Eternal Redemption

We are grateful for the ones that have a pure heart. What can you say? The Bible said the pure in heart shall see God. Those that have the pride of life, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes cannot cease from sin by looking, lusting, and no matter what you say to them that's their life, that's their spirit, that's their desire. But for the sanctified, the holy, the godly, the believing, the sons and daughters of God who are born again, who are the blessed children of God there are beautiful things ahead, great and mighty things are laying ahead for you and for those that love Jesus. This world is a wilderness, few days and full of trouble, vanity, vexation of spirit, and in all that you do it's so disappointing and discouraging and heartbreaking and there is just nothing to look forward to, there's nothing to enjoy, there is no happiness, there is just no nothing unless you belong to the blind and you cannot see the things around you. And if the blind lead the blind they all fall into the ditch. But with the sanctified and the blessed there is another world and another hope. But the Bible said, In this life if we only have hope we are of all men most miserable and I can say amen to that. If I only have hope in this life I am of all men most miserable. But in that I have a hope in a life to come of a place where there will be treasures, there will blessings, there will be life and there will be peace to where our hearts will just rejoice forever more in the love and sincerity of Almighty God and the saints. That is life to me. But in this world where everything, as Solomon said, is vanity. It's vexation of my spirit and that's why that I'm forever looking toward that which is perfect. In this world everything is but a shadow of that which is to come. And in this world of shadows there is nothing but problems, but as the song writer said, standing somewhere in the shadows. I still have just a little bit of aggravation. It's not that I have a congestion or anything else, it's just a very, very slight irritation from ministering, whatever, trying to pray a little. Up in the plane they turn that little old bit of air on you. It's so hot. And that little bit of air comes on you and it just takes a little bit and it effects me. Reading from chapter 10. If you've got your Bibles you can read with me. You know, it's a sad situation for a minister. The Bible said, Why make thyself over wise and destroy thyself. He comes to see. He comes to understand. He comes to know all things in Christ. And the farther he goes in the Lord, the more he fellowships the Lord, the more he sees beyond the veil and the more he sees beyond the veil the more he dies, because all he consists of is the veil. All life here consists of is vanities and the creature which is nothing but a shadow, he's part of those vanities and he's subject to those vanities as to the five human senses. That is he thrives and survives off of them. That's his means of survival so he relates to them without any alterations. And when you come to the place to where you dwell in heaven and you look in heaven and you see those wonderful things as Paul did then you say, Why turn ye again to the beggarly elements of life? Do you again desire to be in bondage? But as long as you don't know about God and you don't know about the greater things it's like a man with an old T model ford, you know, he's just chugging along and as long he doesn't know about a Limousine and the convenience of a nice jet to fly in it isn't going to bother him when he hits the mud hole and it splatters. You know, it isn't going to bother him if he's got a little bit of odor because he doesn't know about the perfumes and he doesn't know about the refineries that, you know, he doesn't know to much about taking a bath. Years ago in the fields, everybody worked for a living and everybody smelled so much alike, you know, that they never did notice it until some, they used to call them city slickers, come around and they had gotten hold of some mixtures and they had dipped their heads and bodies in that, you know, and they kind of had between a rose smell and some other kind of smell and everybody begin to feel bad, you know, when they perspired a little when they worked because they had discovered something. You know, if you don't know about it it don't bother you. And the world doesn't know about it. They don't know about this life. The Bible said they shall not see when good comes. They don't know about peace and happiness and this tranquility of God, this serene feeling, so they are never vexed. But men like Lot, the Bible said, the soul of that righteous man was vexed down in Sodom and Gomorrah because of their evil deeds he was vexed from day to day. And as I said the other day, if you're never vexed over the situation it's very obvious that you belong to the shadows. And as soon as the sun has risen then the grass withereth away. The Bible said all flesh is as the grass. It withereth away. So we know that with the understanding of God, as to the light, the day star, the shadows vanish away. And the first place they vanish away is as to the man of the interior, Christ within you, as that dawning from the horizon of God comes then you thought pattern begins to transformate and you find out that you abhor your own life and you hate your own life. And you abhor every thought that's contrary to Him and you want to cast down the imagination, bring every thought into the obedience and subjection to the Lord. Then if you are not careful you will abhor people because you see the stench of things and you see their lethargy and unconcern and half heartedness and you see even at their best that we are altogether nothing but filthy rags. And there is just nothing clean at all anymore except Him. Knowing that those that stumble and stagger and as a little dirty boy, you know, with his little dirty pants he doesn't know and mama she's responsible for the washing. So then, the Lord again and again He takes us and put us under the shower and dips us in the tub and washes the mud away like as the old sow that has her mud washed away and by grace the mud, even of the old sow, has been washed though she goes back to her wallowing in the mire. You have to pray because you find yourself like Paul where he said, I have a desire to be with God which is far better but knowing it's needful for me to abide in the tabernacle to do something here and you find yourself saying, Lord, let me do something. Let me do something for you. And it's so easy to put God, folks in the world call putting things on the back burner. It's so easy to place God out of reach, you know, and set him over there in the corner. Like the song says, He's here all the time while you do all the things you want to do and eventually when you fall into problems and when you're half dead and you've done lived your life out, or if you find out you're getting in poverty or something is happening to your loved ones then you run over and see if you can get a word from Him, or tell Him how sorry you are because of what you did. So it's a bad situation. When you catch a glimpse of heaven, Paul said, And those things that I saw I suppose that the things of this world, the beggarly elements are not worthy to be compared with those heavenly treasures, which heavenly treasure, as an understanding that we have in these earthen vessels that transformate it's is revealed to us, the light comes and then we see the smutty old globe, and it shows up our inferiority as to doing things that are right. And as Paul said, The good that I would do it shows that up as good and then it shows up the other that the evil that I would not do I find the law of evil is alway present with me when I would do good. So then, you see, and then you say to the Lord, Oh wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. But until you see that we feel like we're pretty good and especially if we feel like we're Pentecostals, you know, and we're good folks, and we live that good overcoming life and so then we find our faith and our confidence and our ability and our praises is all to ourself and our ability. But there are some that come to the place to where they realize that though they do their very best to be perfect that looking to the perfect law of liberty they find themselves so lacking when their comparison is made with the one that is suppose to be their example and who's steps we're suppose to follow and to whom we're suppose to go and to whom we're suppose to be like. And we find out what Paul did when he said, Oh, wretched man that I am, you know, and our little bit of fasting don't seem like much anymore and our little bit of praying don't seem like much anymore and our little bit of sacrificing don't seem like anything anymore when we begin to consider that the Bible said a great while before day he would rise up and go pray, whereas someone would say, Well, I've done that a time or two in my life, Brother Pike. But then on the other hand it was a little different from that. Said and he went and prayed until His sweat became as great drops of blood. And in as much as He offered up strong crying with supplication He was hurt. Though He was a son yet learned He obedience for the things He suffered and in becoming perfect He became our example, and the high priest of our confession. So then, we see where we're at and when we see where we're at it sounds reasonable that, as in the days when I was a boy when the old car got in the mud hole that we just got out and pushed it out. You know, it sounds reasonable that since we are in the mud hole then we need to get out and kind of push it out. Brother Taylor has been down into Mexico with us when we'd get in the mud hole and we'd have to get out and push it out. Lot of times people get a little dirt on them, you know, and they get a little mud on them when they work for a living. Some folks, they have to get in the grit and the grime and have to get to the showers and the tubs to come back to what the folks call normal in our day. But some folks they never do that. The Bible speaks of silly women. They're so delicate in their preparation and