Apostle's Doctrine - Part 1 — G.W. North

Let's turn to the word, shall we? You are all familiar enough, I suppose, with the things that we do here in these weeks, whether they'll change, I don't know as the years go on, but in these morning sessions we don't have any singing, well, at least we don't issue hymn books.

We break out into song occasionally, but we do come together because it's a Bible week. I want to emphasize that. The Bible is a much despised book now, really. In fact, there are so many people who think, well, they're baptized in the Holy Ghost and they don't need the Bible.

The Apostles’ Doctrine and the Necessity of Fellowship

Well, may the Lord have mercy upon us all. I want to come to the Ephesian letter in a few moments, but first of all to remind you of that verse in Acts 2, let's refresh our minds with it, that we started on on Saturday night.

It says in verse 42, but we'll take 41 as well, it says that in 42 they continued steadfastly in the Apostle's doctrine. Because nobody ever shook them away from the belief that doctrine was important, and very important.

Steadfastly they continued in it. And I want to remind you again that doctrine and fellowship go together. Doctrine and fellowship. You only fellowship in the end with those with whom you hold similar beliefs.

That's all. In the end, you can attempt to have fellowship here and there, and flip off to this meeting which is supposed to be very sort of ecumenical, and so on and so on. But in the end, because two can't not walk together unless they agree, that's what's at issue.

Agreed. Amen. All you would think, if you listen to something, it doesn't matter what you believe or how you interpret this or that or the other, but it does. This is what this Bible shouts out. Therefore, that's the way it goes.

Doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. Amen. How glorious that is. And then the other verse. They gladly received the words that the man was preaching. We know it was Peter, we know he was one of the gigantic apostles, one of the originals.

Christ the Mediator and Paul’s Apostolic Ministry

And how wonderful it is. So, just again to catch up on this great theme, you will recall that Paul said to Timothy these words, just let's glance at them a moment or two, shall we? And Paul is speaking in 1 Timothy to this young man who he left in Ephesus, to sort out the situation in the church.

You know, sometimes churches do need sorting out, don't they? Well, this is what he said. He said this. There's one God, verse 5, 2nd chapter, 1st epistle. One mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.

Hallelujah. What a tremendous thing. He was a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher. We know he was a lot of other things as well. But in asserting his authority, he states the next word, verse very plainly, I will attract.

So it's God speaking. It's in the conflict of wills that difference lies. Did you know that? The set of your wills will determine what you believe. I will not believe it, or I will believe it. Very, very important in these matters.

Hallelujah. For in the end, God is directing everything to the will. Everything. That's why we sing a hymn that says, The will I love, my strength. The will I love. It's a tremendous thing to know this.

And there it is then, beloved. The apostle and a teacher. Now there were apostles that were not teachers. Not so greatly teachers. I know that we adduce a lot of our teachings, say from the epistles of Peter and John.

But if you read John, he hasn't got either that didactic manner of a Paul, he hasn't got that. Neither has Peter. Peter was a great shepherd. The Lord turned him to that on the lake shore. John, well, I don't know what to call John, except the great lover, I guess.

But Paul was raised up to be the teacher of the Gentiles. And that's what you'll find. His epistles are full of doctrine. And you can't read the New Testament without reading doctrine. He doesn't always set out the doctrine.

As he does, I believe, as you must have heard me say before, I'm sure I don't want to wear you, as he does in the Ephesian letter, that I want to come to presently. And one other thing before I do that, is in Romans 6.

Servanthood, Obedience, and Being Delivered to Doctrine

I want to bring this point home to every heart. So that we're not on a wild cat thing, and we're not mavericks, as they say. And we know what we're aiming at, and we're understanding what Paul says. Listen to this.

Verse 16 of chapter 6. Know ye not that to whom you yield yourselves servant to obey? His servant you are. It doesn't matter whether you claim to be God's servant, if you don't yield yourself to serve him, then you are not a servant of God, and there's no other alternative but to be a servant of Satan.

None at all. Ultimately. You keep that very clear. So the old evangelical fear that you're saved to serve is right. The thing is, they should have taught us to be carried to a bed filled with the Holy Ghost before we started.

But that's the tragedy. In this great chapter, we're told this, that whether you serve sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness, what a tremendous that is. Now here's the verse. Now, God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart, and here's the better Greek of it, that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

You were, when you were born again, you were delivered unto a doctrine. You were delivered from wrong doctrine, based upon wrong thinking, listening perhaps to wrong teaching. Okay. But when you were the Lord, when you obeyed from the heart, and you came to this great truth, your mind was affected too.

