(Europe 2008) Session 3 - the Spirit of Life — B.H. Clendennen

Hallelujah! Oh, it's been a good day. I don't think it can do anything but get better as we just come to love and to worship this great God. You know, I don't know, except you read back through the history of things, the Old Testament, the law was the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.

Christ as the Fulfillment of Scripture

You know, Calvary sits right between Malachi and Matthew. Malachi is the book of failure. Everything had failed. Everything that was sensual had failed. Those awful words, your curse with a curse, that marks the Malachi.

But then you have the new beginning in Matthew. There's no more of them. They found the ultimate. Christ is all or all is nothing. On the other side of Matthew, we have that new beginning of Christ. There is no more.

There's no new revelation. All now is just learning Christ. And the great Apostle Peter wrote that everything that pertains to life in godliness is in the knowledge of him. Just learning Christ. That's a lifelong lesson of the believer.

Learning Christ as our life. Everything that pertains to life in godliness is in the knowledge of him. But how little that Christ is taught today. There's so much that's come into the church that has nothing to do with Christ.

But Christ is all. This is a book about Christ. You cannot understand anything in this Bible until you ask yourself the question, old or new, what has this to do with Christ? Only then can you understand what this Bible is about.

What has this to do with Christ? To know him. You know, I met him at 27 years old. I was anything but a Christian. We were never Methodist, Baptist, Catholic. We were just heathens. I was the first one in my family saved.

A man told me later, that's the way God always does it. He starts with the worst. Then it's easier to get the rest of it. But you know, I met him. I grew up in a world, entirely different America than the America I live in now.

Those days was a very wonderful world. Poor people called us poor, but we didn't know it. You know, everybody was, so we never paid that into mind. A boy was taught that it's wrong to cry. That's what they taught him.

Boy, you don't cry. And so, all of my life, he said, bite your tongue, whatever you have to do, but don't cry. Well, when my son, my firstborn came, that was in October, and I remember looking at him, and I began to weep, because I didn't want him to be what I was.

That was a big thing in my life. I didn't want that boy to be what I was, but I knew ultimately that's what he's going to be, and I knew I couldn't change it myself. In my lifetime, I'd turned over a lot of new leaves, and they're just as dirty on the other side.

Nothing, there wasn't anything to be found in ourself. That was in October, but in January, when that boy was four months old, I met this Christ. For 59 years, I've wanted to know Him, that's all. I never tried to know who the Antichrist is.

The Bible doesn't tell us, so I never bothered much with people that's going to tell me, because if I was to know Him, then God would erode it, so I never bothered. Then Peter helped me. That prophecy isn't something God's trying to make happen.

You just stay with God, it'll all work out down the road. Now, you learn Christ. That's what it's all about. I was in Kirgizia, the graduation of the School of Christ, and we had about 60 students. I'm going to give them a test.

There's 101 questions, and they're very, very nervous, the students are. The bishop got up and said, I know you're nervous about this test, but I want to tell you it's Clint Dennon's test, and if you'll write Jesus in every blank, you'll be 85 right.

Amen. I was as fine a compliment as he could have paid to me, because I want to know Him, and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering being made conformable to His death. That's been the goal of my life, to know this wonderful Christ.

Freedom Through the Spirit of Life

I want to read from Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17, and my message to you this morning, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free. That life has made me free. I come into a world that men want to make me free by the rules of religion.

You know, they operate in the past. They look back, they saw that when Pentecost came, men talked in tongues, so they'll teach you how to do that. But let me tell you something, folks, tongues never gave the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost gave the tongue. They saw that we danced and worshiped God, and so now we've got schools that'll teach you how to do that. You know, all of this imitation of things has cursed us in our time.

I need us to come back to the reality, back to Christ. That is reality. Father, bless the reading, preaching, hearing of the Word of God today. In the name of Jesus, thank you, Lord. Hallelujah. Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. You cannot do the things that you would.

Now, you don't have to go any further than that to find the trouble with our lives. It is the interference of this thing called the flesh. You know, we talk about worldly Christians. You may as well talk about a heavenly devil.