staying so-so, you know, that they are not worth anything as a wife. They are not worth anything as a mother, they're not worth anything. They don't soil their hands. They don't want to work. They don't want to perspire. They don't want to do anything when it comes to scrubbing the floor and washing the dishes and washing the clothes and being anything outside of just being there. And a lot of them don't stay there very much. They are on the road pretty much. They try to make it home on time to fix a T.V. supper or something so their husband won't get upset. But other than that there's not much to a woman today. There's not much to a man. He piddles all day, messes around all day. Very few men really work. They used to really work from early morning, they'd get up before daylight and work until dark. We did that on construction jobs as well as on the farm. Now they get up and have their morning chat, stop by the restaurant on the way to get their breakfast and they make it just before noon and then they take off for lunch and they rest a little while and they get back in and they start and they don't want to work too late cause they've got a long way to drive and they've got to get home so they knock off a little early, and of course, it's hard to get the job done like that. It's like I told them at men's meeting the other night and they doubted this. I said, folks, a half a day got away from us today. We didn't accomplish anything for about a half a day and of course, some of them didn't believe that, you know, that just honored me as their pastor and went along with me lying as you would say. I wasn't lying at all. And the discrepancy of thought toward me caused me to excuse myself because I didn't want to be abusive and say nothing to them and I just eased on out not to interfere with what they were doing. Not that anybody came against me, but I said all of that again to say this, that there was Brother Ron Pasdon and two or three of the fellows along with David Paul was found there with us up until about 2:00 or 3:00 o'clock in the morning, of course this morning it was the same thing. It was after 3:00 o'clock when we got in, but I said, Brother Ron, I said, did you notice that we've been out here for x amount of hours, I said, and we've done nothing. Ron said, I noticed that. Or he acknowledged it. I said, Do you know how many hours it's been? I said, It's been four hours. I said, Do you know what that is? Working hours. I said, That's a half a day. I said, That's a confirmation of what I tried to tell the brethren tonight when I was just making conversation. And of course, when I left men's meeting I walked around to where Brother Atlee Beachy was in the back and I said, Atlee, I said, did we lose about a half a day today, or the greater part of the day in not doing nothing? He said, We sure did. As a matter of fact, he was telling the brethren something about it when I come up. Couldn't get the material, couldn't get things together, couldn't get organized, and the strange thing, the thing that was so phenomenal, since some of them thought it was so phenomenal that we'd last a half a day when sometimes we lose two or three days and don't get nothing done. Sometimes two or three months. Some of you have lost almost a lifetime. And in a little while you will have lost a life time, won't really have been done nothing for God. Some people lose their life and never did do as much as you have done. They never did even get started, lived a whole lifetime. There are people that lived hundreds and multiplied hundreds years in days gone by, not just fifty, sixth, ninety, a hundred, but hundreds of years and didn't do nothing for God in a lifetime. But the thing that was so phenomenal when they thought it was so strange, you know, I was talking like that, I told the brethren about 12:00 o'clock I said, Well, brethren, I guess we need to knock all. I guess I ought to have got me a cup of tea or something tonight, something hot to kind of clear this little hack up. But anyway, so they decided they would, and when you think it's bad and you don't need to do anything in a half day, or four hours when you've got numbers of men. When we got ready to knock off it took two hours before we could quit. Two hours or better before we could knock of, before we could quit. That's how unorganized people are, and we had so much to do that it amounted to putting two screws in. About 12:00 I requested that two screws be put in and then we would knock off. And about 2:00 O'clock or after we got the two screws in and we quit. Let's give the Lord a hand for truth. I just said all of those things to let you know that you and I, we think we're so efficient, as to our cause and if anybody says anything about what we do or don't do we feel like we're so mistreated, or that verbal abuse is just destroying us. But when we check up we find that we're shiftless and lazy and unprofitable, altogether unprofitable, as the Bible says and we just let things go and we use up a lifetime and as I said the other day, take three days to do three hours work because we get in such a wilderness and we put it up and take it down and we start over. We waste our time. We waste the overseers time. We waste God's time. We waste the material and we work doing nothing until we work ourselves down wrestling with the devil because we don't pray. We don't fast. We don't study the Word. We don't draw not nigh to God to have faith to resist the devil and he just gets in there and he runs us around like a little dog running around after his tail, you know, until he wears us out and when the day is gone we've done nothing. I got a brother, a few days ago he wanted to help and I got him to do something for me and it should have taken him about three hours and as far as I know, truthfully, at the end, I believe, of five days he got it done. At the end of three days it looked like he was making progress. But, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, at the final analysis it was about five days. And I told him, I said, Brother, it should have taken you about three hours and he acknowledge that that was the truth, because anybody could see that. So a lot of time when you are so sure that I'm exaggerating it might be good, you know, if you would observe things a little bit. And a lot of times when I'm reproving different ones and maybe Sister Betty is reproving some sisters, or whatever, it might be good to observe things just a little bit. Solomon said, I observed and I noticed that a little folding of the hands and a little unconcern that the vineyard is all broken down and over grown with the nettles and the man's poverty comes like one in travail. It might be good to judge the situation before you are so quick to think thoughts as to what you think. In that every man's ways are right in his own eyes, before you judge a person, or judge a situation it might be good to do a little thinking, a little research in the matter and find out, you know. I told you how my daughter one day was trying to put on the little ones shoe and she was just about furious because the little one just wouldn't put that shoe on. I said, Well, it might be good if you checked into it and find out what's going on. But you know the way the little brat, you know, that's the idea of people today. They've got a bunch of brats. We use to have children, but it is turning out that some of them must be brats the way they are doing. A sinful adulterous generation. So I guess, you know, they know what they are talking about. I guess a fox knows his cubs as well as a bear. But anyway, I said we might ought to examine it, so we did. And when we did we found out a sock stuck up in the toe of it, packed so tight that though she had run her hand all around in there she couldn't find it. There wasn't anything in there, no reason, but that was the reason. Couldn't get the little foot in because it hurt. And on another occasion I remember another little fellow just all upset and crying and they couldn't get him to stop and I said, Well there must be some reason. No, no reason. I said, Well, let's just look. Seem to be having a little problem with his foot so I examined his little foot, just a little baby, and when I examined his little foot I found the little fat toes just as norman as they could be in looking at them, but the Lord quickened something to me as I messed around with his little toes to find out that there was a hair that had got wrapped around it's little toe and the fat had grown over the hair. The hair was pulled so tight it was hurting and cutting the little toe and the fat having grown over it you couldn't see it and that was all the problem. And when the hair was taken away the little one was just fine. You know, so it would be good, folks, if we would use a little wisdom sometimes, a little forethought about them little brats of yours and try to look into the thing and find out what's going on. I, as a pastor, I don't have any brats and like I tell my daughter and them, I don't have any brats for children. I didn't raise any brats. I didn't have any and I don't have any brats for grandchildren. So I don't have any brats at Bethlehem. I have some sons and daughters of God and then I have some devils that come here. I have some half-breeds, as it was in the early west. It wasn't the Indian or the white man that caused the trouble it was the half-breed and the tale bearer. The Bible said move the tale bearer the strife will cease. And I have a lot of problems there and I have, as we say, some people that are so busy that they've left out God's part. Of course, I run into that sometimes in the men's meeting. I just go my way and I do what I have to do and when I come here I take a little time like I'm doing now to exhort you and to tell you about the things of God and try to program your mind to let's be about the Father's business. Not saying that you can't do what you want to do as to what you want to do. I have nothing to say about that, that's your business because every person is a sovereignty, but I do say, as to them that are standing with me, as William Travis said at the Alamo, when they were to give their life. He drew