You were delivered unto a doctrine, and unless we get delivered from wrong doctrines, we never get free, and we can never come to what God wants us to be. Doctrines in the end, and they are intended to be this, don't read too much into the word I use, they are bonds.

Your mind is filled with it, your mind is bound by it, and you be very careful and clear about that. It sets your whole soul on a certain line of thinking, and therefore you draw certain conclusions, and it's impossible not to do that.

Hallelujah. No man is saved, ultimately if God wants him saved, until his mind is saved from wrong thinking. It is wrong thinking that in the end will bring to desolation any worth of grace that God begun in your soul, if you don't think right.

You are, you cannot be unless you think, you understand that, you've got to think. Now you're not saved by your thoughts. I rather like that little booklet, which has as a heading, you know, it was the great woman from Donover that wrote it, Amy Wilson Carmichael.

His thoughts said, but God said, and here then is the great and wonderful truth of it all, beloved. And this is why I'm taking this line during these meetings. How far I continue specifically along it, I don't know, but here we are again this morning, on the foundation of doctrine.

You were delivered unto a doctrine. I'm not only an apostle, but a teacher, says Paul, that's right. And what he was virtually saying, now I'm not saying this, I'm saying, what Paul was virtually saying, is you've got to believe what I say.

That's why he came to me and said, I will. And that's what you're to do. Amen. There comes the rebellion, talk about the pride of mind. Oh, yeah, that's right. But unless you have a disciplined mind, you'll never get through with God.

You'll go off on any wild bull elephant. So, the Lord wants us to get down to thinking. I always remember Oswald Chambers says, when you go to your study, don't go wool gathering. Because he was lecturing to students.

None of you are students. Well, no more than I am, I guess. No less, I trust. But here is the thing, that you and I are to see this great and wonderful truth. Don't be afraid to think. But don't presume to jump to conclusions because you've got several thoughts.

That's the tragedy. Let the Lord lead us all on. Blessed are the meek. They inherit the earth. All right. They also inherit heaven. The meek spirit is always a teachable spirit. Amen. And so, good things have to come to a place in your life where you say, oh, I've been wrong.

Repentance, Correction, and Returning to Truth

And then you look back and you say, well, I thought so and so and so. Yes, that's why you did certain things. That's why you said. You see, your mind is very important. I've been wrong. And what happens then?

There has to be a complete revolution of the life. There has to be a free confession that you're wrong. I would like to say this to you as a brother to you all, that I have often said to God, don't know how long ago it was now, I said, Lord, if I'm wrong, I'm willing to stand up before all men and say I've been wrong.

And I faced doing that, and that's not the easiest thing to face. Some people will say, well, you climbed up. Somebody will say, well, you've done this, or you've done that, or you've done the other. But you've got to be on this position, honestly, with God.

I know no other ground upon which you can hope to get further revelation from God. You can pursue an idea you might have got 40 years ago, but that's not new revelation. So the Lord wants us to move on the ground of truth.

And this is why I don't apologise for coming down onto basic things again. And I do so more because I have come to the tragic conclusion, moving round, that many who started off on the ground of truth have incorporated so much other stuff or moved off the ground of the original revelation that it needs restating again and again and again.

No man needs be ashamed of that. I remember how the Lord Jesus used to keep saying the same thing all over and over and over again. There never was a greater teaching than this. Hallelujah. And he didn't say it in the same words.

He kept on the same theme. And that's the art of teaching. I believe, or it used to be taught, that the art of teaching is repetition. And so God wants us to move on. And when I, you know, you look round and you listen, you do listen, I hope you don't get a lot of time to listen, to what these, all these would-be MPs are saying, and all these would-be governors, they're only saying the same things they've been saying for years.

They keep on saying it. Keep on saying it. Keep on saying it. Don't they? They do, don't they? Sure. Oh, we've heard all that before. All right. But the thing about the gospel is that if you are alive in God, the old truths which they did never fall on you.

You know, tell me the story often. Try to get those truths. The early dew of morning has passed away at noon. Tell me the old, old story. That's what I want. Amen. All right. So then, I want to come into the season letter and chapter four.

