The Spirit of Life Makes Us Free — B.H. Clendennen

Walking in the Spirit Rather Than the Lust of the Flesh

In chapter five, verse 16 and 17. Chapter five, verse 16 and 17. This I say then, walk in the spirit. Now you gotta be full of him to walk in him. You got to get that fixed in your mind. Everything in this Bible leads to the being full of the life of God, which is the Holy Ghost.

Walk in the spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are conjured one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would.

That's the prison that men are in. But in Romans chapter eight and verse two, Romans chapter eight and verse two, the great apostle still writing says this very wonderful, powerful statement. Chapter eight, verse two.

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. If you divorce Christianity from life, then it's lost.

If you make it rules of any way, then it's no good. It doesn't work. You can't work this out. You know, I wrestled tonight about a thought that God had given me going along with the message I preached the other night, from death unto life.

Life only comes from life. Now that's a scientific truth, amen. Every, can be proved, because they won't accept it. No man can grow into spiritual life any more than those dead minerals, that rock, that stone, can grow into a living organism.

There is a door between those two. That kingdom below can never move upward unless that which is above reaches downward. It has to be pulled up from above. There is such a barrier between the lives that the only pathway across it, you must be born again.

Impossible to move. Life only is what Christianity is all about. Now the modern religious mind has its own version of the true church, and it's a misrepresentation of God. What men have come to believe about the church, and what men have built and called a church, is a misrepresentation of God.

The one thing which must always govern our teaching of the true church, that no man can be in that church who is not dead to sin and alive to righteousness. He cannot be a part of that church until that happens to him.

The scriptures are plain on this matter. He that commit a sin is of the devil. Now the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ, for no man can serve two masters. To be a part of this church demands that I be dead to sin and unrighteousness.

The Bible said if the son makes you free, according to the word of God, you're free indeed. Now when the indwelling Christ rules in the heart, sin has no longer dominion over that heart. That man or that woman is free.

Holiness, Sanctification, and Victory Over Sin

Now the believers commanded of God to be holy. There's nothing optional about this. Be holy as I'm holy. That's a command of God. Now he who has called us to be holy demands that we walk as he walked, no other pathway to holiness.

Now as a Christianity that rejects or makes light of the baptism of the Holy Spirit also rejects the truth of entire sanctification. They believe you have to sin a little every day. I know that it's a pathway of an upward ascending path that none of us have reached that place tonight.

But if you're not looking that high, then you're not going anywhere unless you recognize that God's promise is entire sanctification. I will awaken his likeness. I will in the final analysis be exactly what that Christ is as a man.

Now those who plead for imperfections by preaching who has sinned every day deny the power of the cross to render the believer dead to sin and alive unto God. The cross was ineffective in the lives of those that preach such a demeaning gospel that would declare to us that this blood that Jonathan sang about cannot do what Calvary said it could do.

It can make a man free. I am the true vine, Jesus said. You, that's us, are the branches. This says that the life of the vine is the life and spirit of the branch. The same fruit should come out of both of them.

If I have the same life flowing through me that comes through the vine, the Lord Jesus, then the same fruit should be the product of my life. You should detect him in our lives. Knowing this great truth, the Apostle John wrote to all who say they abide in Christ that he ought also to walk as Christ walked.

That's the key to life. Now to say that this new creation that the Bible said was created in righteousness and true holiness, the one that John said cannot sin because it has the nature of God. Now to say that this new creature who is in such union with Christ must be a servant of sin as long as he lives is to say that Christ must partake of our corruption.

It's to say that the Lord Jesus, to say that a new creature can be demon-possessed is to say that Christ who was a firstborn of this race could have been demon-possessed. It is not possible. It is supposed that to describe the new creature as poor, blind, imperfect, therefore nothing perfect can be come from us or done by us is a mark of humility.

This is supposed to be a mark of humility. But the problem with such preaching is not describing the new creature, it's describing the old man. That's the preaching describes the old man, the natural man.

Faith, the New Birth, and the Conflict Between the New and Old Man

Knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God for they're foolish to him. No scripture ever spoke of or required perfection by that one. Nothing ever said about perfection of that natural man. Never a word.

