Are You Really A Christian by Herbert W. Armstrong

Are You Really A Christian?

Sermon Date: July 9, 1983

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Brethren, I think there is one thing I think we need to be very especially concerned about, now we are at the very end time. There's only a very short time now before the Great Tribulation, and it's going to be a greater time of trouble than you've probably even imagined.

Are you really a Christian? Are you really a member of the church? You know it's by one Spirit we are all baptized into the one body, the church. And it's not many bodies, scattered, all believing something different. There is only one church — that is one Church of God.

There are many churches, but they are churches of men. They are actually churches of Satan the Devil and there is a very great difference. And what is the difference between a Christian and someone who is not? Well generally a church member is supposed to be anyone who just joins the church. And there are so many churches, Satan has a great many.

But God says we are put into the church, not by joining, not baptized into it by water either, although water baptism is commanded. But by one Spirit we are baptized into the one body. Now you know, many don't understand that baptism — they call it of the Holy Spirit, and there's no such expression in the Bible.

In the Bible it speaks about being baptized by the Holy Spirit. You are baptized by the Spirit into the church. Now the word "baptize" means "immerse." It means "put into" and by one Spirit you are put into, or immersed into the church. Not by joining, not by water baptism, not by accepting an argument. Not by going forward at a Billy Graham service, just going up and he'll say a few words of prayer for you and give you a little piece of literature, as he says. And you can take it home with you.

I wonder if you really understand what is the difference and what the Holy Spirit means into one's life? Are you still just the same or is there a difference? What is that difference? In what way are you different? I want you to notice in Romans the eighth chapter, verse seven.

Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind...

And that's the natural mind you are born with. And that is... well, specifically if you would run this down, it is not speaking with exactly the mind you are born with, or the mind that Adam was created with. It is the mind that Satan has made a natural mind to you.

Now we speak of nature. Nature is that which comes naturally. We in the church become partakers of God's nature. We receive God's nature, we weren't born with it, that's something we receive and we take on until it becomes natural. Until it becomes natural to have a nature like God. Now God has a nature and that's the thing... it's the way that just comes naturally to Him.

The carnal mind is, in some translations, translated as the mind that is on materialism and material things. It is the mind that Satan has gotten into and changed, at least in its attitude. But "the carnal mind is enmity against God." (Romans 8:7) Now that word "enmity" we don't use very much any more. Remember the King James Translation was translated back 1611 A.D. and that's about three hundred and fifty years ago. In today's language we would say "hostile"

The natural mind, as Satan has influenced that mind to become SELFISH, and materialized and thinking of material things, and material acquisitions, and wanting to have material things, to get material things. It is HOSTILE against, against God, and "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

Romans 8:9 "But" [verse nine: Now see if you are a Christian] "you are not in the flesh"[that is having fleshly desires, and your mind on the things of the FLESH, as some translations will give verse seven.] "…you are not in the flesh but in the SPIRIT [that is not fleshly minded but spiritually MINDED] "…IF so be that the Spirit of God dwell IN you".

Now what difference does that make in your life? How do you know whether the Spirit of God is dwelling in you or not? Some people say the way you know is you speak in tongues. Now, if you notice, they get the tongue speaking, and I often thought that some of these days I want to just give a sermon on that. They get it from the second chapter of Acts on the day of Pentecost. And if you will go back and read that again carefully, (I'm not going to go into it right now) you will notice that there were a hundred and twenty there receiving the Holy Spirit.

Now there were at least three thousand and probably more than three thousand there because there were three thousand that were baptized that day after Peter's sermon. Now the Holy Spirit came that day for the first time. I'm going to show you how God had... now I've shown you so many times how God had closed up the Holy Spirit way back in the days of Adam. That was four thousand years earlier — six thousand years ago now.

And for the first time now the Holy Spirit began to be poured out upon a certain group of people, and it came first on the one hundred and twenty. Who... That is they were a hundred and twenty altogether, including the twelve apostles. But the Holy Spirit came to enter into them.

Now, if you will notice, they heard the Holy Spirit coming. It came with a great noise, the sound like a rushing mighty wind. I don't know whether you were ever in a real tornado, or a cyclone, back in the middle-West somewhere, but a RUSHING wind makes a terrific noise. Now that's something that they could HEAR!

And then they SAW the Spirit coming in the form of flaming tongues, just like a tongue, but like flames of fire, and sitting on the head of each one of them. It was something they could SEE! Now a modern Pentecostal meeting you don't see anything like that. They don't hear anything except a lot of "Praise you Jesus" and "glory hallelujahs" coming out of the voices of people that are on a sort of emotional jag, or drunk.

And then, if you go a little further, they spoke with tongues alright, but read what kind of tongues it was. Go back and read it — second chapter of the book of Acts. And of the three thousand others there, every man there, coming from different countries, and it goes on and mentions many of the countries, heard THEM (the hundred and twenty) speaking in HIS language, and he could understand every word they said. They didn't need any interpreter.

Now modern tongues people think they have to have an interpreter. You know up in Salem, Oregon in some meetings we were holding back in 1933, and I refused to participate any further in those meetings, but there would always be different ones who would get up and have to jabber on in what they called "tongues." And it was... they had noticed that without an interpreter you should keep quiet and never speak. And that's in the fourteenth chapter of first Corinthians.

So they had a man there who would always interpret. So he had his interpretation all memorized. One person would speak in one kind of jabber and say, "oh-wila-ab-wila-ehwigle-ah," or something like that. I don't think you know what I said, because I didn't say anything. But he'd get up and interpret the same thing, he had it memorized.

Then at another time another person would get up and another different kind of so-called tongue, but he had the same interpretation alright. Now I think those poor souls really believed it was the truth, I don't know, they were deceived. Maybe they honestly believed that was the truth.