Apostolic Doctrine in Ephesians 4

Where I believe that we have the clearest, encapsulated, if you like, statement of apostolic doctrine in the whole of the Bible. Now I know, I've said this before, you can add youth doctrine from all the great letters.

You can get it from parables of the Lord Jesus. They are like little windows into doctrine. They tell you it in a pictorial form and so on. And you love parables, don't you? I said, hand up if you love parables, you know, earthly stories with heavenly meanings.

Would you all put your hand up? Well, Jesus said you ought not to. He said, they're for those that are without. You read your gospels and see. He said, they're not for you. You are to know the mysteries.

You don't need, they're for know the mysteries. You don't need illustrations of them. I confess that's true with me. Jesus' words are true. They're for those that are without. And supposing I spend a little time, how many more mornings have we got?

Oh dear. It'll be Friday before and we know where we are. But, you do know, beloved, don't you? And this is the way you are to read your New Testament. You must understand this, that the three synoptic gospels, they are the gospels that contain the stories.

Is that right? There's only one story in John, that's the shepherd told in John 10. Now, there's only one parable. Why? Because this is for the insight. The three gospels are really only, write this down if you're taking notes, the three synoptic gospels are really the story of revival in Israel.

They're not the worldwide gospels. That's why they start with Matthew, David and Abraham. You go to Mark and you know that starts with the prophets. And you go to Luke, and you will find it starts right just there in Israel, with Elizabeth and Husband.

That's where it starts, but John doesn't start it. He's for the world. Now, you must understand this, this is why you don't get the stories. It was the story of revival. They had their Messiah presented to them, they rejected him.

But John starts off with him rejected. He came unto his own. This is in the first chapter. He tells the story of the crucifixion. He's not nice. He came to his own. His own received him not. But all you people all over the world, as many as you are, that's where he is.

He's got the gospel for the Gentiles. Now, you must understand this. You say, can't we have the other thing? Oh, yes, yes. Don't misinterpret things. Don't misunderstand. Yes. Yes. Amen. But you've got to understand when you read what it's all about.

Understand that. And it'll answer a lot. Now, the Lord wants us to come unto the things where we are put straight bang down on the doctrine. In the fourth chapter then, notice that he ends the third with that word that is so often a closing word, Amen.

And you notice the Amen comes after, and you must get this if you're going to understand your epistles or anything you read in the scripture. You must understand that that comes after such things as being filled with all the fullness of God.

Amen. He's arrived at the end. He's arrived at the peak, but he hasn't quite finished yet. He's moving on. And he says, Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, bless God, it doesn't depend upon our comprehension of doctrine.

It's above all we ask or can think. Amen. According to the power that works within us. Unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ. Amen. Take a flight through. Without end, say to God, without end.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Is that how you feel? You know, you want to sit down when you've read that chapter, Amen. Amen. Now he starts. I therefore now, because of this, because of what I've been teaching you, get your doctrine right.

I'm the prisoner of the Lord. I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. The vocation, Beloved, I don't know what you may think. You call it walking according to his, he was the apostle and the teacher.

That's when you lower your sight. But he says, Oh, and if I may use this term, excuse me, he wouldn't use it. For goodness sake, get your eyes above yourself and what your ministry is or what you think you are or called to do.

Eternal Perspective and the Purpose of Ministry

He's on to the ages of the ages. Hallelujah. This is where you've got to get your vision fixed. About everything that's earthly, about everything, positions in the church and so on and so on, they're necessary.

But to see this thing that God has in you, even so, you've got to get this understood that you'd better get the foundation of your thinking right or else you'll never get there. That is, in the way you should.

In your apprehension and in the conformity of your life to that. For as sure as you and I are in this room this morning, you will be conformed to what you think. Yes, you will. Unavoidable. That's what will happen.

And God wants us to see this. You are worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. Hallelujah. In other words, when you talk about being called, what is it that's called you? Now you will say, no, please excuse me, this must be, oh, you've made a mistake, you put it in the news agenda.

No, I haven't made a mistake. I put it in the news agenda. Purposely. The apostles of God used to do that occasionally. Here is one of the occasions. John did it when he opened his first epistle. He said, that which we have heard, that which we have seen, that which we have, and all the time, you perfectly, well, it was the eternal life in Jesus Christ, but he never called it Jesus.

He put it in the news agenda. And you keep that very clear. So did Jesus. We know what we worship, not who we worship. You keep that very clear. This is because you've got a mind that can think and say, well, I worship who, but I worship him, but what am I worshiping in this man?