God says the just shall live by faith. How can a man live a just life if the preacher tells him that life is impossible? How can you ever walk uprightly before God if from the pulpit you're told every day that you have to sin a little?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. How can a believer have faith to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he's called if he's constantly told you have to sin every day? There has to be these things in that life.

Now Satan is the father of lies. Jesus said that. And though his power was broken at the cross, he lies to men about Calvary's victory. He'll make you believe that that was an incomplete victory, that somehow or another it wasn't truly secured.

But if our faith is to overcome the world, it'll have to have a better promise than what the pulpit's given us. Jesus said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Words cannot be plainer.

Without this new birth, you cannot see and sure not enter the kingdom of God. Just as clear are the words of John, that which is born of God sinneth not. Two times he said that in that first epistle. That which is born of God sinneth not.

On the other hand, we have a truth just as unalterable. That which is born of the devil can do nothing but sin. That's the truth. He that sinneth, says the word of God, is of the devil. Now all questions concerning this truth of entire sanctification are answered in the great truth that both of these people that I just talked about live in every human being that's born again.

There's both the new and the old. So the answer to all of the seemingly, what the seminary would make a contradiction is answered in the fact that there's a contradiction in every one of us. If you're born again, there's a new creature that cannot sin, but in that same body, there is a person that can do nothing but sin.

Now the preacher teaches that the new creature then must continue in sin that grays much more abound is sure doing the devil's work. He's helping the devil along this path. How foolish to pray, give us this day above sin if such a day is not possible.

Why would Christ give us such a prayer to pray? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil if I've got to live in such a place. If we can overcome sin for one hour, one day, then the same power can accomplish it in a lifetime.

I just must learn to walk in this life that cannot sin. How foolish it is to pray. If the pulpit bleeds and preaches that the Christian as long as he lives must in some degree sin and be led to the lust of the flesh, lust of thy and pride of life, why bother to pray that you might overcome the world?

Why even read the scriptures that talk about overcoming? How or why has such a doctrine as we have here discussed found such a place in the church? How did it ever find its place into that company of redeemed people?

The Church as the Temple of the Holy Ghost

Because for the most part, the church is no longer a habitation of God. Even the great Pentecostal church has made the baptism of the Holy Ghost optional. We forget that the only reason we exist is that we are to contain the creator.

My body, your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. No other reason. But when we cease to be that temple, that habitation of God, then we walk in ourself and sin is the results of such a walk. But if I walk in the spirit according to Paul, I will not, shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

He never said if you walk in the spirit, there's a possibility of this. He said you shall not if you walk in this Holy Ghost. The church must return to holiness. And if she does, they got to know that God expects this of her.

Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. How or why? Listen, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is no longer believed to be mandatory. It's optional to most. You can take it or leave it. You can go to hell or go to heaven.

You can overcome or not overcome. But if you overcome, then you're going to have to learn this walk of God. The Bible said in 1 Peter that Christ was our example, left us footsteps that we have to follow.

He came from heaven, walked on earth to show me the pathway to get to heaven. There is no other. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Mary, not Popes, not churches, only Christ. And only Christ left the pathway.

Those foot splits are as plain as day. He was born of the Spirit. He was filled with the Spirit. He was led by the Spirit. And under no other circumstance are you going to make it. There's only one person.

He's not a cloud today. When Israel faced that river, when Joshua said don't lose sight of it, he said you not walk this way before. Not talking about walking through that water. They've been there. He's just saying there's no cloud now.

There's no fire. You must keep your eye on that presence that that ark represents. Walk in the Spirit and you'll not fulfill the lusts or desires of the flesh. The faith of the church is no longer in the power and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but in the worldly power, fleshly learning and carnal wisdom.

Knowing God Personally Rather Than Merely Knowing About Him

We've come to make ourselves believe that knowing a thing is the same thing as possessing it. That's where the seminaries have led us. We've questioned everything about God and made the church believe that a knowledge of the thing is the same thing as possessing.

