't mean they're ugly. It don't mean they're devils, even though there are cases where a devil gets ahold of people, as to deceive them, but that doesn't mean that they're bad and it doesn't mean that they're going to go off and lambast us or tear us down or want to be ugly or any other of these things. Some will go their way, as I've known them to do, be real Christians, love the Lord, go on to greater things and deeper depths. But the thing that we got to do is abide in our calling, be at the place He's put us to be. If we're to leave, then that's to be our prerogative in life, then we need to get going. If it's you or me, if you got to evangelize, if you got to go do something else or whatever, and if it's for you to come back, that's fine, if not, you have to do whatever you got to do. It's like I told them at the boat, when they overnight, as to Brother Daniel was going to leave us. Daniel was working with me and he was really working, putting out strength and labor on the boat, and I told them what would happen to Daniel as to what he would go through with. And then we looked forward as to the time as to whatever, and so as to the time, and here is Daniel and here to try to go on with the Lord, to find what he wants to do, and at a good time because we're fixing to do some work in that area.

So it is as that way with you and I. Judas went to his place. We go to our place as a Christian, or as a betrayer, or whatever it might be. See, as a gossiper, as a backbiter, as a fault finder, whatever it might be, we go to our place. God said, I go to prepare a place for you. He had prepared a place for Judas. Before we was ever born, He's prepared a place for us. We go to our place. And so, it is through his great wonderful mind He makes us to know and understand. Not as to our reasoning, because we could never think of it, but as to Him, it's always right. And some of you are ordained to be here. It's like a college, some people, as to naturally speaking, they're ordained to be there at the college. They're the teachers. They stay there year after year. The flock turns over, as we say. And a lot of them that comes through never leaves because they decide that they want to be part of it and they stay there. Let's sing again. Can we sing again? I'm not going to hold you but a few minutes. Give me another chorus Frank? (They sing: Come Into My Heart). Let's sing it again. (They sing). Let's sing it again. (They sing). Can we lift our hands up to the Lord? God is so good.

I think I'll ask Scottie again tonight to come to dismiss us. Remember, beloved friend as I've said, the brethren split up and lost their strength. Prosperity started going down. And now, they're finding that their strength is in unity. As in unity, that's their strength. See, and now they're all coming back together and they're forsaking the world and they're beginning to get things under control, as to put God first and make that secondarily, as to come together to be the mind of Christ, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ and to hurl the gospel around the world. When you stray off, when you go out, when something happens, it's heart crushing to me. No one has children that leave home but what their heart is broken. But then, as I say, you are the children of your natural parents, and therefore they have the constraint and I can't do anything, but there will come a day, as to those that are my true children, it will come to pass, that life within the human body, as to the natural parents, will be no more, and then you will be my children forever. And I always say this because I like for it to be like this: you are the children of God, the sheep of His pasture, and He's the chief shepherd, but some will sit on thrones and they will rule, one city, ten cities, whatever, thousands, millions, whatever, see, and the thing is this, that though Jesus went away, if we keep in our heart the same things He gave us, then are we His children because we do His will. It's the proof of His nature, as to our new birth in Christ, as to the God family and the washing of regeneration. My desire is that not only you, as the children, be my children, as God's children. Paul said, As a father in the gospel, having begotten you in the gospel, but that your parents be my children that they also might be my children, that is, a God family as a whole family undivided, like the United States says, United and undivided we stand, but when we're divided the sheep fall into the ravine and the shepherd is not there to get them. And the little ones, if they don't have, as we have the armies, to protect us from the alien powers, then what can we do? They are our strength, even in a militant thing.

See, and if you don't stay within the fold, within the children, to have fellowship one with another, that is, the radius of the children in the confines, then the wolves will devour you. Satan will devour you. And it isn't long before your mind is transformated and you, unawares, as one that went off to sleep and you're doing all kind of things that you never would have done before and you've changed your mode of dressing and you've changed your mode of thinking and you've changed your motives to seeking God and you have no fellowship as with the saints, see, and sometimes being in the place to where you can't find a real full message, see, and in this, you transformate, and then when the dart strikes through the liver, all of a sudden it dawns on you, you say, "My God, my God, I didn't know I done that." You go to call on God for one of your children and you can't get no answer because something begins to cry out, "My God, my God, I'm under condemnation. I've added this and I've added that and I wasn't aware of it, and now, when I come around to face the situation, I realize I've transformated so far out of the perfection of God and I'm going in reverse." See and I don't want that folks. God loves you and I love you. We're praying for you. We'll continue to pray for you, but remember the things that I'm telling you because it is imperative to your soul.

And as our Brother Scottie comes to pray, then Scottie was just telling me Monday night, I believe it was, you know how he loves Bethlehem and the people of Bethlehem and how he could not just bring himself to leave it because he felt like it would dwarf him in his experience with the Lord, and we felt, he felt us as a spiritual father in the gospel and he wanted to excel in God. And I thought that was so wonderful, because here a while back, I had a vision where there was a mess that was made, and when I looked for someone to help me clean it up, Scottie was the one that come and worked with me and help me clean it up, which is so great and so wonderful, so wonderful, because folks, we all make a mess, including myself. Trying to do it in our own way, we make a terrible mess, and it's only when God will send the saints or somebody that will help us that we're able to do what's right. So then, let's work together and all of us clean up the mess and move the vomit off the table, and let's be children of God. Let's not be lukewarm that He spew us out of His mouth that we be vomit, but let's do what's right. Brother Scottie.

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

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

Holiness Unto The Lord