Sermon (June 6, 1981)

by Herbert W Armstrong

Greetings, everybody! It’s nice to be back here again. Tomorrow will be the annual holy day of Pentecost. I will be off to Stockton tomorrow, so I cannot be with you; and I have to bring any Pentecost message I have today.

You know, most churches pay no attention to Pentecost. I remember as a boy growing up in a Protestant church … The Quaker church it really was. There are several kinds of Quaker churches, by the way. The original old-fashion type where I understand they’d twiddle their thumbs; they’d wait for the spirit to move them. I was not brought up in that type of a church at all. Ours was more like the Methodist or Baptist church of today in the Protestant world – not much difference, and believing a good deal the same type of doctrine.

But I remember, as a boy, hearing the preacher talk about Pentecost. That was a strange word to me. I had no idea what it meant and you know what I think now? I think the congregation of the church, of the grown ups, didn’t know any more than I did of what it meant. It didn’t really mean anything to them.

Tomorrow is the day that we call Pentecost. Really it begins now in just a few hours from now, at sunset this evening. It’s been called Pentecost in the New Testament. Originally, it was called the feast of firstfruits; and it also is called the feast of weeks in the Old Testament.

It means nothing to most people. Well, it should because it is the day on which the Church was founded. And, beginning at sunset tonight, is the 1950th anniversary of the Church of God – one time cycle plus 50 years exactly, precisely (beginning tonight at sunset). I prefer to call it an anniversary, rather than a birthday, because we don’t celebrate birthdays. But it is an anniversary!

Now, the word “church” comes from the Greek word “ecclesia.” It means not only a crowd or a group. Of course, the church of Luther merely means Luther’s crowd or Luther’s group. The Church of God means the people of God. “Congregation” means the same precisely as the word “church.” It has the same meaning. It’s a group of people. But, in the Old Testament, we have the congregation of Israel. They were the firstborn children of Israel. We are the Church of God, and we are the spirit-begotten Church of God. We are already now the children of God because, if we have the Spirit of God, His Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God. As you read in I John 3:

I John 3: 2 [Behold, already] now are we the [children] of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.

In other words, what we shall be is not visible so we can appear as yet – not until the time of the resurrection at the coming of Christ and the time we will be born as God beings, actually.

But the word “ecclesia” also means “called out ones,” and it means we’re called out from the world. Now, WHY? What’s wrong with the world? Why should we be called out from the world? Now, Pentecost has a (well, I’d say, a) terrific meaning; but it’s been glossed over. The world hasn’t recognized it. The churches have not recognized it. Of course, science ignores anything like that altogether – and modern education, government, business and industry, technology, all of the other facets of society in the modern civilization.

Why do we observe this day that is called Pentecost? Why is Pentecost called by these different names? Why is the name “Pentecost” in the New Testament, “firstfruits” in the Old, and “feast of weeks”? I’ll give you a hurried explanation of that, but it will be made plain as I go through. I’d like to, if I can remember it, come back to it before I close later.

It’s called Pentecost because you count 50. You count 50 from, or beginning on, the [Lev. 23:15, morrow after the] Sabbath in the midst of the Days of Unleavened Bread. That is the day of the wave sheaf, and the wave sheaf typified the risen Christ. So 50 days from the risen Christ, the Holy Spirit came; and the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. So you count 50. “Pente” means 50 in the Greek language, and “cost” is count; so it’s “50 count.”

The feast of firstfruits means that the Church is the firstfruits of God’s salvation. Almost no one has ever understood that! I have to go through the sermon before you’ll understand that. It is also called the feast of weeks. Why? Because it is … seven is God’s number of completeness. The 7th day is the Sabbath unto the Lord our God. The 7th millennium will be the Day of the Lord, just like the Sabbath is also the weekly day of the Lord. Therefore, Christ is Lord of the Sabbath. So it is His day. You count exactly 7 weeks beginning on the particular day – “morrow after the Sabbath” or a Sunday – the day of the wave sheaf during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So that is why it is called those three names.

But why is it important, and why should we come out of the world? What is wrong with the world? Well, as we look into the world, we see the world has produced some very awesome accomplishments. I’ve often said that (speaking of the politicians and of a, well, a great writer or an author and a great financier or capitalist) if a Lincoln, or an Emerson, or a Vanderbilt could come back to life, they would be AWESTRUCK at the things they would see that have been accomplished!

You know that even the very fact that, if we just had it going out on the air on a station, you could see and hear me – and see me and hear me all over the city right now – if we were on the air. In fact, on my television at home, if anyone happens to be listening over there (though they should be here instead), they’re seeing me and hearing me right there in my home. Television, radio – awesome things, when you think of it! The picture and the sound are right there. It’s right there in my room at home, in one room.

Many sounds are in this room here that you don’t hear because your ear isn’t tuned into that wavelength. Those are marvelous things – sending men to the moon and back, the modern computer, the automobile, the motion picture, sending unmanned spacecraft to get us close-ups of the surface of Mars and close-ups of Saturn and Jupiter.

Why I tell you, anyone who died in the 19th century coming back to life today would be awestruck with those things; but also they would be HORRIFIED to see the changes that have taken place morally, spiritually, and in troubles, in woes and human suffering, in violence, in every evil that has beset humanity. They would be perplexed. What has caused all of this? We didn’t have that kind of evil a century ago. Nothing like it! And yet we are called out of this world. It was bad enough then. It’s just a lot worse today.

So this world – if you take our Western world, if you take the developed world (and you can include Japan with that) – you find a great development of technology, of industry, and of education. On the other hand, you also find unhappiness. You find human discontent.

I tell you, I remember when I was a boy around the turn of the century, in the early 1900s before 1910. (1902, 1903, 1905 – which I remember very well because I was a growing boy at that time, approaching my teens.) Now I had an uncle who lived down on the farm, away from Des Moines, Iowa where I was born and raised. Of course, I was supposed to have been raised in the city. It wasn’t a very big city, but we thought of it as a city. And you know, the farmers (not only my uncle, but other farmers), they didn’t have tractors yet at that time. They would be plowing behind a horse. But they would be singing at the top of their voice. They’d come in, “Well hi,” they’d say to their wife; and it was all jolly and cheerful. Everybody was happy. They had a smile.