But on the day of Pentecost, the Medes who were there heard them speak the language of the Medes — the Median language. The Italians there heard them speak the Italian language. The Parthians there heard them speak the Parthian language — the whole hundred and twenty! Now there has never since been that kind of tongues speaking. And tongues merely means languages anyway. It is just an old English word for languages.

They spoke in different languages so that each man, from each different country, understood what they were speaking. You never hear that in the modern so-called tongues movement. Now the one chapter on the whole thing of course is first Corinthians fourteen, and there you will notice that Paul said, "I speak with languages more than you all" (tongues, or languages) but he said, "I would rather speak five words with understanding, that people could understand and get some kind of meaning out of, than ten thousand words in these tongues."

That's the value that the Apostle Paul put on it, and he absolutely forbad people to speak in any kind of tongue, unless there was someone there that understood that language and could translate it, so everyone would understand it. Now often I speak in foreign countries. I have spoken in Japan, I have spoken in Thailand and other countries like that, and in China. And I would have an interpreter, because those people wouldn't understand what I say, so I say it and he interprets it.

And often we have a man who can talk right along just as fast as I do and interpret it with me. Sometimes he can't and I have to say a short sentence and stop, and then he repeats that sentence then I take another short sentence and he has to take a little more, and on we go. It takes twice as long that way, but at least people understand what is being said, and understanding is the main thing.

Now, notice this;

Romans 8:9 "... you are not in the flesh but in the spirit IF so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit" [of God]"of Christ," [here it says Christ] "he is none of his." [None of Christ's]

If the Holy Spirit is not DWELLING in you, you are not a Christian. Now you go a little further and over here in, let's see, the fourteenth verse, it says;

Romans 8:14 ...as many as are LED by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

The Holy Spirit opens your mind to comprehend and understand the WORD of God, and the WORD of God is God's INSTRUCTIONS, God's teaching, God's message to you. And the Holy Spirit is the interpreter really, that opens your mind.

In other words, the Bible is a coded book, and, like Hitler had a coded machine, and you had... he would put a message he was sending to one of his field Generals, out in another front. The machine would scramble it all up and uncode it so it didn't make any sense, and the only way you could get anything out of it, that same machine could recode it right back again.

So each General had a similar machine with him. He would put it on his machine and he could understand it. You know the British finally were able to get most of the parts of such a machine and complete it and put it together, and they began to get all of the German secret messages. And they knew just where the Germans were expecting the Channel invasion to strike, so they just let them amass all of their forces there, and then the allies proceeded to strike in a place a distance that the Germans couldn't get to them. So the landing was a success.

Well the Bible is a coded book, and the most highly educated people in the world CANNOT understand it. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man, the things that God has PREPARED for those that love Him." That's in first Corinthians the second chapter. "But GOD has revealed them unto us by [the Holy] Spirit..." which is in us.

Now did the Holy Spirit reveal? Oh no. The Holy Spirit is not the teacher or the revealer. GOD is the teacher and God teaches through His Word, who is Christ, and Christ is the Word in person and the Bible is the same identical Word in WRITING. So GOD reveals to us in the Bible, but through His Holy Spirit. We have to have the Holy Spirit in us. That is the machine that unscrambles it and puts it back together again so we can understand it.

So one of the things that the Holy Spirit will do in you, it will open your mind to understand God's directions as to how you should live. The whole thing is about sin and sin is the transgression of God's law — it's a way of life. The Bible explains how, and how we should live, and then, as many as are LED by the Holy Spirit — that means the Holy Spirit will open your mind to understand. But you're the one that has to do it.

Now the Holy Spirit will lead but it will not get a hold of you and yank you and PULL you. You have to follow on your own power. Now sometimes you don't have enough power, maybe you are a little weak. Well that's where faith comes in — you have faith and God will help you. And God will give you extra power. And that will come by the Holy Spirit too. But the Holy Spirit won't pull you, it will give you power if you call out for it and if you need it.

Now then, let's carry on a little further here. Verse eleven;

Romans 8:11 "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken" [that is make immortal — turn from human into God] "your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you."

That is HOW we are to be MADE into GOD — from human to GOD — is through the Holy Spirit. But we need to know more about God's Holy Spirit, and what it is, and how REAL it is. In the first place, people don't realize how REAL God is. And they certainly don't realize how real His Holy Spirit is. How important is this to understand? It's the most important thing in your life to understand. The most important thing in all of the universe brethren is God's purpose.

Now if you've read my little booklet, which is written many years ago, I think I should go over it now and expand it and bring it up to date, and re-write it. 'The Seven Laws of Success.' You'll find that the first law of success in life is having the right goal. It's not only a goal, it's the right goal. Now there are many people that do have a goal, but it's the wrong goal and it leads into the wrong place. Other people — most people, have no goal whatsoever. They're just going nowhere and they're never going to arrive anywhere either. They will never be a success.

But God has a goal. And that goal is His purpose. The most important thing to God, and the most important thing to man, is to understand GOD'S PURPOSE! That's God's goal, and what He is existing and living for. Now we read right here in Romans eight, same chapter, and beginning with verse twenty-eight:

Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good [period. Now we had a minister in one of our larger cities teaching that, and he was teaching that whatever you do, and any evil you do, go ahead and sin, it'll work together for good. That isn't what it says; "all things work together for good] "to them that love God,"

And you can't love God without His Spirit in you because you don't have the kind of love to love God. Really, loving God is His Spirit in you returning back to Him in love. "All things work together for good to them that love God] to them who are the called...

There again is that word "called." It doesn't say "to them who volunteered", it doesn't say "to them who heard an evangelistic meeting and went up to the altar and went forward to let the preacher pray a short prayer for you and hand you a piece of literature", but "to them that are the called (that God has called and chosen) "according to his purpose."

Now, He has CALLED YOU according to His PURPOSE. In other words, it has been His purpose to call you. Now that's pretty important to GOD! If you are one He has called, that's something that is very important to Him. Now read the next verse.

Romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow," [and that means if He has called you, if you put all of this in the first chapter of Ephesians where he talks about predestination, put it together, you find that God foreknew you. "Whom he did foreknow"] "…he also did predestinate" [what, to be saved or to be lost, maybe predestinated to be lost? No, it doesn't say that at all. "He did predestinate"] "…to be conformed to the image of his Son..."

That's what you were predestinated for, and that means to be saved, that means to receive His Spirit; that means to be made one of Christ's brothers. He calls you a brother. That means to make you a son of God until you become BORN of God, and you become just as much God as He is. My sons born to me were just as much human as I am. So notice it now, just take word by word, every little phrase of the sentence even.

Romans 8:29 "For whom he did foreknow", [He foreknew those He called] "he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son," [who is Christ] "that he" [Christ] "might be the firstborn[of] many brethren."

Now how was Christ born? And He was the firstborn that means you'll be born like He was. He was just the first one of the brethren to be born. You're one of those brethren if the Spirit of God is dwelling in you. Now to understand that I have to go back to the first chapter of Romans (didn't I put a marker in there for the first chapter of Romans? Anyway here we are.) VAnd I want you to notice how Christ became a Son of God. Verse three, chapter one — Romans one, right at the beginning of the book of Romans; Concerning... Break in the middle of a sentence:

Romans 1:3-4 "Concerning his Son" [it's talking about God, concerning God's Son] "Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; (4) And declared to be the Son of God " [then it puts in some other words] "with power, according to the spirit of holiness," [then how is he made the Spirit of God - or made the Son?] "by the resurrection from the dead:"

Now take out the modifying clauses and just leave the sentence as it is. The sentence without it's modifying clauses thrown in is this:

"Christ our Lord... declared to be a Son of God... by the resurrection from the dead."

Now He was then BORN a Son of God by a resurrection from the DEAD! He was the "FIRSTBORN of many brethren." Brethren...many of the brethren are right here in front of me this afternoon. And I hope that means all of you. And He was the firstborn. We haven't been born yet. Of course I know now, there are some that think they are already born. Most Protestant preachers think they are, and Jerry Falwell included, already born again Christians. They don't have any understanding what it is to be born again at all, because there's no really understanding of the Bible.

Now, it goes on to show what we will be ultimately, and I'm not going to take time to go through that this afternoon. If I would go back a few verses it would show you, and connect that up with the second chapter of Hebrews, that ultimately, after we are born of God, and made very God, and after the Millennium here on earth, ultimately we are going to restore and renew the entire Universe.

Not only this earth but many other places, but this earth will become the Capital of the whole Universe. And God the Father will be dwelling here at that time. Who created the Universe and the Earth? And who created man and put us here on the Earth. In Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And then again in verse twenty-six:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let US [not me, let US] make man in our image...

Now Moses wrote that in the Hebrew language. "In the beginning God" The English word "God" is translated from the word Moses wrote "Elohim" and Elohim is the plural word that means more than one. Yes, more than one God. And it was God who said to the Word, "Let Us make man in our image [in verse twenty-six] after our likeness."

But now, if you want to understand how there is more than one God, and yet you read in the Bible there is only one God. Well you have to turn then to John, in the New Testament. Again I say the Bible is not only is a coded book, it is like a jigsaw puzzle; many little pieces and they are not put together in exact sequence in the Bible. You have to put part of it here with part of it somewhere else and get the pieces put properly together, and then one explains the other. John one verses one to four;

John 1:1" In the beginning [again] was the WORD" [Now who was the Word? In verse fourteen it says; "The Word [became]" flesh, and dwelt among us" and became Jesus Christ. So "in the beginning was the Word" before He was born as Jesus Christ] "and the Word was with God" [that's another person, now you have two persons] "and the Word was God."

The Word is God and God is God, but there are two persons.

John 1:2-3 "The same was in the beginning with God." [and] (3)"All things were made by him;" [the Word]

And in Ephesians 3:9 you read how God "created all things by Jesus Christ." He's the Word who spoke. But Jesus said when He was on the earth, that He spoke only what the Father told Him to speak. So God is the one who said, "Do It." God told Him what to speak, how to speak. Jesus spoke; the Holy Spirit is the POWER that leaped to do it when Jesus spoke. But Jesus said, "I and my Father are one" and they are one God.

Now you can have, in a certain place, was Sam, and Sam was with Smith, and Sam was Smith. Well you see Sam, maybe he was Smith's son or Smith's father, but they are one family, both the same family. And God is one in the sense of one family. And the church is one, one family but many, many members.

Now in verse - see I believe verse four back there in John one, I'm not going to turn to it right now: "In him [the Word] was life." So He lived, and He lived with the Father, and God the Father lived. They both lived. Now how did they live? Well they lived a certain kind... today there is a slang word about life-style. Maybe you could call that their life-style, well usually life-style means a certain out-and-out fashion, or way out fashion of today.

It's their way of life, and their way of living was love. The Father loved the Word and when He became Jesus and was baptized, the Father said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." He loved the Son. Jesus loved the Father and obeyed the Father. And their way of life then, was one of cooperation, love and all of that.

Again, as I have said so many times, two can't walk together except they be agreed, and two can't walk together either, except one is boss. One is the leader. The Father was the boss and it's made plain all the way through the Bible. Jesus said, "My Father is greater than I, my Father that sent me." The one who sent Him was greater than the one that was sent. "And I have said only what my Father commanded me to say." He shows that the Father was at the head of the family..

Now, if they lived, they had to be doing something. What did they do? Well they were Creators, and to create they first had to design, and plan, and think what they were going to create and what form and shape it would take, and what it would do.