a line and he said, If you're going to stand with me step over the line and they did and we just kind of have to draw a line as to worldliness and worldly ways and the things of the world and ask you to step over the line. And when you step over the line God is going to make you wise. He's going to bring you the desire of your heart, as to His wonderful treasures and blessings in life and He's going to reveal to you the vanities of this world until you hate your life, because He said if you don't hate your life you can't be my disciple. And people who don't hate their lives, they are either babes in Christ that have never come to understand or they are not born again and they've never gotten anything from God and they are just proselytes or they are in a condition of hypocrisy and they are just enjoying this life in the biggest kind of way, in a charismatic sort of way of eating and drinking and frolicing and they have no conviction. And they have seared their conscience with a hot iron and they have got passed feeling and they just go on and do their thing. You know. And someone said, Well, it's because of the grace of God that I am what I am like Paul said. Which is true. That's true. Whether you are a devil or whatever you are. It's by the grace of God that He lets you continue, because if it wasn't for Grace you would, like Judas, go to your place, you know. But in that the grace of God is there we are what we are by the grace of God. And I trust, as Paul said, I have the spirit of God. I believe that I do. And I believe there are some here that have the spirit of God and I believe there are some here that want to be about the Father's business. And again, as I say, sometimes I just have to take a few minutes and exhort you and talk with you instead of preaching to you, because I cannot do it sometimes at men's meeting. And maybe the Lord suffers it sometimes so the ladies can listen, because at the men's meeting they don't get to hear and sometimes the men don't tell them anything. They are completely in the dark. So I think maybe sometimes God suffers it that he might do that. You know, to a man, sometimes a woman she is a garbage can, you know, and he is a prince and all he wants her to know is that she should shut up when he wants her to shut up and that she should do whatever he wants her to do and do it happily while he goes around frowning, you know, and always complaining. But nevertheless, with God there is neither male nor female and there's no respect of person and a woman is just as precious in the sight of God. God made her just like He made the man and He made the man just like He made the elephant and He made the man and He made the angel just like He made the man. And though man is a little lower than the angel, as to the strength, the angel can't take the outlook that we're not important because in Christ we're equal to the angels and cannot die. And besides that we can sing the song of redemption and they can't sing it. And we have a direct communication with God as sons of God at the ultimatum of what God has done and they cannot be sons of God. All right. So we have to think things over, understand things and see where we're going and what the thing is about. I felt like tonight I might say those things and sure enough I said them. For you that love the Lord I could say tonight, you know, would you step up here but I don't have to do that. For you that love the Lord we're trying to do something for God. We've got some things going and we're trying to do it. And if they are of any interest to you then we'd like for you to help us, work with us, do whatever you will. I saw quite a number of them the other night in a vision boycott, quite a number of the fellows boycotted as to their own thing. I tried to reason with them and it didn't do any good. And sure enough, I went right off to men's meeting and there were a few things that occurred. Whereas I am trying to reason with them, and of course it's not doing any good. Even though you are very reverent. You are very wonderful people. But what I'm saying is that you are forgetful hearers. You hear me, you know, some of you resent it and some of you don't. Some of you consider it but not as to incorporate it within your life style. Some of you just consider it out of reverence and then you go your way and you are altogether as you were when you come. Some of you women are that way, some of you men are that way. But on the other hand as the Bible said, Little flock, few there be that find it, straight is the gate and few that will be able to enter in to that. There is at this present time, a remnant according to the election of grace and it's a little flock. So if it's a little flock since Bethlehem is already a little flock then here we've got a little, little flock and there are some among you, I can't say as Brother Branham did concerning a place like Atlanta, Georgia, that there might be, how many did he say? Five or seven? That would make it into the translation out of all that are in a place like Atlanta, Georgia. I can't say that because I'm not looking through his eyes. He was looking and he understood. I have to say that, you know, God knows those that are His and wisdom is justified of her children so when I see somebody justifying wisdom as to their thoughts, as to their words, as to their deeds, as to their attitude, then I know that they are the children of God and that they are elect. Let's give the Lord a hand. Let's read from chapter ten. It says. "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices, which they offer year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect." This is in the book of Hebrews. "For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sin." Now just let me comment a little bit along as we go here. I read to you, or I preach to you where the Bible says, speaking of the blood of Jesus that where these things are there is no more conscience of sin. Now if I had time to read the ninth chapter, the tenth chapter, compile these together then you would understand, because in the ninth chapter it says things like this speaking of those things before the way was made in the holies of holies which is only a figure. "Which was a figure for the time then present, in which was offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." All right. Then we could go on down reading about the sprinkling of the blood of goats and bulls and whatever and that this could not bring the eternal redemption, but it says in the eleventh verse, "But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands." That is to say, not of this building. "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Now. Right there. He hath obtained for you and I eternal redemption. Those things that the law could not do in purging the conscience that it would have no more conscience of sin, Jesus did it and made the comer thereunto perfect. He brought to them eternal redemption. So then, we now have eternal redemption. Our conscience once being purged from sin we have no more a conscience of sin for the Bible says, where these things are there is therefore no more conscience of sin. For there is now therefore no more condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. And I've said to you numbers of times on numbers of occasions that we cannot walk in the flesh because we are not in the flesh. How can I walk in the state of California when I am not in the state of California? I have to be in the state of California and then I can walk in the state of California. But if I'm in the state of California and I'm walking in the state of California and all of a sudden I get on a plane and the plane lifts me up and transport me until it carries me over to the state of Georgia I cannot walk again in California because I am not in California. So then, the Bible says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But it said you are not in the flesh, for I have chosen you out of the flesh and I've hid you with christ in God whom the heavens have received until the time of the restoring of all things. Now then, if you are not in the flesh and you have been chosen out of the flesh, how then can you walk in the flesh? So I know the way we think of it. I know the way we think of it you know. You do this until you come to the knowledge of God. The way we think of it is now, the Bible says that if we don't walk in the flesh then we'll be all right. Now I've got to be careful here, you know, because yesterday I was walking in the flesh and today I ain't going to do that. And sure enough, we slip before night and say, Well, I did a little bit today but tomorrow I'll try to do better. So tomorrow we do worse. You know, and we go back to God and we pray and two months from now we've done even worse. And we go back to God and pray and I say, Well, how are you doing, brother? Say, Oh, I love the Lord. I'm a son of God! Say, How did you get to be that? Well, it's by the grace of God. I say, Well, have you been walking in the flesh? You understand what I'm saying? Let me tell you something. You cannot be a son of God and be in the flesh, let alone walk in the flesh. These people that keep going back out into the world and doing the things of the world, I tell you, the Bible teaches that they do not have an eternal redemption nor an eternal inheritance. Those people that keep turning back into Egypt, that is to say, in the world in their hearts, they don't have to go back in their body. All they've got to do is have their temper. All they've got to do is turn themselves loose for the lust of the flesh and the desires of the things of the world. All they have got to do is put their hand to the plough as a confession of Christianity and then turn in their hearts and understanding, their eyes of understanding, looking back into Egypt and the Bible said, they are not in condition to be saved, or that is they are not fit for the kingdom of God. So then, we are going to have to differentiate between right and wrong and what is fleshly and what is not fleshly. Someone would say, Well, Brother Pike, I know that I am a believer. Or I know people that are believers and I know that they do those things but I know that they believe, because they cry and they do all of these things. Like a brother told me today about his sister, we baptized his sister in Jesus name. Fine person. He said, But what it is, said, you know, I can talk to her about the Lord and said she'll just cry and said, then she'll go back and she'll dress like the world and paint up her face and do all these things. See? I'm telling you, you can be a believer but that doesn't mean you are a Christian. That doesn't mean you have God. You are a Christian when you are Christ like. Just to be, as you call it, a believe is not being Christ like. I tell you again, The Bible said, If you believe there's one God you do well, so does the devil, or the devils. That does not prove Christianity. But Christians mean you are Christ like. Which means that you talk like Christ, you think like Christ, you act like Christ, and you are always about your Father's business. And you are continually struggling to cast down imagination and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, that bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Someone would say, Well, I just don't think about killing people and stealing from people and them kind of things. