(Forging the Vessel of Recovery) 5- a Vessel of Glory — B.H. Clendennen

The Remnant as God’s Vessel of Recovery

Of this message, forging the vessel of recovery. And what we've been saying is that when God reacts against the backsliding and the loss in His people, He always reacts with a new beginning, with a vessel forged out of whatever has at hand.

You find in the Bible there's always a remnant that God starts over with. You can't read the Bible without being impressed with what the Bible calls remnants. They are the harbinger of a new beginning.

God is always, when things got out of hand, reacted with a vessel. And I've been talking to you about that vessel yesterday, the features of that vessel, showing that that vessel, those that will be a part of that vessel, are not going to be a part of the spiritual situation that's taking place in that age.

They're not going to be a part of the backsliding, they're going to be against that. We use the life of Samuel in demonstrating that, showing that he had a personal life with God. He knew the voice of God personally.

God didn't call Eli to go down there and tell him what he wanted to know. We talked to Samuel personally, he had a personal life with God. And if you're going to be a part of that vessel, you also are going to have such a life with God.

You're going to know the voice of God for yourself, you're going to have a prayer life, it's going to be a steadfastness in you built upon a New Testament basis, if you're going to be a part of that. So we come this morning to this thought, that it is a vessel of glory.

The Glorious Church in Ephesians and Zechariah

That vessel that he's going to use will be a vessel of glory. I want to read, first of all, in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5 and verse 27, a vessel of glory, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Talking about this vessel, talking about what God is going to use in the clothes of this age. Now, I want to read again the scriptures we've been reading in the book of Zechariah, chapter 4, verses 1 through 4, 1 through 6, Zechariah chapter 4, verses 1 through 6,.

"...And the angel that talked with me came again, waking me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, and said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps stands thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are upon the top thereof, and two olive trees bind one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left side thereof.

So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord.

And he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord, unto Zerubbabel saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.". A glorious church. That's what Paul said that he's going to present to himself.

A Church That Can Be Glorified

Not a wore-out, broke-down religious machine that's run out of gas, struggling to outrun the devil, give out, run out, trying to find some gimmick to keep people interested in it. No, no. I didn't want him coming after it all.

He's coming after a glorious church, a victorious church, a church that's weathered the storm, rolls on top of it, may be bruised and battered, but not from running from hell, but from storm in the bastions of darkness.

Thank God, the church full of God, an organism living, a glorious church, a church with God's glory in it, but more than that, a church that can be glorified. Oh, we need to know that. Not everything around here can be glorified.

Jesus came with the only kind of humanity that can be glorified. He came as the firstborn of a new race, representing the only thing that can be glorified. And when Paul talks about a glorious church, he's talking about a church that can be glorified.

The Pentecostal Church as the Pattern

Now the church born at Pentecost is representative. That is the pattern. It is representative. That church born at Pentecost had certain features about it. Number one, it was full grown. That didn't come into the world with two gifts hoping to get seven more.

No, just like Adam. When Adam came from the hand of God, he wasn't a little baby that's going to grow up and be a grown man. He came from the hand of God with the sharpest intellect this world's ever known anything about, totally grown, needed to go to no university, named every animal, everything that God made, knew what he knew when he was born, or when he came from the hand of God.

Well, so was the church born at Pentecost. It is born full grown. Second, she well understood her purpose for being. That church knew why it was here. It knew that it wasn't here as a debating society about religious matters, but here as the vessel of the Lord demonstrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be a reality.

Wherever that church was, men knew that Jesus Christ was alive. They knew the corn of wheat had fell into the ground and died. They came out of that upper room with the same spirit, the same power that he had.

They came out, they gave all. Jesus didn't come to give, he came to give. I know folks, listen, I know and I say it without reservation that God doesn't care that you possess something, but he does care if something possesses you.

Now I want to tell you what I do believe. I believe you can carry that to an extreme. I do not believe that I have a right to live in opulence while 3 ,000 million people that live that never heard the name of Jesus.

John Wesley said to his workers that if I die having more than 10 pounds on me, then you can know I've lived as a thief and a robber. And when he died, all he left this world was 3 pounds and the Methodist church.

All I'm saying to you is, ladies and gentlemen, we're here to spend and be spent, to spend and be spent. That church knew why it was here. It wasn't here to accumulate the world's wealth. It was here to give the world what it didn't have, the Lord Jesus Christ.