Now they first created angels, and in Ezekiel twenty-eight we read something. I'm going to go over a few of these scriptures a little bit again because I want them to be fresh in your mind - although we've gone over them many, many times. But in Ezekiel twenty-eight is the Archangel, and there are only three of them mentioned. They were ordinary angels, then there were Seraphs, and there were Cherubs. Now the Cherubs were the highest of all in power and rank and in superiority, and speaking of this super-angel, God said of him in Ezekiel twenty-eight, fourteen;

Ezekiel 28:14 Thou are the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so:

Hebrews, let's see, 8:5 explains where it shows the throne of God pictured on earth as Moses was given a pattern to picture, that on the throne of God were two Cherubs, one on each side, it's wings spreading over the throne until the wings touched each other, spreading out over the throne of God. So he was one of those. Then in verse fifteen;

Ezekiel 28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created [he was not born, he was a created being] till iniquity was found in thee.

Iniquity is lawlessness. Now, verse seventeen:

Ezekiel 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness:

He was so beautiful, so bright, that it was brilliant. His brilliance was dazzlingly beautiful, and it went to his head, and vanity seized him. And vanity — then he glorified himself. Then he wanted to be first above all. He wanted to be above God. Then he wanted to be the boss instead of God. He wanted to own and have everything. He wanted to take away from God.

He began to oppose God. He began to want to destroy what God had done. He wanted to begin to grab and use what he did, and what he didn't like he wanted to destroy. And it all started from that vanity. Now again, we read of him next in Isaiah fourteen. I really should have read that first perhaps. But his name was Lucifer. Here it speaks of him, Isaiah fourteen beginning with verse twelve:

Isaiah 14:12 "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning" [or morning star. Light bringer is the meaning of the name Lucifer] "how art thou [thrown] down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations".[or, thou who didst weaken the nations thrown down to the ground]

Isaiah 14:13 "...thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven" [so he was below heaven, he was on earth] "I will exalt MY THRONE."

So God had set him on a THRONE on the earth and at that time he was PERFECT in all of his WAYS! He had been at the very throne of God IN HEAVEN. He knew God's GOVERNMENT!

Now God's government is based on law and a law is merely the code of rules of living, of how to live. And God's way of living is that of love and cooperation; of serving, helping, cooperating, doing good; construction, building up. Satan had turned to the other way, destruction.

Instead of loving, hating, competition, strife; taking away from others instead of giving and helping, just the very opposite. But now he says he had a throne. His throne was on the earth. "I will exalt my throne above the stars" or the angels of God. He was even going to be the most High. He said, verse fourteen;

Isaiah 14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be [it says here] like the most High.

I'm quite sure a right translation of that would be "I'll become the most High myself." That's what he wanted. He wanted to take God's throne away from Him.

As a result of all of that, and God placed angels on earth under him, and he with his cunning, deceived the angels into also becoming demons. He became Satan the devil, they became demons, hostile against God, just the opposite from God's way of love. And destruction came to the earth as a result of it.

Now in Psalms one hundred and four verse thirty, I would like to turn to that and read it, it's just one little verse, but I have read it many times, but I think you forget this. I want you to remember this.

Psalms one hundred and four verse thirty;

Psalms 104:30 "Thou [God] sendest forth thy Spirit" [that's God's Spirit] "they are created" [all of the things that are created it's been talking about here] "and thou renewest the face of the earth."

The whole face of the earth had come to the condition you read of in Genesis one and verse two, chaotic and confusion, waste and empty. In six days, as you read in Genesis one, "God sent forth His Spirit."

God told the Word what to do and the Word spoke and the Word said, "Let there be light." Darkness was all over the flooded surface of the earth. It was all water. There was no land. God said, "Let there be light." That was... Christ is the one of God that said that, because His Father told Him to, and light appeared. Then He had the dry land appear and so on.

Come down to verse twenty-six and that was God, it was not Christ, it was God the Father who said, "Let us make man in our image." It just says Elohim there, but you can tell which one of the Elohim said it, and there is no doubt about that. So He made man in his own image, male and female made he them.

But in Genesis two and verse seven, you will read that "God formed man of the dust of the ground." Now He formed angels out of spirit. What is God? John four, twenty-four says God is a Spirit. God is Spirit. Man though, is only dust, matter out of the ground. So man was given only a temporary, physical existence, a chemical, physical existence.

Yet God said, "Let us make man in our image" after our kind — after the God kind. And we learned, as I read to you in the beginning, that Jesus is the first-born in the God — a God being of many brethren. So it was God's purpose to have man, which He made out of the ground, finally become GOD!

How was that going to be?

Now he didn't have any life in him. He had a temporary existence as long as he was breathing air and as long as his heart was pumping blood, because the air is the breath of life. And "the blood is the life thereof" is another scripture in the Bible. And all the life that you have within you now, naturally, that you were born with, comes from the breath of air and the circulation of blood.

But God has life inherent. Spirit life doesn't have to have a heart; doesn't have to have any blood being pumped; doesn't have to breathe air; doesn't have to eat food - be fueled with food and water. But God placed life available before the man because He put him in the Garden of Eden and there were the two trees as I've said so many times. And one is the Tree of Life.

Now I wonder if you can understand what that meant. It meant life injected from God. The life of God injected into him. Now he didn't have it. All he had what life was injected through just chemical action of physical elements of the ground and you know there is great power even in matter. Look what the atom can do. Look at nuclear physics, and look what power there is. Even the power of electricity and of lightening, that's all material. It's material power.

But God offered him God's life, that God would put His OWN LIFE and beget it right into Adam, it must be the injection of divine GOD LIFE into Adam. Now that was one of the trees. That meant eternal life — the Tree of Life. But to have that he would also have to have the mind of God and the righteousness of God, the CHARACTER of God. Because what IS God??

Well He is composed of Spirit, but above all God is PERFECT, SPIRITUAL, RIGHTEOUS character. And He was going to build that kind of holy, righteous, spiritual character into the man, but the man had to make his own choice. He had to have something to do with it himself to become a God.

