The Finishing Of The Masterpiece

I appreciate the welcome. I always appreciate the hearty welcome and applause. It's real heart warming to come up here and know that you receive a welcome from the audience. We've got a lot of people missing this morning because quite a number of people went down to the Mexico meeting. They were expecting us to be there and somehow I never did get the leadership from the Lord to go. Brother David Paul he never did get the leadership either, according to what I understand. He never did go so I guess Daniel preached the meeting by himself. And it was good for Daniel because Daniel needed to be magnified in the eyes of the people anyway in that area. He speaks the language. He's been there with them. He feels the infirmities and he's able to help them. It might be a little difficult as to our people understanding. Instead of needing a spanish interpreter, they'll need an english interpreter. It will be hard for them to understand. Paul said, He that occupies the room of the unlearned how can he say amen seeing that he understandeth not what thou sayest. So it will make it a little difficult for them. But, other than that, I think they'll make out all right. But this morning let's just keep them in mind and ask God to help them as they go on their way, or return, so that none of them gets hurt. I pray with a regularity for my people. I have down through the years. In all of their traveling I have ask the Lord to help them and bless them because of the danger there is on the road and He's always kept them safe in spite of all the problems and I'd like for Him to continue to do that. See Him continue to do that. Let's sing a little chorus together. I thought we might discuss one or two little things with you this morning. I don't know whether you'd be interested or whether it would be profitable, or what. Different things comes to my hearing and questions are ask me and I try to answer them the best I can and try to keep peace in the camp as much as I know how. Let's sing this little chorus. (Singing) You know, when we sing songs like The Old Country Church, which we've sung here many times, I think about my experiences as a boy, because really I was converted in an old country church. And I really, genuinely, wept my way home to the Lord. It wasn't just a time along then, you know, where you just come and make a confession and then begin to be a believer, but the thing that we had to do was go around the altar and pray and pray and pray until the tears would flow, until our heart was just all broken up and would melt like wax. And then we would feel the power of the Holy Ghost, or the real power of God come surging into our bodies, into our spirits and awakening us. And sometimes, as in my experience, it was days that it was as though I was just caught away into a heavenly place and just couldn't seem to settle down in my spirit; I was so, I was just so caught away. And it was a real experience. So there really was a joy, a jubilance, so there is a real remembrance of the old county church and people loved the Lord. And today it should be the same. Should be the same with us today. We should be loving the Lord. We should come to the church, not just to be coming to church out of routine, but come because we love the Lord and because it means everything to us. You know, having your soul means everything. I try to stress this point a lot of times and I'm sure that some understand and some don't. People who have never had experience don't understand but people who have had experience do understand. And I try to stress the point that as long as you have your soul you don't have any problems. Or one would say, Well, Brother Pike, what if a man was blind, would he not have problems, even if he had his soul? No. He wouldn't have any problems. If he was deaf he wouldn't have any problems. It wouldn't matter what happened to him, if he has his soul he doesn't have any problems. Everything that has come will go and it will wash away and it will change about and eventually it will come to it's right order and everything will be all right. Down through the eternities it will be all right. But if you lose your soul and you don't have your soul it will never come back to it's originality. It will never come back to the right place. It will never work it's way around. There will never be a time of happiness and peace. It will always be torment and torture and miseries throughout eternity. There will never be any reinstating, refurbishing, never turning around, never another chance, never another opportunity. So as long as you have your soul all is well. So don't lose your soul. Hold fast to your soul. As long as you hold to your soul everything will be all right. You can be seated. This morning I thought that I might just discuss a few little things with you. It's still kind of cool and as I say, there's quite a number of people missing this morning. But they'll be back. After a bit they'll be back. They'll have an experience in Mexico. We sent a couple of truck loads down there, as to clothing and bedding and different things that might be a help to the people that are in need and these that have gone down there will help distribute and they'll get an experience of seeing some frontier evangelism and some of the things on the front that will cause them to be inspired and come back with a greater fervency for Christ. But in the meantime we that are on the home front will do the very best we can with what we've got to do with from time to time. Brother Rob called yesterday and was happy over the situation in the Carolina's and people are being blessed up there. They are still happy and coming along real good. Financially they are making their efforts and spiritually