The True Use of Self, 1968 — Norman Grubb

I don't know whether others get the joy of nature as usual or not, or whether some of you will endure to the end and thus be saved, I don't know. You better probably at least wait for two or three minutes, two o 'clock, at least to change seats, rather than an hour and a half in one place, I should think.

Yes, we'll just go ahead with this first half hour anyhow. It's a decent small room, we'll give them, take them in the arms and interchange. You have what God chose you, and must I have what God chose me, and we just interchange, that's all.

I'll see also whether at two o 'clock we ought to do a carrying up, start again and move this up to the waiting seat. My Lord, we are again in my amazing grace here you are. I just put you together, each time, of course we just, of course you're here, and more than that somehow we, a little bit of awareness of your presence, and you give the, you shed your light on this and that.

And thank you, you just continue now as you have been doing. Thank you for your word, thank you for your spirit, thank you for your living body, through which the interchange comes, by which we learn one from another, share one with another.

The Human Self and Its Need to Disappear

Amen. Particularly for this first period, we've already seen a change of other people sharing. Some of what we've been saying, what is the use of the human self? What is the use of the human self? In terms of our own interests, we've only got another 7 of ourselves, it's still ourselves in a sense, it's what we ever have.

Life is the effect of things upon us, all we have is our own consciousness, it's going on and on. We don't really see, we don't really see, and we see the grace we receive on all sides. As I say, you don't see every side of a chair, you only see one side, every side and the inside, that's another dimension.

So we only really see what's of interest to us, that's all we have, that's what life is. The human self, it tends to go out to the destiny. The Bible and there's been holograms. What God is about in relation to his creation of man is at the centre.

But we live with what we said yesterday. For life's use, there has to be a different period before there is a reappearance. This is what we said yesterday. For life's use, the human self has to be disappeared before there is a real appearance, because there has been no appearance on all levels.

We started life with the false appearance of humanity as if we're the people who have no lives, and as if life is a separated person running his own life, by his own means, for his own aims. As what we are when we are the members of the kingdom of darkness, under the control of the spirit of self-centredness, so that self-appreciation, self-magnification, self-development is life.

There has to be a disappearance of that before there can be a real appearance. The true use of the human, the disappearance, hadn't been people we're meant to be, because that's why we're so thankful that the form wasn't told in the same sense as the devil's form we're thankful.

The devil's form is the form of the spirit. All the spirit stays just in your inner self. It's your ultimate choices. And the Bible reveals that the ultimate choice of the spirit of self-centredness is for himself.

It's his ultimate choice. Therefore he's eternally liberated from God. Because he has become his own God. And it's perverted. So what is good for God is evil for the devil, what is evil for God is good for the devil.

It's totally reversed. In other words, all that involves self-loving is bad, all that involves self-giving is good. I mean, subjective, subjective. All that involves self-materializing, all that involves self-giving, the devil's point of view is bad, that's God.

All that involves self-loving is good, the devil's in reverse. And he's fixed in his centre. Now, humans didn't go beyond that. They were stimulated by the flesh. They had to form through stimulation.

And they didn't respond to the centre, but they responded by almost a trick. The Bible says, Eve was deceived. You see, women are gullible and men are slaves. So women get tricked, and then men have to follow the women in their tricks.

So you see, as Eve follows Satan, the poor thing had to follow Eve. So we're done for. We've been doing everything. That's right there in the Bible. Eve was deceived, man was willful. The important point is following Eve, not against God.

It says that Eve fell through deceit. Adam fell willfully. He didn't fall willfully against God, he fell willfully for Eve. That's not what they've been doing ever since. It was a flesh cause rather than a spirit cause.

They didn't mean to be apart from God. God wasn't looking. It only happened to be. They didn't have allergies. They were cognizant and anxious for God, for Him. They were completely faithful to God. They were like, I'm going to give it to you, I'm going to sell it.

He comprised God, faith and faith, and another God. We don't do that. We hide, thank God. They were conscious of what He is. ...to the non-Christian, I can't discuss that now. He had a much bigger outreach to the non-Christian than most of us missionaries think he had.

Conscience, Humanity, and the Knowledge of God

And one thing he said about the non-Christian is they have consciences. He said their consciences bear witness. You'll find that when you're understood by the non-Christian. They're conscious, they're witness.