There are no such things. We're born from above. There's no worldly Christians. We came out from God, and everything about our lives must come out from God. In the fall, not only was man cursed, this earth was cursed.

And any time we allow the lukewarm, indifferent, the fleshly, the carnal, to function in that church, you give the devil rights in that church. He collects it for worship. That's what he's after all of the time.

All of the time. That's what cost him his place. He wanted worship, and God threw him out. And now he's here, and the whole thing, you let him usher in that isle, teach in that Sunday school, sing on that platform, that carnal, fleshly, lukewarm nature, and you've given Satan rights in that church that he collects for worship.

I know we give offices to try to keep people. No, that's not the way you keep people. You get them born again. This is not a fragile experience. You don't have to have an ice cream party. We need to stuff tracts in their pocket, put them on the street.

Iron will come into their soul. Here's a man, totally, totally demon-possessed, 2 ,000 devils in him. Jesus cast him out to drown 2 ,000 hogs. I know there's at least 2 ,000. There's one forever hog, maybe more.

I don't know, but this man, born again. Born again. Totally born. That looked like a one-day crusade to me, maybe two, I don't know. But the man wanted to go with Christ. He said, not on your life. You stay here, preach to these people what good things I've done for you.

He wasn't worried about the man leaving this. He had something. You don't leave this very quickly. This is not a fragile something. You don't go to get saved Sunday morning and not be in church on a Sunday night.

I mean, you don't forget this that quick. This is reality. And the only overcoming is to overcome yourself. Because it's surely as we, the body of Christ, are the, we the church rather, are the body of Christ, that carnal nature is the body of Satan.

Sanctification and the New Birth

I pastored a church 35 years. And in those years, you can be sure the devil disturbed that church a lot of times. But he wore somebody's skirt or pants to come in there. He never come in as a spook. He had a body.

He'd come in. He used a human to disturb that church inside and away. And so the overcoming process is to overcome ourselves, what we are naturally. Now the modern religious mind has given us its own version of the true church and it's a total misrepresentation of God.

What they've given us is a total misrepresentation of God. The one thing which must always govern the teaching of the true church is that no man can be in that church that's not dead to sin and alive to righteousness.

That's a new birth. I'm going to talk about the entire sanctification. I know that this is both instantaneous and progressive. One day I met Christ. I was born again. The Bible said Christ is our salvation.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 and 30 that God had made Christ my sanctification. I didn't receive Christ over a period of years. I received him instantly. But sanctification, the progressive work of sanctification is a growth of that spirit.

You cannot separate Christian education and sanctification. That's what's brought us to where we are today. We set the sun to school 110, 115 years ago. I believe it was probably born of the spirit. It's a long ways from that today.

It's not teaching or discipling people that are born again. It's teaching ungodly people how to be religious without God. A great part of the Sunday school of our time is teaching men how to be religious without God.

That's a tragedy of our time. We are all the way through. Now we have those in the pulpit that have never, never been birthed of God. What a tragedy of our time. Since everything produces after its own kind.

You know the scriptures are very plain on this matter. He said he that commit a sin is of the devil. Now I want you to follow me closely. He that commit a sin. Now the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ because you cannot serve two masters.

The Bible makes that very clear. You can't live both worlds. But I see a church cross-eyed trying to live both of them. The great evangelist of the Old Testament said, Let the God that answers by fire, let him be God.

If that veil is God, follow him. If not, follow God. But you can't go to heaven and hell both worlds. You got to make up your mind where you are going, who you are going to serve to get there. This is where God wants to bring his church back.

Where we are focused with a single eye. That we know why we are here. We are not here to be religious or to keep religion alive. We are here to manifest the Christ. That wherever we are, he can ride airplanes, live in hotels, be anywhere because he is our life.

Now the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ. If the Son makes you free, according to the Word of God, you are free indeed. Now that can be any way. That means not only in conversation but in action.

Free, where I go, what I do. It is the intention of God that this new creation grow where it commands the body and the soul. It takes that animal life and moves it. That is what the Bible means about saving your own soul.