they're making their efforts and everybody seems to be happy. Everybody seems to be in full fellowship with the brotherhood here. And I covet your prayers. Also being blessed with the other things round about, the radio stations. We've increased them for a, quite a number of stations. I think they're fixing to go on one over in Peoria, Illinois and they've gone on one in Topeka, Kansas. And they've gone on one in Des Moines, Iowa. They've gone on one over in Riverside, California and there are numbers of others in different places that they are either on, or going ne on and we're getting real good response out of some of these things that we've been on for quite a while. You pray that God will bless us and help us to reach out one way or another to do something for God. The Brethren were also showing me a layout yesterday that they had made for The Heritage, which is a little paper insert that goes into the Walton Tribune. It comes out pretty directly and they have a layout that makes somewhat of an expose of a few little things of Bethlehem and projects it to the minds of the people to give them some idea of what we're trying to do out here, in that they're in question and they wanted something for the paper. So it will go into a kind of a church order thing that they have. And maybe some people can kind of read a little bit and get some idea of what we're going. Now, in these things, whatever there is that is accomplished, one way or another you are the one that is indirectly responsible. Some of you are directly responsible. Some are indirectly responsible and whatever it might be you still have a part. Whatever you bid Godspeed you are partakers of it. And some have bid this Godspeed in that they have not only given their efforts to it, as to their travail and support but they have given their attention, their undivided attention, and they have conformed to the things that I have ask them to conform to and they've not tried to do their own thing and be selfish and self-willed and do it their way and pull it off to themselves, you know, and have their own little thing and not want leadership and this kind of thing, but they've actually tried to melt down into a oneness of body and membership and leadership of the Word and tried to find the mind of Christ that they might be the body of Christ and that they might be the wonderful works of God in the earth to bring a government of liberty and justice for all throughout the whole world. So then, it is a good thing that I can say about you. Paul said, I praise you in a good thing. And it's a good thing that I can say about you this morning because all of this is true. We still feel the infirmities of the weak and we still feel the repercussions of those that are not synchronized in God. We still feel the resistance of that which is the infiltration, inasmuch as there is no good thing within the flesh. And the flesh is still in rebellion and we still feel the resistance of the carnal mind, which is death, because we know that the human body is the depraved side of life that is in captivity to that, as through the fallen man Adam, and we're still dealing with it. And we realize the body has not been changed and we have to face this opposition whether we stand up here behind the sacred desk, or whether we talk to people, you know, just as little groups, whatever, just one on one, as the world says, we still have this opposition that when we go to converse with somebody then we're going to meet resistance in them and meet contrariness because their minds are elusive and they preamble in their mind and they are evasive as to the truth because Satan is always in there trying his best to bring into captivity those thoughts to his control. And to have the body and get control of the body for frolic. And he's always in the realm of human reasoning, or education, to reason, or bring in the stand of knowledge and the strength of knowledge to overthrow reasoning and understanding that's in God, that he might overthrow and take control of the soul. For, for him to be empowered and for him to be able to control the body he has to have control of the breath of life and the life that is in your bloodstream. And that is why he's referred to as the red dragon. Because in this, as having control of the bloodstream it defines him in God's sight as the red dragon because God looks on the human body, calling it the creature, that which is made subject to vanity. Then He calls it the worm, which means the serpent, or the fallen one through Adam, or through the beast that once was a beast and was made to crawl on his belly. So, He calls the generation a generation of vipers, or serpents. That is to say, they are a generation of vipers because they are born of Adam and in Adam all die. And Adam, having given himself to the tree of knowledge became servant to tribute. And because of that all of His children are born unto death. And even though God, as we have said in the past, God had a program for Adam and that program was that Adam should be very God and that he should be the headship of the God family, to the extent that he was to be the son of God. And he was called the son of God until the illumination of that great wonderful Shekinah glory of God departed from him. And when it departed from him then he was nothing more than a mere beast that had been taken from the dust. And God said, From the dust thou art and to the dust thou shalt return. And so then, through Adam all find death. And through this Adam that God had intended to be a godship, this great Adam that was illuminated with God's own presence that had the ability to name all of the animals, or species of the earth, with his super ability. This same Adam to whom God gave a wife that was such a