Camp Spalding - Part 2 — George Warnock

The Body of Christ Tempered Together

I'm speaking this morning on the fact that by enriching his people, by enriching them with his gifts and blessings, there's going to come a time when God is going to take away the... bring down the high places and exalt the low, that the body of Christ will be tempered together and no longer be filled with all the unevenness that is now there, where many members are unduly exalted and others are not even recognized or even known.

And God is going to deal with this in the body of Christ. Even as in the human body, the apostle says, we have uncommon parts, parts that, you know, we don't attribute to them any particular beauty or usefulness, but upon these we bestow more abundance.

And he says so it is in the body of Christ. Now, uncommon parts have no need, but God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. God has tempered the body together.

God's Purposes Declared as Accomplished

We mentioned how God often will declare his purposes in the past tense, because it's something that he sees as an accomplished thing, a finished thing as far as God is concerned. There's no question about it.

It does not mean that we read something that's written in the past tense and say, oh, well, that's gone now, we've got all that. Because oftentimes it means that God has simply declared his purpose and that that's his intention and that's what he's going to do.

I didn't give this illustration, but I'll give it now. When God began to reaffirm the promises to Abraham, Abraham had waited many years for the fulfillment of this promise, and his heart grew weary waiting for the fulfillment of what God had promised.

And God said to Abraham on one occasion, having reaffirmed the promise, thy name shall be no more Abram, but Abraham. For Abram signifies a high father, a title of importance, but doesn't signify actually that he had a family.

And he said, Abram, thy name shall no longer be Abram, but Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee. And after that, instead of referring to this man as Abram as previously, he went about with a new name, Abraham.

It must have been a reproach to him, really, for here he was getting older and older, and Sarah getting older and older, and the promise of God coming into a place of less and less possibility of fulfillment.

And when people would call him Abram, he says, no, God changed my name to Abraham, which they knew meant father of many nations. But the point is, God didn't wait until that happened. He says, your name is going to be Abraham from now on.

Because when you're dealing with God and meditating and considering his purposes, you're dealing with one who calleth the things which be not as though they were. God just saw things as they were going to be, and he refers to them as if they already were.

And so I don't read the scriptures and say, I'm resurrected with Christ, I'm seated with him in heavenly places, I'm not going to die because I've got resurrection life. The Bible says I've got resurrection life.

God calleth the things which be not as though they were. We do have resurrection life. But these things are not given unto us that we might presume, but that we might believe and embrace it, that in due course it will come to pass.

And so I like giving forth the word of God under the anointing, under the presence of the Lord, and I can declare it with great assurance, no question of my mind about it, because God is saying this and I know it's true.

But that's the seed of life that you embrace. It's going to take time, it's going to take the working of God in your life and mine for these things to come into being. It doesn't cause any doubts, ought not to cause any doubts to arise, because God declared that he's going to do it.

And he would have us to embrace the promise that in embracing it, it might come into being. I don't understand the fine line between the sovereign declarations of God and our responsibility concerning it.

Revelation, Scripture, and the Living Word

And of course there are times in our early Christian experience where we seek to define and understand all the mysteries of God. But as you have gone with the Lord and the purposes of God and the greatness of God takes on greater magnitude in your eyes and in your thinking, you're prepared to lay all that aside and be content to declare what God has said without trying to make everything fit like we used to.

It doesn't matter if it fits as long as we know God has spoken. And then something else is said that sounds different and we know God has spoken it and we want to fit it together. Well, it will fit together somewhere.

But let us have our ears so tuned to God and be so conscious and aware of God's voice that we know when he is speaking that it is truth. It will be in accord with scripture, but oftentimes we'll have to hold it and meditate upon it until God brings forth the scripture that will confirm it and settle it in our hearts and minds.

Because truth must come by revelation. It must come by the revelation of the Spirit. It doesn't come through the written word first. It comes by the Spirit. Because even the letter of the word, the written word, was first preceding that was the Spirit.

And the Spirit breathed upon holy men of God and as he breathed upon them, they ruled. And that's why it is difficult for a knowledgeable man, an intellectual man who has to have everything figured out scientifically, it's difficult for him to embrace the living word.

But he'll take the letter of the word and analyze it and so forth and come up with a doctrine. But oh how far short it falls from being a living word from God. God's living word is inherent in the seed.