You can know all there is to know about God and go to hell. You have to know God if you're going to be saved. It has to be a personal, intimate relationship with the God of heaven. I myself must know him.

Doesn't matter what the church knows or don't know. What my mother knew, my grandmother knew, no matter what kind of relationship she had, I myself must have that relationship. I must seek God. I must find God for myself.

I must know him. Amen. In the absence of the Holy Spirit, the imperfections of the old man in worldliness, gossip, self-seeking pride, anger, envy, division, and immorality abound in that church. Cannot be otherwise.

Wherever the Holy Spirit's up there, we don't even know what sin is. I said we don't know without him to expose what it is. We've accepted the world's definition of sin, of crime. We've made it crime.

The world has set up safeguards in an effort to save itself from crime. But those very people, all of them are guilty of sin. There may be sin with no crime. Wherever there's crime, there's sin. But man doesn't know what sin is till the Holy Ghost comes.

Amen. We've got adulterers in the choir, murderers teaching Sunday school. They haven't shot anybody, may never got in bed with somebody else's wife. But the Bible said if you look with lust, if you hate your brother without a cause, when that Holy Spirit is not there, everything is all out of focus.

He is absolute necessity of that church. The church wasn't born Catholic. It wasn't born Baptist. It wasn't born Methodist. It was born talking in tongues. It was full of the Holy Ghost on its birthday, and when it leaves here, that's the kind of a church that's going to leave here.

You say, I don't like that. Doesn't matter what you like or don't like. That's what the church is, building together for a habitation of God by the Spirit. And if you refuse him his rightful place, something else will occupy that vessel.

I said something else. Nature does not tolerate a vacuum. You'll either be filled with God or filled with self, and ultimately filled with the devil. All along, it just cannot, will not ever be otherwise.

Amen. In the absence, it's a fact that the basis of the Christian life is a constant meditation upon and the simple acceptance of everything this book teaches. This Bible is God's word to us, amen. But as Christ's work of redemption in the flesh was only preparatory, listen to me, to his future indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit as the Living Fulfillment of the Written Word

The visible Jesus had to come here to establish his place in humanity, but he had to leave. He said, it's expedient for you because the holy man had to be replaced by the Holy Ghost. He had to come. Listen, it had to be.

So his work of redemption, fleshly work of redemption was only preparatory for his future indwelling by the Holy Ghost. So the written word of God is only a means to that inward teaching and powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

You can come to worship the letter and Paul said it will kill you. Some people make this book an icon. It isn't that. It has to be made real and alive by the Holy Spirit of God. It's fatal to rest in the mere letter without expecting through the Holy Ghost a real living experience of everything that letter promises.

Not enough to me to know that I should walk as God walks. I must walk as he walked. Not enough for me to believe that God expects me to be holy. I must be holy. I must walk to be holy in him who is holy.

I can have no more holiness than I have of the Holy Spirit. That's his name. I said, that's his name. You cannot have any more of the holiness of God than you have of the Holy Spirit but you can have no more of the Holy Ghost than you're willing to accept of his way of life and his holiness to you.

You can have no more of him than what you will accept of him. Amen. It's fatal to rest in the letter without expecting that Holy Spirit to make real every experience. Nothing of divine love, life, or goodness can have birth or place in us but by the power of the Holy Ghost in our hearts.

It just cannot be. You must go on. God's will for you if you've been born again is to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Hadn't called you to go preach nowhere. Hadn't called you to teach Sunday school back there nowhere.

Hadn't called you to do anything but be filled with the Holy Ghost. That's the will of God. Amen. And to move out without that leaves you vulnerable. He said to those first apostles, don't you leave here until you be endued with his power.

He himself never began that earthly ministry until that dove lit upon him. It came upon him in the form of a dove because he had no sin. It come on us in the form of fire because it had to burn a lot of trash out of us but just the same, he had to walk in that spirit as a man.

He represents us all. I said he represents us all. The Bible should be reverenced as doing all that words can do and bring us to God. That is to point the way. The life-giving power of Christ though does not abide in Greek syntax or Greek or Hebrew syntax but in the quickening of the Holy Ghost.