You see that soul is prone to evil to the end. It is only as that new creature commands that soul can it be brought to God. And that is not done by the rules of religion. It is done by life from above.

Now when the indwelling Christ reigns in the heart, then sin no longer has dominion over you. Paul said in the sixth chapter of the book of Romans, he said sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but you are under grace.

We have come to a place now that that law has been written on the tables of our heart. It is the life of God. And now that life produces after its kind. As I learn to walk in the spirit of God, then it is not I but it is Christ that liveth within me.

Now the believer is commanded of God to be holy. Now God never commands what he will not do. God commanded me to have the faith of God. That just simply means when I in patient total submission to God cast myself upon him, then that which is commanded comes from God.

Amen. It comes from God. All he wants is us to will to do whatever he has commanded. Now a believer is commanded to be holy and he who is called us is holy and we are to walk as he. We are to be holy as he who called us is holy and the command of God is that we walk as he walked.

Now Christianity that rejects or makes light of the baptism of the Holy Ghost also rejects the truth of the entire sanctification. I have heard preachers preaching God is sin every day. Well I am not saying we are perfected but I am saying that it ought to be an uncommon thing for you and I to sin.

That in the way we live, that is not the nature. Ever since I have been born again, that desire was perfected. I knew nothing about God. I went into that church one kind of a man, I come out another. I have run a drilling rig, had five men working for me and they don't need it.

They say what is the matter with you? You act different. Well I didn't know the terminology. I said I got religion tonight. I didn't know born again. I said I got religion. Well a Catholic man working for me said I have had it all of my life.

I never act like you act. But there is a new creature, a new birth, a new life. Things are different now. I am not what I was. There is a new desire and ever since 59 years later, you know if I speak wrong to a man, I mean if I let come out there is not Christian life.

There is a pain in that heart. That says there is a perfection of desire and as we grow in God, that desire becomes perfected in action. That is the process of sanctification. Now those who plead for imperfection by preaching that you have to sin every day denies the power of that cross to render that believer dead unto sin and alive unto God.

Walking in the Spirit as a Lifelong Process

That man that preaches this. I am the true vine, Jesus said, and you are the branches. Now this says that the life of the vine is the life of the spirit of the branches and the same fruit should come out of me that comes out of Christ.

If this is Christ's life, if I am full of the Holy Spirit and I learn to walk and that is the process of life, learning to live by this life. This is not just a crisis experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

This is a life that I must learn to live. This is a continued education of life, learning to walk in the Spirit. The Bible said in Romans 8 .14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

I married a very beautiful young lady at 18 years old, 62 years ago. Amen. She is at home today, but I married her. You know, after we got saved and I read that in Romans 8 .14, I said, how can such a pretty thing as that be a son of God?

She had nothing masculinity about her. She is all lady. You know, there is nothing mannish about her. I said, how can such a beautiful thing as that be a son of God? Well, God has only one son to reveal and if you walk in the Spirit of God, whether you are a man or a woman, it is Christ that is seen in that life.

That is what makes us the son of God. It is God's Son revealed in our life and I realize He looked better in her than He did in me. Amen. That is the way this thing works. As we learn to live and to walk in the Spirit of God.

Now knowing this great truth, the Apostle John wrote to all who say that they abide in Christ, that he ought himself to walk as Christ walked. Now the Apostle John said, now that you have this life, then you should walk like Christ walked.

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 your corruption. He does not do that. I said, He does not do that.

No, no. I know we fail. You know, I had a man working for me. I tried him in four countries and it just did not work out. And so I just had to let him go. I realized later that he had been sanctified and could not sin anymore.

You know, he had got behind all that. I want to know why he did not walk on the water. You know, I mean, here you are. You already arrived at where I am trying to get to. So you understand where I am coming from.

There is a progressiveness about this life totally becoming our life. You know, that is the key. That is the growth of Christianity. And that is what spiritual education is. It is growth of the spirit.

