God Has Spoken — B.H. Clendennen

I am going to read again in Hebrews 1, verses 2 and 3, Father, thank you this morning for again the privilege of coming to worship, the praise, the blessed Holy Spirit that we realize is in this place so wonderful this morning.

Anoint us to speak, Lord. Anoint us to hear. And help us to know you talk to the people that are in this room, nobody else. In Jesus' name, amen. You know, when God made man, he put him in that garden which is symbolic of his presence.

The Fall, Human Choice, and the Mixture of Flesh and Spirit

Man came into the presence of God, and God made that man, he didn't want a robot. He wanted a man that choose to work and to love him. He never, God never planned the fall. If you believe that, then you believe God is the author of sin.

But God never planned the fall, but God made man that he had to make a choice. Adam had to make a choice of what he would do. He chose to eat of the wrong tree. What he ate in that tree, the curse and the death, was a human understanding.

What he ate was a mixture of good and evil. It was a tree of good and evil. For a long while, I believed that the good of that tree was as bad as the evil. But I recognized what he ate was a mixture. And that mixture produced a Cain, a murderer, and an evil.

All along, an Isaac and an Esau. All through life, it produced that. Those two ran from that garden all the way through the Bible, all the way through until you come to a time when it said those daughters, those sons of God married those daughters of men.

And it's that mixture that come afloat. Today we're there. There's a terrible mixture in the church of flesh and spirit. Human understanding, trying to be mixed with that which is of God, and it's brought about a curse in the church in many, many, many ways because we're not able to get through to God, or He's not able to come through us as He'd like to come through us.

But temptation always forces upon us a choice. God never forces me to choose His will, but if I choose His will, He will enforce that choosing. How wonderful that is. That's the reason prayer must have such a large place in our lives, because there's always that target at me, always that side of me, that flesh.

If ever you lean to the wrong side, as the Corinthians did, then everything comes into the church. Whenever there comes any kind of a function, if we willfully allow that side to operate in the church, if you allow those to sing that you know are not right, if you allow them to usher, teach that you know is not right, then you have given the devil rights in that church, because that's his body.

And he will collect that as worship. Every time, he'll collect that as worship. So prayer has such a large place in the life of Christ. The apostles gave themselves to prayer and the Word of God. It occupied 50 of their time, because there was always this warfare trying to pull them in the wrong direction, to make the right choice.

The Word of God as Judgment and Living Action

So whenever we hear the Word of God, no matter where we're at, what we are, we're judged by that Word. We're either found guilty or not guilty. It's always the Word of God is an act. Not just something said.

The Word of the Lord is always an act. Now here we're going to deal with how that comes in verses 2 and 3. He said, He said, That statement that God has spoken. What a powerful thing that is. That is a medium of communication.

Nothing is more powerful than spoken. Speak. What a powerful thing. We sometimes fail to realize what an awesome thing is. If we knew what it was, we'd be more careful to weigh our conversation and what we say.

The power of it. God is speaking, or God's speaking rather, is a gateway by which he comes and enters this temple. It's by the Word of God. Christ came. The Word was made flesh. So when you understand He is the Word of God, then the Bible will become a more clear book to you, because you'll know that this is a book about Jesus Christ.

It's a book about God's Son. Every single thing. He said to Moses over and over, See that you do it according to the pattern. He wasn't allowed to change a color or a doorknob, because that was a representation of Christ to the fraction.

That whole system. Tabernacle. All of it. The law was simply a school teacher to bring us to Christ. And all of it. I understand. In these days of confusion everywhere, I've gone into services, strange things taking place.

I don't have time to go through 56 books of the Bible to see whether this is of God or not of God. But I know Him who is this book. And I just ask myself the question, Would Christ do this? If He wouldn't, I won't.

That settles it forever. No matter how much money it raises, how many people it may bring, if Christ won't, I won't. It is coming to know this. So God is speaking as a gateway into my heart, in which God is to reveal His glory, not only to me, but through me.

You see, you have in the book of Genesis, when Moses came to that burning bush, that second time, and God revealed Himself to him, and Moses said, You're sending me to Egypt. How are they going to know that you sent me?

He said, You tell them, I Am sent you. God was I Am. When you come to the book of Hebrews, He is He Is. Now Moses is becoming the I Am. You understand? You're reversing things. God is. You must believe that He is.

