Wynne Prison - Part 3 — George Warnock

He's a street preacher in New Jersey and New York and he's a blessing. He should have been in prison, right? Chuck Vigliano, he's a street preacher in Houston. Richard Best, an ex-offender who is a preacher in Bessemer, Alabama.

He and Catherine, he and Catherine get kicked out of more places than you can imagine for preaching the gospel. You all know Walter Getty. You need to say something. Do I need to? A businessman out of Houston.

Mike Ellis, who is a Bible teacher and a carpet cleaner out of Palestine. And Eddie Sullivan, who works in the prison system, is a preacher and he's preaching to brothers in the Hodge Unit now. One thing.

Come on, you can say one thing. Then what I was going to say is we probably have six or seven ministers here and they're giving up their right to speak to our brother here because we all know what he has to say is of importance to us and we won't have an opportunity for a while to do this again, although I'm trying to get him to come and stay a month with us.

Every time Joyce gives me the microphone, she reminds me of that. They're giving up their right to speak. I want to read some scripture to you real quickly. In Luke 4, 17, it says, and he, Jesus, was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.

And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty, to the captive and recovery of sight, to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

Then he closed the book. He gave it back to the attendant and sat down and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fissed on him. And he began to say to them today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Jesus Christ as Deliverer from Oppression

The thing the Lord was fitting in my heart and pressing in my heart was that these people, if you look at them in the scripture, the brokenhearted, those who are in captivity, those who are oppressed were tormented.

They were a tormented people. Where I work, I see a tormented people. They were under tremendous oppression. They were under tremendous torment, but the answer for them was right before their eyes. It was Jesus.

And you know, they were surrounded by a religious system that was really a harlot system. People who said they loved God, they said one thing with their mouth, but their heart was far from God. And we've all been in that places and we might very well still be in that place.

And they were tremendously oppressed by decision. There are all types of systems, brothers, that oppress us. But the only way that you're going to get free from that oppression within a system is through the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Brother Warner has that word buried deep in his heart, not because of who he is, but because of who Jesus is. And I have really been blessed by hearing what he has to say. God's really doing a lot of things in my heart and the heart of my family.

I would challenge you to hear the word through him and to realize that Jesus is our deliverer. Amen. We'll meet in this, well, in case any of you leave before this is over, we'll meet in the school rooms at one o 'clock.

So be there. And all of these ministers who have come, we'll divide up into groups and each one of them will have a group. So be sure and be there. Unless you have a visit. If you have a visit, we'll excuse you.

Brother George, you have almost an hour and a half. Do you think you can handle that? He could go on for 24 hours without stopping, I think. Isn't he a blessing? Let's honor Jesus in him. Well, it's been a real pleasure for us to have this privilege to come and minister to God's people in this place.

Recognizing the Church’s Greatest Need

I have anticipated going more in ministry, feeling the Lord is leading that way, and I feel it has been confirmed in different ways. But I did pray, Lord, I don't want to go unless you send me to a hungry people, because it's difficult to try to give forth the word if people don't need it.

You say, well, we need it. Yeah, I know, but if they don't know they need it, what can you do? Someone asked me many years ago, George, what do you consider the greatest need in the church? And like a flash, it seemed to come to me, the greatest need in the church is that God's people recognize their need.

If we don't know our need, what can God do? There are ways that God has in causing his people to come to a hunger and thirst for him. Perhaps we'll talk about that in the message I feel on my heart this morning, but I think I'll read it first.

The Letter to Pergamos and the Hidden Manna

Revelation chapter 2 and verse 17. Before I read it, I'll just mention it's the substance of the letter that the Lord Jesus dictated to John the Beloved on Patmos. He was given a letter to each of the seven churches, and to each of the churches he says, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.

And to each of the churches he appears as the glorified high priest in the heavens, who has the solution to every problem in every one of the seven churches. Which I believe speaks not only of the seven churches of Asia at that time, but inasmuch as God has left it in the Bible, it applies to the church of our time.