virgin and so beautiful and was so precious to him and a garden that was spotless. There was nothing there; not one speck of anything wrong, or disease or whatever. The same Adam that lost all of this because of turning to the tree of knowledge, today his children, or membership of body, continues on through the life that we're living right now and it goes through the travail and sorry and heartaches and woes and problems of a curse. Because it is cursed. God placed a curse on it because of the disobedience. Or, that is to say, the curse came because Adam withdrew from life and there was nothing to accept except the darkness once the light was gone. One time the light is taken away from you you have nothing but darkness. It is your choice. It is your sovereignty. It is not something God has done, it is something God has placed before you saying, And I have placed before you this day a blessing and a curse and you chose whatever you will. In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy He said to Israel, I place before you a blessing and a curse. If you will take the blessing I will make you the head of the nation. You will lend to many nations and you will not borrow. If you will not listen unto me Israel I will make you the tail and I will make you to have to borrow from all nations. Or from the nations just for your survival. Israel did not listen and Israel wound up the tail and since that time they have been trampled on. They've gone through the holocaust. They've had nothing but problems to show the fall of the first man Adam and then God has raised up here at the last the second man Adam which has to do with the American people, or that is to say, the Christian people. He hath raised up the second man Adam to show the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and to show what Adam missed. And to show that in this that Adam, having missed all of these beautiful things, now He said, I will restore, saith the Lord, that which the canker worm has gotten and that which the caterpillar has gotten and that which the locust has consumed. Those years I will restore, saith the Lord. And that is to say, I will restore all of this that the intellectuals and the brilliance of the world has literally messed up and torn down and stolen and ravished. I will restore it because they are a worm in my sight. Thou worm Jacob, He said. Where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever and the worm that had climbed up into the upper lintel. That is to say, that has gotten into grace by the fact that God has given the rain on the tare as well as the wheat, allowing the human body to go into the presence of God to the extent that as long as the blood is on the Seat of Mercy that there is a grace that comes from God that not only a rain that is poured out of God's Spirit upon the tare, or wheat, but upon the tare that the tare has a benefit of life as long as the wheat is present in this world. And to keep the wheat alive God has to keep the tare alive. And it is not because He favors the tare, nor is He nourishing the tare, nor is it, as it's said in the world, that God loves everybody and so then God just wants to bless everybody. It isn't that way at all. God is angry with the wicked every day, though it's not His will that the wicked should perish. All should come to repentance and have everlasting life for indeed God is love. But God is angry with the wicked everyday. And God said, I will pursue the wicked until they perish from off the face of the earth for the wicked is like troubled water that are always casting their mire up upon the bank and there is no peace to the wicked at all. They are wandering stars for whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. They are those that are speaking great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantages and they are promising liberty to those that are without when they, themselves, are the creatures of bondage. For the Bible said, of that which you have been overcome by the same are you in bondage to it. So then, that means that God has looked down upon us, brought a second man Adam and a replacement. And He is now raising up a membership to where you and I can have this wonderful thing that Adam lost and restore this wonderful fellowship of God that was taken away from Adam because he turned to the tree of knowledge and the tree of reasoning. So I say again, this resistance is within a man and there is no good thing within the flesh for to will is present but how to perform that which is good, Paul said, I cannot find. So then, that means that that resistance is within the flesh and the flesh must die because of sin. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. And, you know, we see the wrestling between the two Adams, though it's hard for us to conceive of the fact that one part of us is wretched and one part of us is good when we're born again. It's hard for us to get a hold of that but nevertheless there is a wrestling between the two Adams and one of those Adams, as we see, is a quickening spirit that actually entered into a blood cell and came to a virgin womb and that wonderful Christ was the second man Adam, the quickening Spirit, the mighty Holy Ghost Himself, the very Shekinah image that was Adam was illuminated with in the garden before that image ever departed. It was the image in which Adam was made. It was what Adam emanated from and it was the very nature of Adam until that nature departed from him, or he lost his image. You know, an image conforms from a nature. And when he lost his nature of God, or his image of God, he fell to the depraved image of the beast. And today he is in the image of the beast. He has the nature of the beast and it is nature. It is his nature to