Their thoughts, meanwhile, actually reflect truth on another. But that is a discussion we can talk about later on. It's very interesting what the mission is. The mission is to give glory to God. But in other words, there is that in all men.

We know that. That's the deposit. You see, because our being is God. Most of us Bible-believing Ethiopians don't like it. But the Bible says it. The Bible says all men are in God, not only the Ethiopians.

Paul said that in his remarkable Athenian speech. When he said, for God has made of one blood all nations, but in all men, of all nations, the blood of one nation of the earth, it hath that they might seek after God and find him.

So we are part of every one of us. See, take it gradually. For in him we live and we have been, all men. Whatever it is, in all nations, have that being in God. Because we have our being in God, and because our freedom hasn't gone as far as Satan, Satan's freedom is cutting the key off, which you can do.

We discussed yesterday how you can become a devil. Because we haven't gone so far, we've joined Satan, we belong to Satan, and are in Satan's kingdom, we're slaves of Satan, and we learn in Satan's destiny we continue that way.

At the same time, there are layers in us, because we haven't that ultimate choice against God, there are layers in us, that which is the voice of God, which you ought to be so and so. You know what you ought to be.

You ought to love. You ought to have certain rights and non-standards. Thank God for forgettenness. There is that tragedy in humanity. Thank God for tragedy. Thank God for chaos. Suffering is our trouble, sin is our trouble.

We make too much of suffering, too little sin. It's very easy for us to have a sentimental concern for suffering. No, it's sin that matters. That's the point. Suffering is a different matter in regards to you, you know.

The Gospel as Transformation Rather Than Mere Relief

Now my point when I go to work among members, is to heal their bodies. Why? If I just heal their bodies, I mean it nearly, but you just help their egoists. He just loves himself a little more, and you would like for himself a little more.

I go to a leper and say, look here, you've got, I'm going to do what I can for your body. Of course, I've got some medicine for it, I'll do what I can for you. And so on. But that's not the point. I've got something far bigger than that.

You're a child of God, you're going to do it. And it's got that holy mud, and you want everything for you one day, but you've got a lot of pain in you. You know the things you've got in lepers. You know your selfishness, and your hates, and your murders, and your lusts, and so on.

You've got a lot of pain in you. I'm trying to tell you what you really want, is to have God's spirit in you, Jesus in you, who makes you another kind of person. And yet another kind of person who just loves himself, he's in love with other people.

What happens? You turn, you isolate, not to heal lepers, but to make lepers healers. Not to heal lepers, but to make lepers healers. So they may, some of them never get their scars off, of course. They may never get their disease corrected.

But also, to have other people like Jesus, and get other people healed. So as I'm telling you, I'm just underlining the fact, suffering isn't the world's problem. Suffering is the world's blessing. Sin is the world's problem.

What happens is, that's why social work can't take the place of the gospel work. If they can be combined or not, social work, not only affects us, it makes us bigger and less angerous. But this, of course, there must be, we are people of compassion, we must do what we can, do what missionaries do, to heal the sick and educate and so on.

That's not our main line. There was someone who was always reluctant to heal, and I couldn't help him, because he was a compassionate healer. He was reluctant to heal, and I tried to hide it. Because he wanted the real healers, the good people who become healers.

So the gospel isn't to improve, it's to make them improve on others. Get the point? The gospel is not to make you a blessing, it's to make you a blesser. It's not to make you a companion by the way, it's for comfort.

For comfort for all of these. God's gospel isn't for others. One of the most remarkable, basic fact to say that is, Paul, all the basic gospel back on Abraham. He went way back, Abraham. He said, all the basic gospel, the basic gospel on Abraham.

He was the first person who believed God's gospel, constantly in righteousness. And the very first vision, it was said the God of glory appeared to Abraham. The first glimpse of glory, glory means just the best you can be.

Glory is the highest you can think of. Now he said, the God of glory, the highest person you can think of appeared to Abraham. Remember what glory means. What he said, that this God said to him, now Abraham, if you come along with me, I'll bless you and I'll make you a blessing.