Today you have to buy a Coke to have a smile. [Audience laughs.] So that’s their slogan. It seems like nobody smiles any more today. I think that Bob Hope will tell you that the one good thing he’s done for the world is made them smile and laugh. There isn’t much laughter any more today. Well, I just got you laughing a little bit. That’s a good thing once in a while. We need to have a lot of good cheer and that kind of thing. It seems like it’s almost gone from the world today.

But now you get other parts of the world – China, India, many parts of Africa – and you find illiteracy. You don’t find education. And you find near starvation. You find people living in filth and squalor. You find absolute poverty, people starving to death. Such things ought not to be. There’s no need for things like that. No need at all! It’s all wrong! There is something wrong in this world.

And this is a world, because it is wrong, the Church is called out of this world. We need to understand why. We need to understand the beginnings of this world. What started this world on the wrong track? What started the Church? Why did Christ say, “I will build My Church”? And how did He build it, and why? Why are we in it today? And why are we here today? We need to understand.

Most people just go along. It gets to be the fashionable thing. I talked to one woman, who had been a Church member. She dropped out. I said, “Tell me, do you honestly think you were ever really converted – did you receive the Holy Spirit of God?” She said, “No.” She said, “When I was in college, the other students were all being converted; and I just wanted to go along. I thought it was the thing to do. So I got soused in water, and they called it being baptized.” But God, apparently, had not called her. Actually, she never was a member. She was just counted as one.

We can’t understand, brethren, all of this if we don’t go back to the beginning. Now you get to the beginning; and there again is something that humanity, and civilization, and the Church has just glossed over. They have just passed over it. It has not meant anything to them at all, and you have to go back and understand it.

Now before mankind inhabited the earth; (and it began with the creation of the first man, Adam; and God created his wife, Eve); but before man there were angels on the earth. God placed them here. The angels sinned; and we find that they were led into that sin by a super archangel, Lucifer. Now Lucifer was placed on a throne on the earth. I’ve gone into all of that before. We don’t need to read the scriptures (in the 14th chapter of Isaiah and the 28th chapter of Ezekiel), and how the angels sinned (in II Peter 2 verse 4), and so on; but they did. A throne was set on the earth. God set the throne there; and He set this super archangel, who was a cherub, Lucifer, on the throne to administer the government of God.

Now the government of God had been administered from the throne of God in heaven. That is God’s heaven. There are three heavens mentioned in the Bible. The one is the earth’s atmosphere, where the birds fly and where some of us fly in airplanes. The second heaven is what we call outer space, on beyond. But the third heaven may not even be as far as outer space. We don’t know because we don’t know where it is, except I think we have one sign that it’s in the far, far north. But that is the throne of God. That is not necessarily a planet at all. God is invisible to us. We wouldn’t see if we could see that throne, because God is Spirit; and we can’t see Spirit, unless it is especially manifested in some manner so that our physical human eyes can see it.

But there was the government of God; and the super archangel, Lucifer, was one of the two cherubs whose wings stretched out over the very throne of God. He had been trained at the very throne of God, in the government of God; and he was sent here to administer that government. Now God had created angels, and they are spirit beings.

First of all, God is Creator. But what is God creating? What is the ultimate thing that God is creating? Sure, He’s created beings. He created angels. He created men. But those are only certain entities. But there is something greater He’s creating, and that is righteous perfect spiritual character IN those created entities that God has created.

Now, the way to that character and the way of any government – any government is based on a foundation, constitution, or law. In the United States government, it is based on the Constitution. We know that. ALL LAWS have to conform, or be based on, that basic law or constitution.

God’s basic law is love (L-O-V-E.), and love is out flowing towards others. Now love is first of all to God; and God is love, and God has love out flowing towards us. But we must return His love – in love and in obedience, and letting God direct and help and give to us. The second is love towards your fellow beings. (Now, in this case, it was love towards the angels.) That is the basis of God’s law. It isn’t a lot of just separate, ah, little specific laws. You know, we have so many laws that any policeman could not remember one-sixth of all the laws he’s supposed to enforce on his beat. But God’s law is just simply one word, and it’s magnified into two: love towards God and your fellow – the two great commandments.

Now towards man, it’s been codified in the Ten Commandments. The first four are toward God, and the last six tell you how to love man. But they are just broad principles, and you apply those principles!

Now we derive all of our doctrines from God, and they come from the law of God. We have a ‘no smoking’ doctrine in the Church. You can’t find anything about that in the Bible, but it comes from applying the spirit – or the principle – of the law of God of out flowing concern for others equally as concern for yourself. Now actually, except for the stink of it in your nostrils, the smell (because you can’t taste smoke anyway) … A lot of people don’t know that. You might try an experiment sometime, and you’d find you can’t taste smoke. You smell it. So instead of saying it tastes better, like the cigarette manufactures do, they should say it stinks worse! [Laughter] I guess that’s what they should say.

But God has a basic law to create happiness, to create cooperation and peace and mutual well-being between one another and in relation to God. Now this Lucifer rebelled and led his angels {1}. (They inhabited the earth before man.) As a result, the earth became without form and void. Or the Hebrew words are tohu and bohu, and a better translation then … Well, it really means it became, what’s the word I want? Not decadent; well, anyway, in six days God renewed the face of the earth for man. The seven days that you find in the first chapter – or the six days in the first chapter – of Genesis were renewing the face of the earth actually, beginning with verse 2. Anyway, we won’t need to go back into that today.

But go back to the beginning – the beginning of God Himself, in John 1:1. I’ve gone into this a number of times. Let me just read it once more.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word [That is a personage called the Word. He was the spokesman {2}.], and the Word was with God [God is another person. There were two persons, and one person called the Word was with another person called God], and the Word was God [The Word also is God.].

Now you could say that John is with Smith. But John is also Smith, and John is [with] Smith. Well, you see, Smith is John’s father; and John is the son of Smith, so he is also Smith. Of course, now, the Word was not at that time the Son of God but did become that later.

John 1:2-3 The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All things were made by him [because, in Ephesians 3 … ]

Now in the 14th verse{3}, we find:

John 1:14 The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us [and became Jesus Christ].

And in Ephesians 3 verse 9:

Ephesians 3:9 God … created all things by Jesus Christ.

