Camp Spalding - Part 4 — George Warnock

Mercy, reach out and touch. We thank you for your wonderful presence here this day, reaching everyone that has come. We pray once more for our government, Lord, that there will be righteousness in our land, and the fear of God will enter into every area of the American life, Lord, in our schools, in the media, in the government, in business.

We need righteousness, Lord. Unless you do a mighty work, the decay will continue. We ask your help, Lord. And now for each one of us here, Lord, the many needs, we pray the word this morning that Jesus will be lifted up among us, and we will say and hear those things which are important to each one of us.

We carefully praise you in the wonderful name of Jesus, and everyone said, amen. You may be seated. We turn in our Bibles to 1 Peter 1 .23, and we'll read together through the second verse of the second chapter.

Being Born Again Through the Imperishable Word

All right, here we go. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.

The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile, hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.

We've been talking about this for a week or so, and we wish to point out again that there is a difference between birth and conception, and we'll let this point in here be conception, and then over here brought forth.

And then in here there is a travail. Christ is conceived in us, and then we go through a period of travail, and then finally something is brought forth in our nature that is substantial and eternal. The problem is the problem of abortion.

The problem is that the life will perish, and probably a great many American Christians that life has been or is in the process of being aborted, because we do not understand the difference between the soul and the spirit.

We do not understand the reality of the born-again experience. We use the term incorrectly. We use it to mean an acceptance of Christ. Let me show you a verse in Galatians 4 .19. You get the point here.

Galatians 4 .19 says, My little children. Now, who is he talking to? We go over to Galatia, says, the churches of Galatia are to save people. And then in chapter 3 of Galatians, verse 2, he said that they had received the spirit, received the spirit by the works of the law.

They were saved, and they had received the spirit. But in Galatians 4 .19, he says, My little children, of whom I travail in birth. Now the concept is that there has been a conception, because you cannot have a birth until there has been a conception.

So the idea is that Christ has been conceived in them, but he has not been formed in them. They are saved, they have received the spirit, but Christ has not been formed in them. He knew that because they were being occupied with religious doctrines, with circumcision and other doctrines of the Jews.

And Paul knew that once the Christ is brought forth in us, we see that all doctrines and all things have been a means to an end or scaffolding to bring forth a new creation. Religion serves a purpose.

It's supposed to serve a purpose. And so these people were saved and have received the spirit, but Christ had not been formed in them. You see, that's a change in our doctrinal understanding. We would say if a person had been saved and received the spirit, automatically he had been born again.

Well, that's not scriptural. Being born again is not synonymous with having your sins forgiven. Being born again is something that happens to us over a period of time, provided that we see to it that that life is nourished.

Remember the parable of the sower, how there was quick growth but not lasting growth. In many instances, it was aborted. The process was aborted. And I think that in America today, in many instances, if not most, the process is aborted, largely because of ignorance, because we do not—one example is the so-called contemporary Christian music.

Maybe some of you have heard that. Maybe some of you have been not that unfortunate. But there is such a thing called contemporary Christian music. And if a believer is under the impression that this is doing anything for the bringing forth of Christ in him, he is really a baby.

He has little understanding of the difference between the soul and the spirit. This is soulish activity. It may inspire the soul, and we'll be talking about the soul in a moment as God leads. That's because something of the soul doesn't mean that it's bad.

The soul isn't something bad. The soul is something that we have. But the soul shall not enter the kingdom. The only thing that enters the kingdom is that which is brought forth, namely, Messiah formed in us.

You cannot—Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless you are born again, you cannot see or enter into the kingdom. Being born again is an issue of the kingdom, because it is the kingdom that is born within us. It is supernatural.

It is not fed by the numerous doings of the church. It is fed by specifics, by the word of God when it's made alive by the spirit, and especially as we learn to get alone with the Lord and feed upon his body and blood.

My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ or Messiah be formed. This does not mean that you have turned over a new leaf. It does not mean that you have become like Christ. It means what it says.

It means that the central aspect of the Christian redemption, the central aspect, the core of it is that a new creation or another seed, another seed has been planted in us. Its parents are not human.