And I believe every church in the history of the church could say the same thing. What God said there in the beginning is very applicable to every one of the seven churches then, and to the church throughout the history of God's people.

He appears standing before them, and in the introduction to each of the churches he is revealed in somewhat of a different form in a manner that was needful for that church to see him. He appears as the living one that was dead and is alive again.

He appears as the one who has a sharp sword with two edges. That's how he appears in this church, to which he said the things that he said. He has a sharp sword with two edges, and with that sharp sword with two edges, which is the Word of God.

And when I say the Word of God, I don't exclude the Bible, but I must say it's not just the Bible, for there's more Bibles in the earth today than any other book, and the world is in far worse shape today than it's ever been.

But it's that Word in the Bible taken out as a sharp two-edged sword by the Spirit and used to administer the truth of God to his people and to the world. And God wants to write this Word that's here in this holy book upon the hearts of his people.

He wants his people to eat that book so thoroughly and digest it that it will not only be as John tasted it, sweet in his mouth, but it will be as when John swallowed it and it became bitter in his belly.

And this Word is beautiful to hear, and I'm glad that you fellows here enjoy hearing the Word of God. But rest assured that until you eat it, until you swallow it, until you ask the Lord to make it to be part of your being, part of your life, part of your ministry, it's not going to be.

It'll cause bitterness in doing it, but it's not going to come forth in a powerful administration of truth until you yourself have partaken of it in the inner man. And so we trust that even this time that we have together, there will be a vital impartation into the lives of each and every one of us, that the Word of God will become more real to each and one of us, that as you read it, God will begin to unfold it to your heart and mind in a new way, because he wants us not just to read it and meditate upon it and memorize it, and I encourage you to do all of that, but to walk in the light of it.

Jesus said, take heed how you hear. And in every one of these seven letters to the seven churches, he said, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And so to the church of Pergamos, he is seen as the one that hath the sharp sword with the two edges, a church that was in great need of the cleansing and the judging of God's Word, a church that existed in the midst of satanic strongholds.

He says, I know where you dwell. You dwell where Satan's seat is, where Satan's throne is, but you're holding fast to my name. He says, you've got problems in your midst. You've got these false doctrines, the doctrine of Baal, the false doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which things I hate.

We're not going to go into that, but he stands in the midst of his church today with all the false doctrines, with all the impurities of the doctrine of Balaam. We don't like to think of it, but even for many of the churches, there are coming forth teachings that promote.

In the music, there's a promotion of perversion in much of it. And God's going to come and stand in the midst of his people in this hour with the sharp sword that has two edges to judge all the uncleanness and the impurities that are in his church.

And so he comes to us and he says, I'm standing in your midst, Pergamos, the church that's married to the world. I stand in the midst with a sharp two-edged sword. And that's the word of God, but it's the word of God that comes out of his mouth, and it's the word of God that comes out of your mouth and mine.

Having eaten of the precious book, then that word can come forth as a sword of the spirit to slay and to cut asunder. For the word of God is quick or living, life-giving and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, for all things are open and laid bare before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. And I can't stand before people and say, here's your problem, and this is your problem, and you've got this sickness, or you've got this evil.

I don't know. I don't know what your problems are. I don't have to know. Some of you have bared your heart a little, but I don't have to know your problems if somehow I can speak from the heart of God.

God is able to speak that living word that will do that work, discerning, uncovering, revealing the thoughts and the intents of the heart, causing you to see what God wants you to see, causing you to see your problems, but only in seeing your problem to know that he's there to bring the healing that you need, causing you no longer to blame anybody else, not the country or the government or not your enemies out there, but causing you to know that your problem is inward, that when God has healed the inner man, there is nothing in this world or in the world to come, nothing in heaven or in earth or in hell that can hinder you from becoming an overcomer in Christ Jesus.