I don't despise the letter. There is a living seed within it. I don't despise the letter just because the scripture says the letter killeth and the Spirit giveth life. The Bible also says that the Lord killeth.

The Lord killeth and the Lord maketh alive. So forget the Lord. And that's the concept people have with the scripture. Why are the letters killeth? They just want to rejoice in the Spirit. In that letter is a living seed.

But before it becomes that living word, you and I, it has to go down in the ground and die. It has to enter into us. It has to enter into the ground of our soil, that the seed of it might break asunder, that the light that is in it might conform.

And so there was a time when I was inclined to despise, perhaps, or not to, I shouldn't maybe say that, but to be unappreciative of the ministry that the Lord had given me, because, you know, having been brought up in Pentecost where great emphasis was laid upon the Spirit, and there were times when God was moving mightily, when people figured that if you come and there was a meeting and nobody preached, oh, that was a wonderful meeting because nobody preached.

Well, it could be a wonderful meeting without anybody preaching or teaching. I'm not denying that. But oh, the Lord was there to thank. There was no matter. People were happy and rejoicing and going through all sorts of spiritual antiques because of the presence of the Spirit.

What did God say? Well, I don't know if he said anything. And so it is encouraging to those whom God has sent in the body, the word from the Lord to know that such people are beginning to listen, that they want to hear what God is saying.

They want to know what God desires for their life. And as soon as we come to that place where we have that desire, you can rest assured God is going to speak. Not that he is speaking, but our ears have been so tuned to many voices that we haven't heard that clear voice from God.

But we all know that there are many voices in the land, all claiming to be right, all claiming to have the way of the Lord, and God's people have been in so many cases, like sheep not having a shepherd, searching here and searching there.

And with many of the machines that the solution is, well, dig through it all, get a crumb here and a crumb there. Dig through that haystack and try to get a crumb of food out of that. Dig through this mess of garbage, perhaps there will be a little bit of food there.

And it seems to be the way. But God is concerned about his people. And the time is coming when he is going to bring forth a clear word in the land. And so he is preparing a people that that day of visitation might come upon us, and the people of the Lord will go forth empowered by the Spirit and anointed by the Spirit and by the word to bring forth that clear intention of God and to declare them unto God's people.

And the people of God will know this is the voice of God. If they are God's sheep, they'll know. Jesus said, and I sheave you my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and a stranger they will not follow.

Have that confidence. I know that's going to happen. And many people, of course, like I said this morning, they'll take the word of God and profess to embrace it and all that, but it doesn't bother them if, you know, they don't mind saying, well, of course what you said, I don't think that will ever happen.

You can declare the word, well, yeah, that sounds good, that would be nice, but it hasn't happened, and we've tried that. I remember saying to one young man, well, this question starts concerning some aspect of scripture.

Well, yeah, but this other way seems to work. But God is bringing us to that place where his people are going to recognize that God's way is the right way, that he is going to establish his way in the midst of his people, and that the ways of man are going to be brought to light.

He's bringing us there. And as he completes his work in the body of Christ, like we said this morning, he's going to. Yes, he has tempered the body together, but the work goes on. God sees it as a finished thing, but that work goes on.

He's tempering the body of Christ. The word tempered, mixed together, or compounded, I think it refers to the work of the apothecary, where they compound different substances, by way of tempering together the members of the body of Christ.

And in so doing, there is the loss of our identity. I've got to qualify that, because I know there are other aspects of truth that I clearly portray, that as members of the body of Christ, we are members in particular.

And oftentimes we emphasize that aspect. But in another aspect, as far as this loaf that God is forming, we're not only a body, we're a loaf. As ingredients of that loaf which God is forming, he is causing us to lose our identity.

As the kernels of wheat are put into the millstone and ground together, every little kernel loses its identity, because God is tempering the body of Christ together. We're going to have to recognize that and look for it and believe it and anticipate it and long for it.

That's why much of the ministry that we have in the land today, though they'll preach the body of Christ and think that in preaching it they have it in their midst, because they've got 200 people or 300 in their congregation all singing the same songs and worshiping the Lord together in faithful and attending church, and they say, this is the body, there is very little manifestation of the body of Christ in the earth today as God wants it to be, very little, because the body has not been tempered together.

Some parts have been grossly over-exaggerated, given a great place of preeminence, whereas others are not even recognized and the body is not tempered together. But God is doing that. He's doing it in his mills.

