The Church as Household, Body, and Temple Give yourself over to this beloved, let it carry you away, let it fill your being, let it do things in your thinking, let it provoke love in you, yield to it, it's better than Now then, you see that this building is a preparation for the new creation, it is a city, it is the household, it is the temple, now you must look in Revelation 21 and 22 for this, I can't go at that now, I'm only doing this to let you see that all these are one, because there are some people who've got an idea that the bride is an elect company out of the elect, but they're one, and I used to hear somebody say, in my early days, I've had to fight through all these sort of theories, just the same as you do, it's good for you, you won't always be in your twenties, hallelujah, you'll come through them, it's worse still in your teens, but you'll come through it alright, don't give in, don't give up, don't get turned aside, I met them all when I was your age, I'm speaking to the young people, I wouldn't like to be as old as everybody in the room, but the whole point is that God wants us to see this great truth and move into it beloved, I met this thing, that there was a group called the overcomers, and if they were the overcomers, then they belonged to the bride, they were the out resurrection from the dead, according to Philippians 3, have you met this one, if you've been spared this world, praise God, and oh, it was all so wonderful, and my wife and I got our teeth into this at one time, and then we took them out, we decided, well I did, she can eat tougher meat than I can, I've got a very delicate digestive system, it's wonderful, and we went all through this, and somebody used to say, you see, of course it's different, how can, if you belong to the body, and how can you belong to the bride, a man can't marry his own body, and we thought, yeah, that's right, that sounds right, that sounds right, doesn't it, yes, it sounds right, a man can't marry his own body, he has to marry somebody else's, doesn't he, well that's right, so we thought, yeah, so you've got to be careful, these sort of specious things, they don't half sound right in your mind, they sound good, and away you go, and I did, I got right on this, I got so far, and then I saw through it all, and all you need to do is to keep reading your Bible, you just keep reading your Bible, this is what I did, you see, and so I saw this, and see it to this day, that the city, and father's house of many mansions, that Jesus spoke about, and the temple, are the same as the body, and the bride, they are different aspects of the same truth, hallelujah, and so we come to the fifth chapter, and I see that some of you must be getting very weary, did I ever tell you the story that once I went to a conference, I'm always in them, I live my life in them, so if you're thinking of coming to Cliff this year, perhaps you'll change your mind, I finished at Cliff this last year, and I suppose I must have spoken six solid hours out of every day, in three sessions, besides singing and yelling when God delivered people and all sorts of things, and talking to people in between, and by the time I'd finished I was sore from here, right round, right round an area like that, I was really sore, yeah, so somebody was driving me home in the car, and I sat in the car beside the driver, and behind sat the wife and the two sons of the family, and I'm talking to the husband, you see, he's driving, and I said, ooh, I'm all sore, ooh, I'm raw, ooh, I'm here, a voice from the back seat said, yes, I'm all sore, I'm raw too, I said, but you haven't been doing any speaking, ah, he said, I'm sore here, that's one against me, isn't it, yeah, so if you're feeling like that, cheer up, there have been others before you, well, anyway, we're on the last great theme, and it's a very blissful one, and he's talking about the church, in the fifth chapter, and what a precious revelation it is, he's talking about the bride, this is a great mystery, he says in verse thirty -two, I speak concerning Christ and the church, listen to verse thirty, we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his blood, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh, it's a great mystery, a great mystery, but you see, the whole secret is this, beloved, that when God made a man, the first Adam, he made him of dust, he breathed into him the breath of life, he became a living soul, as I pointed out, he hadn't got a soul, he was a soul, you haven't got a soul, you are a soul, man became a living soul, that's what he became, praise God, your spirit, if it becomes conscious, may be able to say, why art thou cast down within me, O my soul, because your spirit now is alive, and it recognises the position, but you are a soul, praise God, and this is so gloriously true, well, then he said, it's not good for man to be alone, when he made Adam, so he put Adam to sleep, and he opens up his side, and he takes out a rib, and of the rib, he builds a