Not just I Am. He is I Am. But Moses becoming now the I Am. In other words, it's God through Moses that's going to speak to the people. It's God through us here in the book of Hebrews. We are to hear and to become.

We're not becoming God, but we're from God's voice of that. This is His way of entrance. The one object of God in speaking to us is to lead us to God. Everything. To reveal God and bring us in contact with Himself.

The whole purpose of the Word of God is not to make us religious-wise where we can argue with people about what we believe, but we become that truth. And as we become the truth, Paul said, it prays God to reveal His Son in me.

Now if he had put a pyrrhet there, it would have been great. But it's greater because he didn't because he said the reason was that I might preach Him to the heathen. In other words, unless Christ can be seen in me, I cannot reveal Christ to others.

I may talk about Christ. It's so easy to know Christ theologically and never know Him truly. Those Emmaus Road disciples could quote everything about Him, but never knew Him when He walked with them. And if Christ came into most churches they'd think the devil had come.

Knowing Christ Beyond Theology and Religious Forms

They know Him in the mind. You see, you have three different Christs presented. You have the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church. They know Him historically. They've still got Him on a cross. That's idolatry.

They've still got Him in Mary's arms. That's idolatry. We don't know Him there no more. You have the seminarian Christ. They know about the virgin birth. They know about the death and the resurrection.

But you have the Christ of the heart. Until He comes there, you've got nowhere with God. The two pillars of Christianity upon which it rises or falls is the depth of that fall and the height of that redemption.

Until you know that, you can never come to know. See, that's the root. And without roots you produce no fruit. God said, Let us make man in our image. That is, when God made Adam, mirrored in Adam, God could see Himself.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the fall, that was lost. That's what was lost in the fall. And there is no redemption until that's restored. There must be a birth of that Son in us. If we had kept that, we wouldn't have all the spurious miscarriages and abortions that sit on the pews of our churches that have never taken on the image of Christ.

Actually, you've got to beg people to come to church. They're not born again. That's not their nature. You know, I was a drunk. I talked to my dear brother, one of the greatest testimonies. I'd heard a part of it from Nick about his father and mother.

But all last night, didn't want to go to bed as they spoke of how God came to them without a preacher, without anybody. But God came to them. Amen. He was a drunk. Nobody had to beg Nick here to go to a bar.

He's just going to get there. And he's born again. Nobody had to beg him to come here this morning. Because this is my nature. You see, in God's speaking, man was created for God. It was sin that separated him from God.

In the beginning that's the way. Man feels his need and seeks for God. That's the reason they jump off that bridge down there because they never found Him. I was in Thailand, put in a school in the Thai language, and we had to live in a little hotel on the outskirts and driving in every morning to the 6 o 'clock prayer meeting at 530, still dark.

There were a line of Buddhist priests marching. Anywhere you come in, they'd be coming, picking up offerings at 530 in the morning. How many people you got here? They'll meet you up at 530 in the morning to give you an offering.

But they're out there waiting with an offering. On this particular morning when I came, there was this Thai lady kneeling. We passed her down before that devil-possessed priest, and he's blessing her, cursing her actually, but going through the ritual.

It's so registered on my mind that as I prayed, it just kept entering. I see her kneeling there. And I was crying out to God, that woman kneeling, that devil-possessed priest. He said, that's a devil-possessed priest, but she's not.

She's looking for me. And the only reason she's there, you never told her who I am. You failed me. You never told her. And so she's looking for me. That heart was made for God. Sin separated from God.

Man feels his need, seeks for God, and the Word comes to teach us about that God. Now, God is spoken. Speaking is a vehicle of fellowship. Speaking is proof that the speaker considers me worthy of hearing, and that he wants to have fellowship.

The very fact that God will talk to you means that God believes you're worthy to fellowship with Him, and it also says He wants to fellowship with me. You know, I want to talk to people. Some people won't talk.

And you feel like something is lost. A sad feeling comes into the heart because the fact that I speak to you is that I would like to fellowship with you. Well, the fact that God Almighty would talk to me means that God believes I'm worthy of His fellowship.

He wants to fellowship with me. The privilege, if we learned that, what a reverence we'd have to come to the house of God. Worship everything is for one thing, to prepare your heart for God Almighty to talk to you.

That's the reason Brother Nick put this pulpit in the center of this church, that when you walk through that door, it says the preeminence in this house is the Word of God. Not the organ. That's wonderful.