She knew why she was here. She came foregone. And third, the fruit of the Spirit was evident in her life. They took knowledge that she had been with Jesus. Now the church that he raptures, glorifies, will be no less than the church born at Pentecost.

If you think he's coming after something less than that, you're wrong. He said in the Gospel of Matthew, upon this rock, I'll build my church. Look at that church born on the day of Pentecost. And he said, I'll build my church.

If he comes back for less than he started with, then he lost, he failed in what he said he would do. No, he's not coming after just a religious debating society. He's coming after a living organism, making Christ real wherever it's planted.

Accountability for Every Spiritual Gift

The church will be held accountable for every gift and grace given her in the beginning. Do you believe that? Say hallelujah. That church will be held accountable to God. When she is born on the day of Pentecost, every gift of the Holy Ghost was in her and operative.

No, they didn't have no school trying to teach them how to discern spirits or to talk in tongues or to work miracles. I was in Ohio and a man told me this many years ago. That's when that leg stretching deal first got started.

They wanted to teach me how to work that miracle. I said, oh brother, I'm not interested in that. Teach me how to open blind eyes. I've watched that kind of a gimmick. I know God lengthens legs, but I'd watch him sit there and discern that somebody had one leg an inch shorter than the other.

One man told me, he said, you, I see, have got one leg an inch shorter than the other. I said, something's wrong with your brain. If I have a leg an inch shorter than the other, it looks like I'm walking on a railroad track with one leg.

You can't have a leg an inch shorter than the other without knowing it. But I watched him when the fellow come by with a built up shoe. They said, we'll deal with you later. Deal with you later, nothing.

If you're going to stretch your leg out, pull on one that's really short. He said to me, I want to teach you how to do this. I said, no, teach me how to open a blind eye. I'm not interested in playing around with folks' legs.

I said, in the first place, I can't stretch it out. If I put my hand on their head and Jesus lengthens a leg, they don't need me pulling on the leg. And if He don't, my pulling on it isn't going to make any difference.

I'm saying to you is, that church knew where it was, where it was going, and it was born that day with all the gifts of God. And the church that He raptures, glorifies, is going to be held accountable for every gift.

Ezra and the Preservation of the Holy Vessels

Let me read you some scripture in the book of Ezra. Now, I want to give you a little backdrop while you turn into the 8th chapter of Ezra. Ezra lived at a time when Israel was going back home. Now, when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Israel, sacked Jerusalem, he took those vessels of the Lord, those golden vessels, those spoons, and all of the vessels in there that represented the believer.

They were tithe of the believer. You see, they were that which contained the blessings of God. And when Nebuchadnezzar sacked that place, he took all of those golden vessels of that temple, took them 1 ,200 miles away to Babylon.

But the Holy Ghost, listen to me, looked over those vessels all of the years of that captivity, that not one spoon was lost. Oh, hallelujah. I want to tell you the kingdom of heaven still stands sure God does know what vessel it is.

The Holy Ghost watched over those vessels during all that captivity. And not one spoon, not one fork, not one vessel was lost. Now, Ezra has the awesome task of taking those vessels back to the temple in Jerusalem.

He took those priests and he told the king of Babylon, he said, God will protect us, look over us. They got across a banded, infested world to get back there. The chances of being robbed was about 25 to 1 that this was going to happen to them.

But Ezra said, now, folks, we can't call on the king to protect us because I told him God would look after us. So they called a fast. And when they got the fast behind them, asked God to keep them, brought those priests up, loaded them down.

He weighed them in, first of all, put those vessels on their body and said, when you get to Jerusalem, you're going to be weighed again and you better not lose a spoon on the way. You better not lose a spoon on the way.

Listen to it here in the 8th chapter of this great book of Ezra, verses 24 through 29. And I separated 12 of the chief of the priests, Shabiah and Hashabiah, and 10 of the brethren with them, and weighed unto them the silver, the gold, and the vessels, even the offerings of the house of our God, which the king and his councils and his lords and all Israel their president offered.

I even weighed unto their heads 650 talents of silver, vessels, and 100 talents, and of gold, 100 talents. I also 20 basins of gold of 1 ,000 grams, 2 vessels of fine copper, precious gold, and I said to them, you're holy unto the Lord.