The gospel is not preached in word only but in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. We must ever remember that. What a tragedy that we've reached such a depravity in spiritual thinking and believing that a preacher is taught by a certain level of education to be fully qualified to engage in a ministry for which the apostles had to receive the Holy Ghost.

Education, Scholarship, and the Authority of Scripture

But we're there today. We put them through the seminaries and we educate them and at some point believe because of that that they are ready to preach. I make no appeal for ignorance but I'm here to tell you quickly there is no reward for scholarship.

I said no reward for scholarship. One of the greatest disappointments to me has been able to meet some seminarian professors. I've never met the first one quotes the Bible. He's always quoting Westcott or Hort, demon-possessed men, gentlemen.

I don't care what you say. They're the ones brought on this trash of changing the Word of God. They took that old Catholic deal where they changed everything and here we have all this new stuff that's coming out today.

Say what you will, do what you will. Amen, the Word of God is not to be tampered with. Well, I don't understand charity. I do, amen. Thee and thou, I know what it means. Never had no problem, it saved me and tens of millions of others.

All of a sudden we got so smart we got to throw it out. I can tell you we must come back and believe. Have the Bible, thee and I thee. You take the first verse of the book of Romans, eight Romans, it says therefore, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that in Christ Jesus, period.

There ain't no period there. It says who walk not after flesh but after spirit. Leave that out and the devil don't think he's righteous. You can't tamper with us, the Holy Ghost will never allow that.

What a tragedy. The only alternative to the Holy Spirit is the flesh with the scholarly worship of the letter which opposes always the ministry of the Holy Ghost, always. Therefore, when the Holy Ghost is not honored and sought after, the flesh with its schemes and its programs abound.

Human Programs Versus the Power of the Holy Ghost

Oh, the preacher's got so many of them going, he don't have time to pray and he don't have enough courage to let the mess drop and go back to the altar. He doesn't have enough courage. We're promoting more every day.

Got a video that they call The Vision, amen. And here's a preacher walking down the street with an old T-shirt and shorts on, look like a bear in a gunny sack and he's out there in a neighborhood, witness, knocks on the door of a man and the man opened, he said, I'm just here to invite you to church.

He said, I don't have anything to do with that. And he said, oh, don't close that door yet. Let me tell you, come as you are. There's nothing there gonna offend you. We're not gonna say anything. They'd ask him such questions.

Why don't you go to church? Well, they preached against the theater. We're not gonna do that. Well, they preached against this. We're not gonna do that. Course you're not. The flesh is not gonna turn against flesh and the devil's not divided.

If he did, his house couldn't stand this life-giving power of the Holy Ghost. Wherever, listen, the flesh is in control, the works of that flesh abound. We today have mighty warriors, camps, oh my. Don't you just get excited.

Somebody comes out there in dungarees on with a sword. Oh, the devil left town today, I can tell you that. If he ever laughed at a mess, he laughed at that. Great preacher friend of mine, one of the great evangelists, amen.

He helped me so much in that church, laying that altar one or two o 'clock in the morning, groaning, what's wrong here? Didn't have, wasn't afraid of anything. Didn't care what you thought or I thought, anybody else thought.

He said, I'm called of God. This is not a clandestine church, it's God's. Whatever see wrong, gonna deal with it. Amen, one night, three o 'clock, I'm laying on the floor down there. He's laying up on the platform.

He looked down and said, is anybody gonna make it? I said, not after what you preached tonight. When he died, he had asked me to preach his funeral, 10 years younger than me. I said, maybe I ought to ask you to preach mine.

No, he said, you promised me. Almost had to put my hand under his thigh, amen. Well, he died, his wife called me, I preached his funeral. I thought, now this is gonna be someday. Nearly every preacher of this district is gonna be there.

It's in Houston, the headquarters city. I said, nearly every preacher. I said, oh God, I opened my mouth, said I'd preach it. I said, what am I gonna say? And I heard him say, I want you to say what he would say if I let him come back.