He is the Word. He said, “I have done, I have spoken, nothing of Myself, the Father who sent Me has told Me what I should speak and what I should say;” and the Father told Him. He is the Word. He spoke. The Holy Spirit is the power that did it, and that’s the way creation was accomplished.

John 1:4 In him [the Word] was life [L-I-F-E, Life.]

In God was Life. In the Word was Life. And “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” and “all things were made by him,” and He spoke only as the Father told Him. So They are absolutely together. Another time, when Jesus Christ was on earth, He said “My Father and I are one.”“I have kept My Father’s commandments.” They were 100% together. Two can’t walk together except they be agreed. The Word and God were in perfect agreement. Jesus agreed perfectly with His Father. He agreed perfectly with His Father.

Now, the Word had Life; and He gave Life and imparted Life to the angels. They had Life. That is, Life inherent – immortal Life, eternal Life within themselves, self-contained Life. He sent them here to accomplish things on the earth; but they had to get along with one another, and God’s law regulated their conduct with one another and with God. But it resulted in rebellion, and they followed Lucifer in rebellion. And so the government of God, which was established on earth (by a throne on the earth by Lucifer), became non-existent. It was no longer enforced, and the government of God was now no longer in force on earth. So here’s an earth without government.

Now God is the Creator and primarily what He is creating is character. He gave His law, which is the foundation of building that character, to the angels. They did not build that kind of character. So Lucifer, the great archangel, later became Satan the devil; and his name was changed to Satan. His angels now became demons. They had perverted in mind. They had mind greater than the human mind. They were spirit beings. They were immortal. They had LIFE, and now they have to LIVE that life FOREVER – in unhappiness, in mental torture.

Now God said He would now reproduce Himself out of man, made out of matter. Now He said, “I will create man in My own image.” You turn back to Genesis 1, and you read in the first chapter:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Here the word for “God” that Moses used in the Hebrew language, in which he originally wrote, was “Elohim;” and Elohim is a uni-plural noun{4}. It means more than one person. In other words, “God” now meant the two persons of God and the Word. But how did God create? By the Word! The Word spoke, and it was done. Later you find Him renewing the face of the earth. The Spirit of God moved on the waters, second verse{5}. The earth had become, ah … What’s the word I want? I couldn’t think of it a minute ago. Well, chaotic and in confusion. Now God was renewing it.

So the Word SPOKE and it was done. The Spirit was there to move; and He said, “Let there be light,” because darkness had come from Satan. He had turned light and truth into darkness and error, and now it became light. Then He proceeded to divide the land from the water. It was all an ocean surface at the time, and so He brought out the dry land. In six days He renewed the surface of the earth for man. In the 26th verse … after, in the 24th and 25th verses, He had created on the 6th day – the latter part of the 6th day – He had created land animals, each after his kind (cattle after the cattle kind). Well, of course, that means dog after the dog kind and horses after the horse kind. But then He said:

Genesis 1:26 Let US [not “Me” Verse 26, “Let us” – more than one person.] make man after OUR [kind], after OUR likeness.

In other words, let Us make Man after Our kind. Cattle were after the cattle kind, elephants after the elephant kind; whales after the whale kind, and dolphins after the dolphin kind, birds after each bird kind. But man was made AFTER THE GOD KIND because now God was going to take man and reproduce His own self and put His own holy, righteous, perfect, spiritual character into man. What an accomplishment!

All right, so He made man; but how did He make man? He had made the angels immortal. He’d given them Life. He did not give man Life. Now the Word, in Him was Life. He had Life. But notice He didn’t give man Life. The second chapter and verse 7:

Genesis 2:7 And the [Eternal] God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man [made from the dust of the ground] became a living soul.

Not an immortal soul! What was made of the dust of the ground became a soul. A soul is made from the dust of the ground and is mortal. It’s material, not spiritual at all. Man himself is wholly matter. He does not have Life. He has a physio-chemical existence. He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man gets his life from breathing air into and out of his lungs. The lungs oxidize the blood as it circulates through the lungs and back to the heart.

The breath is called “the breath of life” – all, the only kind of life, we have; and it isn’t really Life. It’s a temporary existence. That’s all. Every breath you breathe is just one more, but constantly you are like a wound up clock running down. Some run down the first breath or two of life, and die in childbirth. Some live. I had a sister who lived until she was 9-years-old, and she died. Now, I was her brother; and here I am almost in my 90th year (next month); and I’m still existing. But that’s all. It’s an existence. I have Life in myself, but not Life inherent. I’ll come to that later. I hope you have that same Life in you too.

But there was no Life. God did not put Life into the man, as He did in the angels. He gave him a chemical existence. Now remember that. Man did not have Life. He has a chemical existence. The angels had Life, and then they were tested as to whether they would live the way that would produce happiness, and joy, and production, and accomplishment in happiness. But they didn’t. They went the selfish, self-centered way.

God is going to give man an opportunity, but man will have to demonstrate and build the character first – before he gets Life; and God did not make man with Life. He only made him with a temporary existence, and he is wholly of the ground. Do you know that there is energy in the ground? We’ve had an energy crisis; we’ve talked a lot about it. Now we are beginning to find that there is so much gas and other things in the ground that, if we had only known it, we wouldn’t have had an energy crisis; but we just haven’t worked at it and produced those things. Now we have to depend on the oil countries, and they hold that as a club over us in the United States.

But all the energy that we have is only what energy we get temporarily from food and water, and it comes out of the ground. Now I know there are some foods, and they advertise, that will give your children energy. Yes, it will; and it will give them a lot of other things you don’t want too – starches, and things of that kind, because starch will give you energy. But your blood can only take 1/2 of 1% of … I forget whether its weight or its volume in carbohydrates or energy; and anything more than that goes into rheumatism, or colds, or fever, or diseases of some kind. That’s why we have all of those fevers, and diseases, and all that sort of thing.

But now, God did not give the man Life. I want you to notice. In verse 7, He gave him this chemical temporary existence. In verse 8:

Genesis 2:8-9 The [Eternal] God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (9) Out of the ground made the [Eternal] God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.

Now God is love, and He wanted to make everything pleasant to the man. He didn’t try to make things unhappy and unpleasant. He wanted the man to enjoy beautiful things through the sense of sight, pleasant to the eye – to the sight, that’s one of the senses.