He's subjecting the kernels of wheat to the mills of God, that as they are ground together in the mills of God, that we lose that identity and we become brethren. Remember that a shepherd is a sheep. He's not higher than the sheep, he is a sheep.

But God has given him a ministry whereby he might lead other sheep unto the true shepherd. And so that there is no difference in the body of Christ as far as our relationship with the Lord is concerned.

The difference is only one, whereby God gives a certain ministry to one to help the other. So he gives ministries of apostles and prophets and teachers, pastors and so forth, to bring others into this glorious realm of the body of Christ, to bring them into it where they will find their place in the body and be beautified with the beauty of the Lord and function as a very meaningful part of the body of Christ.

Ministry is for that purpose, to bring the body of Christ into that place where every member will be a very vital functioning member in that body. And we don't have that, and you know we don't have that.

You've got some ministers out there that are looked to and exalted, and the people are content to have it that way, but not the people whom God is grooming for a place in that glorious body. Their hearts are longing for reality, their hearts are longing to find that fulfillment that they know that God has for them.

And they search for it, they try to find it and find it not. They go from one assembly to another, from one group to another, from one congregation to another, hoping that they'll find that thing for which their heart is craving, and many times turning away in disappointment.

But to such God is calling and he's seeking them out and he's bringing them together and he's causing them to see that the reason that they're not accepted and the reason they don't fit in, the reason they're not finding their heart's desire and the fulfillment of their heart's desire, is because God has caused them to recognize their need that he might come and supply that need.

Laodicea's Need for Spiritual Sight

I remember someone asking me one time, what is the real need in the body of Christ? Like a flash that seemed to come to me, the greatest need in the body of Christ is that the people of God recognize they have a need, because they're living in the land to see an age.

When the church, God's people, the church says, I'm rich and increased in goods and have needed nothing. Well, this thing of Matthew, he's very boasting about what we got in the church. And Jesus looks down and he says, I counsel thee to buy of me gold, try to look far that you might be rich.

He says, you're poor and you're poverty-stricken, you're blind, you're naked. He says, you don't know it. But I see you in that condition. God's complaint with Laodicea, since so many times, is not that they were poor and wretched and blind and naked, but that in that condition they said, we are rich and increased in goods and have needed nothing.

For if we know our condition, God is there to meet our needs. And so he says, I counsel thee, buy of me gold, try to look far. You say, you're rich. God says, no, you're poor, but I've got gold for you.

You say, you're clothed upon, you're beautiful in God's sight. God says, no, you're naked. God says, I want you to buy these garments from me, these garments of righteousness that I have for you as a free gift that you might have.

And you say, we see the purposes of God and what God is doing in this day and hour. We see it, yes, we believe in it. You come across those people in so many places as you begin to see some of the, oh, yes, we believe that in our church, yes, we believe that.

And Jesus says, come and buy eye-sand, that you might have your eyes anointed, that you might see. In vain do we say, we see the purposes of God, and then go and carry on our own way, do our own thing, have our programs, build our churches, do anything we want to do, because we've got a strong pastor, apostle, prophet or teacher, somebody can do anything he wants to do because of his wisdom, because of the riches of the people behind him, carrying on their own program.

Oh, yes, we believe this revelation that God is doing. God is saying, stop all this, quit it all. Call unto me, seek my face, let me be your light, let me direct you, let me tell you what to do. Oh, we've got apostles, they don't have to do until we just trust in them.

Jesus says, I come fully and buy of me eye-sand, that you might anoint your eyes, that you might see. He's tempering the body together, he's mixing us together. He tempers us with the oil of his Holy Spirit, and therefore if we do not give preeminence to the Holy Spirit, how are we going to be tempered together?

And in that Holy Oil, there were many ingredients added. It's not enough just to have the oil, but there must be these ingredients. Oh, there are several of them mentioned there in the scripture. Myrrh is one of them.

Myrrh is a bitter plant. And when Jesus was born, you know, because bitterness was to characterize the life and ministry of Jesus. His was to be a bitter life. And yet in and through all the bitterness, he would know the joy of his God upon his life.

But nevertheless, it would be a cross that he would bear. And so they presented him with myrrh. And there was more myrrh in the Holy Oil than anything else. There was cinnamon, sweet cinnamon, and there was calamus, and there was cassia, all these precious graces that were included in this Holy Oil.