John 1 .13 says, which were born, not of blood or bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God. The soul was not born of God. It's the new man. It's the new life. And that life is not ministered to by much that goes on in the churches.

And we have to take care that we find out how it's nurtured and to see to it that it's nurtured. Because if it is not, then we pass into eternity when we die physically as a naked spirit. Because the only thing which inherits the throne of God, the soul doesn't inherit the throne of God, the soul inherits a cross.

It is the new man of the heart. That is not an expression meaning that the soul became religious or good. You must be born again. And we don't know too much about that. In 1 Peter 1, because we're talking about that verse, 1 Peter 1 .23, being born again.

Scripture, the Inner Man, and the Formation of Christ

And in 1 Peter 2, you get the same picture in 2 Peter 1, 2 Peter chapter 1. Peter's talking here about his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, 2 Peter 1 .18. And this voice, that is the voice of the Father which came from heaven we heard when we were with him, that is with Jesus in the holy mountain, that is of transfiguration, Peter, James and John.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy. What's more sure than the voice of God from heaven? There's only one thing more sure than that. What's the more sure word of prophecy? The scriptures. He's talking about the scriptures.

You see that a couple of verses later, the prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation. It's the prophecy of the scripture that is more certain than a voice from heaven. And he says, where unto you do well that you take heed.

Now that is the same thing that he said in the first chapter, isn't it? As of the first Peter, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of what? Of the word. And he's saying the same thing here again, take heed unto the scriptures, read them.

That is what feeds the inner man as a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawns, something happens. There is a bringing forth that has nothing to do with physical death. It has nothing to do with going to heaven.

It has to do with something that happens within us when we have been dutiful for a long enough period. Well, you see the same thing in John 14, if any man loved me, he will keep my words. And then something happens.

I will love him. I will reveal myself to him. Again, if a man love you, keep my words and my father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode. And here we find that something happens in the heart.

The day dawn, it dawns in your heart. And the day star, the day star is the herald of the day of the Lord. And those who expect, listen carefully, those who expect to be raised when Jesus comes will be people in whom the day star has arisen first.

If my understanding is true, not every Christian or every person who professes faith shall be raised when the Lord appears. I can't get away from it. I can't get away from Revelation 20, verses four through six, blessed and holy is he that hath part.

I can't get away from Revelation two and three, the promises to the overcomer. I have come to the conclusion and I see no way out that the only people who are raised when the Lord appears are those in whom the Lord has been formed.

There are many reasons for that. One is because being raised up to be with him means that judgment is in the past. You can't be raised up and be forever with the Lord and then be judged. There's no question in my mind that we have to go past Pentecost into this feast of tabernacles, this day star, this forming of the Lord, if we are to be eligible to be raised in the day of the Lord, because it is not Adam who is raised.

It is not Adam who is raised. It is not a believing Adam who is raised. You find the same thing, exact same thing. Do you follow me? Do you hear what I'm saying? Be alerted. I'm blowing the trumpet in Zion.

Be alerted. When the Lord comes, people are not going up. We have the same thing in John six. If a man loved me, he will, not if a man loved me, he says, he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up.

You see, it is not we who are raised up, it's the body and blood that is raised up. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I am he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall live by me as I live by the Father.

That's not our norm. It's not today's American Christianity. We are not living by the body and blood. We are living a soulish life with church music and other church building programs and other things which do nothing, nothing for the inner man and consequently God's people have become merchandise and a prey, a prey, Doug, a prey of people who are teaching that which is only dwells in the realm of money.

It has nothing to do with being born again. You must be born again. It's not enough to be conceived. You must be born. You must bring it forth. The day must dawn in your heart. The day star must rise in your heart because that day star, which is Christ, he is the day star, is saying to you, you have arrived at the day of the Lord.

We won't see it in its externals until the Messiah appears, but when he appears we will appear with him because the day of the Lord, with a small d if you will, already has been begotten within us. My little children, take heed to the scriptures.

Prayer, Communion, and the Cost of Discipleship

Now what does that mean in practical terms to us as Americans? It means that we must return to times of personal communion with the Lord. We must return to the closet of prayer. Well, we don't do it and we can't do it.