Is he a vicious man? Is he a nice man? I'm sure he's nice. That's not the point. You've got to know what you're doing. Blind people lead blind people. That's what God says. The mission of the Spirit of God is to bring light to us.

And if you don't walk in the light, you'll never sustain your life. And this is very, very important for us to grasp. The vocation wherewith you are called, not the person who called you. There are doctors in the room.

All right, let me step on those then, because they're supposed to be in calling. Whatever was it that attracted them to take up medicine? Wasn't it that Lord Lister called them? It was something in... That attracted me.

Couldn't attract me. But is it some? What is in your calling? That's the thing for you to understand. What is it that attracts you? Don't take with him the magnetism of his presence? Call me, draw me.

We will run off in gears. Lovely, Lord. That's wonderful. But what is it, man? You've got something in your heart. You've got ambition there. You say, ambition? Of course you have. You'd be a clock without ambition.

You must want to be something. Not over-ambitious. That's wrong. Hear them. No, I don't want to be anything. Well, all right then. You want to be nothing. Go on. Get positive about it. You see. You see.

All this. It's awesome. It's high saluting. It sounds like, oh, and you're a wonderful man. You don't want to be anything. And all this. I'm unmoored. I don't want to be anything. You see. Stop the nonsense.

You're a human being. You can think. You have hope. You have fear. You have all sorts of things. Who else? You're dead. Because this, that God comes. He didn't say, there are a lot of old, dead, rotten stuff lying about on the earth.

Regeneration and the New Creation

We'd better regenerate from Jesus. He didn't say that. The fact of the matter is that you are actively engaged in sin. Thoughtfully engaged in sin. Imaginatively engaged in sin. Human in it. You are dead in it.

That is only to God. Dead. Do you know what sin is? Yes. We are vivid. Alive. Glory to God. All right. What is it that attracts you? There's a calling. A calling. A calling that involves so much that I can be in this, Lord.

I can speak right. I can speak right. I can act right. I can love right. I can hate right. There must be hatred as well as love. And so it will go on. And so God takes this and he quickens this being that I am.

And my mind does well with it. Praise him. And he can take sin out of all these invisible things. We can't touch much except we engage in faith. That's why when he begins the epistle, he comes on a dissertation of faith.

He doesn't do it expressly in those words. Or as a lecturer. But he includes it in his prayer. That you get your faith right. Amen. And if you get your faith right, you'll get your love right. That's the second prayer in the third chapter.

What a marvellous thing it is. And it's impossible for people of no intelligence to have faith. God can take a stone and raise up a child of Abraham from it. He can take bread and turn it into this or that or the other.

But they didn't respond to him. It was all him. There was no response in the stone. That's the thing for us to see. Oh, what it is to be a lie. Really a lie. Crickens, that's how it says in this epistle.

I remember taking three years on this epistle once in a Bible class. You go back, you happy crickens. Amen. All who were dead. Taken the desolation of death out of us. The seeds of the rottenness that constitutes any intelligent dead.

And gives us life. Oh, hallelujah. Let's go on. It says, I can't get to the doctrine in this great time. It says, we're called. And we're to do this thing with a walk worthy in all lowliness and meekness with long suffering.

Sometimes you have to suffer fools and try to suffer them gladly. You just have to have it in the nature, I'm afraid. Certainly in your home and in your street perhaps. Or whatever it is. It says, with all lowliness and meekness.

With long suffering. Forbearing one another in love. Hallelujah. Don't stand up with a great big axe like Jack and the Beanstalk to cut somebody down. Will you? You forbear. Forbearance is one of the great indications of the presence or absence of love.

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Notice the word bond, won't you? Doctrine is a bond. You keep that very clear in your mind. Before you start to believe anything, may a little voice tell you, be careful.

You'll get bound by this if you think this. If it's the right kind of bondage, hallelujah. It'll keep your feet walking on the right path. Here it is. There is one body. And one spirit. Even as you are called in one hope of your calling.

One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One God and Father of all. Who is above all. And through all. And in you. Oh, what a marvelous thing. The God and Father is above all. Devil, man, sin, righteousness, that came from him.

He's above all politics, all. Whether they want him to be above them or whether they don't. And he's through all. He'll come through all to every one of his children. Hallelujah. But he's only in the children of God.