And in you all families of earth shall be blessed. He caught it, because deep in him, he said, well you have been originally a part of God, we know you're happy, we know that you love us. We know you're blessed, we know that you love us.

Because this is the instinct, this is what God is. So it's our instinct. And Abraham caught it. Ah, he said, this person I'm being raised to, I'm the person who raises this person, just as this person raises the world, I'll side by side with him and be a blesser to the world.

So his vision was not to be blessed, but to be a blesser. It wasn't to get a land, or to get a child, or get a family. It means how far he received. This God, who is the blesser, to be revived God, to be revived by the blessing.

The Beatitudes and the Life of Giving

You see how the sermon on the mountain now, it starts with, if you ask why, because you're poor in spirit. You mourn about your needs. You're meek, which means you give up your self-activity. Meekness is giving up your self-activity.

It's a reprieve from God's activity. That's what meekness is. So you start by, because you're poor in spirit, and you're mourning about your condition, and giving up your self-activity. Then you hunger at first, and you're ill.

The poor, the poor of the angels, blessed are the poorest of the first, blessed are the meekest of the second, blessed are their meekest of third, blessed are the humblest of the poor, and they shall be filled.

Now, what comes after? Blessed are the merciful. How many people say mercy? You become the giver of mercy, and you become God's mercy. You begin, you begin to give mercy, and you keep getting that mercy, and you give mercy.

Blessed are the merciful, full of mercy God, blessed are the peacemakers, not the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the people that measure the truth in God. Blessed are the pure of heart, pure of heart, pure of heart, that you see nothing but God.

You're moving in with God, who is love, and therefore, you're moving in love with Him. So, you see, the devil should turn you from being a heifer to a hippo. This is the only gospel. Now, all other gospels, if you see it for yourself, that's the, that's the test.

All other religions, whether Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Confucianism, or Islam, or, or, or, or, non-Christians, they center around what I get, what I become. No, God's not a getter, He's a giver. God's not a kind of person whose hunger, life's fulfillment, joy is other people.

His, His immersion is being, being, being of other people. This is what God is. This is what we are, when we, when we, when we, when we, when we, when we, when we, when we, living for the people that have a big, a, a, a locus who, getting the, the, the, the, giving the education makes people give the nice love, they'll give you.

They'll give love again. That's a sort of a halfway house. And I will print you as you say, look at the halfway house. That's right. Had you not got the hospital and you went to the farm. A person works as a cart, as long as there's a horse in front.

That's very clever. I don't know how you say that in modern English, compared to today. That's right. Thank God that instincts exist, which are never satisfied. That's why there is that in other beings.

People want to do good things. They want to do good things. Because we're created to do good things. Not to be negative and have something, but to do good things. To help people. That's in the other beings.

That's why they're there. But that doesn't make them the ultimate. You see, I'll tell you another thing. There's a gap between the heights of human love and divine love. You get that in Romans 5. I showed that before.

Human Love and Divine Love

In Romans 5, there's a great difference between human love and divine love. Human love has to self-animate at its basis. It can't have it at all. A human is distorted when he's separated from God. A human is meant to be the expression of God.

God is love. And then the human is unconditionally involved in loving others. Unconditionally. If you put it in two languages, of course. The human cut-off from God is cut-off by self-lovingness. So we humans, the prophets of God, can't be nothing but the egoists at basis.

So even our love has an egoistic basis to it. Paul says, a human loves for love is convenient than their love. Their love is a farce. They approve what they love on. Their love doesn't improve on. God doesn't.

God's unconditional. And that doesn't improve it. It improves it. And then we disarise. Jesus died. Where is that? He exists to meet other people's needs. Where is that? He's good to everyone else. That's unconditional love.

God exists to meet needs. And the darker person is the one that is in need, of course. So that's in its total form. That's God. You see, in its total form, you're done for, I assure you. You simply, I kindly say, you're game.

It sounds to me like you're a road-goer or something. You don't have fingers. You're brave. You see, your whole existence becomes meaningless otherwise. Secondly, you're distorted. That was the second thing.

You're in the form. When purpose is primary and pleasure is secondary, you're in God. I'm like a silly kid. I began to read certain books, and I began to see my own ecocentricity. I got so far. I saw nothing that had anything to do with myself.