It is absolutely nothing if it is not that. Now to say that this new creature has partaken of that, then is to make Christ a part of that corruption. It is supposed that to describe this new creature as poor, blind, imperfect, and that therefore nothing perfect can come from him, but from him is supposed to be some kind of humility.

You know, this is supposed to be humble. Amen. But the problem with this preaching is describing the old man. It is not talking about the new creature. If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation.

And two times the apostle John said that he cannot sin. That new creature cannot sin. That is the testimony of this Bible. The only sin that ever is committed by a Christian when you under provocation or some reason allow that old man to come alive.

See, there is two people in there. One of them cannot sin. The other can do nothing but sin. And if you do not know that, then the epistle of John, the first epistle, is a total contradiction to the human mind.

Amen. You have got to know that to understand what the man of God is trying to tell us. Now, no man speaking by the Holy Ghost ever mistakes the old man for the new man who is created in righteousness and true humility.

You never mistake the two. You know when one's foot, the best foot falls. Always, if you know that. Now, the blindness that appeals to our fallen nature as proof of our weakness and corruption naturally rejects Christian perfection for the old man cannot attain that.

He can never be anything but what he is. If he could be saved, he would have been. But in the fall, after becoming altogether a different man, then God created him. His spirit died toward God. It sank down in subjection to his soul.

And that man who was a spirit being become a soulish creature bound to his own appetites of the flesh. He become an altogether different man beyond ransom. And God drove him from that garden which symbolizes the presence of God and said to him, your kind can never come back into this presence.

That old creation. Now, faith comes by hearing, the Bible says. But the Bible says also that the just shall live by faith. How can a man live a just life if the preacher tells him it's impossible? If you hear from the pulpit that it's impossible to live this overcoming life.

But the Bible said only the overcomer is going to be a part of that bridal coming. To him, that overcomer, will I give to sit with me in that throne. Only that overcoming life. Amen. Now, faith comes by hearing.

Hearing by the Word of God. How can a believer have faith to walk worthy of vocation wherewith he's called if he's constantly told he must continually sin? How can he ever overcome? I must know that this is an upward walk.

All the way. It's all the way. See, there's two words that describe this life. Ascension and translation. Ascension is instantaneous. You know, we're born again. Come into this life. But translation is ascension, you see.

But translation, ascension ends in rapture. The translation, that's progressively. We walk with God. And if you are not living ascending life, then you are not rapture material. See, because basically we've been raptured all the time.

As we walk with God, it's an upward, onward walk with God. One day Enoch was not, because God took him. But he said Enoch walked with God. That's an upward walk. All of the way, it's upward, that walk.

Now, Satan is a father of wives, and though his power was broken at the cross, he lies to men about Calvary's victory, and denies his own defeat. He's always, that's where he is. Now, Satan could not have come up with a more clever way to keep Christian enslaved, who would have big droves in them to tell them that it's a natural thing, you've got to sin every day.

It's always got to be this thing in your life. Now, if our faith is to overcome the world, we're going to have to have a better promise than a big lot of this has given us today. You know, we had a couple of young men go through the school in America years ago, and on their way home, they were talking about God had so lifted them up.

They'd been renewed. They'd learned things that they didn't know. They'd been revealed to the overflowing. And they stopped at one of those road parks to rest themselves, and they were in washing themselves, washing their hands, and were talking about this perfection.

And the man with the boots down there got out and said, I'm tired of hearing all of that. They said, sir, we're not talking. I'm tired of hearing about this perfection. There ain't no such thing as perfection.

He got completely angry. You see, it'll always be that way with the carnal and the unborn that leave their shade, because they cannot move beyond what they are except by this life of God. I must learn to live this life, and it is an ascending life.

All of the time. Men ought to, every day, all the time, learn and see more of Christ in our lives. You know, except a man be born again, the Bible said he cannot see the kingdom of God. Words cannot be plain.

Without this new birth, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Just as clear are the words of John. That which is born of God sinneth not, because he has the nature of God. That old man has to be allowed to stand up if there's going to be sin in our life.

Now, under provocation, sometimes we don't commit adultery, we don't steal, we don't lie, but sometimes we don't act like we ought to act. I'll tell that wife, I'm sorry, I said no longer tell that husband the same thing.