So the other tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now good and evil is not knowledge of how to build a house or a barn, or an automobile, or an airplane. That's just physical knowledge, and God made man with ability to acquire that kind of knowledge. He already had that, but in front of him was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now that's spiritual knowledge.

That is either doing what is good or what is evil, and that has to do with the relationships to your own Maker, and secondly, relationships to other people.

Now you see God had purposed — part of His purpose was that Adam and Eve were to have children and their children would have children, and finally there would be a lot of people on earth. And if there were going to be a lot of people, they had to live together just as God and the Word had lived together. And how were they going to live together?

Well God's way is God's law, and that is the foundation of His government. That is the LAW the GOVERNMENT that Lucifer rejected and he turned to the opposite way. Instead of obedience to God and the way of LOVE, he turned to the way of competition, strife, wanting to get and wanting to destroy.

Then Satan tempted Eve to turn to the way of taking the knowledge of good and evil, and he deceived her into thinking she was already an immortal soul that she had eternal life already which she didn't have. And of course he tempted her on the beauty of the thing. When she saw how good and how beautiful it was and "good for food" and desired to make one wise."

Now she had a mind and she thought that now she had ability to decide right from wrong. And that's a higher knowledge than just a knowledge like carpenter knowledge of building a house or a barn or something. That knowledge to deal with other spirit beings, because there is a spirit in man or we wouldn't have a mind in the first place.

So she took of the forbidden fruit, and gave to her husband and he did eat with her. And then, as a result of that, and I don't think I need to go back and read it again, but in the third chapter of Genesis, the first four verses, you find how Eve was tempted. Then Adam followed her, and then verses twenty-three and twenty-four: Because now, Adam had made his decision, Adam had REJECTED the LIFE of God which was offered to him, decided to just keep what physical life he had, and God said "You will surely die" if you do that.

Yes he had temporary life, but it was only temporary and he was going to die. And Adam chose that. And then he would decide for himself how to get along with God and how to get along with neighbor. That is the knowledge of right and wrong, or of good and evil.

Then God closed up the Tree of Life, which means God shut off the Holy Spirit, and not only from Adam, but from Adam's children. Now at that time a whole civilization began. That was the foundation of the earth — of the world I should say, not the earth. The foundation of the world was at that time … Adam could have had life, but he didn't. And so at that time, God decreed that the Holy Spirit would be shut off from man — or real life, eternal life, until Christ, the second Adam should come.

Now it was decreed at that time, as you will read in Revelation the thirteenth chapter that Christ, as the Lamb of God, would be slain to pay the penalty of sin. God said to Adam that it would be sin if he disobeyed and took of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and death was the penalty.

But God decreed at that time it was appointed for all men once to die but after that the judgment. (Hebrews 9:27) It was also decreed at that time Christ would come as a Lamb of God — that is Christ is the one that was the Word, who became Christ, that He would come and be born as Christ — that HE would die in the place of man who had already sinned. He would pay the PENALTY in man's stead, and once the penalty was paid, man could again be reconciled to God.

Now when Adam disobeyed God and took the wrong fruit, he CUT HIMSELF OFF FROM GOD. But God didn't cut Himself off from man necessarily, He just simply cut off the Holy Spirit from man. But man did cut himself off from God. Now God still talked to Adam's first son Cain when he was angry with Abel, God talked to him cautioning him to be careful. But Cain went ahead and killed his brother anyhow, and then he lied to God about it.

Noah walked with God. Enoch walked with God. Abraham did. God took Abraham's children and made a nation out of them and gave them His law, His way of life, but He didn't give them His Holy Spirit. And love is the fulfilling of the law and it's "the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit," according to Romans five, five. And God had not given ancient Israel that kind of love. They still were mortal and it was appointed that they should die, and then how could they have a judgment after that?

In first Corinthians fifteen, twenty-two you will read that "as in Adam ALL die" and because of Adam's sin EVERYBODY had to die. And everybody under a hundred and fifty years of age — there isn't anyone over that now that I know of on earth — HAS DIED! Everyone who has ever lived has already died, and everyone of us living will die, unless God prevents it someway in the future, in the way that He has never done it yet for any generation.

Now in due time Christ was going to come and as in Adam all die, in Christ they could all be alive in a JUDGMENT. And in that judgment they're going to be pronounced "guilty" and the death penalty will be on them. Then they're going to find out that Christ came and paid that death penalty in their place, and so they can still be released from it if they want to finally, at that time, turn to God's way and have life instead of the knowledge of good and evil. Then everyone ultimately is going to have to make his own decision, just like Adam did.

Well life was offered to Adam, that God life, life injected into him, but man chose death. One tree was death and the other was life. The Holy Spirit was closed to man until Christ, the second Adam, should come. Now finally four thousand years later, Jesus was born. Now why did Jesus come? In John ten and verse ten you will read, he says:

John 10:10 ...I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Now they didn't have life, Adam had rejected it and they were all cut off. Jesus came now that they might HAVE life and have it much more abundantly than they were getting it in their chemical existence.

But, there's one other thing and I want to read this because I want... I've said it so many times that I just want to read it because I want you to be very familiar with this. John six, forty-four. Because all Protestants think that God is trying to save the world, He wants, RIGHT NOW, NOW is the ONLY day of salvation they say. Many have gone out of this church who STILL BELIEVE that.

John 6:44 No man can come to me except [Jesus, except the Spirit, except] the Father [who had] sent me DRAW him.

God has to choose and draw those that are coming NOW. Now Joel had made a prophecy in Joel two (let me see) two, twenty-eight, that then the day would come when God would pour out His Spirit on ALL flesh. He closed it up at the time of Adam, but the time would come when God would open UP His Holy Spirit. But that time hadn't come yet.