I couldn't have found God once, too. Oh, I said if God liked me, I'd stick by that, wouldn't I? Then he said to God, for thy pleasure, we are, we are clean. I said, God, this is a pleasure, therefore, to die.

It's all right. And then he said to Jesus, for the joy set before you is beyond the cross, and it's part of the shame. I said, if he enjoyed the cross before he didn't enjoy it, all right, I'd just stick to the devil.

I haven't seen, you see, that the two basises define your joy in your self-giving. Your self-giving gives you joy, but your joy secondly is your self-giving. There are four elements in life. I mean, we don't go past this, but I suppose.

You can either eat to live or live to eat. For the pleasure of eating, the pleasure of eating is the only end of life. I mean, would you eat? Well, I've stood on that a little. You put the pleasure before the purpose.

We eat to live. We say we eat for comfort. We've got to keep going. And our energy is eating. Why are we eating to live to enjoy? Now the joy is second to the pleasure, second to the purpose. And that's what we should put in.

We're meant to enjoy ourselves. We're meant to be self-enjoying people. But it's second to the purpose. And it fits in. And you get your joy in life, and all that's second is the purpose. And the purpose is whatever you, you're invited into life, you're existed as God's fathers.

Whatever that means, whatever it involves, it's the result of your humility. That's right. The purpose eats you up. The purpose eats you up. You're a part of God's paradise. Enjoy yourself. You get to eat pleasure, actually.

Lots of pleasure. The pleasure of eating. That's what you need. That's what you need. That's what you need to enjoy. The pleasure to enjoy yourself. My motives are so mixed. It's because they're mixed.

I say, you're a part of a God. You're a part of yourself. You're meant to be, because you think you're together. I say, if somebody says to me, Oh, I'm so thankful. I'm so touched by what you said. I don't want to say, no, no, no, no, no.

Do you want to go into Christ? No, I mean, you're here too. Just try to make a pass about it. Of course, I know it's God. It's also me. I'm on television still. And I just put my own motives. Put your own motives.

Put your own motives. You have a motive. You want to do this. You want to do that. That's right. That's quite right. Second is the purpose. Second is the purpose. So, at any time you've got that thought, apparently it didn't prove that necessary.

And of course, there are other ways. And of course, together, no. That's it. So, life's a thrill. It's full of fun. You can't expect it, because it's purpose. That's what life is. It isn't a fun little life.

It's when you've got the Indian purpose. And that goes right for those too. Somebody mentioned the whole question of sex and marriage. Well, that's it. The two bases of sex is different. It's a self-giving, active marriage.

It's simple. I belong to you. You belong to me in a marriage. Now then, the primary act of sex is the simple, the total devotion. I belong to you. You belong to me. Second is the place of sex. The entire one, you're part of the place of sex.

The purpose of God, in New York this morning, is for other people. Out of His folks. So, His health is wonderful. And as I say, thank God, that there is in man this basic instinct, this God instinct, that we're meant to be for others.

We're meant to do good in it. We're not meant to deceive ourselves. If people ask me, what's the gospel? To what extent must you have your doctrines right? Well, you must. I was talking to somebody there, one of you grabbed me, maybe.

The Essential Gospel and the Foundations of Faith

First coming, you haven't got to know all about your foundations. Through the door, you don't need to know too much about what's built the house. You hit another door, and you think, Jesus Christ, and you rejoice.

That's all right, but you can't live a whole house, a householder, a whole life, without knowing a little more than that. And so I come to somebody, you need to go, why are you here? What foundations can I lay under you?

I was discussing with him, why we must have the cross, must have the resurrection, where Christ, as His saviour, fits right in. Because somebody said to me, well, the love of Christ, and His time with you, I mean, it doesn't reach me very much.

Well, all right, time will come, it will. Now, come a time, when you see, when you see deeper, there's no way out, of your self-bound, satanic, satanically controlled self, that somebody else did a dying for you, than a living for you.

Otherwise, you've done for. You'll come to that, you'll see, you'll be all right, don't bother. Those are the foundations. You drive a car. Well, time has made it difficult to change a tire. It's hard that way.