Two reasons. One, the closet is full of other stuff and two, we don't have time. That's why I can talk about prayer closets, but most of us may very well go out of here and say, that's wonderful. I certainly agree with that and never do it.

You have to take vital, strong, radical steps if you're going to have a prayer closet. It means not less than a half an hour a day spent with Jesus in communion and in the Word. Of course you don't have time.

You may be holding down two jobs. You may have to get rid of one of them. Better eat beans and have the Lord than two television sets and a nice car without the Lord. You can't pray on the run. You can't think good thoughts.

They don't wash. You've got to have time with God each day. Church is not a substitute for personal communion. Church is kind of like a place where we all come and build up one another as we've done this morning, many ministering prayer and different things and music and worship.

And as we join together and comfort one another. That's no substitute. You can't take this and ride through next week with it. Monday, there's got to be a time in your prayer closet. Brother Thompson, I can't do it.

I'm on the thin edge of despair now. The reason that you are is because you're earning money and putting it in a bag with holes in it. And there's no end to it. There'll never be enough time. There will never be enough time until you say, I get off the bus here and I'm going to make time.

I'm going to make time. And that means for most of us that the television goes off at 10 o 'clock. Boy, you hear Adam cry and scream bloody murder. Adam wants to be saved, but he doesn't want to be saved at the expense of his television.

You can't serve God and sit up night after night because you can't get up in the morning. And it's in the morning that you've got to meet God. You go to work at six, you've got to get up at 430. How in the world are you going to have time to eat a decent breakfast and get prepared?

You say, how can I get up at 430 by going to bed at eight o 'clock? Well, I can't do that and keep up all my stuff. Well, you may be burning the candle at both ends. God isn't going to bless you for that.

God carries no brief for a man that works himself into the ground. God did not create us to grub in the mud. We're children of the stars. We're children to be born and worship our God. That's the meaning of the eagle and the four faces of man.

We're born to soar. We're not gophers. God holds no brief for people that work that hard. You'll never have enough money, never. You have to rearrange your priorities. And I tell you, if you don't get a time of prayer with the Lord and good intentions and positive thoughts and praying on the run or reading the devotional guide in the bathroom, doesn't count.

There has to be a time of getting alone and communion. You've got to feed this man before he dies. Everything in our culture is working against this thing ever coming forth. Satan stands before it to kill it as soon as it comes forth.

Satan doesn't care about our religion. What he cares about is Christ. That's all he fears. He doesn't fear the church, seeing an army of Christian soldiers. What does that mean? Wouldn't mean anything to Satan if every Christian in the world joined together, arm and arm and raised all the money in the world.

It would only be anti-Christ. That's all it would be. What's happened when you get people together, all you get is anti-Christ. It is only Christ that matters, nothing else. That's where Satan's mortal fear is, that we'll learn that life comes by death.

Praise the Lord. A heavy word. Well, you can't. God said, blow the trumpet in Zion. He didn't say, play the violin. No, blow the trumpet in Zion. If you ever know anyone practicing the trumpet, it's not the most restful thing in the world.

The New Birth as a Change of Seed

All right. First Peter 2 .23, being born again. See, we were born of our parents, but we have to be born again of God. This is not a figure of speech. It is not a figure of speech. It means that our body then becomes, what shall I say, a kind of a custodian of our personality.

Our soul becomes a custodian of our personality while this other thing is going on. It becomes stock into which the true life is grafted. Two men, two men, Adam and Messiah. Not a corruptible seed. The issue is one of seed.

It is not one of religion. It is not one of learning to do certain things. Behavior. It's not one, first of all, of behavior. It is one, first of all, of a seed. The issue, first of all, is a change in seed.

I was telling the group Friday night about an illustration that came to my mind. It may seem to you bizarre or radical. Nevertheless, there's a point to it. And that's about God talking to a horse. God comes to a horse and says, horse, I want you to compose a fugue after the style of Johann Sebastian Bach and play it on the pipe organ.