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about thinking and buying and selling and going and gossiping and the things of eating and drinking and laughing and talking and fellowshipping as to the natural side of life and the natural things of life and being carnal. That is death. That is the imagination. That is the things that God said to cast down. All of that is vain imagination because all that's in this world is vanity and vexation of the spirit. The more you think on those things and the more of those things you have and the more of those things you go after the more that you are of the world. And the more that you are of the world the more vexed the spirit is, because all of those things are at enmity with God. A carnal mind is a thought of carnality, which is cars and houses and eating and drinking and laughing and talking and visiting and relatives and all of these kind of things. That's the mind of carnality. And what kind of mind is that? That is the mind of the devil. It's the mind that's contrary to God even to the extent that when a man said, Let me go bury my dead father, Jesus said, Let the dead bury the dead. You know. He's dead. He's dead. Them people that are living in sin are dead. Some of them twice dead and plucked up by the roots. And they that live in trespasses and sin are dead while they live. Let them do the burying. You go and preach the gospel, or you follow me. And as it said of Moses, when Moses forsook Egypt he came down from the throne, he forsook Egypt, he left his prestige, he left his convenience, he left his security, and all those kind of things and he went out by faith as Abraham to sojourn in a strange land by faith. And he went out away from all of the convenience of life and when the New Testament writers speak of Moses they speak of him life this: They say, And Moses chose to suffer the afflictions with the righteous rather than enjoy sin for a season. Now. Moses could have had everything, but he gave it up for God. Elijah could have dwelt in a palace with his ability, but he lived in a cave. Abraham could have established a place where he could have had a castle, but instead he confessed he was a stranger. He dwelt in tents. Jacob and the others dwelt in tents. Abraham was exceedingly rich, exceedingly rich. Even when his son got ready to marry things were given to her of gold and silver that enticed her so that she left her home, seeing all this wealth, and believed the words of Eliezer, the servant, to journey so far and leave her parents and her family to follow God and God's man. And yet with all these riches Abraham still journeyed, dwelt in tents and he had a confession. And this is his confession, said, And here we have no continuing city, but we seek a city whose builder and maker is God. And he confessed that he was a stranger and a pilgrim and continued the journey and go on his way searching for that city. And here we want to take roots, we want to take roots. We want to have what we want to have, not as to God and to do something as unto God, or to build an ark for God, not as the man did as to build a sanctuary for God, but we want to do, as it would be said, people who don't serve God they want to build them a tower of Babel. And they are saying, Let us make ourselves a name. You know, let's take care of our name. And they use the Bible saying, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." So then, let us take care of our name so we can make a law when we need a law so that we can borrow money so that we can buy and sell. See? And we'll have a good name. So far as having a good name, as a decent person, as an upright person, as a Christian, as something that might be a guiding light to somebody in the earth as to lead them to Christ they could care less. They'll have their temper and they'll do all kind of things that's out of sorts, and the Bible said charity behaveth not itself unseemingly. They are always behaving themselves unseemingly as pertaining to Christianity. But Abraham didn't do that. The Bible said, When Jesus, our example came, he sought to make in Himself no reputation, but He condescended to men of low estate, even to humility, as to the washing of the feet of the brethren to leave us an example. So then, I said all of those things to again to remind you that they confessed that they were strangers. They were not trying to build something. They were not trying to take root. They were trying to do something for God. They were not trying to preserve to themselves something. They were simply trying to do something for the Lord Jesus Christ. And folks, many of you fall short. Many of you are not even making a decent effort. You are such routinists that everyday of your life you are evasive as to doing something for God and all of your plans is that someday I must do something for God. Someday I must hurry. As soon as I spend all that I feel like spending, make all I feel like making and buy all that I feel like buying, and when I get to feeling better in my body and I get that zip and zeal then I'm going to do something for God. And all of a sudden you find that you've lived your life out in a gullible desire of stealing and robbing from God. The Bible said, Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Him. the whole nation has robbed Him. You have robbed Him of His finance. You have robbed Him of His strength, because the strength He gave to you was His strength. It wasn't your strength, because you didn't have any strength. But you've robbed Him of His strength, His strength in the earth as to do anything, to be a light to help the poor and the needy, of His strength that He was going to use to labor that He might have to give to the poor. See? And you've robbed Him of His sight, you've robbed Him of His hearing, you've robbed Him of everything that you could have offered to Him or that belonged to Him, because all of it was His in the beginning. Anyway we were talking today about the quaint way of life and the quaint way that man looks at life and how besetting life is to him and how foolish he is, you know, because we go back to thinking about our tree of life. And we spent money to find out our coat, of life you know, and we want to know who our ancestors were and where they came from and whether they were wealthy, or whether the they were dignitaries, or whether there was a president, or whatever, you know, as we go back and we search out our family tree. And then, or course, somebody that spends their time making money off of somebody that don't have anymore reasoning, you know, that to spend their money trying to get something that nobody can prove. After we gullibly get all of this and swallow it down, you know, like a book worm. We read a book and we put the preaching down. We read a book and we say it's right. We read a newspaper and we're ready to hang somebody on a noose. You understand? Not having any wisdom, when we do all of these things as just pertaining to our family tree, then we settle down and say, Well, it said this. And did you know this was this and this is the fellow that was in my family and you know, doctors, lawyers and we say, indian chiefs and whatever, you know. But then we settle on down and we begin to think about it and then we go back to the Bible. I say, Well, I think I'll run my tree of life and I'll see what it is. So then, we run it in Adam, as to the average individual, and we go back and we say, My! Look what I found in my family tree. I've found doctors and lawyers and I found murders, and I found Judases, and I found white folks and black folks and yellow folks and red folks and I found that Eve is the mother of all living and that's our family tree. Let's give the Lord a hand. All right. Now we know who we are, where we're going and where we came from. Now we can save the money and don't have to look up our family tree. I had some great men in mine and I had some bad fellows in it. But you know, when I really look up my family tree and I don't go back to the natural as to side with them folks that belong to that out there, as to say those lying vanities, I didn't find any bad in my family. All of my family was a royal family and it led back to royalty and riches and power and magnificence and eternal life and went right back to the loins of my Heavenly Father. And I found out that He hath made me and my brothers and my sisters Gods and kings to rule and reign forever and our family tree goes back to the tree of life and we don't have to worry about death and we don't have to worry about sin, because we were chosen in Him before the world ever was, our names were written down in the Lambs Book of Life and the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world was slain so that His blood might be in my veins that I might have royal blood and that I might have the mind of God and that I might be partakers of His great benefit. You know scientists say that whatever you eat that's what you are. I eat