You need a little more than driving a car for comfort, but you get on a little. Say the same thing about me. Do you see what I mean? When I say, when I'm asked what the essential gospel is, the essential gospel is, the human soul is being replaced by the divine.

That's the essential gospel. I won't quarrel too much about how, I have good ideas about that. They're so non-reliable. But I'm not personally asking how. I'm asking, is it so? That's the, what I've got to tell you, if you discuss, people discuss this, what was Christian and Christian?

Who's on the right road and who's not on the right road? The outcome is this. The wrong road is a self-control of self-centered life. A life is centered on the fact that that's the wrong world. That's the satanic world that we use to satanic dismay.

The new world is a world where the real self is a new God. You come back home and you're just a branch of the sky. A member of this body. The real person is this person who is self-giving love. He's the real person and you're just a lovely hero expressing your feelings.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you about how you got there. You got there. You haven't got there without arguing with me. Because you're awful. You know what I'm saying? You mustn't be deceived because a person got some good words there for their life.

Not necessarily. You can go a long way. I've got, that's, we should have a conscience. We should be kind. And mind you, you're in a kind world. I've got a country who's been going down the hill since he got to the hill.

You know, you're our king, so you better listen. I'm English. But, because of this, you get a, you've got to be kind in this place. Because it's hard to be kind when you're a servant in this place. Because you're very happy to be a Christian, sometimes they think you're very low, it's very easy to be so.

You're allowed to do those things. But, because a person shows kindness and does good works, it doesn't necessarily mean they've got that. There's the wrongs. There's the wrongs. We start with the wrong and conscious self.

Repentance, Redemption, and the New Motivation

Now, there's got to be the disappearing of the self compared to the reappearing of the self. Now, this means that, it's the process of what we call redemption, crucified, and Christ redeemed. And, and, and, and, and let me go over what I've done before, of course.

The first stage of disappearing is when, at last, you, you come honest enough that you'll, you'll not be what you should be. That's the ultimate high point of the law of God. As the Bible says, if you show the law, you can be a law of yourself, all in the law.

That's where the ultimate judgment is going to be, all in the law of God, which is the law of yourself. And, the Bible says it's possible for non-Christians to show the law within their heart. The knowledge you receive deep in their heart without knowing God, without knowing Jesus Christ, without knowing anything.

But because there is a knowledge of the law that's placed in the soul, they have in their heart said, as far as I know, I want to be what I should be. How about the supreme being? I want to be what I understand I should be.

Uh-huh. There's a place for them. There's a place for them. Because, that's the law. It's how God's got the gift of the external and the power of the internal. So I'm saying that there's a sense, a law in an ill-defined sense, in which the law is the way everything should be, the way everything works.

The way the universe works is the God of self-giving, God of love. That's all there is. That's all there is in the confession of the God of self-giving. He's all-being. He's God of the law. And there's conscience in those two sentences, as I say, that our services is not what we call our sin, it's not all-being.

However, it's ill-defined and vague, and so God brought in His mercy the Israelites, His nations. Thank God, we should have known Jesus by the age if we hadn't had a Jewish nation, and built it up on what the law really is, so codified for us what the law is.

And so we get the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, and so on, the codification of the law, and the codification of redemption, for the preaching of redemption in the blood sacrifices. So on. Now, the first part of the disappearance of the past is what we call the completion of sin.

And hence, the premise of any change of mind. The premise doesn't necessarily mean emotion. It doesn't necessarily mean you feel deep. It doesn't necessarily mean you cry. It means you, it depends on different types of people.

Some will cry more, some will think more. Perhaps those who think will cry less, those who cry more think less. I don't know. I'm not saying it depends. It isn't a question of emotion. It's a question of by whatever areas I do relate it to.

It means you change your mind. The word that we use in Metanoia is change of mind. Change of mind. You change, you change your inner concept. Not mind with various theories. Your inner concept. Metanoia, the word now is more than just a myth.

It's an inner consciousness or something. That's all. Now, that's, first thing is that all of us who are redeemed people as we change our minds at certain times we powerfully recognize that we were wrong.

And because of this we are on the wrong foot in our awakening to God and all this. We've done all that before. When we awaken there's no answer. That's why I call what I spoke of at the first class. Suddenly you do in your condition to finally be patient.