But God says, more myrrh than anything else. Of course, that doesn't say anything in this present day preaching of the Church. God had more joy than anything else. God had more noise than anything else.

He had more excitement, more enthusiasm than anything else. But as the song of the night, weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Not to say that it's not a joyful life, but there's a joy in knowing that out from the cross, out from a life that is rejected, out from a life that is despised, out from that lonely life, there is born the joy of the Holy Spirit.

And that's the only true joy there is. There's no joy that you and I can trump up. There's no joy that you can trump up with a lot of excitement in the Church. The true joy of the Lord is born in the body of Acorn.

And so may the Lord help us to know what God is saying in this day and hour. He's calling his people to come down low in his feet, to hear what he's saying, to submit to the crushing of the grain in the martyrs of God, and that the body of Christ might be blended together, mixed together, mingled together, that it might come forth aloof, bound together by the heat of God in the ovens of his fiery trial.

He's not going to have a body apart from this holy dough, mingled with the holy oil, with all these graces, these ingredients of the Holy Spirit, the graces of love and truth and forbearance and patience and long-suffering, all these ingredients mingled with the holy oil.

You can have the anointment without that, but it's not the holy oil that God wants. It's like the ointment that we read of in the writings of Solomon, where he says, Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking sabre.

Until God, by his Holy Spirit, brings them to the midst of his people, the ways of the Lord cause them to walk in his ways, brings them down on humility before him, brings them to repentance, causes them to shed tears of repentance before him, weeps because of the erring ways of Zion, cries unto God day and night for the people of God in their desolation.

We're not going to know the joy of the Lord in the midst of his people. Trumpet up all you will, try and manufacture, try and make it that there's a people who are going through their hour of sorrow now, that in the day of God's visitation they shall laugh.

Hannah and the Barren People of God

Now, just digressing, not really digressing, but perhaps for the rest of the short message which I have for tonight, let's turn to 1 Samuel 1. We're going to talk a bit about Hannah, the chosen one of the Lord, and how she loved the Lord with all her heart.

Her husband was Elkanah, and he had two wives. One was Hannah, and the other, Hananah. They were told that Hananah had children, but Hananah had no children. Hananah was bound. If you'll just recollect, or should I say, remember as you read the scriptures, you'll discover that whenever God was going to do something special in the earth, something great, something different, whenever God was going to change the order, when God was going to bring forth a new thing, he chose a woman that was barren.

He chose a barren woman. He said why? The reason was, if God chooses a barren woman, she's going to be humble. She's going to seek the Lord. Oh, not so much today. It's almost a reproach to virtue in the days.

But in the days of Israel, it was a reproach not to virtue. Godly women in Israel wept and lamented the fact that they could not bring forth children. It was a reproach to them, because they were born to bring forth.

So Hananah suffered this reproach. There's a Hananah people in the earth, in the Church, part of the Church. When we talk about the Church sometimes out there, we still recognize we're a part of God's people, and we love the Church.

But we just recognize that in so many cases, the Lordship of Christ is not recognized, and the Spirit of God doesn't have its free course in the midst of his people. So what we have as a Church is so often a human structure manipulated by some clever leader, and the Spirit of God is not flowing in the fullness of his presence, in the midst of his people.

When Emma had children, she was fruitful, and Hananah had no children. But God was grooming Hananah to bring forth something that his heart desired, something that God wanted to do. He wanted to establish a clear voice in the land, and so to bring forth this one, he would choose a barren Hananah.

So it was when Jesus came in this world, through the voice of God in the land, he chose a barren woman to do it, a miserable woman. Not only barren, but old, helpless, unable to bring forth, that when God would come and receive her, and what God would bring forth would be a miraculous thing.

It would be something fresh from the hand of God. So God blesses this Hananah. God blesses this Hananah in the Church today. And we're not denying that she's blessed with the Lord, and she's fruitful, and she's got her converts, and she's building her churches, and sending out missionaries, and doing many wonderful things.

We're not denying that. But we're saying in the midst of all that, the earth is no better off today than it was yesterday, no better off today than it was ten years ago, twenty years ago. No, it's worse.

It's worse, and you know it's worse. But we can rejoice in the little thing that we see, and blind our eyes and close our ears to the desolation that the Church is in, and try and comfort ourselves as we see a little fruit here, a little good there, and so forth.