You know, I spoke unkindly, or those kind of things. When Paul said the evil that I do, he, you know, that troubled me until I looked that up. And the word evil, now that means those little things that happen to us that's not really Christlike.

One, that he's committing adultery or killing anybody, but he lets those things cause that old man to rise up. Just as, you know, on the other hand, we have a truth just as unalterable. That which is born of the devil can do nothing but sin.

He that sinneth is of the devil. That's that old nature. When that's allowed to come alive, then that's what sins. Now, all questions concerning this truth of entire sanctification are answered in the great truth that both of these persons live in one body.

That old man, that new man. That's where that warfare that must be resolved, the flesh against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, these are opposites. And until we settle that warfare, this is where all other struggle of life comes.

The Holy Spirit Versus Religious Self-Effort

Now, the preacher teaches that this new creature must continue in sin, that grace be abound, is doing the devil's work. No matter who he calls himself, he's a Pharisee. The same one that Christ had to deal with, that says it.

How foolish to pray, give us this day without sin, if that isn't possible. And I said, if that isn't possible, how foolish is it for us to pray such a prayer? If we overcome sin for one hour, then I can overcome sin for one day.

And if I overcome sin today, I can overcome sin tomorrow. If I stay full of God, walk in the Spirit of God, then I will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now, if the Bible doesn't mean what it said, we're deceived.

But if it does, then the possibility is there in our lives, and that's what the world is looking for. They're not just looking for people that perform miracles, although that comes out of our lives, but people who are a miracle.

That kind of a life is not lived here, but people who are what they preach. We are what we are proclaiming. You know, how foolish to pray, thou wilt be done on earth as it is in heaven, if those upon earth who represent heaven must live in sin every day of our lives.

Why would you pray such a prayer if such a prayer is not possible? Now, if the Pope, it believes and preaches that Christians, as long as you live, must some degree or other be led by the lust of the flesh, lest I, the pride of life, why bother to pray to overcome?

If that's the way I've got to live, then that's the way it's going to be. How has such a doctrine, as we've here discussed, found its way into the church? How has it done it? Well, number one, we have, you know, instead of life, we've made religion a set of rules.

You know, we've learned what men do that are full of God and walk with God, how they act, they get happy and they dance, so we teach them how to do those things. But you can't long keep that old man there.

You know, you may put him under a strain, but he'll keep breaking down. So, there's no possibility of living this, so we come up with a doctrine that you have to see in which you're talking about the wrong side to that human being.

The wrong side. As we grow and more and more to the image of Christ, that's a spiritual and moral image, not a physical, we'll one day have a body like His glorious body. But now it's spiritual and moral.

And the more that I live the life of Christ, then the less of the failure of the flesh to be found in that life. That is a progressiveness of sanctification. Now, all of it. See, now, how or why? Because the church for the most part is no longer a habitation of God by the Spirit.

That's the reason that this fleshly thing has come in and the doctrines that we preach have become what they are. It's because the church is no longer now a habitation of God. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is no longer believed to be mandatory.

It's optional in the Pentecostal church today. But this is a part of the ongoing salvation. The Bible said it's only as we walk in the Spirit that we overcome this flesh. And Paul listed there in the fifth chapter of the book of Galatians all the works of this flesh and said they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

That's as simple as you can put it. But he said if we walk in the Spirit. But today, it's preached optional. There are symbols of God in other great organizations by their own testimony. Only about 20 of them are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Then you're no longer a Holy Ghost filled organization. No longer Pentecostal. See, God's Christ come to live in me by the Holy Spirit. When the Bible said in Matthew 28, 18 all power, Jesus said, in heaven and in earth has been given unto me, unto Christ.

Now in Acts 1 and 8 the Bible said you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Now the literal rendition is you don't receive a power. You receive a person who is all power. Jesus said, he that's been with you will be in you.

And when you're baptized in the Holy Ghost you receive a person who has all power and is you willing to die to who you are and let this Jesus live in the power of that light. So this is not optional. We're building together from habitation of the other out of the Holy Spirit.