Genesis 2:9 … and good for food [And that’s one of the senses: taste.], the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now then, God had put the man in the garden of Eden, and God said:

Genesis 2:16-17 Of every tree of the garden [verse 16] thou mayest freely eat: (17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Here are two trees; and they are opposite, and they represent opposites. Now right at this point, let me tell you, here is where all of Christianity jumps the track right at the beginning. They gloss right over that. That means nothing to the average person. “Ah, yeah, I know about the garden of Eden. I’ve heard all of this about Adam’s apple.” Well, let me tell you something. Adam didn’t take an apple. It says nothing about an apple here. What he took to himself was the knowledge of good and evil. He took to HIMSELF knowledge production. That’s what he took.

Now the one tree was the Tree of Life. In the Word was Life. He gave Life to the angels. He did not give Life to men. But here He’s offering Life to the first man, and said “You may freely have it.” But He said, “I command you not to take death,” because the other tree would result in death. Now, how would it result in death? I’ll come to that later. The first tree would result in Life. The first tree would result in Life, and God offered that to him. God WANTED him to have Life; but, to have it he had to reject the other tree; didn’t he? He couldn’t take both. He had to decide. He had to make a choice! Oh, how we have passed right over this.

Brethren, let me tell you, right here – the lives, the happiness or lack of it, of billions and billions of people depended right on this decision that this first human was going to make. We are all his children. We came from him. Now he had a number of children, sons and daughters. A lot of people, you know, they have a joke; and they say “Well, where did Cain get his wife?” Well, he married his sister, of course. At that time, some way or other, it was all right for him to marry his sister{6}.

Today… Well, I knew of one child that was born from a brother and a sister; but he was abnormal. I remember he liked to play pranks. He would go into a grocery store. He was a little bit of a kid, and he would say, “I want to make a telephone call.” They would have to bring a chair that he could stand on, so he could reach up to a telephone that was on a wall. Then he would call for the Fire Department, and he would say there was a fire and give an address so that the fire trucks had to go pass this store to get there. Then he’d go out front and wait to see the fire trucks go by. Now that’s a prank for you, for a kid. I was writing an editorial for a newspaper years ago when that happened, and I knew about it. So there was something a little abnormal about it, but a brother and sister could have children; and, in this case, they did.

Now the meaning of those two trees, that’s been just glossed right over. You know, we’ve even glossed over it ourselves. When Basil Wolverton wrote the book for children years ago (of course, it had to be years ago; before he died.), Basil was very careful to try to write that book precisely according to our teaching. I’ve been amazed in going back to it, and seeing what he was teaching children about those two trees. He didn’t even mention the Tree of Life at all. He just said that the only thing wrong about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was that God told him not to eat it (and he didn’t give any reason) and that God said he would die if he disobeyed.

Now God didn’t just say this arbitrarily because “If you disobey Me, if you don’t jump at the crack of My whip, I’m going to kill you and you are going to die.” No, there has to be a reason. God says only what’s good for the man. It wasn’t good for the man that he’d take of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was good for the man if he’d take of the Tree of Life, and that’s what God wanted him to do. So we have to get a little bit of the meaning of those two trees.

Now the one was the Tree of Life. He would have received Life if he had taken that. Let’s go back and consider that. Let’s not cloak over that Tree of Life. WHAT IF ADAM HAD TAKEN THE TREE OF LIFE? Brethren, we wouldn’t even have a Church today. We wouldn’t have a Day of Pentecost. We wouldn’t have troubles in the world today. THIS WHOLE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT! Right there’s where the whole thing happened. Remember Satan was still there. Now he’s Satan, no longer Lucifer; but he’s still there. He didn’t get to Adam directly, but he did get to him through his wife.

Now one of those trees was Life. The other was going to result in death. How would the first tree give Adam Life? It would result in that. It didn’t mean that God would have given him immortal Life immediately. He’d done that to the angels. He created them that way. He didn’t create Adam that way. Why? How does He give Life today? WE have a chance to receive Life today. How do we get Life?

Now, to understand, everything isn’t made plain in one place in the Bible. It’s like a crossword … like a jigsaw puzzle (not a crossword puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle), you have maybe 1,000 different pieces here; and no one of them makes sense at all. Two or three of them put together don’t make real sense. You have to get more than that. But, if you get them all together in the right manner (together the way they belong together), then you have a beautiful picture. In fact, it is a beautiful picture, just cut by a jigsaw here and there into a lot of little pieces; and you have to put them together.

The Bible is like that. Some of the things in Genesis you have to find filled in – in the New Testament, or in the prophets, in Isaiah, some in Revelation, some in Ezekiel, some in the minor prophets, some in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, or John. You have to get a piece here and a piece there, and put them together in a proper way; and I’m putting something together for you here that even this Church has never had put together properly before. So OPEN UP YOUR EARS AND LISTEN! Who was it (Mark Anthony?) who said many hundreds of years ago: “Ladies and gentlemen, give me your ear.” I ask you, not only open your ears, open up your mind. Think on this. This is something that is new to this Church. It is something you need to understand.

God does not give Life, and He was not going to give man Life inherent instantaneously. If He was, He could have created the man that way in the first place; couldn’t He? That’s the way He created angels. Why did God create man without it, and then let him make a choice? How does God give Life now? How does He? Man did not have Life.

Let’s look at the New Testament, and we’ll see how God gives Life today. Turn over to the 8th chapter of Romans. Now you’ll notice verse 16.

Romans 8:16 The [Holy Spirit of God] beareth witness with our spirit …

So there is a spirit in man. We have a spirit, and yet man is wholly mortal. I’m coming to that a little bit later. We are wholly mortal, but there is a spirit in us. That spirit is not part of us, just something in us{7}. A man swallows a little tiny marble. That marble is not part of him; and we hope that it will pass through, or that the doctor will get it out someway because it doesn’t belong there. But there is a spirit in man, and it does belong there. That’s different.

But, if you receive the Spirit of God{8}… On the Day of Pentecost, Peter said:

Acts 2:38 Repent, and be baptized in {9} … Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” [and that meant you repent and believe, and your baptism is a public demonstration of your faith and belief], and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit:

Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.

We become the children of God when we have the Holy Spirit. We aren’t immortal. We’re still mortal flesh and blood. We still have a temporary existence. But the Spirit is an impregnation of immortal Life . That’s all. We are begotten, not yet born. Notice the very next verse here:

Romans 8:17 And if [we are] children, then heirs: heirs of God, and … [of] Christ.