The Overcomer’s Promise

And so to all the seven churches, with all their problems, Jesus holds out a promise to the overcomer. You say, well, I'm hoping to overcome, I'm struggling to overcome, I'm trying to overcome, and we pray that God will, by this word even this morning, cause you to begin to walk in the overcoming life.

He that hath an ear, verse 17, Revelation 2, verse 17, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.

I know there's a lot of talk about heaven, a lot of songs about heaven, and about going there, and as our brother said this morning, it's all well and good, but I want you to know and God wants you to know that we are now seated with Christ in heavenly places.

That he sees us already as glorified. He sees us already as overcomers and he sends forth his word that that which he declares us to be, it might become that within us. God declares us to be what he declares us to be, not for us to boast in it, but that that might be a word coming to us from the heart of God to make us what he intends us to be.

Light Shining in Darkness

When God said let there be light, how could darkness shine? It couldn't, but because God said let light shine, light shone forth. God commanded the light to shine out of darkness. God had commanded light to shine out of darkness.

You say things have been pretty dark in my life. Been a lot of darkness, a lot of evil, a lot of hatred that's come against me, a lot of it that I've drank the bitter waters of it until I became filled with hatred and every evil thing.

That's all part of the world of darkness, but God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

God wants to reveal his face. Jesus wants to reveal his face in the midst, and so he says through the prophet, seek ye my face. And David said when God spoke and said seek ye my face, my heart responded, and I said thy face O Lord will I seek.

God may his face shine forth. He shines his face. He shines forth from his countenance as he speaks that creative word to you and I. Arise and shine for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

And so with this matter of overcoming, don't think well someday I hope at the end of the journey I'll be an overcomer. Yes we do, but we hope to be overcomers as we go along. For this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Christ’s Victory through the Cross

Faith, faith in him, faith in him who became the overcomer by the blood of his cross, by becoming a bleeding lamb, by being persecuted and giving love to those who persecuted him, by being hated and manifesting God's love even as they hated him.

Crucified on the cross and even before he died he said father forgive them they know not what they do. He overcame that way. You think you're going to overcome by some carnal means? Jesus overcame by the blood he shed, the nails that were pierced into his hand.

He was overcoming when that happened. They thought they were overcoming him. They didn't know that God had directed him to go back to Jerusalem. God directed him. He fled from Jerusalem with his disciples.

People say oh he was so brave. We won't go into this, but he was neither brave nor a coward, he was meek. Meekness is that attribute and quality that God wants to work in you and I where it's not a case of being brave or a coward, it's a case of being submissive to God.

That's implied in meekness, that you have no will of your own to do. The word was used, that Greek word that's translated meek I'm told and I thought it was a beautiful illustration, used in a certain country when they were training a horse that was a wild bronc.

They had to train him, they had to teach him and discipline him and they used that word that when this horse was tamed and broken we call it, they use that Greek word used for meek. He was just as strong as he ever was, but when he's trained, when he's disciplined, when he's broken, he's got that strength, but he only uses it as the master shows him how to use it.

He's under discipline, he's meek, he has nothing to fight for, he's lost his ambition, he's broken, but obedient and just as stronger than he ever was because he hears the voice of his master and Jesus overcame as a lamb, crucified in weakness, that's how he overcame.

I read this article said Jesus was defeated on the cross, but he overcame in his resurrection, that's false. It was on the cross that he destroyed principalities and powers and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them, his cross.

Why? Because he was overcoming hatred with love, he was overcoming wickedness with goodness, he was overcoming deceitfulness with truth, he was overcoming darkness with light, so no wonder it was dark when he died on the cross.

God enshrouded the whole land in darkness and the cross was enshrouded in darkness because God was working in the midst of the darkness. The conqueror was hanging on that cross, overcoming even as he hung there, and if principalities and powers and satanic hosts knew what they were doing, Paul says they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, but they didn't understand the wisdom of God.