of His flesh and I drink of His blood so that makes me whatever He is and what He is, is God. Let's give the Lord a hand. So now you know my family tree. You don't have to spend any money to find out about the pastor. See? And this is what I'm saying folks. We have come to that wonderful day of enlightenment and understanding to where we are not in the world of lying vanities and all of this foolishness, confessing ourselves to be wise when we are a bunch of fools. We have come to that place of light and understanding as children of God, though the world doesn't understand. They are forever learning and never, never do they have the right kind of understand or come to the truth, or the knowledge of truth. But you are God's children and you are children of light and you are children of understanding and you know what's right and what's wrong. Why be a book worm and spend your life reading some of his story, as we call history, and always trying to prove your point from some fictitious thing that you don't know anything about and they don't know anything about. You know Paul one time, being a very wise man, he said, refuse profane talk and old wives fables and things of heresy, which lead to strife and envy and disputings. He said, and science, falsely so called, as to the word meaning knowledge. You know, and as to the historian side of life. And don't try to prove anything by that, he said, because there is no way that they know. There's no way that you know. Somebody says, But I know. All right. Do you know what went on a thousand years ago. Oh, yes, somebody says, I know. Well, you're getting pretty old. Seems like that you've been here a long time. Now what would be the answer to that. They said, Well, I got it out of a book. I know. I know. That came from your family tree of knowledge. So then, it's the devil that a know all in you. Let's give the Lord a hand. He's the one that knows all of these things. So then, we say, Well, what about it on the other side of the family tree? Are we then know-alls, as on the other side of the family tree? Well, it's a true fact that Satan isn't a know all. He just roars like a lion, but he really isn't a lion at all. Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah so the devil tries to project himself through the writing of many books and all of these many kind of things to make you think that he's the know all when he doesn't know anything that's good, for the Bible said the wicked should not see when good comes and it's because of that prince of darkness. Then what about the other side of the family tree? Now what are they? They are the know-alls. Let's give the Lord another hand. So then, now that we've got it straight we know who the know-alls are. Now what we have to have is a Scriptural foundation to prove that. How do we know that the children of God are the know-alls? Because Jesus said all that my Father has made known unto me I've made know unto you. And of course, you agree that He knew all things. Is that right? Let's give the Lord a hand. Now you can see how the children of God are the know-alls. The Bible said, And God shall not with hold any good thing from them that walk upright before Him. God knows all things. So we find that we are the wonderful children of God. We know all things. We understand all things. We don't have to write it and put it on a shelf like a lawyer so we can go back and check, you know, the verses, or whatever it might be, when we get a little bit vague in our mind. We have an indwelling library of heaven. It is the full contents of God, Himself, and His name is called the Holy Ghost. And the Bible said He will bring to our remembrance of mind all things whatsoever is given to us in Christ, or that the Lord has taught us. And what is it that God has given to us? He's given to us all things. So then, he bring to our mind all things. We don't have to go back and look into it, or run anything down it's just always there even when you're in trouble and you're delivered up before the judges and the lawyers and the unjust of this world that would like to condemn you, all of a sudden you look and you hear something speaking, and the Bible said it's not you that speaketh. Don't go pre-meditate, don't go look it up in the Bible, don't try to program your mind, take no thought for what you're going to say, just stay in the faith. And then when you stand before them in the selfsame hour it is given unto you as to what you should say for the Bible said it's not you speaking but your Heavenly Father speaking from within you and as it was with Stephen, the Bible said, They could not withstand the wisdom by which he spake. They beheld his face as that of an angle. I find in every case, in every incident of life wherever I go, whatever I do, when I go to say something, someone asks me a question, I go to say something, the Lord will speak and he will explain it very thoroughly, very clearly, because I know all things through Him that knoweth all things. Or that is to say, He that dwelleth in me knoweth all things and me and my Father are one. And as to wo whatever oneness we are, as to whatever I submit it to, as to the measure that's the measure that will speak to me as I continue to submit to the measure that's the measure that will continue to speak through me to carry on my life to the edification of others, or to make me know, or whatever might be needed he'll bring it forth. So then, what shall we do? The writer said, and this is the summary of the whole matter, and that is that we should fear God and keep His commandments. Fear God and keep His commandments. And that, of course, is what we need to do. We've come to a new day to where God has brought us eternal redemption. We now have eternal redemption. We're not under the law of blood of bull and goats. We are not in the day of the veil, as to ignorance, but we are in the light and if we walk in the light as He is in the light we will have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ that brings eternal redemption will cleanse us from all of our sins. For it is an eternal redemption. And whereas blood of bulls and goats could never take away the conscience of sin now, He having offered Himself, as an eternal sacrifice, the high priest of our confession, and I confess that He is my Savior, in that the Bible said, with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, it's given to us by faith. Our faith is imputed unto us as righteousness and if we believe in His righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, therefore I confess Christ and eternal life and God makes it so because He is the high priest of my confession. And if I can truthfully confess it from my heart, as through faith, then it becomes mine. Whatever I can say and not doubt then I can have it, if I don't doubt it in my heart. If I decree it in my heart then it shall come to pass. So when I find them living in this day when there is no conscience of sin, my sins are now gone, I'm not trying to search out a family tree as to what I belong to, I know what I belong to, I know what my family tree is and I'm here to tell you as one that has been made to understand what your family tree is and I won't charge you anything for telling you. I'm here to tell you that your family tree begins with the tree of knowledge. And that you are altogether unprofitable to God. Your throat is like an open sepulchre. You are corrupt and everyone of you have turned to your own way and everyone of you, your ways are right in your own eyes. And there are none of you good. No not one. Not in your whole family tree has there been found one that was good. Not one. And in that there isn't then that means that your life is a sad situation as to your past and at presence seems good, but it's going to bring you to a future that's a sad situation. And you are going to abide in death and have eternal damnation and separation from God, not only as a poverty of the loss of all things, but a poverty as loss of life itself. And your family tree, as to them that you came from, were people like Esau, Judas, Cain, and the beast, the devil being your father, the father of a lie. And the Bible said he's your father. Jesus said the devil is your father and his will you are going to do because you are his image. And the Bible said, The children of this world are taken into captivity at the will of Satan. And He said as to your family tree, all of your prayers are an abomination in the sight of God because you've got a very religious family, like Cain, that made sacrifices, who was a murderer. And all of the prayers, all of the offerings are an abomination in the sight of God. And though you have the blessings of life as to the present moment and the blood on the seat of atonement, the rain on the just and the unjust, the rain on the tares as well as the wheat, and you continue to live until the days of grace are over. Yet you only have it because of the grace of God. So then, ye are who ye are by the grace of God, in as much as the blood is on the seat of atonement, but there is coming a day. The song writer said, There is coming a day. And there is coming a day when the blood is going to be taken off of the seat of atonement and then you are going to recognize who you are, as to your family tree and your relations and we're going to find out who we are. We already know who we are, but we're going to find out who we are as to the manifestation that the world may see that we are the beloved children of God. For now are ye the sons of God. It does not yet appear what ye shall be like, but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him for we shall see Him like He is. And every men, woman, that hath this hope within themselves purifies themselves even as He is pure. So then we that love His appearing He will appear unto us the second time without sin unto salvation because he hath purged us, as to our conscience, as to an eternal redemption and though I have the earnestness of my inheritance, as to the eternal redemption in my spirit, yet the purchase possession as to the body, I am waiting to wit this redemption as to an eternal redemption, in that I am bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. I drink of His blood. I eat of His flesh and so then, I am what I eat. And that means that if I am, I'm bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Let's stand together. Give the Lord another hand, can you? How many of you love the truth? Do you love the truth? All right. That's wonderful. I love the truth. I want to always love the truth. There's a great danger in not loving the truth. That danger is, the Bible said, Because you have not a love for the truth I will turn you over to a reprobate mind. I will send you strong delusions and cause you to believe a lie, to be damned, because you have not a love for the truth. So then, we need a love for truth. When we think wrong we need to acknowledge it. When we think right we need to acknowledge it. When we do wrong and act wrong we need to acknowledge it. When we do good we should acknowledge it. When people do good we should acknowledge it, as Paul said, to praise him in a good thing. When people do evil we should acknowledge it. If I, as the pastor don't tell you your wrong then I've done you a great injustice, because you are not going to change, because every man's eyes are right in his own eyes. It doesn't matter what he does. He feels like everything is going to work out and it's going to be all right. And the Bible said, When your brother trespasses against you rebuke him, if he repents forgive him. If you don't rebuke him then you are in violation of the Word of God and you are transgressing the Word. Say, Well, I just love him so much I won't say anything about it. But that isn't the way it works. When you don't rebuke him, then you fail to be your brothers keeper. He needs to be reproved for his own sake because he has done wrong and we've seen our brother overtaken in a fault and we've not tried to restore such a one. And that, of course, with a spirit of meekness considering ourselves lest we be tempted also, for the Bible said, Let him that be spiritual restore him. And Paul said, I would like to speak unto you as unto spirituals, but he said, when you are babes in Christ you are not spiritual. You just have to desire the sincere milk of the word that you might grow thereby. But we do come together to discuss the truth and folks, I tell you the truth my conscience bearing witness in the Holy Ghost, all in this world is vanity of vanities, vexation of the spirit of God within you and it leads to nothing but problems and heartaches and troubles. I don't care if it's your son, it's you daughter, your wife, it's your own self, your body, your face, your money, your position, your business. Somebody said, Well, I just don't see it like that. I just enjoy it in the biggest kind of way. I understand that and though I speak, as Jesus said, what I say to one I say to all. I'm speaking to you. But not to you as a child of God, because you are not a child of God. See? Thinking like that you couldn't be a child of God. Because the Bible said unless you hate your own life for my sake that you can't be a child of God. So then, I'm not speaking to you. You that love this life you have no hope in the next life. You that just love to eat and drink and ride and buy and go to the cafe's and spend and carry a few thousand dollars around and have it laying up over here for security, you are not born again. You need to come to a reality and realize that you are not born again. You couldn't be born again and be carnally minded. The Bible said that's death. And people that are born again are not abiding in death. If the love of the world is in you, the love of the Father is not there. That's death, but when you are vexed and you are grieved as Jesus a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief, seeing the evils, going to church and instead of finding the right kind of thing in church find them selling doves. Somebody said, Well, Brother Pike, you don't go into the church today and find them selling doves. But you still find the money tables. You still find that they have made the House of God a den of thieves, because you can be setting there and you might have three saints and the rest of them be thieves, for the devil is a robber and he's a thief and they are in business with him as to their manipulating and their foolishness, their hypocritical way of life. They are stealing the soul of men and they are promising people liberty when they themselves are the children of corruption. They place themselves as an authority, as the Scribes and Pharisees, when Jesus said, You are hypocrites. So then, you find the same thing in the day we're living in, in that that was just symbolic as to the spiritual condition of our day. See? And as to the body, as to the temple of God, the true temple, devils and demons have taken over the body in may cases and the Bible said, The temple of God, you've defiled it and God will destroy it. It was made to be His tabernacle and His temple that He might tabernacle within it. See? And your joy is in eating. You joy is in riding. Your joy is in expressing your temper and visiting your relatives and having the natural things of the world. You know, being healthy and jubilant in your body so you can revel and enjoy the gullible desires of the flesh. There is no acquainted with sorrow in your life. There's no acquainted with grief in your life. Like the song writer said, Did you ever drink a cup of loneliness with Him. Have you ever honored the Scripture where it said, Equip yourself with a mind to suffer. Have you ever read where the Bible said, Every son that cometh to God He scourgeth him first? And where he said if you have hope only in this life you are of all men most miserable? Somebody would say, Well, what do you mean? I mean that you give up everything in this life. You give up your reveling. You cast down every thought of your own thoughts to think His thoughts which was a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. You are vexed, as it was Lot, the righteous man, by their evil deeds everyday. And you withdraw from the world and you come out from the world. You are not trying to take roots in the world because you know all that you get here is going to pass away and as the early church you are trying to put your mind and your time, your substance, your thoughts, everything into being one with the Savior to go on to full measure of the full stature of sorrow and grief as to being acquainted with that as in this life. Do you love the Lord? And we could say much more, much more. He was our example. We should follow in his steps. Where did His steps lead to? They didn't lead to the ice cream parlors and the hamburger joints and the frolics, to the dance and to the gossiping, to the back biting, to visit with the relatives, or anything else. As he said when they said, Your mother and your brother are here and He said, Who is my mother and my family, my brethren? He said, These that do the will of my Father which is in heaven. And He was also found with the brethren. There is no record where he ever took off time to visit his relatives. And the Bible, They that follow in His steps. If your step lead you to your relatives house, good and well. If it don't then forget about it. Somebody said, Well, I should go. No, not even to your own father's funeral unless the Lord leads you there. I remember when my Dad was dying and they sent to Mexico and they said, You come quickly. He's dying. And I answered back, I cannot come quickly. I'm in a revival and people are being lead to God and I'm right in the midst of it. I cannot. I love my Daddy very dearly, he's so precious, one of the greatest that ever lived. I said, But when I finish my work for my Heavenly Father then I can come, because I talked to the Lord and He gave me liberty. And when I finished my work I came and though they said he would die he didn't die. He stayed until I come. I visited with him that day and that was the end of it and he died. Let's give the Lord a hand. So the Lord looked after me and looked after my Daddy. All right. That's the way it is, folks. They say tell it like it is and that's the way it is. Let's sing a little chorus together, Brother Taylor. We take these things to measure ourself by to find out if we really are not spiritual, if it is really true. If we really are just babes in the Lord. And if we do find that we haven't done as the Apostles and forsaken our wives when they said, we've left our wives and our homes and all of these things to follow you. And the Bible said, Unless a man forsake all, his wife, his children, his home, everything has to be moved completely out of his heart to seek and to follow Christ Jesus first. Then the Lord will provide for the home, and provide for the wife, and provide for the other. And secondarily he can love his wife and children and whatever. But first, as it was with Abraham, he didn't let his wife know anything about offering Isaac up as far as I know. There is no record of it. He honored God first and then the wife second. He loved God first and then Isaac secondarily. And unless we are like this, folks, then are we just babies. When you cut corners for your daughters and your sons to be in and out on the camp ground continually doing the things that they do and you stand up for them knowing that they are rotten to the core. Somebody said, Well, my children ain't like that. If they have never been born again they are rotten to the core unless they are elect. Somebody says, Well, I know they are elect. Drinking and living like the devil, frolicing? All you do is give them a place to live here. That's all you do. You know they ain't living right. You know they ain't doing right. You know they don't do nothing for God. They are not going to really come to the house of God and do nothing whether it's physical labor or fasting, or praying or anything else. They are going to do what they want to and you stand for them when they become of age then that means that you are in the same condition they are in. Two can't walk together unless they be agreed. It doesn't matter how religious we act that's what you are. And when you allow them to come in at 10:00 o'clock and 12:00 o'clock and drinking and whatever