”Children of God” and His ” heirs ”(of our Father). But, you see, an heir doesn’t get his father’s estate until there is a death, usually in human life the death of the father. In this case, it was the death of Christ; and it really comes after our death or change (which is an instant death) and resurrection. But we are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” if we have the Spirit of God. Now then, notice verse 11.

Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [that is make immortal, give Life to] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

That shows a resurrection. Now, if you have not the Spirit of God, (verse 9) you are none of His. You are not a Christian. I don’t care how many churches you have your name on, as a member. Just being a member doesn’t mean you’re Christ’s. You are not Christ’s unless you have the Holy Spirit.

Now if you have the Holy Spirit, let’s go a little bit further now, in I Corinthians the 2nd chapter, now notice this. As man is made mortal:

I Corinthians 2:9-10 As it is written, [As God made man, of the dust of the ground.] Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. [In other words, spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge can’t enter your mind.] (10) But God hath revealed them [spiritual truth, spiritual knowledge]unto us by his spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

You can only receive spiritual knowledge through the Spirit of God. Man receives the knowledge of things through the eye, the ear, the sense of smell, taste and feel. You cannot receive knowledge of anything, normally, any other way – just those five ways, five senses. No other.

Now stop and think about that. You are LIMITED, and you can only see what is material or physical. You can only hear vibration, which is physical. You can only smell something that is physical, as a physical fragrance or odor. You can only taste physical things. It is a physical sense. You can only hear, smell, taste anything. In other words, no knowledge can ever enter your mind except through the eye, the ear, the nose, the sense of taste, or the sense of feel; and you are LIMITED to physical materialistic knowledge. You are limited; and God created Adam in a manner that he was limited to physical materialistic knowledge, and he could not have other knowledge.

Now let me just give you one other thing while I’m on it, right there. Look at the wonderful things man has created. They are all physical and materialistic. Look at the troubles of man, and every bit of them are getting along with his neighbor or with God; and he can’t get along with God because the carnal mind is hostile against God – “enmity against God” (Romans 8, verse 7) and “is not subject to the law of God [which is love], neither indeed can be.”

A natural mind is hostile against God. A natural mind is self-centered. It’s covetous. It wants everything for self. Towards others, it is competitive. It’s hostile. It wants to get from. It wants to take. In other words, it believes in “get;” where God is love, and love is out flowing, and that’s the way of GIVE (not “get”). The law of God is the way of give. The other way is the way of get.

Now then, if we have the Spirit added, (I want you to notice.) God reveals spiritual knowledge. You can’t see …

I Corinthians 2:9-10 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard [You don’t get it through the eyes, the ears, or smell, or taste, or feel.] … (10) But [notice this.] God hath revealed[spiritual things] … by his Spirit.

Now take verse 11, the next verse:

I Corinthians 2:11 What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him.

Man has a spirit in him. It’s not man. It’s not part of man. It’s just something inside of him, and it came in him with his first breath; but it is a spirit. Now that spirit in man can’t see anything. Your brain sees through the eye. Your brain hears through the ears. Your brain smells through the nose, and tastes through the mouth; and it feels through the sense of the nerves. So the spirit only imparts the power of intellectual to a physical brain.

Animals don’t have that spirit. They have an automatic instinct. Humans don’t have that instinct like animals do. Did you ever see a little calf born? Inside of two or three minutes, certainly less than five, it’s up on all four feet and knows how to walk right away; and it knows where to go. It goes for its dinner, and the old mother cow just stands there dumbly and stupidly waiting for the calf to come and get her dinner. In one case I happen to see on a movie screen where the calf went to the wrong end. The mother just nodded the calf right back to the right end to get its dinner. But usually the calf knows exactly where to go.

A human baby can’t walk for one year. A human baby is helpless and has to be taught everything. A human baby has to learn how to think, and it is motivated by its mind. Animals don’t have mind. They just have a plain brain and instinct. The human spirit is a computer. All of the memory is stored up in the spirit, not in the gray matter of the brain. In a computer, you program knowledge into the computer. The computer cannot give you anything back that has not been programmed into it. But you can program millions of pieces of knowledge into a computer; and it will give you whatever you want back instantaneously, with instant recall.

Now the spirit is like that in man. I can get … if someone asks me “What happened when you were five years old?” instantly, I go back; and the spirit gives me instant recall of things when I was five years old. I swore off of chewing tobacco when I was five years old. [Audience laughs.] Yeah, you won’t believe that. Well, I think a lot of you would because you’ve read my autobiography. But the men were digging a ditch out in front of our house, and they were all chewing tobacco. I said to one of them, “Well, what is that there?” I saw him biting something, and I thought maybe it was good to eat. He said, “Why, here bud, have a chaw. This is something good. I like it.” So I took a chaw. I had an awful time biting it off. I chewed a little bit, and then I swallowed it. [Audience roars with laughter.] Right then and there, I swore off of chewing tobacco; and I’ve never chewed any since. I was only five years old.

Well now, the spirit in me gave me instant recall. Anytime I want to think about that, it’s still there. I mean the memory of it is still there. You die. The body that comes up in a resurrection is not the body that died. The brain is buried, and it rots and decays. Yet in the resurrection you know everything you did know. You look like you did look. Why?

The spirit in man is like a mold. Now a, oh, the man who made the big fountain out in front here. I saw that fountain when it was made. I believe it was plaster-of-Paris, or whatever it was made of in the first place. Then they made molds of the various parts of it that were later welded together. I was in the foundry where that was done. The mold was just the same thing but exactly the opposite – so that, when they poured the molten bronze into the mold, it came out exactly like the original.

Now the spirit is like a mold. In the resurrection, the spirit will bring a new body; but it will put in that new body precisely the same knowledge, the same memory, the same character, the same fingerprints, the same footprints that you had in this life. But it will be different matter. Of course, that’s the resurrection to judgment. But if you are resurrected in the first resurrection, you’ll be composed wholly of spirit but in the same identical form and shape – because man is in the form and shape of God, but he’s composed of different material.