Had they known what Paul says, they wouldn't have crucified him. They didn't know that God was manifesting the heights of his wisdom when Jesus died on the cross, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God, because at the cross he overcame, because it's there that light confronted darkness and banished the darkness, it's there that love confronted hatred and banished the hatred, it's there that the prince of death confronted him, and he thought he had him in his grasp.

Just as he defeated the first Adam, he thought, I've got the last Adam. He didn't know. If he'd have known the mystery of the cross, he wouldn't have crucified Jesus, but he didn't know it. Satan doesn't know the mystery of the cross.

He can't know it because he dwells in darkness. Everything that God did on the cross was God shining forth out of the darkness, God revealing things that Satan couldn't understand, how that through love we conquer, through forgiveness we conquer, through showing mercy we conquer.

They didn't understand that mystery of the cross, and so they crucified him thinking they destroyed him, only to discover that as Jesus expired, they began to lose their power and their authority. Amazed that this one whom they got finally got him on the cross, they find themselves withering away in fear.

Three days later God rose them from the dead because he was the conqueror. Because there was no evil in him, God must raise him from the dead because he had triumphed in his death and in his crucifixion.

Taking Up the Cross

God would teach you and I that we overcome the same way. Through that word that he gave us, the word and through the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, through the word of what God has done, we bear it about with us.

God gives us the word of it, the word of the cross he gives to us, so that that word, that work that Jesus did in the cross will continue to be propagated, has been propagated all through the church age and will as long as the church age lasts, the message of the gospel, the message of the cross, which is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved.

It is the power, the dunamis of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. He wants us to overcome as he overcame. And he says those that overcome as I overcame will sit down with me in my throne even as I overcame and sat down with my father in his throne.

It's not going through another cross, it's taking up our cross and being identified with his, being identified with his, buried with him in baptism wherein also we are risen with him through faith in the operation of God who raised him from the dead.

This whole matter of the gospel is not just that Jesus did this for me, he did that, that's part of the gospel, but in the greater revelation of the gospel there is this glorious truth that when he died I died there with him, that he crucified me.

When he was crucified I was crucified with him by faith. By faith we look back and God says I crucified mankind, I crucified the flesh on the cross. We see ourselves as crucified with Jesus on the cross.

You say he did it for me so I don't have to go through it. Jesus says if any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself and let him take up his cross and follow me. I was reading this article by A. W. Tozer and I thought he brought it out so clearly.

When the people in Jerusalem or any other city that was under the domination of the Roman Empire, when they saw that man trudging through the streets of Jerusalem carrying his cross, he said he wasn't out seeking a new way of life.

He wasn't out to discover the potential that was in him. He wasn't out to become a Christian so that he could discover a better way of working for God. He was saying goodbye to his friends and he was going to a cross and he wasn't coming back.

He was carrying that cross to be slain upon it, not to find his potential as a new Christian. It's a hard message. We shrink from it. But if you and I want to be overcomers, we're going to take up our cross and follow him and be slain upon that cross we take up.

Persecution and Godly Living

Why? You say not in this country, not in our country up there in Canada where we have freedom. Let me tell you the reason we don't find ourselves crucified by the world. It's not because of our democratic form of government.

It's because we're not exhibiting in our lives the truth that was in our Lord Jesus. It's because we're not that reproach against sin that God intends us to be. I'm not talking about marching and making a big fuss about it, which doesn't amount to anything.

I'm talking about living as Jesus lived, walking as Jesus walked, manifesting the same love and truth and mercy and hate for sin that he manifested, which we can only do as we walk in the Spirit. When we come to that, you're going to be persecuted.

Jesus Paul said, if any man will live godly in Christ Jesus, he shall suffer persecution. It doesn't say if you've got the wrong kind of government, because this world is under the domination of the prince of evil, the God of this world.

He's blinded the minds of them that believe not, blinded them so thoroughly that evil becomes good in their sight. Sin becomes good because of the apostasy that's settled on the human race. And we see it.