Not the singing. Paul never had any of it. Amen. I was in Albania a couple of Novembers ago, 2 ,000 years ago Paul was there, 1 ,800 miles from Jerusalem. He has now got to convince a heathen who never heard the name Christ that a man died in Jerusalem as a criminal was a son of God.

He's got to prove that. He cannot prove it with a religious argument. It pleased God to reveal His Son in me. Oh, hallelujah. But if we could just come to know prayer all along the line, once He's revealed, keeps that as I commune with God.

Keep that heart open. God can talk because there's always that other side trying to intrude, trying to come back alive. It is also, though speaking is also a token, God longs for that fellowship. Man was created for fellowship with God.

Before there ever was a word or a human being, there was this great God. He had thoughts, desire, and a will. That God did. He created man that He may manifest those thoughts, those desires, and those wills to us.

This is the only reason for the creation. Now, all the thoughts and wills and desires of the Father are comprehended in that Son. So God created me that His Son may live through me. You know, I've been married to one beautiful lady 58 years.

Oh, she's the best friend I've ever had on this earth besides Christ. But I used to wonder, how can such a pretty thing as this be a son of God? He said, As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.

I said, She's an old lady. There's nothing masculine about her. And I said, How could she be a son of God? He only has one Son. And that Son looks better in her than He does in me, I can tell you. Oh, let that Christ live in...

That's the reason we're born, folks. That Jesus may live in the apartment place where you live. He may ride on airplanes. He just doesn't come to church. A lady spoke to me some time ago and said, I don't understand.

I had two boys. I raised them in church. And now they're drug addicts. I said, Your problem, ma 'am, you never took the church home. They heard you talking tongues around an altar in the church, but they never went to bed hearing that in the other room.

They never heard you call that name. I can tell you, if you're not as holy in that house as you are in this altar, there's nothing to your holiness. Nothing. I said to a preacher's conference here some years ago, 500 preachers, I said, Preachers, mighty easy to stand up here and let a tear roll down your cheek, have a little change of voice, and make the people here think you're holy.

But does your wife think you're holy? Oh, yes. Or does the children at home think you're holy? This is a life where Christ is our life, and He must be that everywhere all the time. Man was created for fellowship.

Creation, Nature, and the Revelation of God in Christ

Sin interrupted that fellowship. It broke it. Nature speaks of God and His works. David said, and the Bible talks, that it reveals the glory of God. But nature cannot speak of God Himself. It can only tell you there had to be a hand bigger than us that made all of this.

But it cannot speak of God of Himself. It cannot reveal God's heart to me. It cannot reveal God's love toward me. I just see the greatness of God in a sunrise, but it cannot make me know Him personally.

It cannot. In His deepest misery, man seeks after God, but often, often in vain. But thanks be to God, the silence has been broken. God has spoken in His Son. That Son has become a living today. And the whole course of life now is to learn to enter into that rest.

Let Him be my life. It isn't the struggles of religion, folks. I live that way. Oh, I break down. I tell Him, if You'll let me try again, I'll make it. I lied to Him so many times. I said I won't ever do it again, but I did it again.

But one day I woke up. God brought the revelation to my heart. As long as it's You, Son, struggling, it will always be. But if You'll let me be Your life, if You'll let me live my life through You. You've read what Paul said.

Coming down to the end of a great, great life, he said, I have fought the fight. I kept the faith. I've been beaten, forsaken, built churches that hated me, given my life for others that turned against me, but I remained a Christian.

That's what he meant. I kept the faith. I threw it all. I remained a Christian, but I finished the course. No way to read that, but he did everything God wanted him to do on this earth. He healed every sick person he was supposed to heal, cast out every devil he was supposed to cast out, planted every church he was supposed to plant, go to meet God, totally, absolutely have completed the course.

I read that many times, but on one occasion, it just hit me. He did everything. I remember I laid the Bible down, and I said, Oh God, is it possible for nothing like myself to actually live and die and finish the course?

He said, If you let my son be your life, impossible for you not to do it. But if you don't, it's impossible to do it. I must enter that rest to wait, to let God's life be my life, to know Him, to not go around dreaming up programs to do, but follow God, led by the Spirit of God.

God Speaks Through the Son and the New Covenant

God is spoken. What a statement. Isn't that a statement? God is spoken. For a time, God spoke imperfectly and provisionally through the prophets. But it was God speaking through them. But that was in preparation only for the more perfect time that would come when God would speak in that son.