Now man was made to have a relationship with God. There are two differences between man and an animal. An animal is not made to have a relationship with God. First, it is not in the form and shape of God. Secondly, it doesn’t have the spirit. God put a spirit in man, and that spirit needs another Spirit – the Holy Spirit. I just read you in Romans 8 where, when we receive the Spirit of God, it joins with our spirit; and it WITNESSES WITH OUR SPIRIT that we are the children of God.

We are only half there if we have – we are born with the one spirit. Every human who’s ever been born was born with that one spirit, but you are only half there mentally. I say that the most ignorant men in this world are the ones with the most letters after their names (the most highly educated) because ALL EDUCATION in this world is materialistic education. They have no spiritual knowledge at all; and all of our troubles, and our discontent, and all of the evils and sufferings come from a lack of spiritual knowledge and breaking spiritual laws towards self, towards neighbor, towards God – because the law of God is love to God and loving neighbor as self. It means the right kind of self-love and self-concern too, for that matter.

So, if you have the Holy Spirit, now notice this:

I Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man[I say, a man is confined to physical materialistic knowledge.], save the spirit of man which is in him?

That spirit makes it possible for you to have this knowledge, and give you instant recall, and to be a thinking kind of a being. Animals are not. They can’t think. They can’t reason. They don’t come to conclusions. They can’t think creatively. Humans can. Humans have to learn slowly. A child begins to walk after about one year. But listen: Satan begins to get to a child when he’s 2 or 3, 5 or 6 months old; and parents neglect their children until they are about six years old and they can send them to school. Satan does not neglect your children! Satan gets after them when they are 2 or 3 months old, or less.

By the time they are 6 or 8 months old, those children already have a selfish something instilled within them. Put two children down, and give them one toy. Watch them fight for it. Or put a number of toys down, and one desirable toy and others that aren’t so desirable; and watch them try to get the desirable toy away from the others. Oh, that instinct is in there early. Yet parents will neglect their children, while Satan is not neglecting them. I say shame on some of us.

Well, let’s go on with this. I only read half of this 11th verse.

I Corinthians 2:11 Even so the things of God [or spiritual knowledge] knoweth no man [No man has spiritual knowledge.], but the Spirit of God.

Or through and by the Spirit of God, because spiritual knowledge is REVEALED KNOWLEDGE – revealed by the Holy Spirit being in your mind with your spirit; and you cannot comprehend spiritual knowledge, or the law of God, without the Holy Spirit. We wonder why the world can’t see these things. We wonder why, when we are converted, we try to convert our friends and relatives; and they laugh at us. They think we are crazy. I’ll show you why. Read verse 14.

I Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man [That’s what they are.] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God [You try to give them those things, and they won’t receive them.]: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED. [God has to reveal them through His Spirit.]

Now, Adam would have received … The first thing he would have received … God wouldn’t have given him immortal Life right away. He would have given him the Spirit. He would have been begotten of God if he had have taken of the Tree of Life. That’s what he would have gotten first. The next thing he would have received would have been love – the love of God; because love is the fulfilling of the law, and the law is love. Now read Romans 5:5.

Romans 5:5 The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given unto us.

The Holy Spirit gives you the love of God to fulfill the law! You don’t have the love by natural birth to fulfill the law of God. You can fulfill it to some extent by the letter, but not in the spirit. You can’t do it without the Holy Spirit of God. Adam then would have first had knowledge – REVEALED KNOWLEDGE, a spiritual knowledge – if he had taken of the Tree of Life. The next thing he would have had was the love to fulfill the law of God plus he had the knowledge of that law and of that way of life.

The next thing he would have received, if you will turn with me now to Galatians (Galatians 2 and beginning verse 15 and 16):

Galatians 2:15-16 WE [it says in verse 15] … (16) know that a man is not justified [verse 16] by the works of the law, but by the faith OF Jesus Christ.

Justification has to do with your past. That is, justify a guilty past by squaring it up and paying the penalty in your stead. It doesn’t say your faith in Christ. It’s the faith OF Christ. That is given to you through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives you a divine faith you never had before. You don’t work up that kind of faith. That is a gift of the Holy Spirit of God, and the next thing Adam would have received would have been that kind of faith. It’s the faith of God and the faith of Christ.

Now the next thing that he would have received, you find in Acts the 1st chapter. Acts the 1st chapter and in verse 8, where Jesus said to the disciples … After His resurrection, they asked Him if the Kingdom of God would come immediately. He said, “No.”

Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.

You will receive POWER. The Holy Spirit will give you the power to overcome; power to do what you have to do for God, power to follow what the Spirit of God gives you the knowledge to do, what the love of God gives you the love to perform with, and what faith in Christ gives you to rely on Christ for guidance, for deliverance. You know, we need that because “many are the afflictions of the righteous.” You are going to have many afflictions. “But the Lord delivereth them out of them all.” You have to have a connection with God to get help to be delivered when you are in trouble.

I want to tell you, brethren, this Church has been in trouble more than once (troubles I haven’t told you about) when I have had to pray and pray my heart out. But God has heard, and God has delivered this Church; and He’s delivered me again, and again, and again. God not only gives us knowledge, but God gives us help when we need it. God is the greatest GIVER that there is!

Now then, let’s go a little further. All this has to do with Pentecost. You’ll see why a little bit later. Now Adam had to choose. One was the Tree of Life. He wouldn’t have gotten it immediately, but he would have immediately had knowledge from God. He would have lived a different way. He would have taught his children a different way. Oh, I think Satan would still have been there for a while, until Adam himself had been made immortal. Then Satan would have been put away.

But, in the meantime, Adam would have known how Satan was not neglecting his children when they were 2 or 3 months old. He would have taught them, and he would have taught them so much; and he would have been in constant communion with God. He would have had the help of God in teaching his own children. You can have it, but do you have it? You have to go after it. You have to ask for it. So the question is whether you do have it or not.

But Adam made the other choice. Adam TOOK TO HIMSELF the knowledge. He didn’t get the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s spiritual knowledge. He took to himself knowledge, and the only knowledge he could take to himself was materialistic knowledge. He took to himself the knowledge of the way towards good or towards evil. He took to himself the knowledge of what IS good and what is evil. He took to himself the knowledge of how to get it, and what he took to himself was self-centeredness. What he took to himself was vanity. What he took to himself was hostility towards others.