Oh, this is what this gospel is teaching for me. This is the meaning of the cross of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. He took away this, he cut off as represent an enemy. He became cut off as a representative of the enemy.

He was wrongly punished in the end of humanity for his consequences. That's what death is, a cut off between body and spirit. This is with Jesus Christ on this cross. And the cut off was when he died, there was separation between body and spirit.

So it was the body of Jesus we were leading by. Because the body of Jesus was a body like everything else. Being us, they had those pleasures. And then burial was the indication that it was a real death.

And so it says we were buried there. Now, now is the chance when he was meant to come in. He does. He was a big girl. He pays his own money. Of course, you can't have the two together. They don't love each other enough.

The devil and the Holy Spirit don't love each other enough to live together. They parted. So, after the other, in the resurrection came a new spirit. Now, we love him. The moment you receive Jesus, this happens to you.

You take on your place as one who actually shared in that cross of resurrection. Now, it may not appeal to you because you have that industry there. Of course, the history goes back to currency, really.

It comes out in history like that. And you know that then. You became part of it. And the moment you did that, then this new spirit, God's spirit, joined itself to you. And you began to be, you began to be the other kind of person whose motivation is loving others, more than yourself.

So, as you recall, the elementary point, the simple elementary point is the first evidence, real evidence, if you are a born again person, if there's a new motivation within which you can't help yourself, you've got to love God a little like Jesus.

Exactly. More than yourself. More than yourself. That's the key. Before, in the end, your self was always on top. You did this, and then all of a sudden the self could breathe. Because a new love was given to you, the love of Christ who died for you, the love of partnership, and so on.

This is, this is the other love. You've now become the other love. The scripture given on that, I told you, it's never as pie as pie. They said, pour the love upon love, not pour it on. Watch out, sometimes you watch these new conversations, they never always get the exact detail accurate.

They're very lovely, many ways, but they sometimes miss the nuances and the real details. And so, love for God who should have borne him, I said, God's own love, God's love, not yours. God is love. He should have borne you by the Holy Spirit, and you would be in love.

And so, the evidence that you are, as we say, a new creature in Christ, a redeemed person, is that the new one that is called, which is not God, not Christ, and that begins with loving people, begins to sense their need and want to help them, this is a new love.

At the end of this, you are eternal love. It's the evidence that everyone must have here. We have concern with compassion, isn't it? So, for Christ, before the concern and compassion of men, there was this new sense of love and devotion to this man.

God, Father, Holy Spirit, in whatever way He presents Himself to us. Now, this is the new love. Now, you will have reappearance. You hardly know it yourself. You will have a reappearance, a true self.

A true self is part of the divine self. The divine self is a self-giving love. You are part of the divine self. Just as the brown is a part of the brown. Or a member of God is part of a head. The completion of the disappearance, it comes in as a personal experience.

So, the total conscious unity means that you've been taken over. Not the intention to take it over. The total conscious unity is so brilliant, you have to enter it in a vast person. What's that? I tell you what works here in the Bible, in a vast person.

The mystery of the fourth dimension is the part called the Holy Grail. That's an oracle, that's different. When we, in our mathematics and calculation, it's impossible. Can't contain the whole. It doesn't fall to this.

That's the sense in which you wholly love. It's, you see, when we think of God, is it God loves me? Is it the real universe? I've got to talk about it. God loves me. Jesus loves me. Is it a whole of God?

God loves me. Is it the real universe? Is it a whole of God loving me? Yes. And quite a lot of people say to me, quite rightly, if there was only one sin in the world, it would be loss. God would try to guide that one person.

This is the sense in which we are the whole. Now that's something I'm talking then with a confirmation now. It's a different thing. We are the whole. There's a sense in which a branch is the whole of God in a branch form.

It's just a one-sectional form of the whole of God. It's taking the whole of God because He is. A branch. To help us to get God to the unity, we don't have to give him part of God. This is Christ's functioning, but He's also functioning in you.

You've got to forget about that. He's my Christ, not yours. Go away. This is the population spirit, isn't it? Yes. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. That's right. Thank you. As I said, very rare because unity means you can't sit back just as an agent.

We're agents. We're partners in the God's plan of use. We're vessels, a campaign.