======================================================================== THE SPIRIT OF LIFE MAKES US FREE by B.H. Clendennen ======================================================================== Summary: The Spirit of Life makes us free from the law of sin and death, and we must be full of the Holy Ghost to walk in him. Duration: 53:53 Topics: "Holy Spirit", "Spiritual Freedom" Scripture References: Galatians 5:16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit to overcome the flesh and live a life pleasing to God. It highlights the need to crucify self-will, pride, and self-exaltation in order to truly walk in the Spirit. The speaker stresses the significance of being led by the Holy Ghost, being filled with His power, and allowing Him to guide every aspect of life to experience victory over sin and live in alignment with God's will. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In chapter 5 verse 16 and 17. Chapter 5 verse 16 and 17. This I say then, walk in the Spirit. Now you got to be full of him to walk in him. That's you got to get that fixed in your mind. Everything in this Bible leads to the being full of the life of God, which is the Holy Ghost. Walk in the Spirit, you'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. That's the prison that men are in. But in Romans chapter 8 and verse 2, Romans chapter 8 and verse 2, the great Apostle still writing says this very wonderful powerful statement. Chapter 8 verse 2. For the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. If you divorce Christianity from life, then it's lost. If you make it rules of any way, then it's no good. It doesn't work. You can't work this out. You know, I wrestled tonight about a thought that God had given me, go along with the message I preached the other night, from death unto life. Life only comes from life. Now that's a scientific truth. Amen. Every can be proved, because they won't accept it. No man can grow into spiritual life any more than those dead minerals, that rock, that stone, can grow into a living organism. There is a door between those two. That kingdom below can never move upward unless that which is above reaches downward. It has to be pulled up from above. There is such a barrier between the lives that the only pathway across it, you must be born again. Impossible to move. Life only is what Christianity is all about. Now the modern religious mind has its own version of the true church, and it's a misrepresentation of God. What men have come to believe about the church, and what men have built and called a church, is a misrepresentation of God. The one thing which must always govern our teaching of the true church, that no man can be in that church who is not dead to sin and alive to righteousness. He cannot be a part of that church until that happens to him. The scriptures are plain on this matter. He that committeth sin is of the devil. Now the servant of sin cannot be the servant of Christ, for no man can serve two masters. To be a part of this church demands that I be dead to sin and unrighteousness. The Bible said if the Son makes you free, according to the Word of God, you're free indeed. Now when the indwelling Christ rules in the heart, sin has no longer dominion over that heart. That man or that woman is free. Now the believers commanded of God to be holy. There's nothing optional about this. Be ye holy as I'm holy. That's a command of God. Now he who has called us to be holy, demands that we walk as he walked, nor the pathway to holiness. Now as a Christianity that rejects or makes light of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, also rejects the truth of entire sanctification. They believe you have to sin a little every day. I know that it's a pathway of an upward ascending path that none of us have reached that place tonight. But if you're not looking that high, then you're not going anywhere unless you recognize that God's promise is entire sanctification. I will awaken his likeness. I will in the final analysis be exactly what that Christ is as a man. Now those who plead for imperfections by preaching who has sinned every day, deny the power of the cross to render the believer dead to sin and alive unto God. The cross was ineffective in the lives of those that preach such a demeaning gospel that would declare to us that this blood that Jonathan sang about cannot do what Calvary said it could do. It can make a man free. I am the true vine, Jesus said. You, that's us, are the branches. This says that the life of the vine is a life and spirit of the branch. The same fruit should come out of both of them. If I have the same life flowing through me that comes through the vine, the Lord Jesus, then the same fruit should be the product of my life. You should detect him in our lives. Knowing this great truth, the Apostle John wrote to all who say they abide in Christ that he ought also to walk as Christ walked. That's the key to life. Now to say that this new creation that the Bible said was created in righteousness and true holiness, the one that John said cannot sin because it has the nature of God. Now to say that this new creature who is in such union with Christ must be a servant of sin as long as he lives is to say that Christ must partake of our corruption. It's to say that the Lord