He rebelled against God, and he had a carnal mind that is hostile against God and is competitive against other people. Instead of cooperating with other people and helping them, and they then helping us, we end up fighting one another; and one impedes the progress of another. Yet they say that competition is the way today. Oh, it’s competition – competition in sports, competition in business, competition in society, competition in government, in politics and everything. Competition in business, competition in everything! He took to himself that knowledge, and he cut himself off from THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. So he produced knowledge.

Now in the 1960s, the world’s fund of knowledge was doubling; and during that decade Dr. Clark Kerr, who was then president of the University of California{10} at Berkley, said that (and I mentioned this in the graduation ceremony) the university of today – the modern university – is a factory. It is manufacturing knowledge. The purpose of the university is producing knowledge, but they only produce materialistic knowledge. They cannot produce the knowledge of our troubles (of how to solve our problems, our troubles) because those things are spiritual problems, and the knowledge that is required to solve them is spiritual knowledge. Men can’t manufacture that kind of knowledge.

Adam started manufacturing knowledge humanly, and the world has been doing it ever since. Now it never got to a knowledge explosion until in our time, in this 20th century. Vanity! It’s looking to self-knowledge, self-love, vanity, coveting, hostile against God, and hostile against neighbor. Romans 8:7 – “The carnal mind is hostile against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be;” and it is hostile to neighbor.

So now what happened? When Adam made that choice, go back again to Genesis; and in the 3rd chapter of Genesis and you find in verse 22:

Genesis 3:22-24 The LORD God said, … now, lest he [the man] put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever [Lest he gain immortal Life going the way he is, in the kind of knowledge production that will only bring on trouble, and heartache, and suffering, and anguish. Lest he do that and live in unhappiness, and wretchedness, and suffering forever.]: (23) Therefore the [ETERNAL] God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to KEEP the way of the tree of life [lest a man go back and gain immortal Life living the wrong way].

In other words, my dear brethren, God will NOT give you immortal Life in suffering and unhappiness. God wants you to enjoy eternal Life! God is love; and He loves you so much that, if you are going to bring suffering on yourself, He’ll stamp you out. You’ll finally become as if you had never been. You’ll be ashes under the soles of our feet; if that’s the way you want it. You make your own choice.

But God shut off the Holy Spirit from that time on. The Holy Spirit was shut up until the time of judgment. Now God’s judgment: you have to understand, judgment is not just the sentencing and punishing. Anyway God’s punishment is corrective, not revenge. Until the time of judgment – until others could have a chance (like Adam did) to make a choice – God shut up the Holy Spirit of Life.

Right here is where so-called “Christianity” jumps the track. Life was shut up from human beings, and human beings only have a temporary existence (not Life). They don’t have Life until the time of the Second Adam, which is Christ – until Christ should come. Meanwhile, as you read back here in Hebrews 9:27,

Hebrews 9:27 As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

Adam did die, and it’s appointed to other men to die; but after that comes judgment. Now the judgment is a trial and test as to what choice you will make. Even if you make the decision to make the right choice, then you have to receive the knowledge of God and receive the love of God, and the faith of God, and power from God; and you have to GROW in that knowledge and the Spirit and grace before you get immortal Life – because that is open to us today.

Judgment was on Adam. Life had been offered to Adam; but it was withdrawn, when Adam made the wrong choice, until the Second Adam, Jesus Christ. So it is that we read in I Corinthians 15 verse 22{11}.

I Corinthians 15:22 As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Now death came by Adam and in Adam all die; and it is appointed to men once to die, but after that the judgment. Christ came. The Second Adam became a human being. He had to make the choice, like Adam did. He chose to reject Satan. He chose to obey God. He kept the law of God. He said, “I have kept My Father’s commandments. I’ve set you an example that you should also keep God’s commandments.” That’s what Christ said.

Christ – who never sinned, who never brought a penalty of death on Himself; but who is the one by whom God made all of us, and was therefore our Maker – Christ paid the death penalty for us in our stead so that if WE will now make the choice, that brings judgment to us; but not to everybody (only to those that are called).

Adam and universal sin of Adam’s children cut humans off from the Holy Spirit (or from real Life)until the time of judgment. But through Christ judgment was opened to the Church. Now in I Peter 4 and verse 17:

I Peter 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.

That’s the Church of God. JUDGMENT finally has begun! Judgment was cut off from man, and Adam was driven out of the Garden of Eden. Humanity has never had a chance of salvation. Ancient Israel was called. Ancient Israel was given the law of God, but they were not given the Holy Spirit. They were not being judged. They did not have a chance for Life. They were not given a chance to earn Life {12} , and they never received any Life. They still had a chemical, temporary existence.

Now understand this: Only certain ones that were predestinated are called first – called now. Ultimately, God will call everybody; but God has a plan. The first man rejected it. Now, billions of people have lived and gone the wrong way. He wants to save all of those billions. God is not willing that ANY should die, but that ALL should come to repentance and immortal Life. But God has a master plan for bringing that about.

The Church are called first, and they are the firstfruits. Today, or beginning tonight at sunset, and tomorrow is the anniversary of the beginning of the Church. That is the firstfruits, the first that God has called to have a chance of judgment. Judgment is on the Church, for judgment must begin at the house of God. But now I want you to notice in John 6:44, where Jesus said:

John 6:44 No man CAN come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.

God isn’t calling everybody. It’s ONLY THE FIRSTFRUITS, and the Day of Pentecost was just the starting of the firstfruits (not salvation to everybody). Now there is a reason why God couldn’t call everybody all at once, and a very, very good reason: because we – just the same as Christ had to do, the same as Adam had to do (and Adam failed; Christ succeeded, the Second Adam) – WE have to face Satan and overcome Satan. Just the same as Adam faced Satan, just the same as Christ did, WE have to. So it is only those that are called by the Father.

Now I want you to notice in Ephesians the 1st chapter, verses 11 and 12. Speaking of Christ in verse 10, verse 11:

Ephesians 1:11-12 In whom also WE [within the Church] have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh ALL THINGS after the counsel of his own will: (12) That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first [put our hope] in Christ.

The firstfruits! The Day of Pentecost was the beginning of the firstfruits, just the first to be converted. It doesn’t mean that everybody is converted now. Only a few are called, and only those few have a chance – those who were predestinated.