All that Old Testament was a school teacher. Everything leading me to Christ. The picture stories of the Old Testament are the revelation of God for the New Testament. The greatest commentary of the New Testament wasn't written by Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown.

It was written by God in the Old Testament. The greatest commentary of the New is the Old, because it's a picture story of the Old that gives me the revelation of the New. And so there was that when God spoke imperfectly and provisionally through the prophets that the Bible said in these last times He's spoken to us through the Son, but more in the Son.

Because the Word now enters the heart. It isn't something out here and I behave and be saved. That's impossible. The Apostle Peter said, Neither we nor our fathers were able to keep this. But now God has not only spoken, but He's spoken in the heart and made it possible for me to live this life of God.

You know, when man speaks, when just man speaks, it is a revelation of himself. He speaks. It's a revelation of himself. You know, if you mark your Bible, I mark this and it's about word out. It gets me such a frenzy, I hate to put it down, but the pages begin to come out.

But if you mark your Bible, if you let me take it over to Pastor Nick's home or Brother Nick's home today, and look at it, when I come back, I'll tell you where you are spiritually by what you marked in this book.

Yes, sir. If all you marked in there is that God will make you rich or something, I don't know where you are. I can tell you by what inspires you in this book where you are with God. If you're walking with God, you'll find underlined in there, Oh, that I might know Him.

That will be the kind of passage. Walk worthy of this vocation wherewith you have been called. Those are the things that underline a heart that's really hungry for God. But when man speaks, it's a revelation of himself to make known the otherwise hidden thoughts and actions of his heart.

When God speaks, it is the same that He may reveal Himself to me. He wants us to know that He loves me, that He really desires to have fellowship with me, but that fellowship can only occur on His side, not mine.

He can't come over here. He's so holy, He can't even look at sin. So I must come to His side. And we sing the only way this morning, that blood, that blood, that blood. That's the only way. Not a works of righteousness, which I've done, but by the mercies of that great God, I can come now and fellowship.

You know, the ministry of angels and prophets. The Jews were mightily encouraged that that law was given at the hands of angels. But that is only to prepare the way that could never satisfy the heart of man or God.

That never. The real power of God, the true deliverance from sin, the shedding blood, the love of God, could never be communicated by creatures. God's Son had to come here and do that. It could never be communicated by angels or men.

God's Son came to communicate that love. There's nothing. The love of Christ is a mystery of ages and ages. It's impossible for a human ever to imagine the depth, the height. The love of Christ constrains me.

Paul wasn't purpose driven. He was love driven. The love of Christ has pushed me to the corners of the earth. I have rights that I never had because it would have interfered, he said, with what God has called me to do.

Amen. And the Son has come as a living Word to live within us. That's the only way we can intimately know God is this Word to live within us. The Son has come to bring us into living fellowship with the Divine Being to dwell in our hearts as He dwelt in the heart of the Father.

To be in us is God's Word as He was in God, as He was in Christ. To be in us. The same identical thing. God has spoken. What a statement! God has spoken. The Word's a man. A way to us according to our idea of His wisdom, His integrity, what He is.

You know, man talks to you. Some people talk to me. I just let it keep going. I know them. They never did anything they said they were going to do. So why should I believe He's fixing to do it now? The Word's a man.

Have their value to you according to what you know of the wisdom and integrity of that man. Is that right? My grandfather on my mother's side, he never was born again, but he was a man of integrity. I remember as a boy in that Great Depression worldwide, but in America, we lived in a little village.

He had a farm. So we all finally wind up on that farm to survive. Had to grow what we eat. But my granddad, there was no share for nothing there, so they looked up on him. Any trouble come, they called him.

Well, in those times, they leased that 150 acre farm for oil. The Gulf Oil Company gave him $1 .50 an acre. They come talk to him and said, we'll give you $1 .50 an acre for your farm. That was about $250, $300, a lot of money.

In those Depression days, my father worked for $0 .50 a day. That's what he worked for. All day long, $0 .50. Now here they're leasing it. You don't have to do anything. Just going to give them a right to drill on it if they want to.

They shook hands and said, alright. Well, the Texaco people came to him before he got back with a contract, and they offered my granddad that $3 an acre, twice as much money. In that poor, impoverished times, they often offered him twice as much money.