And there's a people who just recognize that the Church is in desolation, in desolation. And with all the children that Hananah has brought forth, the situation has not changed. Hananah is barren. But she weeps before the Lord because of the reproach.

Because of the reproach that has been upon God's people, there's a people that are being gathered together unto him. That's why many of you are here tonight. Because of the reproach of God's people. And God said he was going to have respect unto those to whom the reproach of the solemn assembly was a burden.

And when the time came when God was going to manifest his judgments in Israel, in the days of Ezekiel, he said, first of all, I want you to go through the man with the ink on him by his side, to go through the elders of Israel and the leadership of them, to put a mark upon all those who sighed and those who cried for all the abominations that were done in Israel.

And God put a mark upon them because they were going to be spared the judgments that were coming upon them. God's putting a mark upon his people. I encourage every one of you to get the Wilkerson's book.

Put the trumpet to their mouth and read it. And if you do, I'm sure you'll recognize the prophetic utterance of God that God is about to send great judgments upon the earth. But Peter tells us that his judgments are going to begin at the house of God.

And if that be so, how near we must be to that day and hour when God is going to come down and intervene in the affairs of the church and begin to execute his judgments. So we look forward to it and anticipate, but even as we do, let us do so solemnly and recognize that it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

God's putting a mark upon his people. And he's marking them. If you're sighing and crying for the abominations that are done in the midst of his people, if you're hungry for God, if you're in need, if you truly see the need of your heart and the needs of your brethren and the need of the church, if you truly see that and lament over it and are concerned about it, God's got your mouth.

In the scriptures it says, put a paw, like our letter T. But it's the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, paw. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. That's the Greek. But the Hebrew is elephant, paw. Jesus is Alpha and Omega.

And he's the same Christ and never changes. But he's both because he does a certain work as Alpha in the beginning and he's doing a different work as Omega in the end. He cometh to judge his people. He cometh to establish righteousness in the midst of his people.

He cometh to his temple suddenly to cleanse the sons of Levi that they might offer unto the Lord a sacrifice in righteousness. He loves his people. And what grieves God's heart is that we can go on and do our own thing and go our own ways and walk in disobedience and come to the house of the Lord and say, Lord, we love you.

And praise the Lord with all our hearts. It's not that you're trying to flatter me. He flattered him with his lips in Israel. The praise of God once in this day and hour is a contrite and a broken heart.

The sacrifices of God are a contrite and a broken heart. These God will not despise. So may the Lord bring us down before him that he might lift us up to that God's purpose. Hannah was helpless, and yet she longed to bring forth something that would glorify God in the land.

It seems that Israel's women from the beginning had this hope, perhaps God might bring forth one of whom Adam spoke, of whom Moses wrote, the prophetess Moses, when he said, The seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's hand.

So it seems there would be a third of a hope in the hearts of Israelitish women that they might bring forth this promise seed, be that as it may. In the Old Testament, the barren woman was a reproach to herself and to her husband and to her neighbor.

So Hannah was a reproach. And her adversary provoked her sword to make her threat, because the Lord had shoved up her woman. These barren people in the earth can't help them. They just love to be brought forth for the honor and glory of God.

Nothing I would have liked better as a young man. When I received the Lord, received the Spirit, I contemplated the mission. I wanted to serve the Lord. I wanted to work for the Lord all my life. I wanted to be fruitful.

And God never let me be fruitful. He wouldn't allow it. It bothered me. It was a torment to me. But what does it do? It leads you to seeking God. It leads you to seeking God. So if you do not go through that process, God cannot prepare you as his Hannah in the earth.

And so do not think, as the word of the Lord came this morning, that the dealings of God in your life are an instrument of destruction. But recognize that the dealings of the Lord in your life are really the instruments whereby he would cause you to be humbled and chastened that you might seek him in your barrenness, that you might seek him in your need, that he is an uncommon part of the body of Christ.

He might, in this great day and hour, bestow upon you more abundant commonness, that you might truly be a fruitful member of the body of Christ. And her adversary also provoked her soul for the making of it.

And so you get the reproach of all these people sitting around trying to be perfect instead of getting nothing and doing things for God. No, it's not that. We've been out there trying to do things for God and it never worked.