If you do, you'll be a happy horse. If you do not, you're going to be punished severely. And I had to think of something that was impossible because if I got anything any less radical than a horse playing a fugue, somehow it would have got back into if I try real hard.

Well, a horse doesn't know the difference between a fugue and a bale of hay. How many know that? So the horse goes back to God and says, how do I do this? I'm unable to do this. It's a good horse, you say.

Conscientious horse. And God said, horse, you have to be born again. Bach must be born in you. It's easy for Bach to do it, but it's impossible for you. So you must be born again. So the horse says, I must be born again.

And how do I do that? Well, you must do all the things that pertain to the Christian life. You must pray. You must read your Bible. You must gather together with fervent horses. So the horse goes to a horse church with a horse pastor.

And the horse pastor is preaching to them that if they're good horses, they're going to go to the great pasture in the sky. They're going to have clover. They're going to have mash, hay, oats forever.

Well, every once in a while, they talk about Bach and the fugue, but all the horses know this is impossible. What the horse pastor is teaching is that if they'll be good horses and believe because of God's mercy, they will all get to go to the great pasture in the sky.

And that's what they talk about most of the time. That is not a bad analogy of what is going on. So this particular horse is conscientious. So he goes back to God and he reads his Bible and praise and worships God and reads the word.

And pretty soon he finds he can carry a tune pretty well. The only thing that hinders him then is his body. But God has promised him, horse, if you will just go until Bach is formed in you, I will give you a body like Bach and then you can do what I have told you to do.

You see the difference between the traditional gospel is trying to save the horse. It's trying to save the soul. God's the soul is not saved like the horse going to the pasture. The soul is saved by coming into something else.

And let me give you another illustration that God has given us in nature. That is a most marvelous illustration, and that is the larva of a butterfly. Now, when the insect comes forth from the egg, the larva is a caterpillar.

The caterpillar is an earthbound animal. Then the caterpillar at some stage, God speaks to the caterpillar and the caterpillar spins its own shroud and it enters into death. And that is something that God has given us in nature that is so marvelous to see.

What God expects Adam to do is to spin his own shroud to reckon himself dead. To say it is not I, but something else that is coming forth. Now, when that comes to the time for the butterfly, which is the second stage of the same insect.

The butterfly wiggles out of that cocoon and it comes forth. Now the question is, is that the caterpillar? Was the caterpillar saved? Does the butterfly remember his life as a caterpillar? Then we cannot answer those questions, never having been a butterfly.

But that is a very, very good analogy of what happens to us when God is saying to us, when the soul is being saved, it is not the caterpillar that is being saved. If the cat, I don't know what caterpillars eat, little bits of leaves, I guess, because they cause blight and things.

And a caterpillar's idea of heaven is a whole heaven full of leaves that you can eat forever and ever. An endless forest of leaves, and it would be very easy in a caterpillar church to begin to preach the great leaves beyond when you die, you are going to go into a place where there is all these leaves.

That is what we do when we talk about acres of diamonds. When we talk about mansions, it is the soul that wants these things. It's like a caterpillar wanting leaves when we talk about acres of diamonds.

What is the new man in you want to do with acres of diamonds? What is the new man in you want to do with mansions? He has nothing for mansions. It's our soul that we have got, and we've got a horse church.

I'm not talking about this church in particular, I'm talking about horse churches in which we're talking about great pastures in the sky when I'm put out to pasture in the great retirement home in the sky.

That's because your soul is tired, and he's not going to be saved any more than a caterpillar is going to grow wings. See, the caterpillar has to go into death. There must be a metamorphosis. That means a change.

There must be a change in the whole structure. If any caterpillar go into a cocoon, there's a new creature comes forth. Teaching a caterpillar to fly would be a very laborious task, but you don't have to teach a butterfly to fly because a butterfly flies by nature.

But the route to salvation for a caterpillar is death. It is a period of time in a cocoon. I don't know what it's like in there, what the caterpillar thinks about when he's in that cocoon, and I'm sure there are more pleasant things to do than to abide in a cocoon.

And there are more pleasant things to do than to grab hold of Christ and then to bring yourself down into death and to live on the basis of another life coming forth. There are more pleasant things to do.