You keep that very clear. He's only in his children. In. Who's choosing? The Lord wants us to see this, beloved. He's in you all. Now that's where you really are to start. Because, again, let me just say, some of you will know this is my habit, I very often start at the end and go through to the beginning.

I start at the end. Without the Father there can't be a body. On any line. The human line as well. Without the Father there'll never be a baby born. There'll never be a body without a Father. You keep this very clear.

He starts at the end because this man is wanting to give them teaching about body groups. There's only one body. But he traces it back, if you like, upwards. The Father above all. Hallelujah. The Father above the body, you keep that clear.

The Father above all doctrines, for you will know that body doctrine or teaching, it only follows from that. If there'd never been a Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, there wouldn't have been a body in Mary's womb.

And the Lord wants us to understand this. Hallelujah. And he wants me to say to myself, Oh Lord, my God and my Father, you brought forth one body. Not two. He didn't bring forth a Gentile body and a Jew body.

He didn't bring forth a Catholic body and a Protestant body. I'm not pumping for ecumenism. That's not what I'm after. But I want us to see this very clearly. Oh my precious Lord, I know there's only one body.

Do you know that? He says, well I know, the Bible teaches it. I want to know whether you feel you're in this body or not. He says, does it depend on feelings? Not primarily, but it will do as you go on.

If you don't feel a member of that body, then you may depend, you aren't. I'll repeat that in case you think I said it wrongly. I want this to bind your thinking. Not try and get loose from it. If you don't feel you're a member of the body of Christ, I do right now, standing here.

I feel I'm in God. I feel it. That's right. I have become spiritually aware. Oh no, he got Margaret's gift. No, no, no. Of course not. I'm not talking about gifts, except of course it is a gift. Everything's a gift from God.

I feel I'm in Christ. I feel I'm in the body. I feel it. Sometimes more than others, I can feel the flow of it. Wish I had it. I'm as thick as two planks. Here then, is the whole sense of it. I am not an independent man anymore.

I'm in the body. I know I'm in the body. There are some people who have to endure this. Well, I know I'm in the body of Christ, but I don't feel a member of this body say, where are we? Exeter, or I'd better say Tiverton, and I'd better say where else shall I come from?

Manchester, or you know, all these things. Then there's something wrong with you. Or else there's the church. Of course you're sure to say it's the church, it's not you. Here then, is the whole thing.

I know I've said this before. The great gospel of Inness, though I don't mean capital G gospel. All of you can search that wherever you want. Is this a piece of letter. In. It's all about in. In. In. Have you ever done it?

I think it comes about 90 odd times in just six chapters. In. In. In. In. In. In its various conjugations. Here then is the thing. It is blessed inness. He's going to talk to them about the body. So he uses this blessed preposition in.

In. In. Preposition means to preposition your mind and your thinking. Related truth. And you say, oh Lord. I don't know about you. I could shut you all out now. And just know I'm in the body by myself.

I don't want you. That's not the point. But you better be able to do this. You see, is it a trick of the mind? Is it a feat of your soul? No, no, no. It's a fact. See, God does affect you. God does affect you through your feelings.

How glorious it is. This disorientation of the human being is the result of sin. The great thing about the baptism of the Spirit, beloved, is its cohesive effect. It will bring you into oneness in yourself.

That's what it will do. We're so disorientated. We're so shattered. We're so scattered. We're so riven. We're so torn. But God makes us human beings. God is in me. And he's in us all, isn't he? Full of smile then.

No, no, no. I hope I'm not overtaxing your mind. I don't assume I am. I've had no education at all. Here is the thing. Not formal education. Here is the great things of God. I shouldn't be above your mind.

I was born in Bethnal Green. You must understand this, beloved. You've got to understand it. But how do you understand it? I don't know. I'll tell you one secret of it though. It's application. There isn't an educationist in the world, or in this room, anywhere, that won't say that's the trouble.

The children won't apply. It's got it there. It's got to only apply itself. That must not be in the church. You've got to apply yourself. There's one body. Is that right? One body. Oh, I don't care what you call yourself.

Fellowship, or what do you call it? Pentecostal, or what do you call yourself? Limber, what do you call yourself? Baptist, or what do you call yourself? Catholic. It hasn't got to do with that, beloved.

It hasn't got to do with that. This is not what I mean when I say, well, we're all one body. I don't mean that. I don't think Paul means that. Because, you see, there weren't any Catholics, Protestants, Christians, there weren't any.