The vessels are holy also. The silver and gold are free will offerings of the Lord God of your fathers. Watch you and keep them until you weigh them before the chief priests and Levites and chief of the fathers of Israel at Jerusalem in the chambers of the house of God.

You hold on to them. Don't you lose a thing. You'll weigh it now. You're going to be weighed there. That church was weighed in on the day of Pentecost. Every gift, every grace of God was there, and when she stands on the scale at the judgment seat of Christ, every gift will have to be accounted for.

Every gift, every grace, everything. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. This isn't a game we play. I said, this isn't a game we play. We deal with serious matters. That church needed it all.

It's going to give account to God for everything it had. There'll be no excuses laid at Him that day as to why we didn't do the job. That church will be held responsible for every gift. Israel had so mixed with the heathen until the only way you could tell the difference was by their birth certificate.

The Church’s Distinctiveness and Separation

Listen, like Israel in the eyes of God, the church is in a wilderness filled with evil whose only purpose is to destroy and rob her of the thing that God has given her. That's the purpose of this world, to take away from us the thing that God has given us, to rob us of the gifts and the graces that make us effective, the only effectiveness we have.

Well, Israel was there. Like Israel, though, in Ezra's day, the church is in a wilderness mixed with the heathen until the only way you could tell the difference between Israel and the heathen was a birth certificate.

Look at this. In Ezra chapter 9, just verse 1,. And when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying,. The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the land, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jephusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and the Amorites.

They've taken their daughters for themselves, given them. I'll listen to it. For their sons, so that the holy seed of mingling themselves with the people of these lands, yea, the hand of the princes and rulers have been sheathed in this trespass.

And when I heard this, I ripped my garment and my mantle, plucked off the hair of my head and my beard, and sat down astonished. My God, the day you listen to television, and they rejoice because we look like the world.

They rejoice because we run with the world. They think it's a wonderful thing to sit down with a hodgepodge politician that don't know who he belongs to, yet talks in tongues, and still lives like the devil.

Amen. You've got rock and rollers trying to be filled with the Holy Ghost, singing in Las Vegas all week, and some church on a Sunday, and we act like it's great. Let me tell you, Ezra pulled his hair out when he heard that you couldn't tell the difference between who's God and who's not God.

Amen. They're so mixed and mingled with the heathen, that the only way you could tell these Christians are totally Israelites was by their birth certificate. The church is filled with adherents whose only claim to salvation is a baptismal certificate.

Are you a Christian? Why, let me look back through my stuff. I've got a certificate to show you I am. I was in Africa the last time I was there last year, or this year, February of this year, rather. And the brethren were having an argument.

Five hundred preachers that I had there. Five hundred churches across that great country. And they wanted to talk to me. Some questions that had come up. The superintendent, a wonderful man. And when we got together, one of the questions was, a lot of the preachers want to wear clerical garb, a collar backwards, and a coat, black coat, so they'll be recognized as clerical.

What do you think about it? I said, ladies and gentlemen, if they want to claim you've got to be a preacher as a collar backer, for God's sake, go pick up some other profession. If that's the only way they know you belong to God, then you don't belong anyway.

Amen. The Bible said you'll be a witness after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Use the same language used about the tabernacle and the witness. Wilderness, Stephen said he was a tabernacle witness. Couldn't dance, couldn't shout, couldn't talk, but every heathen knew God lived on the inside of it.

Every heathen. It is what's in us that matters, not what kind of vesture we put on on the outside. Like the priest of Ezra's day, the church also beweighed in at the judgment of Christ, and will give an account for everything she began with, ladies and gentlemen.

Awakening from Religious Sleep

We better get ready. Listen, the Bible makes it plain that the church must be awakened, must be awakened. It's asleep to what's going on spiritually. For the most part, people are rejoicing over things that ought not to be even in the church of the living God.

In this fourth chapter of the book of Zechariah, I read to you, it said, He waked me as a man out of a deep sleep. And know what he said? He waked me. Listen, Zerubbabel is awakened out of a spiritual stupor.

He's caught up in the religious hodgepodge of his day, and he thought everything was well. He looked at all of the splendor of the robes, the priest, the altar, the temple, and he thought everything was wonderful with it all in place.

But the angel awakened. He's a very, very religious man, but he's dead to the spiritual world. Dead to it. Because of his religious background and tradition, Zerubbabel presumed that God was like what he saw.