Oh, I said, that's gonna be bad. That ain't gonna be good. That superintendent sitting right down there, for one hour, he backed him out like a toad in a hailstorm. I'm telling you, I just said what I knew he'd said.

I dealt with everything, I left nothing. Amen, if it didn't get up, I scared it up. And if it got up, I shot at it, amen. I dealt with everything that was wrong. I said, if he were to come back here today, what a mess he'd find.

I said, all this stupidity of putting people in clown suits out there trying to be a witness for Christ. Big red nose and a clown suit. I said, folks, I grew up, and the only thing that a clown ever told me, don't take what I'm doing seriously.

That's the only thing he ever took. And I said, to put a man out there with a clown suit to preach this gospel. Some got up and left. I went on, I preached on, and when it was all over, outside, superintendent talking to me, just to put the body in that hearse, and his wife come up, she's a great lady.

And she said, I just want to tell you, Brother Clinton, and I always love to hear you preach. I got most, excuse me, most of your tapes. But she said, I always love to hear you preach, because I never got through that I had to ask what you said.

Always knew what you said. And she said, you just don't know what we have to go to on a Sunday morning that calls itself a church. Oh, she said, I'm hard, she said. Oh, you know it's the truth. You know it's the truth.

But I had to leave the next day to go to Russia, and Brother White and I got out there, got home, we got out there on a Monday morning, called her. And she said, we went to that church where the funeral was on a Sunday morning, and said to Pastor Preacher, a half-decent sermon, but he said, there'll be no church here tonight.

We're all going to put on clown suits and go down on the streets of Houston and do spiritual warfare. Oh, I said, that devil was shook up that morning. Tonight, we're going to have a bunch of clowns down here dealing with the devil.

I called Robert the next day, that's my pastor of the church, and I said, Pastor, did you hear any rumble out of Houston? Is any trouble over there? What do you mean? I said, well, understood. Church took all of them down in clown suits and challenged that devil.

I thought the headlines may have picked that up. That's where you go when the Holy Ghost isn't there. I said, that's always a man, you wind up, wherever the flesh is controlled, it abounds. In such an atmosphere produced by the Holy Ghost, the truth of God is changed into a lie.

Men make it fit their own lifestyles. Whatever that lifestyle is, they have to change that gospel to fit that lifestyle in such an atmosphere. Neither priest nor people will tolerate the scriptural teaching of victory over sin, for to do so would condemn them.

I said, condemn them. They'll not allow you to preach that because they've already moved. At all costs, the life of the old man must be defended and a life filled and constantly inspired by the Holy Ghost must be dismissed as extremism.

They said, the only thing that I have against Clendenin is this everything is black and white. There's nothing in between. I can tell you, it's either heaven and hell. There is no purgatory. You either walk with God or you walk with the devil.

The Holy Ghost, True Christian Life, and Self-Will

Why is it necessary for a new creature baptized in the Holy Ghost? Why is it rather as necessary for the new creature to be baptized in the Holy Ghost as it is for the unregenerate man to be born again?

A sincere intention to make Jesus Lord and to obey every precept of the gospel is a precept without which a man could scarcely be turned to true Christian yet is not sufficient in itself for victory. That desire is not enough.

Men of great willpower may by determination produce many outward works of seeming virtue and the power of self-will while totally lacking the Holy Spirit's willing and working within him. All of that is canceled out.

It is nothing. I said it is nothing. All a man's outward good works are like an outward good words. He's not good because he uses them often. Words are not good just because you use them often. They must be your life.

Paul said we're not of those who handle this book deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth we commend ourselves to every man conscience. What he's saying now, it is to use this book deceitfully to roll one way and look another.

It is absolutely wrong to speak one message and your life be something else. You want to know what a born again man is? Paul said you're looking at him. I'm talking about being a holy man. Where do we find it?

That's me, he said. I commend ourselves to men's conscience by the truth that we become. We're not preaching not what we are. We're proclaiming a truth that we have become. Words cannot bring goodness to man nor are they worth anything in themselves except they proceed from the life of Christ manifest by the Holy Spirit.