You weren't talking along those lines. But we've got so split through the ages that that's the way we naturally go. Oh, you're worse than this person. We're all one body, you see. But Paul wasn't thinking along those lines.

Come away out of it. We're at the back end of the age. Things have got wrong. We've got to come in to what was in the great heart of one. May I just tell you this? Or refer you to it. Do you remember when the Lord was crucified and buried and was put in a tomb, alright?

The One Body of Christ and the Resurrection

And they went down on resurrection morning and they didn't know it was resurrection morning. Isn't it lovely to have surprises? May you have one this week. Glorious resurrection. Into knowledge of the life that I hope you already have.

They got there, stones rolled away, angels there. And do you know what they said? Come, think of a place where the Lord lay. Where his body lay. That's right. Only one body. I'm ever so glad about that.

And then think of Mary Magdalene. I always do. I always do. I think probably it's my favourite resurrection story. Where she says to the man she thought was her God. She's just given to him. Think of her, you think of her.

A woman staggering about with her dead body in her arms. Yes. I don't laugh at that. I think that's wonderful. I think she's got more guts than probably all the men in this room put together. That's what I think.

Not to insult manhood. A woman born in the beginning and a woman was to bear him at the end when she had her way. You think of that. You just think of it. You hear me. Can you imagine her? She wanted to take that body.

So sacred. So treasured, that body. She was wrong. But she wasn't wrong. She was expressing her heart and that's never wrong. She got her ideas wrong. We go on there and get into fantasies of God. Well, she was wrong or he was a lie.

I always think of it. Superior. I love the woman's spirit. She did absolutely right. All the men were hiding away in an upper room somewhere. Supposed to be apostles. I don't know what. Yeah. Now listen to it in the end of chapter one of the feast.

Jesus Christ. Verse twenty-two. God who raised him from the dead. That is, he's God and father of glory. Verse seventeen. There's the word. You know where we are. All right. Raised him from the dead.

Set him at his own right hand. We're going to verse twenty. In the heavenlies. Far above all principality and power and life and dominion and every name of name. Not only in this world but also in the afterlife to come.

And has put all things under his feet. And gave him to be the head over all things to a child. Which is his body. Well you say that's only logical. Of course it must be. The head must be the head over all things to the body.

Mustn't it? That's right, isn't it? Head over all things. Amen. But you see. This is not a body that would be inanimate if the head was cut off from it. This is not the kind of body he's thinking of. He's thinking of a body composed of people like us.

Intelligent, thinking, alive, appreciative, in touch. The head over all things to the church. Which is his body. Amen. Now that's what you're to grasp. That's what you're to grasp. We're this one body that he's speaking of.

We're his fullness. His fullness. I'm not asking you whether the Bible says so. I'm asking you whether he's right. He is. His fullness. Not my fullness. This is where I sacrifice my mind. And I say, Lord, I just want your fullness.

I want what you say. I want your thoughts to be in my mind. I want to think your thoughts with you. That's what I want. Then I'll preach right. Then I'll teach right. Then I'll speak right. You remember in the first of it, for those of us who are not apostles and like that, speaking the truth, one to another, in love.

That's in chapter 5. For all of us. What a marvellous thing it is. Sure, beloved, I'm absolutely sure. There are few arrangements of it. When nothing is banal. This is the whole glorious truth, isn't it?

His body. The fullness of unity that filleth all in all. Amen. Amen. That's a very sacred thing, isn't it? Amen. Just think of being, for a moment, picture a human body. Think of being in that body. Think of being in that body.

You think of the effectiveness of being in that body. You think of it. You think of the loveliness. You think of, again, this word is competitiveness. You think of that. And let that come out now into the body of Christ.

I am infinite. I am perfect. Conscious of that. Amen. I don't mean you have to sit down and try and dream yourself into it. I don't mean that. But to know it. This is the only way, beloved, any way in life.

Everything can become holy. This is the only way. Everything can become right in life. This is the only way. Think of yourself as the student Christ, which you should. At other times, it seems so strange, this paradox of faith.

Here's Christ. Here am I. Oh, Lord, you're wonderful. And then, by the delights of the Spirit, and by the grace of God, come the other, come the whole circle, if you like. Him that filleth all in. It's that that makes you want to lie back and say, Oh, Lord.

To know you're in this glorious life. And this takes you out of the realm of striving. For everything in the body should function without strife. Oh, hallelujah. He says, keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.