We couldn't get anywhere. And so we had to come home and sit down and wait before the Lord and seek the Lord and cry out to God, God, do something about it. We don't want to end our days and go into eternity having been an unfruitful people, having nothing to lay at your feet.

And it bothers us that they don't understand that. But no, we're not sitting around trying to get perfect. We're waiting before the Lord and we're praying to him that he might come forth and move on behalf of his people and cause them to be a fruitful people in the end.

Bitterness, Marah, and the Healing Tree

And so he did year by year. When she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her. Therefore she wept and did not eat. Then said unto Hannah, Hannah, why weepest thou and why eatest thou not?

And her eyes got hungry. Am I not better to thee than ten sons? So Hannah rose up after they had eaten and shallow and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the Lord.

She was in bitterness of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept so. Bitterness? A godly woman in bitterness of having partaken of the myrrh? She was in bitterness of soul. But the bitterness that God allows his people to partake of as they partake of the myrrh, as they walk with the Lord in the Valley of Acorn, as they walk with the Lord in reproach and in rejection, the bitterness that they partake of does not make their spirit bitter.

It makes their bitterness sweet. Because in the ingredients of this holy anointing oil there is also the sweet cinnamon. And though she partakes of bitterness she is not made bitter. Remember that. Do not allow any experience in life to work bitterness within you.

Otherwise God's dealings with you and the way in which he is leading you has all been in vain. But God causes you to drink bitter waters that you might turn to the Lord and ask him to remove the bitterness.

Book of Matthew, a few weeks ago, the Lord shows the tree. Then they came to the waters of Marah. God brought them there. God led them there. The cloud of glory went before them and brought them to Marah and caused them to camp there because according to the word of the Lord they would follow the clouds and when the clouds rested they would rest.

And so our faithful God has led us to Marah and so you know what a rejoicing. Here we are now. We can rest now. Fit your tents and here is water. And they went to sit down to drink the water that was bitter and they couldn't drink of it.

Oh how they complained against God. Because God brought them here and it was bitter. And oh how we would remind God's people, if God leads you into a situation which is bitter, it's not that you might go on drinking of bitter waters, it's that you might look for the tree.

There is a tree available if you are a bitter one. And so they complained against Moses and against the Lord and God showed Moses a tree. And he cast it into the waters and the waters were healed. The waters became sweet.

So God says to his people, when you come to bitter waters look for the tree. It's that. God wouldn't lead you to bitter waters unless he had a tree to cast into the water. If you come to bitter waters look for the tree.

Don't blame God. They thank the Lord. Now how and in what manner are you going to solve this situation? Don't allow the circumstances of life, the bitterness, the failures, the shortcomings, the reproaches, the cross that you have to bear.

Don't allow that to work. Bitterness in the heart? And say, Lord, what is it? Where is the tree? How shall I throw the tree into the waters? Where is the tree that I might cast that the waters might become sweet?

And so while we were talking today, someone mentioned different ones in the church. Someone mentioned Maddie Gaylord and the bitterness that she knew. And why was it, why was she so proud that she had to do something like that?

That her spirit might be made sweet. And that she might write down her testimony for generations to come, not realizing when she went through this bitterness that though it was a reproach and a source of sorrow and frustration and bitterness to her life in that day, that in days to come many would read her biography and find their spirits sweetened because of the sweetness that came forth from her life.

So we accept the bitter waters from the Lord and look to the tree. When the tree is cast in, the waters become sweet. And she prayed unto the Lord and went sore. And she vowed of all, she said, O Lord of hosts, that thou would indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember me and not forget thine handmaid, but will give unto thine handmaid a man child.

The Man Child and Total Consecration

You know, whenever you refer to the scripture in Revelation, what is it, Revelation 11 12, when John saw great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and moon under her feet, and she prevailed in birth to bring forth, and she brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

You just quote that and people got your mind. You believe in the man child, don't you? Well, I don't want to be identified with any particular doctrine, but I do know that the scripture speaks of a woman, a symbolic woman, clothed with the sun, clothed with the glory of God, the moon under her feet.

She is prevailing in birth to bring forth, and she is going to bring forth a man child. Wesley saw her, an old woman in this movement, a preacher. I asked him one time, what about what God is going to do in these last days?

He said, oh yes, John Wesley believes it, and he quoted one of his poems about this glorious woman clothed with the sun. He said there is going to be a glorious time. And so don't get afraid of the word important, man child.