conform to the way of the beast and everyone that does not come through the route of the death of Calvary and to the new birth, as to being born again of the water and of the Spirit then they are beast. You know, in our life we think of it as to one fashion when God has it another way all together. We think, Well, you know, here we are and we're great and mighty people and we're loved in the sight of God and we just go along and everything is just rosy and everything is just fine. And as long as we get along like this and be moral everything is going to be good and God loves us. And as long as we don't do nothing wrong then God is going to take us into heaven. Folks, that's exactly the perverted way of looking at it. It's just exactly in the reverse. You are born as a bastard child, you are born into the world in perversion. You are dead in trespasses and sin while you live. You are the rejected image of God. You are put out of the presence of God, out of the garden and you are not in the presence of God anymore. You are wandering in darkness here and the God of heaven has sent you a minister to give you light and sent you the Word of the Lord that he might catch your attention and pull you out of the world of darkness and away from the creatures of darkness, for to be in the world is intellectual darkness and you're caught in the powers of the darkness and Satan, the ruler of the darkness, which means ruler of education and intellectual reasoning is out there ruling the world with his badge and gun and force. God is the God of understanding and light. God is the God that rules by love. God is the one that leads through gentleness and patience, long-suffering, and tenderness and kindness. God is the God that is wooing you and calling you and asking you to come out of the darkness and come out of the world and make a change and go by the way of Calvary and kill out the bodily image that He hath rejected of the beast and to be restored through the new birth, as to the resurrection of Jesus Christ that it might not be you living but Christ living that you might be bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh and that you might have this wonderful blessing of God in your life and be a child of God and not go into the tribulation period to be the beast. He doesn't want you to be the beast but when you come from Adam, as to your first birth and you don't come by the way of Calvary to be born again then you automatically are the beast. It's not a matter of whether you're going to become the beast and take the mark, you automatically are the beast. You are born of the beast. You come through the beast. Your fall is the beast and you are in the image of the beast and there is no way to escape it. You're under the old computerize system of the world and it will soon be that they will tag you accordingly and only those that are born again, that have come through Christ, will be able to escape that of the beast. Satan is the god of this world. He controls this world and you are under the auspices of this world. So, in your intellectual you are dead. To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. This means that they that are born of Adam in Adam all die. They that are born of Christ in Christ all are made alive. Sin, death by one man, the first man Adam. And life and peace comes by the second man Adam. Even the quickening spirit. So we see the wrestling within the two Adams and we see the spiritual Adam as he enters into the cell of the womb and we see him then take on a bodily image of this other man Adam to show the first man Adam as to what would be the second to us. But the first, in that he takes on the image that's liken to you and the image that's liken unto me in our first birth. And inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, the Bible said He partook of the same. And yet the key word is that he did not partake of all, in that He did not partake of the blood but rather of the bone and of the flesh. (Begin side two.) So then, he took on the image and that image being one man Adam and the spirit being another man Adam, it caused a battle between these two. And from the manger all the way through the life of Christ Jesus He battle the body and He fought the body, and He fought the human senses and He conquered the body and He conquered the human senses. And though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things He suffered, even the death at Calvary, and thus being made perfect He became the author and finisher of our salvation. He learned obedience by the things He suffered that He might be my example. And so then, He battled the body. He battled His appetites of the body. He battled the human senses of the body. He battled everything that He heard in these human senses, as to all that was around Him that enticed Him and pressured Him and lured Him. He battled this, He fought this, He overcame this for you and for me. And, you know, the beauty of this is that what He did He did it not for Himself, but He did it for me. He did it for you. It was God's masterpiece. He was God's masterpiece. When Peter spoke concerning the Christ he said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And He said, Peter, flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee but My Father, which is in Heaven. That is, This is a revelation, Peter, that you are able to see beyond this fleshly veil and see that I am the Christ. And He said, as the voice of God spoke, said, And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, said, But upon this rock, speaking of Jesus. Though the Catholic Church misunderstood that to think that God built the Church upon Peter and called Peter a rock; his name meaning little stone. But the Bible said, Who is a rock but our