Now, this never could have come into the church had we not lost that. The baptism is no longer a man's or it's optional. The faith of the church is no longer in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit but in worldly power, fleshly learning, and congregation.

We've come a long way when we tell a man you get so much education and you're ready to preach. They believe by education. Now, I'm not making no appeal for ignorance, folks. But I'm telling you that it's not word only.

See, Jesus said, you search the Scripture because in them you think you have life. You can know everything that Paul knows but you don't have what Paul knew. See, knowledge is not possession. Amen. You can know all about God and go to hell.

You've got to know God personally. He said. That's the key to this life. But that's all been lost. The absence of the Holy Ghost, the imperfection of the old man, and worldliness, gossip, self-seeking, pride, anger, envy, division, and immorality abound in the church as it does in any other fleshly institution.

In the Corinthian church they were enamored by the power of this world and there was sin in that church that could not be named. That wasn't named in the words. Sin in that church. There's as much divorce in the church as it is outside of it.

Of one of the biggest preachers in America that is a big, mega church, charismatic church finally confessed openly is a homosexual. Now that's what comes out wherever you allow that world, the works of that flesh to come.

Show me a preacher more interested in a golf game than he is a prayer meet. Now show me a preacher got his eyes on somebody else's wife. Church, you're in this building this morning. You cannot allow the works of that flesh allow that flesh to operate without those works showing up in that church.

And today, every day, every day, there comes in the headlines where again that all of the spirit has found its way in the church because it's a fleshly institution. It's no different. See, but when it's of the spirit of God then it's God.

That's all it is. Mr. Falwell is dead tonight. But his moral majority, which wasn't moral or the majority for the most part, they were going to picket the holiday inns because they were showing 3X movies.

I don't have no idea what all that is. But they said they were going to picket them until they took those out. And the holiday inns said to them, Mr. Falwell, we'll be very happy for you to do that because we'd like the world to know that we sell more than a preacher's convention than any other.

That's where we are. See, you love that flesh, Ian. That's exactly where we are. You know, it is a fact that the basis of the Christian life is constant meditation on and a simple acceptance of everything this Bible said.

Now that's the essence of the Christian life. But as Christ's work of redemption in the flesh was only preparing us for His indwelling work within us by the Holy Ghost, His time. Paul said, we don't know that Christ in the flesh no more.

But that was only preparatory to His indwelling us and living through us and doing His work through us. Amen. Now, that, all of that, so the written word of God is only a means to all the inward teaching and powerful working of the Holy Ghost within us.

See, just to have a head knowledge of it changes nothing I said it changes absolutely nothing. But it only reveals of what God wants to do by the Holy Spirit. It's fatal to rest in the mere letter without expecting through the indwelling Spirit to a real experience of all that the Scripture holds out to be.

The truth. I mean, I must, you know, I look at the Bible, I read the New Testament, the Book of Acts, and I'm blessed. I thank God that Bartimaeus received his sight, that Mary Magdalene got rid of all the devils in her, and I'm thankful for what He did in that first century.

But I don't live in the first century, folks. I live in the 21st. I want to know, is that God the same today? Is He the same today as He was then? And that will be when we come back to allow the Spirit of God to be the life of His Church.

Now nothing of divine love, life, or goodness can have birth or place in us except by the power of the Holy Ghost in our heart. None of it. Amen. They never one time took knowledge that those disciples had been with Christ until the day of Pentecost.

And then God began to be seen in and through their lives because Christ had come back down to live His life in and through them. That's what the Holy Ghost is all about. Now the Bible should be referenced as doing all that words can do to bring us to God.

That is, point the way to what God wants to do. But a mere knowledge of the Word will not do that. There must be the Holy Ghost giving life to that Word. Now the life-giving power of Christ does not reside in Greek or Hebrew syntax.

No, no. But in the quickening of the Holy Spirit. For the gospel Paul said is not preached in word only but in power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. It must be demonstrated alive. 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 that ministry for which the apostles had to receive the Holy Ghost.