Now Jesus was BORN BY the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the life of God injected into us. That life of God was injected into an ovum, in either the fallopian tube or the uterus, of His human mother Mary. And that imparted life to a human ovum, and it was not a male sperm cell, it was the Spirit of God. And so Jesus was born, the only begotten Son of God.

No other human had been begotten and born humanly like that. He's the only begotten Son of God so far as human birth is concerned. Now we can be begotten sons of God, but we were humanly begotten by a human father, but we're begotten for an eternal life by the Spirit of God.

Now thirty times or more, I read you thirty times recently here from this platform, in the New Testament where it says that the only ones that can come to Christ for salvation are those that God has called, or those that were chosen, or those that were, let's see, called or chosen or elected — the elect. Now what does all this mean?

It simply means this, that God was going to produce out of the ground, by form and shape, man formed and shaped like God, but with a temporary chemical physical life; Ultimately, by infusing HIS Spirit HIS LIFE, but also His mind; also His character, also His attitude of love, of cooperation, of giving, of concern for others just as much as concern for yourself. Selflessness instead of selfishness.

That God was going to make us into His own children into Gods, but it's a process and what He created was not finished yet. When a woman bakes a cake, she takes the cake out of the oven, but when she hasn't put the icing on it yet, it is still an unfinished cake. It's not finished till she puts the icing on. Now Adam was not even finished physically until God made a wife for him.

Then they two became one family. He put one human spirit in the man, but he was not SPIRITUALLY finished WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD, which is God's LIFE being injected into him. So he still was UNFINISHED! And mankind is unfinished all over. Now then, human beings then are an UNFINISHED piece of God's workmanship that God is working to produce His own kind, and reproduce Himself.

I don't know brethren whether this is real to you and whether you can see the MAGNITUDE of this and how GREAT it is. God looks like we, He thinks like we, only His thinking is so much more PERFECT than ours, that there is no comparison. His mind is perhaps a few thousand times greater than our minds in its capacity and what it can do.

And we are all an unfinished piece of God's workmanship. Notice that now in Job — in the fourteenth chapter of Job and verse fourteen, when Job asked this question.

Job 14:14-15 "If a man die, shall he live again? All the" [let's see, all the] "days of my appointed time will I wait, [until] my change come." [He's going to be changed. Then he says;] (15) "Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou will have a desire to the work of thine hands."

We are all an unfinished piece of God's workmanship. Now if we turn back to Isaiah sixty-four. Let's see, Isaiah sixty-four and verse eight:

Isaiah 64:8 "But now, O LORD, thou art our father;" [Now notice it, we become His children, now O Lord, thou art our father] "we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand."

We are His workmanship, an unfinished piece of His workmanship. We're a cake that doesn't have the icing put on yet. But in this case the icing will be by far the most important part anyway.

In the meantime what has happened to those that God did not call? Well I told you a while ago. They're not called now. They will live and die and they're having the experience of finding out that the way of Satan is wrong and they're unhappy. Their lives are unhappy, they're miserable, they are discontented and there is so much suffering, starvation, violence — anguish of every kind. Nothing is satisfying.

Ultimately God's time will call for EVERYONE to be called, but He is calling a few now.

Brethren why does He call a few of us first? Do you know that before you start a school... I wanted to start a school, a college, but before I could start I had to have teachers. If I bring a lot of students here and there is no-one to teach them, what kind of a school would that be?

If you take a bunch of six year old kids and say we're going to start you in the first grade, but you don't have any teacher there. And they come into the school room but there is no teacher, they aren't going to learn anything are they? First you have to have teachers, and you have to have some discipline, and the teacher has to also rule, or regulate, or administer certain rules or disciplines.

Judgment now is already on the church. It is not yet on the world. Now you will notice that in first Peter two, verses nine to; let me see, nine to eleven. No that's not what I wanted. No, first Peter four verse seventeen.

I Peter 4:17 "For the time is come" [already] "that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin with us" [that's why we're the first-fruits] "what shall [be] the end.. of [those that] obey not the gospel of God"?

Well their time of judgment will come later. Now then, the church today is only the first-fruits, but I want to show you what we are. Now that's first Peter two, verses nine to eleven that I turned to a while ago. But, here's what it says of us brethren. If we have God's Spirit, here's how different we are from the world.

I Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation...

You see we've been chosen, we've been called by God. We haven't volunteered, God has called us. In some way God put it in your mind to get interested and you wanted to know more. You wrote for literature. You began to study it. You began to look in your Bible. God began to speak to you through His own word, the Bible. You finally talked to one of our ministers and he counseled with you. He didn't try to talk you into becoming a Christian or anything, but when he saw that you were ready, he finally baptized you, and it's God's Spirit that puts you into the church. And so look what it has made you.

I Peter 2:9-11 "...[you] are a chosen generation," [different from the rest of the world] "a royal priesthood, an holy nation," [just like a nation, or a holy church] "a peculiar people," [different from the rest of the world] "that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you" [again we've been called, called you]"out of [the] darkness into his marvelous light: (10) Which in time past were not a people, but now are the people of God: Which had not obtained mercy," [not then] "but now have obtained mercy. (11) Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims" [in the earth, not part of this earth, part of this world, I mean; as strangers and pilgrims] "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." And the things that the world are doing.

We have had to come OUT of the world, to live SEPARATELY, a different kind of life, God's kind of life according to God's law. And God's law is merely the rules of that life, the way it must be lived.

Now I want to show you some important things. The main thing I want to say I haven't even got to yet, and time is almost up. So listen very carefully now. Adam took the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and there can be good in an ordinary human nature. Even Satan will allow a certain good, but Satan has his idea of what good is. It is good as long as it benefits you.

In other words, you can be good to the other guy, as long as you think it is going to pay you to be good to him. But all this is a selfish motive. Now I want to show you that. Turn to Job, back now to the first chapter of Job, in verses six to ten.