God and who is God but the Lord Jesus Christ. And so then He said, Upon this rock, Peter, I build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That is, Upon this Jesus I build My church. This is the Word made flesh. I found everything upon Him and He'll wade through the flames of hell and the hell that I've created for the devil and his angels with its burning fury will not be able to stand against this man. He will pray and sweat blood but it won't move Him. They'll put nails in His hands and thorns in His head but He's a rock. He won't be moved. Upon this rock; He'll not flinch. Upon this rock I build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now. That was you and I. That was the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the church. When Jesus said put up this battle and this struggle, as the Christ, inwardly against this outer image of contrariness as He battle and overcame the flesh, and overcame those things, having been tempted in every way. Whereas, we're tempted and yet without sin. The Bible said, being our example we should follow in His steps in whose mouth was no guile. There was not any guile found within Him. This same Jesus was the finished product of the Masterpiece and when God had completely processed Jesus He said, Now, this is My Church. I have finished My Church. And when Christ Jesus hang at Calvary, having appeared in glory, finishing His course, taking the Church right on into glory into the presence of Moses and Elijah then stepping down out of glory to pay, as the natural body, the price for our sins and our wrongs that the bodily image might be smitten once and for all and done away with. The Bible said we esteem Him smitten of God bruised for our transgressions and the chastisement of our peace was upon Him by whose stripes we're healed. And so then, this same Jesus delivered for our offenses was raised again for our justification. And when we see this then we realize that this was the church. And the church is today at the right hand of God. It's finished. Jesus said, It is finished. I've finished the church. I've finished the work. I've finished the work of the body. The body, My body, the Church; I've finished IT. And this is righteousness forever. And once and for all thou art forever sanctified by the offering up of My body. And once and for all this great Church sets at the right hand of God as a finished product and all that you are doing is going through the schooling of the membership of the transformation of your mind until the day that you put on your beautiful garment, as to put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making no provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. So then, O Zion, the Bible said, thy light is come, to put on your beautiful garment. Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin for he that is baptized into Christ hath put on Christ. And so then, being baptized into the body by one spirit then we're all members of this great wonderful body of the work of that church which He hath finished to make glorious and holy and righteous, setting at His right hand to present this masterpiece at the time of the transformation, or change, at the end of the church ages when the transfiguration of the body comes. If the casting away of the Jews be the reconciling of the world, what will the receiving of the Jews be but life from the dead. So then, we can see that God has wrought a great masterpiece and the struggle between these twins, as the inner Christ and the outer Jesus, the battle of the heavenlies there at Calvary, hanging between heaven and earth, the great battle, that of the infiltration of the flesh was cast out. And that of the weakness of the woman was overcome and God did not blame the body with it because Jesus was a virgin. He was holy. He was godly. He was pure. Adam was not in the transgression. It's very evident that him being the feminine side of it that God showed the innocency of the woman, that the body belong to the spirit and that it had been taken and stolen away, in that great is the mystery of godliness, we see this in the mystery, that it had been stolen away and that by the villain of Lucifer, a fallen angelic power that had seen the advantage of the body and come down leaving his own estate to interfere with the estate of man seeing how beautiful it was and how luscious everything was to the appetites, entered into the body, stole the body, took the body away from God and God's purposes and has moved and motivated the body to its own course of life and its own way of doing things to a lustful desire and a depraved act of life. So then, we see that God intended that He, Himself, should live in the body and furbish and refurbish with the abundance of life. Jesus said I've come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundant, which means filled up and overflowing. So then, God wants us to have the life filled up and overflowing. He wants you to have the very best in the way of prosperity and the way of health and the way of happiness. And there is not one spot, there is not one blemish. There is not one alteration. There is not one change through the years. Not even as much as a hairline change. You know, one of the great mistakes people make in their observation of people's lives and things, they judge situations and they think, Well, I don't know, the Word of God, I thought, was thus and thus and I thought the Word of God was so, so. But now I see, you know, this person, the problems. I just don't understand. But, see? That's because of their lack of understanding in God and their lack of faith in the Word and being acquainted with the Word of God. It doesn't matter what happens to the other man. It doesn't matter what happens to