woman, that's your actual word, talk about build it, which is the word edification, that's used in scripture, built up, he built a woman from that bone, bone of my bone, flesh of his flesh, alright, he built a woman, and he built Eve from that bone, and they were together as man and wife, and actually Adam married his own body, he married his own flesh, now that's forbidden, you see, so when people come out with these ideas, it's simply because they are thinking earthly things, it's carnal, they are filled with the spirit, are they, who said so, it's a maintained fullness, it isn't you relying on, I was filled yesterday, or baptised in the spirit last year, that's why he's careful to say in the fifth chapter, before he opens this mystery, be being filled with the spirit all the time, that's the Greek, you'll never get this if you don't, now you're baptised in the spirit, no, no, he says, you be filled with the spirit now, come on, be filled with the spirit now, be filled with the spirit now, I'm going to launch a big mystery onto you, and stagger your mind, you'll never understand it, Jesus Christ actually marries his own flesh, with a bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, in other words, all these pictures of oneness, they're all established from God, we can talk about a building with an inhabitant, a body with a head, a family, and a home, if you think of a bride and a husband too, they're all one, they're all one, blessed be the name of the Lord, the Lord John says, I John, I saw the bride, New Jerusalem, that's the city, coming down from heaven, the bride has dawned for us, that's the temple city of the new creation, in which all the worship, the central worship of the new earth, the new heaven, is going to be conducted, under Melchizedek, our husband, our elder brother, our head, all going to be conducted, in resurrection life, and we're going to be married, can you imagine, go on, let your imagination go, get it right off male, female, that's got nothing to do with it, that's all part of a dead and finished creation, served its purpose, hallelujah, forever and ever and ever, love, this is of course isn't it, this is union, this is the union, you can call it romance if you like, now you've got to go on that, flesh of his flesh, is there any other relationship you'd like to take up, with regard to him, here then is his church, and in that day, the church is the great jewel of the new creation, she is the great golden bride, she is the wonderfully adorned one, she is the one of simplicity, openness, glory, clarity, purity, read all the adjectives used about her in Revelation 21, the Lord is scribe, right at the centre is the throne, the Lord God Almighty and his lamb, and down her golden throat runs the river, hallelujah, hallelujah, oh it's all so precious, amen, and out of her belly if I may say, is flowing the river of living water, and either side of the river is there the tree of life, which bears twelve manners of fruit, leaves are for the healing of the nation, everybody has a clear view of the frown, everybody has a clear view, oh it's so so marvellous, and there he is in the bosom of his heart, the Lord God Almighty and the lamb, father, son, the bride and the spirit, and that's what it's going to be beloved, and if you don't forsake everything for this beloved, you'll not get there, and if you put any other love or any other person in front of him, you'll not get there, amen, and if you start declining yourself, you better get clean quick, this shall never be in it, that's what the book says, amen, praise God, Lord keep us there, spotless, undefiled, this inheritance I don't want it to fade away from me, I want it to be there in my heart, oh at times let your mind range over this, let your heart go out to your husband, love him, love him into your heart, love him into your being, know that your bone is flesh of his, eat his flesh, drink his, be of his substance, know you've come forth from his bone, for the word of God divides between joints and marrow of the bones, where the life seed comes from, you've got to be there, here is Jesus heart made bare, here it is opened unto you, Paul says this revelation wasn't known, oh the bride was Prince Figured, Israel was called God's wife, he said I was a husband to her, I took her by the head to lead her out of Egypt and she broke my covenant, she was unfaithful, therefore I overthrew them in the wilderness and away it goes, if you break the covenant, this bridal glorious covenant, you'll feel all overthrown in the wilderness, you will, you can't move from it, I want to tell you that all spiritual, psychological, mental, neural, emotional things of true personality and nature are pictured in the Old Testament and emblazoned across its pages, if you want an analysis of human personality, don't turn to Freud or Jung, turn to your Bible, you'll know more than your teachers, that's what David says, by thy word I know more than my teachers, that's what David says, do you believe that?