Because he was religious, what he saw in that priesthood, in that temple, he believed that's what God was like. Amen. Now, because of the existing system, Zerubbabel thought that God was a form, a system that could be promoted and sold in the marketplace.

Oh, I want that to sink into you. You can't package Jesus. You can't sell Him like soap. He's not a system. He's a living person that must be known, met and known. But Zerubbabel, like today, because he looked at that system of religion, he thought God was like that.

He thought God was a form, God was a sacrament, that God was a system that could be packaged and sold and doled out to the people. He had actually come to believe that until the angel waked him out of that sleep.

Deliverance from Presumptuous Religion

Listen, this is a great transgression that the vessel of recovery must be delivered from. The neo-Pentecostal today must be delivered. The great transgression. You ever read in the book of Psalms where David said, deliver me from presumptuous sin.

Don't let them have dominion over me. And thus will I be delivered from the great transgression. Zerubbabel looked at that system and thought that's what God was like. He presumed that that's what God is like.

Never bothered to probe in, pray through and to know. Today you've got God presented. One of the biggest ministries in this country today has saw an angel that told him to open up his hospital to the poor.

And now he's sending out a statue of the angel that he saw. And that's supposed to be your point of contact. I've been saying the Catholics are wrong doing that ever since I've been a Christian. The Bible says you don't have anything before you as an image of what's in heaven or in earth.

Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. You just presume about God and that's a great transgression. I don't have any right on this earth to presume something about God. All I can know about God is what's in this Bible and what I see in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And to presume that God is something, to presume that God is something, then act like that's so. We presume that God's mercy outweighs His justice or that His love outweighs His justice. You're lying to yourself.

Amen. Your grandma, if she's not saved, is going to go to hell. It don't make any difference how kind she's been or how much you love her. God does not allow you and I to dream in our mind what He's like.

The essence of idolatry is what a lot of stuff that's being said about God today. Men lay awake at night, dreaming up and saying, God told me something. And what God told them is an absolute opposite of what the Bible says about God.

I was holding a meeting for a preacher many years ago. He had been married before and he left his wife. I didn't know why. I didn't bother. I didn't know what was going on. He had left his wife. Then he had married a woman that was a preacher, but had never been married.

Never been married. Well, we come that whole revival, those days you always stayed in the Parsonage or Sunday school room. There were no holiday ends for you to be in. Always one or the other. And I was there every night at the church.

They'd say to me, you know, they'd bring up about their marriage. I'd tell them they were worried about it. They'd bring it up to me and say, well, I'll tell you, I know you don't believe that we're right with God.

I said, you don't know what I believe. I'm not sending you doing all the talking. Well, I know. And every night, same thing, same thing. And so I'd come in this night. We'd had a service, a long one. I was weary of two services a day.

And we're sitting there eating a sandwich, and here it come again. She said to me, I want to tell you something, Brother Clendon. We fasted and prayed many days and weeks before we got married. I said, well, I'm going to tell you something.

I don't know what your problem is. You keep throwing at me. But I can tell you one thing. You can fast and pray till you drop dead. If this book don't give you a right to be where you are, then you're wrong where you are.

Till you fall dead, it ain't going to change nothing about this book. And for you to presume that you can change God in what He's wrote in this book is a great transgression. That's the one thing the vessel I've recovered is going to have to be delivered from.

I must be governed by what He says, whether that parishioner likes it or not, whether the rest of the church world likes it or not. I must be governed by God. The neo-Pentecostal church today, instead of introducing the world to the person of Christ, sells the world a system of principles and beliefs.

Christ Versus Religious Systems

You want to get God to bless you? Then here it is. Success seminars are being held all over this country. You just put these principles into operation. Seed faith, abundant lives, all of this is something you seek after instead of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you the Bible says, and you hear me real close this morning, because some of you are going to leave out here mad at me maybe, but you listen to me real close, so there's basis for you being mad.

The Bible said, He that hath the Son hath life. L-I-F-E. He that hath not the Son hath not life. You don't seek after abundant life. You get the Lord Jesus Christ, and you got the only source of life there is.

He is the abundant life, and I want to say to you that you don't need to go through any kind of religious form or ritual. All you need to do is find Jesus. He's the answer. The blind man in the ninth chapter of Mark found Jesus, got his eyes healed.