Job 1:6-7 "Now there was a [time] when the sons of God came to present themselves before the ETERNAL, and Satan came also among them. (7) And the LORD said unto Satan," [hast thou...where have you come from? And] "Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro [among] the earth, and from walking up and down in it."

By the way one comes out with an article against the idea that Satan gets to us and influences us by injecting certain attitudes of selfishness into human beings, even beginning in baby-hood. That he's the prince of the power of the air, and says that Satan is just one person at one time and he can only influence one person at a time. Poppycock!

And he depends on this. That he said, "going to and fro upon the earth." Satan is the prince of the power of the air and he exudes a spirit that permeates the air. I'm in ONE PLACE and my voice goes through the earth — through the air around the earth, wherever it goes on television. And on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, I will speak from here. They will be hearing it in New Zealand at that same moment, only it will be the next day there, but the same moment.

They'll be hearing it in England. They'll be hearing it in every feast site in Canada and the United States, but I'm only here, I am not at all those places. Satan is the prince of the power of the air. What I am saying is going to go through the AIR. So if you ever read any of that kind of thing, I just want you to understand.

"They came to present themselves to the LORD and Satan came also among them." The LORD asked Satan, "where have you been?" And then Satan answered the LORD and said, "from going to and fro upon the earth, from walking up and down on it." But when he broadcasts as the prince of the power of the air, it goes out and permeates the air all over the whole earth,

Job 1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Has thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, (a) perfect and upright man, one that fears God, and escheweth evil?

Now look at Satan's answer about what is good. And you see Satan's concept of what he considers is good right here.

Job 1:9 Then Satan answered... and said, Does Job fear God for [nothing]?

Is he good? Doesn't it pay him? He's not good because he's unselfish? Oh no, he's selfish.

Job 1:10-11 "Has no thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every [hand]? Thou has blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. (11) But [now here's what Satan argued] put forth [your] hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse [you]...

Then he won't love you any more. He only loves you because of what he gets from you. He loves you because it PAYS him. There's a SELFISH MOTIVE. BRETHREN THAT'S THE ONLY KIND OF LOVE THAT ANY CARNAL MINDED MAN CAN HAVE in this world. A MOTHER LOVES HER OWN CHILD and we say that mother-love is the finest example of human love, and perhaps it is. But that child is hers.

Does she have that same kind of love for every other child? You know, there was a mother, and another woman claimed her child and said, "No that's my child." And that was way back in the days of King Solomon, the wisest man that every lived. And they brought it before Solomon to decide who's child it was. Solomon said, "Well I'll tell you what we'll do." He called a man with a sword, he says, "I want you just to slice that child right in two, right down the middle. We'll give one half to one woman and the other half to the other woman."

And one woman fell down and begged and pleaded and says, "Don't do that, kill me and not the child but let her have the child rather than that." And the other woman smiled and said, "Well it's alright with me, sure, I'll take half." Solomon then knew who was the real mother. Human love is selfishly motivated my brethren, and we need to learn that.

Do you ever notice the change that came over... what change does the Holy Spirit make in us? It's a change of attitude. It's a change of motive, your WHOLE PURPOSE IN LIFE. You come to have a different purpose. It's a start, just like the first principal of the law of success is having the right goal. Your goal changes. You have a different goal, it is no longer selfish. It's the love of others and there are not many.

Now take Christ. He didn't have to die but He loved the people, and it's the only way they could be saved. And by His death He paid the penalty of all of the world and billions of people now can, if they will — they still have to have the will to do it too and make the decision. If they will, they can receive God's Holy Spirit, and they can grow to become God.

But it's a case of growing into the CHARACTER of God, and that character doesn't come all at once. I've explained the milk bottle. As you get a little of God's Spirit in, a little of the air has to go out. Christ was born with the Holy Spirit without measure. He had the Holy Spirit fully. He had NONE of the carnal spirit in Him. But He could have had, He was tempted in all points like we are. He had to watch it every second.

He had to pray to God. My, if we could pray one — well one tenth as much, or maybe one fiftieth as much as Jesus did, we'd be a lot better than we are brethren. But with the Holy Spirit, GOD LIFE has entered into us, if the Holy Spirit has entered. Then the very LIFE of God — that means also the MIND of God. You read in Philippians, "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus." The very mind that was in Christ.

The only thing is, His mind hasn't fully entered. There's still some of the old mind still there and we have to constantly overcome, and root out the evil. I haven't done it all yet and in just another week or two I will be in my 92nd year. And I still have much to do, much to overcome yet and I know it. And I want to make the grade. Don't you? And it's not easy.

This world is going the way that.... I guess it glitters and glamors, looks tempting, and we kind of want to go along with it, and we have to resist that. But we are not God yet. We have to grow in grace and in the KNOWLEDGE of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that knowledge is the way to LIVE. We have to learn more about how to live. And some day we are going to have to be teachers, and we've got to learn now how to teach others, to guide the lives of others, counsel with them, rule over them when Christ comes, and then we'll start a new civilization under Christ.

What's different now between the Holy Spirit and Satan's spirit, which has entered into — had entered into all of us, and has entered into everybody in the world. You read in Ephesians the second chapter, just comes to mind right now, how you were "dead in trespasses and sins," but now you are no longer that way now. The life of God has been injected into you, and some of His life... the trouble is, we haven't got all of His life, it isn't fully in us yet. We have to grow in that.

I don't know, sometimes I get a little discouraged. I talk to some of our ministers at my office where we are just private and alone, and talking. I say, "I just wonder how many of our brethren really do have the Holy Spirit. Then they begin to remind me of the fruits when we go out to the Feast of Tabernacles. I tell you, the local people there see an entirely different people than the rest of their people, or other people that they have seen. Then they begin to see some of the fruits.

Well brethren the fruits are there. We are the people of God but we have to grow, and we've only grown so far up to this point. And we have to grow further, and we have to realize it. We have to pray more. We have to study the scriptures more. We have to have our mind on those things more and more.