And when we start saying that's not good, like you say it's good, it's evil, you're going to find persecution because of it. We're having a little of it coming now, but nothing compared to what will happen when there's a people walking in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and declaring God's judgments against all the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are rampant in the earth today and in this nation and in ours, that we can overcome in the midst of it as God by his Spirit enables us to manifest the life of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus, the cross of Jesus, taking it up and following him.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. To him that overcometh, God says, I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.

Overcoming through Faith and Weakness

I don't believe we wait till judgment day to partake of these things, but even as we're overcoming, we're beginning to partake of the rewards of overcoming. I will give you to eat of the hidden manna.

Say, well, I don't know if I've overcome yet. Begin to partake of it, begin to walk in the light of it, begin to take up your cross and follow him. God sees, not as man sees. We find many characters in the Bible in the ranks of the overcomers that we would never judge they overcame, because they overcame not in their own strength, but in following the Lord.

And even if they fell, so what? A righteous man falls seven times, David said, but rises up. Not a case of whether you fall, it's whether you rise up again in the strength of the Lord. Learning from your fall, getting more humble because of your fall, having more compassion because of your fall, having more understanding, becoming more aware of the unreliability of your flesh until you come to the place where, as Paul said, we have no confidence in the flesh, but our confidence is in him.

I want to speak about these precious, shall I call it the rewards of overcoming, but something that we partake of now until that ultimate day when we stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, having overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, being confident that he will bring us there.

For Paul says we are more than conquerors, more than overcomers, through Christ that loved us. And knowing that as we put ourselves in his hands and our confidence in him, we don't have to wonder every day if I'm going to make it, but we can have this assurance that he who has begun that good work in you will continue to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

The Hidden Manna and God’s Provision

I've got hidden manna for you, hidden manna. When I read that some years ago, I remember that both words stood out strongly. Manna, I knew about the manna, but hidden manna. Then having studied the tabernacle in the wilderness, I thought of the golden pot of manna in the Ark of the Covenant.

When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they carried everything with them, carried a lot of food with them, and they were well supplied with the provisions they brought out of Egypt, but it didn't take long before their food baskets started to get very empty.

They started to worry about it. More than worry, they started to complain against God. God knew what he would do. I wish we could understand that. In any hour of need, God knows what he will do. He's wondering what we will do, but he knows what he will do.

We always have to connive and plan and scheme when we get in a fix. And so at the time, I think we mentioned this in a previous meeting down this way, when they were without bread and the people had followed him and they were famishing for bread, and Jesus said, well, what are we going to do, Philip, to feed this company?

And one suggested this, one suggested 200 penny worth of bread, give every man a taste. And who was it said, well, there's a lad here that has five loaves and two fishes. And so all these suggestions come, you know, trying to figure out how to answer Jesus' question, what are you going to do about this multitude, Jesus said, what do we do?

He himself knew what he would do, but he said that to prove them, to test them, to try them, to see what their idea was. Man can always come up with solutions. The church is quick to come up with the solution to problems.

Just get the board together and come up with a good solution, especially if there's money flowing around. We can work it out somehow. Jesus knew what he would do. And he said this to prove them. God shows to us the needs of mankind.

And what are you going to do about it? Lord, I'll do this, I'll do that. He's proving us to seek him to know his way. Bring what you've got. Well, all we have, Lord, is five little loaves and two fishes.

Bring them to me, he said. And I mean, that's the answer. I don't care how little you got from God, bring it to him. What's that in your hand, Benaiah? A stick. Go and slay the Philistines with it. What have you got, David?

A stick and a few stones and a sling. And the Philistines disdained him. Come here. Are you coming to me, treating me like a dog? Come here and I'll give your flesh for the birds to eat. He says, you come to me in the name of your gods, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts.

Slew the Philistines with a stone and a sling. He picked up five of them, but who was it? Bosworth, an old time preacher back 40, 50 years ago. He said he had four stones left, looking for four more Philistines.