I remember my granddad said, I'm sorry, it's already leased. But Mr. McCandless, you have not signed a contract. He rose up. He said, you get out of this house. You would imply that John McCandless's word, I have to write my name on something to be an honest man?

Well, you see, we judge a man by his word. How much should we reverence when God has spoken? Oh, the integrity. I said the integrity of God. Each word carries with it all the life of God. Not some of it.

All of it. The words of men have often exerted a powerful influence upon us. But the words of God under created deeds, and this is the greatest thought, because they give what they speak. God spoke, and the earth melted.

God spoke, and Christ came into my heart. You see, they give what they say. If we come to know this, it isn't just being religious. It isn't getting a bicycle for getting somebody in Sunday school. It's having God's Son living in us, develop.

Progressive Learning and the Fullness of Christ's Life

You know, when you think about it, the worst sin created on this planet last night was only a mutation of that first sin. Is that right? Only a mutation. Only an outgrowth. When I received Christ, I received the whole Christ, folks.

I didn't receive half of Him. But now, the whole Christian education is learning Christ. Learn that Christ that now has come to live within me. To learn Him, who He is, what He is, that I may submit myself that that life may be lived in and through me, not by human efforts, but by the Holy Ghost.

That's the reason it's a command of God to be filled with the Spirit so that I yield myself to that life, that this life may be lived. Men's words appeal to the will, the mind, the feeling of passion.

God speaks deeper. He talks to the heart. Oh, hallelujah. God talks to the heart. He doesn't appeal to the passions of man. I was preaching in California. I preach at the convention every year. And that year, there were 500 or 600 people, many people being filled with the Holy Ghost.

And I become very, very ill. I hemorrhaged all night long. Don't know what is wrong with me. When the pastor looked at me the next morning, he thought I died on him. He said, what do you want me to do?

I said, pray. That's what I want you to do. I said to him, I won't be able to be there, I don't think, this morning, but tonight. Well, I got there that night, and I was so sick and weak. I began to preach, and I instantly dehydrated.

My mouth just became so dry I couldn't say a word. I spoke 15 minutes, and had to sit down, and 30 people were filled with the Holy Ghost. I had to go through a torture for God to let me know it's not your calisthenics, it's not how loud you holler, it's what I am.

Oh yes, it's what I am. Let me live, and everything will be alright. Let it be me and not you. And this thing will work, folks. Christ has lost nothing. It's when we add ourselves to what He is that we pollute the water.

It said everything in this universe is held together by the Word of His power. The moral universe is held together by the Word of His power, but in Romans 1 it said, they and us, every generation has done it, changed the truth of God into a lie.

When we polluted or diluted the Word of God, it lacked the power to hold the moral universe together, and every civilization has ended with rampant homosexuality, simply because we watered down the Word of God.

We never made Christ. In the book of Galatians, Paul talks to that Galatian church. Made a great start, but now trying to perfect themselves through their own effort, like Pentecost, most of them today, they are using the law.

What they have seems legitimate, but he said, how can Christ be formed in you? Now, he said that to the Roman church, but different. What he said to them was, he called them saints. He said, Christ is in you, but He is an ill-defined Christ.

You've never come to see Him. You think you've got to help Him. You're adding the law. You're saying, we'll help Him. We'll be circumcised. We'll do this. We'll do that. But he said, the problem is, it's an ill-defined Christ.

What you need to see is Christ. He is all, and He is in all. And if Christ is not all, all is nothing. I said, if Christ is not all, all is nothing. It's never, never going to be. God has spoken. Amen.

Men speak and appeal to the man. You know, speaking claims a hearing. Is that right? You know it's an aggravation to try to talk to somebody and they won't listen. Yeah. God must get awful disturbed with us.

Speaking claims hearing. You write that down. God speaking. You come here on a Sunday. You come here. Pastor Nick has sought God for a word from God. Amen. I'm going to have the headlines of the paper.

Amen. You know, you voted in the election. That's the end of that. God sets over the nations whom He will. Somehow or another, He just knows what has to be. But yet, when you come, I come to hear from God.

I sit in the church at home. My son-in-law that come unto me earned his way through the university to be in the janitor. I tell people, worst janitor I ever had. But one of the greatest preachers I ever put out.

Amen. I go there when I'm home. I want to hear Him. He's a man of God. I sit there. Two young ladies sit in front of me and they're talking. I tapped them on the shoulder. I said, Girls, I didn't come to hear you.