Now Satan injects, not the spirit of life, such as God. When the Holy Spirit comes that injects the LIFE of God, but it also injects the attitude of God into us. So our attitude is love toward others instead of competition, and trying to get and take from others. It's a different attitude altogether.

But the Holy Spirit can inject actual life. Now Satan injects something into us, but he cannot inject actual life into us. All he can do is put in an attitude, and you can root that out. It's altogether different than the Spirit of God. It's just an attitude of selfishness And now, understand this, Satan's attitude of selfishness, of self, comes in a certain degree in one person and a greater degree in another, and a smaller degree in still another.

Also the Spirit of God comes into us to a certain degree in one, and a different degree in another. And there are differences and a whole lot depends on you, your attitude, on your prayer life and how much you pray, where you set your affection, where you set your mind, where are your goals, what are you striving for? We have to grow. We have to overcome. We have to endure unto the end, and then we shall be God.

Now I say, you can't start a school until you have teachers. God can't start the World Tomorrow until He has teachers and leaders and that's why He is calling us now. Now God has prepared... I saw that the church couldn't go on without a school. I had to come down and start Ambassador College. Ambassador College now has produced a great many very fine young ministers, and they're teaching you, and they're teaching others all over the world.

You in turn have to teach others later, sooner or later. And when we are made God then you find you will still grow. You know, I believe God is still growing Himself. A couple of weeks ago God didn't know a lot of things that were going to happen on the earth, that have happened since, because humans still are free moral agents and they make up their own minds what they are going to do and God allows that.

Now God knows things now He didn't know two weeks ago.

God is growing in knowledge all the time. I don't think God is growing in perfection because He reached that a long, long time ago, or else He's always been that way. But we haven't reached perfection yet and we have to still grow, and grow, and grow. So understand that the Holy Spirit in you, it does change you. It does make you different. It gives you a different attitude, a different purpose in life. You are going for a different goal. You're looking forward. You have a different purpose in what you want.

Some have gone out of this church and they have only one goal, and that is to destroy this church, anything they can do to destroy this church and this work. And some even want to destroy me personally if they can, and I don't think God is going to let them do it. But I just place myself in God's hands, and I'm just one of these imperfect people trying to get better and hope that God knows that, and He understands it even if enemies don't.

I still pray for all of my enemies. I pray for them first. You know, I've said before, I start out by thanking God that He is God, and that we have such a God. And after I express my thanks, and praying for the Kingdom of God, then I next pray for my enemies. Then after that, I pray for the church and my own family.

Now, maybe that's not just the right formula, but it seems right to me and that's the way I do. I do ask for the prayers of all of you and I know I do have them, because I need them, because; well, as I know that my wife said to Mrs. Rona Martin before she died, she said that Satan would rather destroy her husband than anybody else on earth. Now maybe that's true.

Well sometimes I think he comes pretty close to it but he hasn't been able to yet. But Satan works in human instruments just like God does too you know, and some humans allow themselves to be used by him. Well they don't realize it. I pray for them because I don't, I don't hate them. I don't want to see them have to go into a Lake of Fire. I don't. I want to try to save them if it's even like you read in the fourth chapter of Zechariah {4} — a brand plucked out of the fire at the last moment, as it says there of Joshua the High Priest.

You know, when you have the Spirit of God, you don't just pray for those where there's something in it for you. Everybody says, "Well what am I going to get out of it now?" You don't always look at it from the side of point of what am I going to get out of it. How much can I give into it? How much can I contribute?

Well brethren, I am very appreciative that in this church there are so many who are giving, and giving so generously. Now this morning here, well on the Sabbath, but I know there was some that had to get up about three o'clock this morning to get over to answer the telephone, the Watts line telephone coming in from broadcasts in the eastern time zone three hours later. Well I mean it's three hours — well it's three hours later their time than it is for us out here, although it's the same time. But their clock says it's three hours later and so the telephone calls begin to come in.

When you ask for volunteers, they respond. In the Co-worker Letter I mentioned the need up at Orr, for the camp for the teenagers up there. And you know, I just wondered if the brethren didn't respond I was going to say I was going to write something about it next time. But I won't have to do it. Just the first two or three days, about forty-six thousand dollars came in for what we need to do up there.

So now, instead of one building, they're going to be able to build two, because that's the way our brethren are. But brethren we're only on the way. We have started. We still have a long way to go. I know God is blessing you because we've all... we have the goal. We've made the start. We're on our way, but Satan is still against us. We still have to pray. We have to persevere. We have to overcome. We have to grow, and I know we will.

I think that the most important part of my life remains yet to be lived and to be done. By far the greatest things that God needs to use me for are lying yet ahead. I do need your prayers for it. I have a very important mission the next few days. I'm going to Washington, DC on Wednesday. I have some very important meetings there.

And then I expect to speak, a week from today, to combined church service at Pittsburgh, of many churches in that area, who will all come together in one large auditorium. And then, at night, on to Big Sandy where the summer camp is starting. I will speak to the students there the next day, and then up to Orr, and the next day speak to students up there.

And, incidentally, I may have to go down to, on Monday, to Austin, Texas. The State Legislator of Texas has passed a law, finally, that our children, legally now, are allowed to be off on all of God's Holy Days. And that's one place where they have caused so much trouble, and they have expelled children right and left, all over Texas. And our brethren have had great trouble in the State of Texas, and now it's a law and on a week from Monday, Monday of the following week, the Governor is going to sign that bill.

I may go down there, to be there, if there is going to be a ceremony of any kind. I may go down there to be there at the signing of that bill. So once in a while Government has even helped us, although usually it's been government that Satan has used to persecute the church. But in this case the government has been on our side. So we'd better be thankful for whatever we get from the government.

Well, God bless you all. We're on the way. And I just want to say, brethren, you're doing fine. Let's just keep it up, only let's speed up the pace a little faster as we go along.