And that's what we do in our horse church. We keep all the horses happy. We give lip service to Bach and the few, but what we basically do is look to the horse. Our religion, without realizing it, serves to reinforce Adam.

And I gave the example of building programs and contemporary rock. These are all things that Adam recognizes and understands. Fellowship. Adam loves it. You accept fellowship, you'll have every Adam in town because Adam loves that thing.

It's of the soul. Put on a big program, you'll get every Adam in town. Put on a floor show, dancing, singing, you'll have every Adam in town. It's Adamic, it's soulish. I say, Thompson, that's a pretty bare-bones religion.

The Soul, Adam, and the Necessity of Death

I want to talk to you now about the soul. As I said, the soul is not bad any more than a caterpillar is bad. The problem with the caterpillar is not that he's bad, it's that he cannot fly. And he's not all that pretty either.

Unless you're given to caterpillars. Most women are not given to caterpillars. They yell and scream like it was a, I don't know, water moccasin. They see a caterpillar and flee. No, the soul is not bad.

And this is another thing. If you fail in your Christian life, it will not be because Christ has failed. It will be because Adam has failed. If you fail, it will not be because Christ has failed. That is the seed.

It will be because Adam has failed. Let me explain that. Most of what we do is of necessity of our soul. There's no way out of it. We can't. The new man is so small. Remember when the kingdom is as a grain of mustard seed.

It's the smallest of all seeds. And when this is born in us, we say, I've been born again. Then we go out and fight with our family. You know, all of us born-again Christians are coming up to Christmas time.

You know what that means? The family gets together. You know what that means? World War III. I don't care whether they're born-again Christians, Episcopalians or what. Why is that? Because we've been conceived and not born.

It's because most of us is of the soul. You get all these souls together and the family goes into action. Endless fighting, quarrels, poutings, hurt feelings. The kids run around bananas. They burn their hands.

People eat too much. One time I'll tell you, you want to preach on the deeper life. It's during the Christmas season. I said, preach on the deeper life. People are so loaded with food and shopping and their brains.

You know, that's why you get a high rate of trouble, hospitalizations, nervous breakdowns and everything during the celebration of the birth of our Lord. It's because all the born-again Christians got together.

The thing is, we don't understand that we have to live in the soul. That's all we've got. And the soul is responsible to take care of that seed. It is the soul's responsibility with his intelligent brain that God has given to the soul to understand and to read the Word of God.

We talked about getting up early and having a time of communion. Guess who's going to do that? The inner man or the outer man? The outer man has to, in his brain, he says, If I don't, then my hope of being saved is aborted.

You have to reason it through. So he says, I'd love to stay in bed, especially as it gets cold and rainy. How many know when it gets cold and rainy, the church attendance drops off radically? The reason is because all the people in California are made of sugar.

And if they get wet, they dissolve. And they wake up and they look out the window and the wind is blowing. They say, Oh, my goodness. And they get back in bed. Well, it's a hearty race of pioneers we're bringing.

That's Adam in our culture. You know, our culture is very, has told Adam, our soul over and over and over. You're a delicate treasure. And what you need is improved acids, false teeth, glue, and various other things.

It's been over and over. Take care of Adam. He's delicate. If you don't, he'll be uncomfortable. Now, it's Adam that has to choose between the perpetuation of his own corruption or whether to be born again.

And when he enlists on the side of being born again, he is spelling out his own doom. It's like a caterpillar of his own will. Caterpillar is a free will agent, I suppose. And of his own will, he decides to go into a cocoon.

It's Adam that does that. You have to decide that you're going to go into a cocoon, that you're going to enter into the death route and reckon yourself dead, that you're going to get up and minister to the Lord.

I don't want to put you in bondage, whether it's morning or night or when. That isn't the point. The point is to do it. And Adam has to understand this thoroughly. That if he can go through all of his religion, he can have perfect doctrine.

He can believe in the virgin birth. He can believe in the triune God. He can believe in the correct formula for water baptism and all these things. But unless he is born again. Unless he's given over to death and another life comes forth that is substantial.