Now Adam, (and through Adam) the world, was cut off. But through Christ judgment was opened first to the Church. Now let me show you a prophecy. It’s back in Joel: Joel the 2nd chapter and verse 28.

Joel 2: 28 And it shall come [This is a prophecy. “It shall come … ”] to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

Now the time of pouring out His Spirit to ALL FLESH hasn’t come yet. But the time of pouring out His Spirit to just all that part of “all flesh” that is the firstfruits had come on the Day of Pentecost because, on that day – on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2 beginning with verse 15, I want you to notice. (Let’s see, Acts 2. Now I didn’t put a marker in there for that.) In Acts 2 and beginning with verse 15, the Holy Spirit had come on that Day of Pentecost. The first time the Holy Spirit came for a group of people!

The Holy Spirit came with a sound of a rushing, mighty wind that they could HEAR; and the Holy Spirit came visibly like flames of fire, of tongues, but in fiery tongues sitting on the head of each one of them and they could SEE it. That was a terrible manifestation, and a great crowd came running and gathering. They began to speak with other languages so that everybody there from every country heard the whole 120 speaking in his language and understood what was being said. You don’t hear that kind of tongues speaking any more. It never happened before or since. But Peter said, on that day when many thousands came running in, he said:

Acts 2:15-17 These are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day [about 9 o’clock in the morning]. (16) But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; (17) It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.

Now this is only the firstfruits of “all flesh” and a type of everybody that will have the Holy Spirit beginning in the Millennium and in the Great White Throne Judgment to follow. But let’s understand that.

God called the Church out from this world. Now the Church of the Old Testament had an existence, and human existence started with Adam. But Life coming into human beings started with the Second Adam, or Christ. Israel was a type of the Church; but Israel was physical, and the Church is spiritual – begotten.

God gave the seven annual festivals to Israel, but they didn’t understand it. They didn’t know why. When I first heard it, for several years I didn’t know why. I just knew God commanded it, and He said it was forever; and I was willing to obey. So I kept all of these feast days (at least, all of the holy days) for some years till I found out the meaning. When I did, I found we are to keep more than just the holy days; but keep the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, which I did from that time on.

Now, let me see. One other scripture I wanted to read here. I guess I lost another one some way. Oh, here it is. The 10th chapter of John and verse 10, where Jesus said:

John 10:10 I am come that they might have life , and that they might have it more abundantly.

That’s why Jesus came in the likeness of human flesh. Adam had not gotten Life. Life had not been given to the people until that time, and Jesus came that we might have LIFE. They didn’t have Life. They only had a human existence. But the first thing you get with Life (before that immortal Life is given to you) is spiritual knowledge, then the love of God, then you receive the faith of Christ, and then you receive power. If you grow in grace and in knowledge, and you endure until the end, you shall then receive Life eternal.

Now we, which are called now, are going to sit with Christ on His throne. We’re going to be given power over the nations{13}. When Christ is coming, He is coming to His temple; and we are that temple. We are going to rise and meet Him in the air. We are the affianced Bride of Christ, to marry Him. We will be God beings; and we, in the Church (and, of course, that begins back in the Church of the original apostles) – and there are going to be many, many thousands. There are many thousands of us today. There will probably be even a few million. I don’t know. It isn’t going to be an awful lot, but we will be God beings; and it will be enough to do the real ruling of all that are left alive in the beginning of the Millennium.

At the end of that time, there will be more. We will be God beings, and then there’ll be the resurrection to judgment of ALL WHO HAVE EVER LIVED! Frankly, I wonder if that included Adam. I think maybe. Judgment in God’s form is a time of trial and test. Adam had to make a decision, but living a time of trial and test over years, of proving it by your performance. Adam didn’t, and it was taken away from Adam before he could live that long. He had no chance of repentance because Christ hadn’t come. We have. It may be that even Adam will be in that resurrection to judgment at the end of the Millennium. It’s a wonderful thing.

Now the feast days picture God’s plan. Of course, the first is the Passover. Second is our coming out of sin. Third is the receiving of the Holy Spirit, which gives you (as I say) the knowledge of God, the faith of Christ, the love of God to keep the law, the love to fulfill the law. All of those things; and finally, at the coming of Christ, eternal Life!

But we are the firstfruits, and that is the meaning of the Day of Pentecost that we will observe beginning at sunset tonight. I hope that makes it a little more clear to you than it ever has been to you before. Let’s see where we are getting along here. Oh, well, we began at 2:30; and it isn’t 4:30 yet. I’m supposed to keep preaching till 4:30, and I’m not going to do it. [Audience laughs.] That’s all you get to hear.

Well, brethren, I’m sorry I won’t be with you here tomorrow. But you are going to have Dr. Hoeh tomorrow, and also you are going to have Mr. LaRavia; and you will have Christ here with you. Isn’t that wonderful! Christ and His Spirit. Our fellowship is with God the Father and with Christ, as well as with one another. So you come tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, and have that fellowship.

I’ll go up and be having fellowship with the group from San Francisco, and Oakland, from Sacramento, from all the other cities up in the Joaquin Valley, the big valley. (They had it on a series of movies.) I’m trying to get around every few Sabbaths. Let me see. I don’t remember whether it’s the very next Sabbath now (I think it is.) that I am to go to Cincinnati. Or it is the week after, whichever.

Let me see. Last Sabbath, I spoke to more than 4,000 of our brethren over at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a great crowd, and generally it looked like a lot more people than I see of you here; and it was very nice to meet with all of them over there. I’m trying to get every other Sabbath off to speak to another group of a number of Churches in a certain area; and so I will continue that as long as God gives me good health, good mind, and good everything that it takes.

So I don’t know when I’ll see you. I forget. I’m a little mixed up, whether it will be next Sabbath or a week from then. If it’s a week from then, I’ll be here with you next Sabbath, whichever. In the meantime, remember Christ is here, and God the Father is here; and our fellowship is with Them and with one another. What a wonderful fellowship it is, and to have the truth of God – a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Be sure to notice the broadcast Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon. Keep praying – praying for one another, praying for the Work; and (if you will) praying for me, because I need it. I need it constantly all the time. I was only able to come today because I prayed and asked God for the strength and help to come, and He gave it to me. He always does. So I’ll need strength to go up there tomorrow, but God will give it. But you pray that He will, and He will; and God be with all of you. Bye, bye for now.