He couldn't explain to them the theology of a sinner, God talking to a sinner. He said, I don't know whether God hears a sinner or not, but there's one thing I know. I said, You're all my life blind. Your religious system couldn't heal me, but a man came by and made me whole.

He found Jesus. I said, He found Jesus. Oh, listen, folks. The church today is promoting a system of principles and beliefs. Amen. Instead of the person of Christ, everything in this book leads to Christ.

The law was a schoolmaster leading to Christ. Amen. Once you've found Christ, you've found the sum and the total of everything that God has to offer. Once you've found Him, you preach sanctification in any other vein except it be a person, and you're going to split the church.

There's folks who'll fight you over being sanctified entirely. Amen. They'll almost murder to prove to you that they're sanctified instantaneously. But it all comes out. I'm making it something mechanical, a system.

But Paul, writing in 1 Corinthians 1 and 30, said, God had made Him, that is, Jesus, to be under a sanctification. When you sanctified, you found a person. Amen. You found a person. Listen. Thus, Christianity, for the most part, has been reduced to a cult.

Anything you run across in this world, ladies and gentlemen, that has anything for its center, apart from Jesus Christ, is a cult. You go to the Church of Christ, they've got it all centered in a water baptism.

It ain't in a water baptism. When Simeon stood there that day in the second chapter of Luke and said, with Jesus in his arms, he said, Let thy servant depart in peace, for I've seen your salvation. He never saw a church system.

He never saw the communion. He never saw a water pool. He saw a person. It's been a person. It is a person. It is a relationship between me and the living Christ that constitutes salvation, and whatever else is the center, makes it a cult.

If Jesus isn't the center of it all, then it's wrong. Listen. Christ has been reduced to a religious leader. He's no longer the way, but like Buddha, they've made Him just come to show the way. You know the national anthem?

Amen. It doesn't have any power, but it inspires the Queen of England. She don't have any real political power. That's all vested in Ms. Thacker and the Parliament. She is just there as something to inspire, an emblem.

That's all Christ is in this rotten world we live in. He just comes in to the board meeting and the boards say, God bless this. Jesus bless us. Now you get out of the way and we'll take care of the business.

But I'll tell you one thing, ladies and gentlemen, in that vessel of recovered God's thought in this world, He will be front and center. He's become not much more than a religious leader, come to point out what you'll do.

He didn't do that, though. He's the way. What seest thou? When He waked him, the question was, What seest thou? Oh, listen. This was a question the angel asked Zerubbabel. In that first verse, after he awakened him, What seest thou?

Discerning God’s Vision from Religious Fantasy

What you see when looking through religious fantasy and presumption, and what you see when looking through the eyes of God, may very well be different. What you see looking through all of the religious fantasy of today, when folks are running around with angels hanging on to airplane wings, everywhere you go.

Listen, I believe in angels. Oh, yes, sir. I'll tell you one thing. There's a lot of hoax connected with it today. Oh, people everywhere fantasizing. You know, just laying dreaming up notions about what it's all about.

What you see when looking through those dreamy eyes of religious fanaticism and fantasy and presumption, may very well be different what you see when those eyes are open and you look through the eyes of the Holy Ghost.

Zerubbabel, looking through the eyes of religious tradition, saw the temple, the priest, the religious dress and splendor, the sacrifice, etc., and really believed the revival was on. Isn't that beautiful?

I'll tell you, when that organ come on like it did, and that priest come out there in that garb, didn't them cold shields run up and down your back? I've been through all of that religious ghostism, brother, in meetings.

Now, listen, every one of you bow your head now, and the organs are coming it down. You know, just like one of them horror movies. I'm going to cast this devil out. Amen. I can't be responsible for you now.

You bow your head. You close your eye. And shield bumps are going up and down the back. Ain't no telling what's going on here. Amen. I don't bow my head and close my eye. There's enough demons in Greensburg getting every one of you.

Don't get on that freeway and close your eye. That ain't what keeps the devil out. I said another thing. If I've got enough power to get the devil out of you, I've got enough power to tell the devil where to go.

Amen. Jesus said, go back where you come from. I ain't going to let him get in somebody else. Old brother Aaron Wilson built that great church in Kansas City, one of the great, great assemblies of God churches, started down in the stockyard.

One day it was in the post office, and the mayor of Kansas City was there, and saw, brother Aaron came to him and said, Brother Wilson, there's something I believe you need to know. I was down close to that building in the stockyards where you have in church, and said, I heard some of the awfulest groans coming out of there.