Only then is it the true word of God that work in men's lives by the power of the Holy Ghost. Holiness is solely the work and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Every stirring in the heart of man towards good is a voice of Christ by the Holy Ghost calling, follow me.

That is a call, follow me. Nobody else to follow. Having grieved the Holy Spirit by her indifference to him, the neo-Pentecostal church has left its members to the beck and call of every charlatan down the line.

They sit on that television. They can believe two different things all at one time. Trying to believe everything, the poor things believe nothing. There's a confusion beyond my ability to describe simply because they're left open.

They haven't brought the truth that says to them, you have it within you to walk with God. If the preacher don't go, you can go. The Bible said, even in drought, your soul shall be satisfied. This river doesn't come out of a building, it's in me.

If I keep myself right, walk in this Holy Ghost, I can live and walk with God no matter what other men do. This great preacher I told you about that died, I preached his funeral. The last revival, he preached for me before I left and went to Russia.

He preached about, he'd come from up in North. He could've come from California or he could've come from the South, didn't matter. Just come from there. He said, I was in a church you won't believe. The beauty of that place, velvet carpet, velvet on the altars, the pews padded.

But he said, everything, death personified. He said, the ushers coming out at all looked like they're changing the guard as they come out together. Said, everything moved on the bong, everything. It was all queued in.

Every second of that thing was planned. Everything was laid out. He said, I was sitting on the platform, had no rhythm guitar that he'd strum around and said, he's leaning up against the pew on me and the pastor said to me, why don't you play your guitar?

He said, I can't strum it, that's slow. Amen. Just can't, just can't. He said, I did everything. He said, man, pastor said, I got up big number 11s on top of that altar walking on that velvet. If I can just make one up, I'm mad.

Somebody will cuss me. If it's just somebody, he said, get off that altar. Nobody ever sat on the front pew but one little lady. I'd jump up on that cushion, bounce around on it. One time, he said, I dropped the microphone, run all the way around the building and the only people I ever saw in my life, he said, could turn their head all the way around without moving a shoulder.

Said, I've never seen anything more dead. Said, it just all was stunk. But he said, on that front seat, one little lady found out she was 85 years old. Said, she wouldn't weigh 85 pounds soaking wet. But said, she sat right on that front seat.

Said, I'd be a preacher and every now and then I'd push that button, she'd come up. Woo, she'd spin, sit down. Oh my, he said, on and on that went. Said, one night I told that pastor at the church, he said, we need to pray for that little lady on the front seat.

He said, which one? Said, the only one on the front seat, man. All the rest of them, far back as they can get. Said, we need to pray for her. He said, but I didn't know anything wrong with her. He said, I don't know anything wrong with her either.

Why do you want to pray? Because that's all the oil you got, mister. And if she dies before you pour that in something else, it's over with. Holiness is the work of the Holy Ghost. Everything in the heart of man toward good is a voice of Christ, come and follow me.

The Inner Voice of the Holy Spirit and Dependence on God

Therefore, when a man feels this call within, he turns all his thoughts outward. Because of the teaching of the church, he turns all of his thoughts outward, away from the knocking of Christ's spirit within and runs after some religious guru.

What do you think? Do you think this is wrong? Did God tell you anything about me? No, I wasn't trying to find anything else about you. I'm trying to find out about me. This is always the way. We've got them running from one meeting place to another, trying to find some charlatan that wants to control their life.

Did God say anything to you about me? All of this is a product of a church without the Holy Spirit. We haven't taught men that God is in you. He doesn't talk out here. I know this man heard the audible voice, but I'm telling you, it is within.

It is a moral voice. It's a voice that directs and guides by the peace of God that's disturbed or not disturbed. But we've not taught them that, and they're running everywhere, looking for religious psychiatrists to tell them what to do.

Herein lies the cause of man's blindness and misery. He has lost the knowledge of God as essentially living within him. He's lost that knowledge. Amen, and by falling under the power of an earthly fleshly life, thinks of God as living in another world.

He always, God is somewhere else. I can't find God. I'll tell you, I can find him every morning. He's in me. Amen, I got to wade through all that flesh, get it out of the way, but he lives in me. I am the temple of God.