Understand? If you've got to talk, you go right out there. I come to hear what's being said up there. God is speaking. God is speaking. I come to hear what He's got to say. And if I can hear, if I can hear, I'm going to hear in this heart.

You see, God speaks to the heart. God asks one thing, that you listen in holy reverence and worship with a wholehearted attention. That's all that God asks of you. Amen. This Word will do the rest if you'll accept it as a living thing from God.

Amen. God is the Spirit. And since He is, He has no other way of communicating His life and His love but by entering into your spirit and living within you. And He comes in by the Word of God. Yes, He comes in.

The Holy Spirit making that a living reality in our lives. And then it will govern us. You know, the Hebrew writer made us know right up front that that Son is more than the prophets. He said God spoke by them but now by His Son.

You know, there's two Testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament. They represent two dispensations, two modes of worship, two ways in which God has intercourse with man and how man draws an eye to God.

These two ways. Now the one, the Old Testament, was provisional, preparatory, and intended to pass away. He never intended to do what the Galatians thought in much of Pentecost to bring that in here that I'm going to build up a strong will where I can live.

I've seen people that overcome certain things in themselves. Yes, I have. They hated everybody else that never got there. But Paul can say, I become all things to all men. That don't mean he drinks with a drunkard.

He's just saying, I know where you are. And I know you can't get out of there. But I do know the way out. Understand, I'm not a superman, folks. I didn't change because I decided I'd change. I got knocked off a horse.

I saw a light. I met a man. Everything has been different ever since. This is the whole of this life. Did you know this? It's very unsatisfactory. Even though, like the Galatians, you know God, it's a disturbing thing because I never can quite become what He said.

But all of a sudden, God coming to this heart. We know. We know. Now, what that Old Testament gave and worked was not meant to satisfy. Never. But was only to awaken the expectation of something better.

God said in the Word that that could never make the hearers perfect. Never. Amen. But the giving of a New Testament of better hope did. That we could come in to the perfection of God. That is a progressive thing with us.

You understand. You don't get discouraged because you slip here and there. You just know that it is working. But you don't get over it by struggling and battling with it. You know, every one of us struggle.

You sit down. You're going to read a Bible. And you'll read a whole chapter and can't remember a word. I mean, the enemy comes. He comes. He comes. Well, you can be angry. And you can say, but if you just realize, you just realize, I'm totally impotent with this.

There's nothing I can do. I've asked God to forgive me a hundred times. But I come toward that leper. I said, if you will, you can heal my mind. And I find I can read sometimes 30 or 40 minutes. And don't let the bitterness get into it.

Because I come to all the struggle of it. I just said, I can't. And if you don't, this mind will rob me of everything you want to say to me. But I cast myself in total resignation, humble, meek, patient, total dependence upon you.

Hallelujah. And He's healing my mind. Because His mind is coming. That's the Gospel, folks. I said, that's the Gospel. Hallelujah. Now, in both the Old and New Testaments, it was God that spoke. The prophets spoke.

They were the voice of God. Amen. They were. Everything. God Himself could not yet enter and take possession and dwell in that man. So He spoke. In the New, it's an inward power and life. It isn't an external thing working.

It's the heart. God lives within me. There is something in me that I said in the beginning, the desire was perfected the moment I was born. Yes, sir, when I become a new creature, that desire was perfected.

I've missed it a thousand times. I've committed no adultery. I haven't stolen nothing, killed nobody. But yet, I've been angry when I shouldn't have been. I may have spoke unkind to my wife or somebody instantly.

That's not right. That's not me. That's you now. And I've got to come, Nick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Tell my dear wife, I'm sorry, honey. I'll let this old man get up. Christ said he's dead, and I'll let him get up.

I didn't reckon on it enough. But I want you to forgive me. You see, the secret of it is we know how to reckon him dead, but we don't know how to live unto God. If you just have half of it, you're gone.

He said, Reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin, but, that conjunction, see, alive unto God. That's when you overcome. Alive. When it's Christ, then more and more. Less and less, that's in your life. As you grow in the education, you know Him, and He becomes, then you find less and less these kind of things in our life as we learn this great truth.

Now, in both the Old and New Testament, it was God who spoke. In the Old, everything was external and through the mediation of man. Everything of that Old Testament. God Himself could not enter. But in the New, it's inward power and reality.