the other woman. It has nothing to do with God's Word, not as to a change or alteration. The Bible said, I will hasten to perform the things that have gone out of My mouth. I will watch over My Word to perform it. It will not return to me void, but will accomplish that which I please and prosper that whereunto I have sent it. So then, it has nothing to do with the Word. The Word is right down to the very hairline. It's never altered. It's never changed. It's perfect. It's the healing, saving salvation of God. It's what created all people. All things emanated from the Word. And so then, there is never a change. There is never an alteration to any generation. It's the same to a thousand generations and when you judge people and situations and begin to alter God's Word and to think, Well, maybe God's Word isn't effective and maybe IT didn't work exactly like you thought. And maybe there is something wrong just because you are in observation of somebody else's life because of their shortcomings, or their failures, or their lack of faith or their utilization of their ability in Christ. See? You're not very wise to do that. God gave you a promise and all of His promises are yea and amen. Whatever He has said it is so; one hundred percent so. Never any changes or alterations. So then, we can rest with an assurance that God is yea and amen. All of His promises. Well, when we see the wrestling of these two people, these two twins, then we see that the inner twin it finally won out. So we see that even though the first born seems to have won out. And it appears that from the educational side of life, and from the tangible sources of matter, the riches, it appears that the first born has taken the birthright and that everything belongs to the first born. But when you really consider it and realize that the world is in a perverted condition that the fall in the garden reversed things and that they that seemed to be somewhat in the preeminence really are in the reverse. And being the first born, they're not really the first born at all. They are that which is overpowered and they are that which is perverted and that which has come, but really that is not the first born. The real first born is he that was in the foreknowledge of God before the world ever was when God said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. And so then, it is very obvious that in the perversion Satan has taken advantage. But then, the Bible said the last shall be first and the first shall be last because God is going to convert that which has been perverted and bring it back to it's originality. And in doing so then it puts Jacob back in the lead. And after, as the Bible teaches, twenty-one years of being in travail and being pushed out of the father's homeland and leaving his inheritance, suddenly comes back across the Jordan to have his name changed from Jacob to Israel, which means a prince, and to become a great leader and to find his inheritance and Esau to learn that it was his, rather that his, as to Esau. So then, we see that in this God has done a great thing. He has brought the spiritual man in such a way that though he comes second in birth, yet it is said, And the elder shall serve the younger. And so then, we see that this wonderful Christ, the second man Adam that came after Adam, the first man, yet he came to be the preeminence and that which Adam lost in the Godship the second man Adam took. And today the second man Adam is God and not the God of the world as the first man Adam with his educational powers but He is the God of Heaven and of earth and He is the God of all eternity with His membership of children as sons and daughters, as His family, being the God of all eternity, in that God has made the second man Adam God to rule and reign forever with all the power and brilliance and riches and abundance of life. So we see in the beauty of what the Lord has expressed through Himself the church in its completion and Christ wrestling with the body won out over the body and the infiltration was gone of that of the angelic infiltration of Lucifer which had infiltrated the body. Jesus becoming sin that He might be that sinful image of the first man Adam, the fallen, and God overpowering Satan, or death, pushing it out of that body, purging that body, putting it through the grave and putting it through the fire, resurrecting it in the new form and bringing it back to its originality as the virgin that he was before her depraved fall. And so then, when God raised the body up he set it at His right hand as a virgin and today the church is a virgin. She is pure; without spot and without wrinkle and without blemish. She is very bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. She has never been guilty of any wrong. There is not anything charged to her. All of that is gone and washed up with Calvary. So we see that no one can lay anything to the charge of God's elect. He has purified our hearts by faith and made us perfect and He hath sealed us in as His virgin and He hath made us His own body and we are the very church itself, without spot, without wrinkle, and without blemish. So we see that Christ has overcome the body for our sake. The infiltration has been put out of the body. The body has been purged. And now the body has been brought back to be one with the Spirit and it's no longer a matter of twins. It's no longer a matter of the body and the spirit being adverse one with another, or warring one with another in a continual warfare. It is that the body has married the spirit. The spirit has married the body and now it's bride and husband. Or it is one and it is the union of just one. That is, a man and his wife. The Bible said, And this is the mystery concerning the church and Christ's body, that a man and his wife shall no longer be twain but shall be one flesh. And so then, now then Christ's Spirit has married this body and this body has become one with the Spirit. And now we are now with the Kingdom of God and we're interwoven with Christ and now our body is to be changed into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Being the purchased possession it's already at the right hand of the Father to be presented as a spotless garment in that day. So then, we can see that by this God has finished the church, wrought the work of the church, done a perfect work with the church and the church has been perfected all by His work and all He asks us to do is believe in His finished work. Believe in His finished work in our behalf, and we truthfully, from our heart, believe that is faith. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Confession unto salvation, which means deliverance, is made with the lips. And when we truthfully believe from our heart it translates our spirit into a oneness with His spirit. It transformates our mind into a oneness with His mind and it transfigures, as an ultimatum at the end, our body, into his wonderful, beautiful, Celestial body. So, this means that death is conquered. He hath abolished death in His flesh, brought to light immortality and now we have a chance to by-pass the grave, by-pass the casket. We have a chance to go by the way of translation, in that death is God's enemy, and God has completely abolished and done away with it. Well, let's stand together. There's a lot of things I'd like to say to you but I know that you've got a lot of things that you'd like to do so I want to give you plenty of time this morning to do them. These few little things by the way of making you stop and think and to realize what a great salvation this is and what a great privilege it is to say, I have not lost my soul. I still have opportunity. I still have my soul. This means everything. I'd like to welcome you here this morning. If this is your first time here I want you to know that you're certainly welcome to be here with us and we feel it a real treat to have you here. The Lord will bless you and if you don't have a church home we invite you to come and be a part of our enthusiasm and share our zeal for Christ. World evangelism; Little Bethlehem the home of the soul, trying to do whatever we can in the behalf of Christ knowing that whatever we bid Godspeed we're partakers even of these benefits. So then, you're welcome to come and labor with us if you will, strengthen our hands in something that will prove to be an eternal benefit to you and certainly a blessing to us. Well, let's sing a little chorus together. (Singing) Can you sing that with me? (Singing) The altars are open. If you'd like to come to the altars you're welcome to come. Always the altars are open. Sometimes the people want a refreshing from the Lord, want to renew their vows to the Lord, so we always leave the altars open. (Singing) Let's just lift our hands up together, close our eyes. I say this so often, the Bible says examine yourselves and see if you be in the faith. In the later times, the Bible says, perilous times shall come and men shall be lovers of self more than lovers of God. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. They did this until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the door was closed and the great flood came. And the Bible said, Examine yourselves and see if you be in the faith for many shall depart from the Word, giving heed to seducing spirit and doctrines of devils, having their conscience seared with a hot iron and forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meat and these other things that God has given for the pleasure of mankind. Them that believing know the truth. So then, in the hour that we're living in we're trying our very best in our own little way to bring the true indoctrination of the wonderful mysteries of Christ, the wonderful revelation of the Son of God that God has so graciously given unto us here at Little Bethlehem. We're trying to share what we can with others and get them to share with us whatever they can and we're trying to compile these together that we might grow into the full measure of the full stature to the perfect reward of Christ Jesus for the benefits and abundance of life belongs to you. The Word meaning filled up and overflowing. The Lord wants you to have life in its fullness. He wants you to have an abundance of life, an abundance of health and an abundance of happiness. And He wants your faith to be so that you can enjoy these wonderful things. So then, keep your eyes on the Word. Keep your mind on the Word. Believe that it's yea and amen. Grow in the grace and knowledge. Have a hungering and a thirsting after the wonderful things of God and don't let anything take your soul. Don't let anything take your vision away from you. Remember God loves you. He gives you every good and perfect gift. Every good and perfect gift comes down from God. So then, these things, love the Lord with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your strength. And love one another. This way love is of God and you know that you have passed from death unto life because love is as strong as death. While we sing this little chorus together, I Will Praise Him, let's lift our hands up, close our eyes and just praise the Lord and love the Lord in adoration from our heart. God is a spirit and they that worship God must worship God in spirit and in truth for God is seeking such to worship Him. (Singing) Sing that with me. (Singing) Sing it again. (Singing)

By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.

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

Holiness Unto The Lord