Now, not just conceived, but substantial. When he dies, he will pass into eternity as a naked spirit. We tend very greatly to misunderstand God's mercy. And we say, well, I've kind of knocked her on. I haven't done all that great, but God loves me and he's forgiven me.

It isn't an issue of forgiveness or mercy. That's not the issue because the goal is not heaven. If the goal were heaven to bring Adam to heaven, yes, the idea was all the poor kid. We don't want him in the fire.

Let's bring him up here where all the goodies are. That's a horse church that thinks that way. The goal is not to go to the happy hunting ground. The goal is the kingdom, the kingdom, which is coming to the earth.

That's the goal. And God doesn't forgive you so that you enter the kingdom. What must you do to enter the kingdom? You have to be born again. Why? Because flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom. And God could look at him and say, well, he sure didn't sow to the seed.

And when the rubber hit the road, he just wasn't in there. He was a good church man and everybody loved him. He was just a dandy, but he wasn't born again. But we'll let him into the kingdom anyway. What's wrong with that thinking?

It's like saying to the caterpillar, you can fly anyway. I love you. So fly away, little caterpillar. It won't work. No matter how much you love that caterpillar, it won't work because he can't fly. And that's why when we say, I know I'm a miserable sinner, but I'm going up to the streets of gold because Jesus is righteous.

Why won't it work? Because the goal is not to go to another place. The goal is to bring forth the kingdom, which is a new creation. Now, if you are not doing this, you will perish. You will go into Laodicea.

The reason for that is the judgment is upon us and the times are going to get hard. When they do, the soulish religionist, when persecution comes, severe persecution comes, you will not stand. You will not stand because, well, for several reasons.

The one of the prime ones is that when persecution comes, if it costs your life to be a Christian, you're going to lie and say, I am not. If you're living in the soul, if you're living in the other man, what he wants to do is die so he can get a body like Bach and play the organ.

He's got different goals. You can't scare the born again man with the prospect of death. He wants to die. Not in the suicidal sense, but in the fact that he wants to go with Jesus where Jesus is. He's just not of a soulish nature.

He's not suicidal at all. It's the soul that gets suicidal. It's the soul that's up and down like a yo-yo. And one day it loves this world. The next day it wants to cut its own throat. Not the spiritual man.

He's not like that. But you cannot frighten him with death. You can talk about earthquakes. You can talk about, you talk about earthquakes and all these things. And the people that are living in the soul will get angry.

The soul gets angry and says, how dare God do that to me? That's how you can tell people who are in the soul. They'll get angry. You talk about God's judgment, they'll get angry. Their soul says, no, I don't believe in a God like that.

The spiritual man says, oh, hallelujah. How long, Lord? How long? How long do I have to walk around with hoofs instead of hands? That's how you can tell.

It's one thing to say, yes, Lord, I'll go all the way, Lord. But God wants to see a deeper commitment in the heart. He wants to see a commitment that will involve a very depth of our soul and spirit. A commitment from our very heart.

He wants to see that. And so we trust that even in these few days of gathering together, that there will have been born in the hearts of God's people a fresh commitment and a new commitment to go all the way with the spiritual man.

In all you have. Whatever you do, Lord, we're looking for this glory. We're looking for the coming forth of the presence of God in the midst of these people. We want to be a sinful people. We want to bring forth for your honor and glory.

But Lord, when we begin to do that, we promise you, Lord, it's going to be you. It's going to be for the Lord's name and glory sake. We'll retain none of that glory for ourselves. But God granted that commitment.

He stole from such depth within that when these things begin to happen, we will not forget it. God grants that even as he begins to fulfill that commitment and to glorify your son in the midst of his people, that he will remind us over and over and over again.

Remember what you said. Remember what you said. That this one I'm bringing forth in your midst was to be given to me. All the days of my life, you were not to retain it. There are too many in the land today who say, I have this ministry.

I have this commission from God. I've got this from God. If you're going to go anywhere with God in the days that are ahead, when God is bringing his people into realms of new things, new directions, every one of us has got to be prepared to give back to God.