Said, as if somebody wasn't dying. And said, I just wondered if you was aware of what's going on, and if you were, what in the name of God is happening? He said, Mayor, that's the greatest sounds in your city.

That's the groanings that can't be uttered, coming out of saints that are dead to themselves and pleading for your city. The old man pastor retired at 80 years old. The sword cleaved his hand, couldn't lay it down.

Went to Springfield, started another church. 84 years old. Went to a tent meeting, and the young man in there, in the tent meeting, going to cast the cold devil out of some woman. Said, everybody bow your head now.

I'm going to run this devil out, and don't want him getting you. Everybody bowed their head, but Brother Wilson, just sitting up there, bowled upright like a post. He didn't know who he was. The young man said, old man, I'm talking to you.

You hear me, old man? An apostle of God. Yeah, I hear you, son. What do you want? Said, I'm thinking of running this devil out of this woman. I want you to bow your head. He said, let me tell you something, son.

You run him by me here. I've been battling that joker for 60 years. Just run him on by. He ain't going to get me. Oh, thank God. I believe that, folks. I said, that's what I believe about it. Amen. I'm not interested in any religious spook shows.

I'm telling you, Jesus is endless. He's more powerful than anything that we're going to face. And all of this hocus-pocus doesn't mean there's a revival on. Moderns, irrevocables, seeing the mechanical Pentecost, pretended miracles in their unwakened state, believe that they're witnessing the great power of God.

Having never seen the gold, they shout over the brass. Those shields were gold until they got stole. Then they put brass in there. And having never seen the gold, they shout over the brass. The tragedy is only a handful escape the deception.

The rest dance around the newest golden calf. I said, only a handful escape the deception. The rest of them do their dancing around the golden calf naked. That doesn't mean the clothes are off of them like Israel's, but naked as far as the righteousness of God is concerned.

The Golden Candlestick and the Spirit-Filled Church

Listen here, though. He said, What seest thou? And he said, A candlestick all of gold. A candlestick all of gold. Oh, through enlightened eyes he saw the real church. When those eyes were opened. You know, candlestick is a church.

That's a church, you read that. In the book of Revelation, that candlestick, it isn't like that candelabra you have in your house. No, no. It held the oil. It was what the oil flowed through. I've been telling you every day that that's what we are.

The Holy Ghost poured out from heaven. It didn't pour it out on Greensboro. It's poured out on believers and through believers to the world. It fell on 120 at Pentecost. It didn't fall on the whole city.

It had to flow through that 120 to the crippled man at the gate. He didn't even know it had fell until Peter came through the gate the next day and says, I've got something yesterday I want to give to you today.

Amen. He saw a candlestick. That's a church. When his eyes were opened. What do you see? I see the church. What kind of a church? He said, I ain't just seeing backslidden priests offering lambs without any heart or anything more.

I see a candlestick all of gold. You know, gold in the Bible is divine. That's God. He's saying, I see a church all of God. Lord have mercy. He's seeing the end of this. What did Paul say? I present it to himself.

He presented to himself a glorious church without spot, without wrinkle, without any such thing. Thank God he said, I see a church like that. That's what Zerubbabel saw seven or eight hundred years before Christ.

When he got awake, he saw a church all of God from the natural side. Zerubbabel saw what God had with enlightened eyes. He saw what God wanted. And there was such a discrepancy, such a gap between the two of them.

He didn't really see how all of it could take place. The angel said, do you know what you see? And he said, oh no sir, I don't know what I'm looking at. He said, well I'll tell you one thing. What you see isn't done by power.

It isn't done by might. It can only be done by the Spirit of the living God. A candlestick. All, listen, a candlestick. All of gold. Hallelujah. Listen, God bridged the gap with that by my Spirit, sayeth the Lord.

The Church as the Body of Christ

I want to tell you something. The church is Christ. That startles a lot of minds. Amen. The Bible said we are the body, He is the head, joined by one Spirit. Joined by one Spirit. You see the real church, you see Christ.

You see Christ, you see what the church is. The whole sum and total. Amen. The sum and the total. As He was in this world, so are we. Hebrews 10 and 7 says, or 7 and 10, 10 and 7 I believe it is, said, Lo, it is written in the volume of the book, I came to do thy will, O God.