and stay at your house, or come in after they've been in their frolics knowing that they are fleshly minded and carnally minded and abiding in death and they have been out there like mad dogs slobbering and walking in the flesh and then you give them a place to live, you are an accessory after the fact and the judgment to you is just the same. And no matter what I say you are going to do it anyway, but I'm just telling you. Judge within yourselves if you are babes, or judge within yourselves if you are right with God, or judge within yourselves whether or not you've got the goods. You know you haven't got it. And your not going to convince me in a hundred years that you've got it. Did you know that even the Jews, no more that they know, no more than they have, they are so devout that when one of their children turn away from their doctrine they have their funerals and they are dead? They don't own them anymore. Somebody said, Well, we should never do that. But I remember a time in my life when my children got out of sorts and done wrong and they said something against my brethren and contrary to God and I said, Let me tell you something, folks, I said, Let me and you get real straight. I said, And the day that you do this and this is what you are going to do, you are not my children anymore. I said, you don't belong to me anymore. I said that's the end of it. No starting over, I said, that's the end of it. Now I believe in being merciful. I believe in being loving. I believe in being kind, but the Bible said, Get thee out of the land of thy kindred. Not only out of the land of the flesh, in that you belong to the flesh, but get thee out of the land of thy natural kindred. Just like the other day the report come to me that one of the boys come down here on the camp ground in his tanker. You know what the tanker is. Some of them is some little old strips on the shoulder and some of them you can see all the way through their cut out. You know like you had punched them out all over. Some of them come by here. Men let them work on their jobs like that. It's little wonder that they should come on the camp ground like that, because a man that would let anybody work on his job like that doesn't have a thing from God. Brethren, if you'll pardon my expression, they don't have a thing. Somebody said, Well, I know they are believers. I know and so is the devil. They don't have a thing and when they allow people, as their relatives, to come on their camp ground in that kind of thing, as to the shorts and all those kind of things and drinking and fussing and cursing they are worse than those that don't have anything, that are ignorant, because they have come to the knowledge of the truth and they deny the thing and they are worse than an infidel. So then, that's where you are standing and that's what I'm preaching. And whether you do it or not that's your business, but it's my job to preach it and in the day of judgment I have to stand there and face you. Children are relentless and they are wild and they are reckless. But folks, let me tell you something. They may come to your house wrong, but you need to tell them what's right. Like I heard, this came to my mind, Sister Frances, some of her relatives come not to long ago, and I don't know how good Sister Frances lives and how much violation she is in in her home. She may never go to heaven. I'm not here to say whether she does or don't, to judge another man's servant. But I understand she told a couple of her relatives, she said, You need to get straight and what you are doing is going to take you to hell. Said, You're going to hell. And one of them was her own son. And said, If you don't get straight and straighten up your crooked life you are going to hell. Folks, let me tell you, relatives are going to come. Mine comes, but I am forever, as we say. Somebody said, Not forever, Brother Pike, now there you go lying. No, forever means spaces of time. Let's give the Lord a hand. The Bible said Jonah was in the belly of the whale forever. It might do you real good to find out about things before you judge, because you judge out of you finite thinking when you don't understand. Was Jonah down there altogether forever? Somebody said, What's this got to do with what you are doing to say? We can learn a lesson right here and that's what I'm for, is to teach you a little lesson when we run into things. So it looks like I'm forever. There we go again. I'm forever telling mine over and over and rebuking mine over and over and reproving mine over and over. And telling them I don't want them in my house. Folks, that sounds hard don't it? But I've told them numbers of times. I said, I don't want you in my house. I don't want you on the camp ground. I don't want you in my presence if you're going to dress like that, be like that, talk like that, act like that, relatives or no relatives. I'm talking about children and all. And folks, if you can't do it, if you can't lay your son on the altar for God like Abraham did then you don't have the goods. I said, If you can't put your son and daughter on the altar you don't have the goods. Somebody said, But they just love to be here. I know it. The devil he would love to make him a nest in every home. He'd love to camp out here and he'd love to be in his shorts and he'd love to flirt around here and you say, Oh, they are not guilty. I happen to know that they are guilty because I saw them. So then, what does that make you? That makes you a liar, because I heard you and I saw them. So that makes you a liar and that makes them guilty. Let's give the Lord another hand. All right. What can we do about it? Just get born again and the rest will take care of itself. Let's sing a little chorus together. All right. Somebody said, Well, when are you going to quit talking about these things. When there is nothing else to talk about them. All right. Let's sing I Love Him. When we get our mind off of our faces, the Bible said, To us belongs confusion of faces. When we get our minds off of our figures and our forms and we get our minds off of our business and we get our mind to where we don't have a gossiping back-biting tongue. Somebody said, Well, you mean when we get to where we don't make any mistakes. I didn't say that. That's what you thought, but I didn't say that. You didn't interpret right. Everybody stumbles and staggers. That's why the blood came from the perfect man that never stumbled and staggered in whom they found no fault. Because of that they can find no fault in me, because I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh and He made me to be His righteousness as He became my sin. He died that I might live. But folks, I still say when you get your mind off of the natural gullible desires of the world and get your mind off of perverting the truth and trying to protect that which is carnal and natural and wrong and love God above all that you know, all that you've got and you meditate in His laws day and night and you want to fast and you want to pray and you want to study the Word and you want to understand God's way and you want to follow in His steps as a self denial, a man of sorrow acquainted with grief. It's kind of grievous to have to say something, you know, but Jesus said something to His relatives. Who is my mother, who is my sister? That was kind of grievous to His mother. See? And like my Joseph yesterday doing a little something in the coach and I felt Satan pressing Joseph so that he and Tony should go to Athens because of some things that needed to be done even for me. And the Bible said within our patience possess ye your soul and Tony having some things he needed to do for me, Joseph was going to help him and just restless like he did some things and when he did them he just run through them in such a way it just made a mess. When I came and looked at it, it was very grievous to me, though he was trying to help and what he did worked. I had to patch it up a little but it worked. But I told him, I said, Joe, I said, Now listen. I said, When a man won't do natural things right, he has no incentive, that is, to do things perfect and right, I said, he doesn't do spiritual things right, because that's a nature, that's an obsession. If he's a hit and a miss and a make out and wants to rig something then that's what he will do with his experience with God. He will rig it. It will be a make out. He will have all kind of a mixed up mess, as to religion. And I said, You need to do right. The Bible said if you are not faithful over the unrighteous mammon who shall commit to your trust the true riches. I tell you this a lot of times, you men that go out and trade for jobs and when you should get fifty dollars out of a job you weasel the man out of a hundred and fifty cause you know you can out talk him. You've got brilliance in God so you know how to take advantage of a child and then you have to reap for it. Or a man is trying to sell something and you know it's worth two hundred dollars and you weasel around until you get it for seventy-five and then you tell each other, you know, Man, look what a deal I got. Man, that man he wanted all kind of money and look what I done. And you weaseled him out of his goods and then you've got nothing but a problem like a Jonah. You don't have nothing but a problem out of it. Like David Paul and some of them was telling about rigging some scales. I believe they cheated Brother Larry out of about fifteen thousand dollars. I was telling David. I said, Well, David, you know, if I had scales and I was going to do that, I said, I'd set them the other way. I said, So I could give the man a little plus. I said, And that way I'd be happy and have a clear conscience. And as I told the man a few days ago when I bought my coach, the man wanted forty-one. I could have gotten it for thirty-nine. I said, No. I won't do that. Somebody had already put a little something in my ear. The R.V. man, because he was a special friend of the man. Said, No, we'll do it the other way, because when I drive the coach off I don't have a wreck in it. I want to enjoy it. I said, It's yours, if that's what you want. The Bible said whatever is yours, remember, it's lawful for you to do with it whatever you will. See? I don't want to cheat a little bit like Ananias and Sapphire, though we all do unawares. And I ask God to help me to never do it, but we do. We rob God. We cheat a little bit, see? And we think we get good deals when we do all of these kind of things. And I was saying not too long ago I know of a number of men that did that. Fine men. Fine men. And they had children that was the dearest thing to their heart, but it cost them their children. It cost them their children. I've heard them boast of the deals they got and I knew they took advantage of people. Folks, that ain't the way. Just like the government of today, it's robbing you. IRS, and all the rest of them. They are thieves and they are robbers. They wouldn't like that. They'd love to put me in jail for that, but they are thieves and robbers. Jesus said, And they bruise you and leave you in the ditch and the good Samaritan, as to the true, comes by and Jesus pours in the oil and wine when He finds you without anything. See? And they rob you and God is not for it and someday they are going to pay for it. Some of them are already paying for it. But you and I don't need to do that we don't need to do that. We don't need to rob and kill and steal. Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and that more abundantly. He was forever giving the plus, trying to do something for somebody. When you confess Christianity and you stand at the door and don't go in and you do things that you know that's not right you are stopping the others from going on in. And you are wrecking their faith and you are causing them problems. And you will have to pay for it because you are a thief and a robber. You are stealing from them, because you could tell them and lead them and you don't. He that leads into captivity as to your life that leads people into bondage and unbelief and hypocrisy because you won't live right. The Bible said they shall go into captivity but it will lead them into liberty as to showing them the right door as Christ, the open door, seeing your light, as a light unto all men, then we'll receive of that as to liberty, as to children of liberty and we'll be rewarded accordingly. When we half do our jobs as contractors, or people, and you're just a hit and a miss, when you promise two gallons of paint, as we say, on a building and you put one gallon, you are a thief and a robber. You lied. You are a liar. When you compromise to get a loan and twist the truth a little bit, or just evade the truth, then you are a deceiver. Like a man said not too long ago, he got a loan up here in town, he said, I had to tell a little white lie. Said, but you know, he did it. Say, well, when are you going to get through? When I finish. That's when I'll be through, when I finish. Now we know. All right. So then, what are we? We are children of understanding. We are children of light. We don't like to hear these kind of things. That is to say, devils don't. We as children of light do. But they get restless and they get miserable, but when you take that from the contractor, you take that from somebody, when you don't do the job right, then just like I told my Joseph, see? Chastisement is grievous for the moment. Joe was very hurt and very grieved. The father as to the smiting of the son, but I said, afterward it will yield the peaceful fruits of righteousness. And the next time before Joe does that he'll think. And sure enough Joe got over it. Believe it or not, after you give a child a chastening he'll get over it. Said, beat the child and you'll not kill him. You'll save his soul from hell. But if you spare the rod you will spoil the child and his soul will go to hell. All right. Let's sing together. This is what the Bible calls making straight paths for yourself. They told the prophet, they said, the way where you dwell is too straight for us. But the Bible said, straight is the gate and folks, we can't get off that easy for the Bible said we are to follow in His steps who was the straightest of the straight. He was our example who was the straightest of the straight. Never was any guile found in His mouth. And if you want long life and to see good days refrain your tongue that it speaks no evil nor guile. And the Bible said when you do well it will be well with your children all the days of your life. You will lengthen your days. If you don't you will shorten your days by your disobedience. You will cover your sins and you won't prosper. So then, in following in His steps folks can't lay anything to our charge and find any fault in us. Sing I Love Him. (Leads in singing.) Let's do all things as unto the Lord. If we do it as unto the Lord- He said, Don't bring me the halt, the lame and the blind. I'm a great God. (Continues sing.) If you do it unto the least of these you do it unto the Lord. (Continues singing. Begin tape two, side two.) A man of sorrow acquainted with grief and the Bible said we esteemed Him not. Bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, by whose stripes we are healed. Acquaint yourself with that, drink a cup of loneliness with Him, equip yourselves with a mind to suffer that you might know Him, as Paul said, in the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable to His death that you might know Him in the power of His resurrection. Let's sing this chorus, Frank. Give me another key. (Sings I Thank Thee For The Valley.) Can you sing that with me? (Continues singing.) Can you sing it again? (Continues singing.) Let's give the Lord a hand. Let's sing this little chorus that we sing so often. (Sings Where Will You be.) Can you sing it with me? (Continues singing.) One more time now. (Continues singing.) The altars are open as we sing this next little chorus. (Sings To Be Like Jesus.) One more time. (Continues singing.) Do you love Jesus? To be like Jesus, on earth I long to be like Him. Let's sing another chorus together. (Sings Pass Me Not.) Can you sing that with me? (Continues singing.) Sing it again, now. (Continues singing.) Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. You know, the Bible says he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. The great, wonderful, marvelous thing about Moses was, the Bible says, And he was the most humble, or we say, the meekest man in all the earth. So meek that the Bible speaks of Jesus, the prophet like unto Moses. For it is said of Him take of my yoke and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and His secret was meekness. But, you know, I say so often, the Bible says humility before honor, pride before destruction. And the hardest thing there is for men to do is to be meek. It's very difficult for them to be meek. No matter what they do, as to religious stride of life, they find it very difficult to be meek and yet the Bible said he's our example. We should follow in His steps being the meekest man in all the earth, to learn of Him who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. So then, we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God that He might exalt us and that in due season. Not to be weary in well doing for the Bible says in due season we will reap if we faint not. All right. Let's sing this little chorus, Brother Taylor. I feel like everything is going to be all right since Jesus is in the arrangements. (Leads in singing Everything's Going To Be All Right and Praise Him.) Brother Bob called, Brother Bob Necessary called and was wanting us to come to the Carolina's to preach. I believe it was over in Gastonia there. He's having a tent meeting. He's been trying to get us over into Big Stone Gap, Virginia there. He said he had a great tremendous revival under the tent. He wanted us to come and minister but we didn't get to go. Sometimes we just can't get to go, but we might be able to get in a might or two with him in Gastonia, or wherever it's at. We're suppose to go up to Knoxville. It's just a little mission, but we're suppose to go up to Knoxville on Saturday night. We go to places, small or great, whatever it is, don't make any difference. As long as there is something we can do for God, or we feel at liberty to do it. I believe we'll be setting a tent meeting before too much longer, trying to get a few things in stride to where we can do something under the tent and that always requires a lot of work, lot of finance, lot of effort. And I, of course, like to be with the Lord during my meeting. I try to stay with the Lord all the time, but I especially like to get with God when I'm going to go out to battle. And as Joshua said, Lord don't send we up to battle unless your presence go before me. So I don't want to go out to battle unless His presence is with me. I like for God's presence to be with me. All right. So we're going to sing another little chorus together. (Sings AT The Cross, There's Room At The Cross and Sweep Over My Soul.) Can you sing that with me? (Continues singing and sings Haven Of Rest.) Sing it one more time with me, now. The Bible says it's a good thing for the heart to be established and that in the present day truth. So then, to be established in the present day truth we need to anchor our souls. If we anchor our souls in the truth we won't sail the wild seas anymore, never no more, never no more. They are stormy and they are dangerous. Never no more. In the millennium, as to the sailing of the seas, and nothing shall harm in all of my holy mountain, saith the Lord. (Sings Without Him.) Sing it with me, now. (Continues singing and sings I Need Thee and Don't Turn Him Away.) Let's lift our hands, close our eyes and while we've got our heads bowed and our eyes closed I'm going to ask Brother Tommy Cartrette, if he will, if Tommy's here. I thought I saw him back there. Maybe he isn't here. I thought he was here but, okay we'll ask Brother Atlee Beachy if maybe Atlee will come and dismiss us tonight. While Atlee is coming let's sing the little chorus we sing so often, that is, I Will Praise Him. This should be the theme of our heart always. (Leads in singing I Will Praise Him.)

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

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

Holiness Unto The Lord