But he didn't kill him with the stones. He ran to him, stood upon him, took the giant sword and slew Goliath with his own sword. God teaching you and I that as we do the will of God with whatever we have, a stick or a stone or whatever, Satan brings about his own defeat.

And through death, he destroyed him that had the power of death. He took the enemy, the enemy's tool, death, the prince of death. He took that death and by submitting to it, he took it from Satan because he was doing the will of God.

He slew the prince of death by death. Through death, he destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil, delivered all them who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage.

The Wisdom of the Cross and Becoming Nothing

Do you want me to? The hidden wisdom, also as we speak, wisdom amongst those that are perfect, mature, not the wisdom of this world, nor the prince of this world that are coming or not, but we speak the hidden wisdom of God, the wisdom of the cross.

That's what he's talking about. That's what we speak, hidden manna. That's our food, the hidden wisdom of God. It's not available to the world or to the worldly mind. It's available to that man who in his own eyes and perhaps in the eyes of many others is but a fool.

For God is choosing the base things of the world, the things that are despised, the things that are weak, the things that are not esteemed by man. And he goes further, yea, the things that are nothing, things that are not, what's he choosing them for?

To bring to nothing the things that are. If you want to be successful as a Christian, go to any Christian bookstore and you'll find dozens, I think dozens of books, how to become a successful pastor, successful teacher, successful evangelist.

I don't know, I don't know how many there are. If you want to go God's way, you've got to learn how to become nothing that the power of Christ might be revealed for you. Paul says I rejoice when I am weak, but then am I strong.

Why? Because he said I'm always bearing about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in my mortal flesh. We don't understand that because we don't understand the wisdom of God and the mystery of the cross.

God has left us in mortal flesh. Yes, Paul says we groan that we might put on immortality, but he's left us in mortal flesh that the power of Christ might overshadow us in our weakness. Christ himself was crucified in weakness that he might live by the power of God.

Oh, he said I want to be strong. God wants us to be strong too, but be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Being weak in ourselves that the power of Christ might overshadow us. Weak as Samson, he was just an ordinary man.

Samson and the Church’s Restoration

God gave him strength because of the covenant he had with God that he would let the locks of his hair grow. Many times he did some things that you and I look at and say, Samson, you sinned. You didn't keep your Nazarite vow.

You didn't walk in holiness. I know we say that, and he overcame at the last. He was blinded by the Philistines and taken into captivity, made to be the mock of all the gods of the Philistines, and they brought him out one day.

We're going to have a real feast here. They brought forth Samson, their enemy, weak as a kitten, blind, powerless, because in his foolishness he allowed his wife to cut off the locks of his hair which spoke of his Nazarite vow unto God.

But in his captivity, the hair of his head began to grow. They began to turn to God, and he was standing there by a pillar led by a little lad, being made a gazing stock to all these who were partying, celebrating their god Dagon and their victory over Samson.

What a picture of the church in her weakness, made to be the gazing stock of the world, laughed at, scoffed at. What do we do? Can't help it. I believe when God's people, when God brings his people to repentance, that hair of our glory will grow once again.

And he said, Lord, let me be avenged of the Philistines this one time. And he put his arms around the pillars, and he bowed himself with all his strength, which is the strength of the Lord that came back to him, and brought down the temple of Dagon and all their hosts, and slew more in his death than he'd ever slain, and all those victories that we see him partaking of in his death.

And he said, let me die with the Philistines. I wonder what it's going to take to bring this very weak church to that kind of commitment. I believe God's going to do it. When she's realized she's had enough playing around with the world, with the Philistines, divulged her secret, made bare the secret of her power, the real power that God wants us to have, the secret of it is that vow of holiness unto the Lord, which we can't keep in ourselves, but which he enables us to keep as we are sealed with that holy covenant and by his spirit, and are committed to walk with him and to wear priestly garments.