Jesus, to say that a new creature can be demon possessed is to say that Christ who was the firstborn of this race could have been demon possessed. It is not possible. It is supposed that to describe the new creature as poor, blind, imperfect, therefore nothing perfect can be come from us or done by us is a mark of humility. This is supposed to be a mark of humility. But the problem with such preaching, it's not describing the new creature, it's describing the old man. That's the preaching describes the old man, the natural man. Knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they're foolish to him. No scripture ever spoke of or required perfection by that one. Nothing ever said about perfection of that natural man. Never a word. God says the just shall live by faith. How can a man live a just life if the preacher tells him that life is impossible? How can you ever walk uprightly before God if from the pulpit you're told every day that you have to sin a little? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. How can a believer have faith to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he's called if he's constantly told you have to sin every day? There has to be these things in that life. Now Satan is the father of lies. Jesus said that. And though his power was broken at the cross, he lies to men about Calvary's victory. He'll make you believe that that was an incomplete victory, that somehow or another it wasn't truly secured. But if our faith is to overcome the world, it'll have to have a better promise than what the pulpit's given us. Jesus said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Words cannot be plainer. Without this new birth, you cannot see and sure not enter the kingdom of God. Just as clear are the words of John, that which is born of God sinneth not. Two times he said that in that first epistle, that which is born of God sinneth not. On the other hand, we have a truth just as unalterable. That which is born of the devil can do nothing but sin. That's a truth. He that sinneth, says the Word of God, is of the devil. Now all questions concerning this truth of entire sanctification are answered in the great truth that both of these people that I just talked about live in every human being that's born again. There's both the new and the old. So the answer to all of the seemingly what the seminary would make a contradiction is answered in the fact that there's a contradiction in every one of us. If you're born again, there's a new creature that cannot sin. But in that same body, there is a person that can do nothing but sin. Now the preacher teaches that the new creature then must continue in sin that grace must more abound is sure doing the devil's work. He's helping the devil along this path. How foolish to pray, give us this day above sin if such a day is not possible. Why would Christ give us such a prayer to pray? Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil if I've got to live in such a place. If we can overcome sin for one hour, one day, then the same power can accomplish it in a lifetime. I just must learn to walk in this life that cannot sin. How foolish it is to pray. If the pulpit bleeds and preaches that the Christian as long as he lives must in some degree sin and be led to the lust of the flesh, lust of thy and pride of life, why bother to pray that you might overcome the world? Why even read the scriptures that talk about overcoming? How or why has such a doctrine as we have here discussed found such a place in the church? How did it ever find its place into that company of redeemed people? Because for the most part, the church is no longer a habitation of God. Even the great Pentecostal church has made the baptism of the Holy Ghost optional. We forget that the only reason we exist is that we are to contain the Creator. My body, your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, no other reason. But when we cease to be that temple, that habitation of God, then we walk in ourself and sin is the result of such a walk. But if I walk in the Spirit according to Paul, I will not, shall not, fulfill the lust of the flesh. He never said if you walk in the Spirit there's a possibility of this. He said you shall not if you walk in this Holy Ghost. The church must return to holiness and if she does, they got to know that God expects this of her. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. How or why? Listen, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is no longer believed to be mandatory. It's optional to most. You can take it or leave it. You can go to hell or go to heaven. You can overcome or not overcome. But if you overcome, then you're gonna have to learn this walk of God. The Bible said in first Peter that Christ was our example, left us footsteps that we have to follow. He came from heaven, walked on earth to show me the pathway to get to heaven. There is no other. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Mary, not Popes, not churches. Only Christ and only Christ left the pathway. Those footsplits are as plain as day. He was born of the Spirit. He was filled with the Spirit. He was led by the Spirit. And under no other circumstance are you gonna make it. There's only one person. He's not a cloud today. When Israel faced that river, when Joshua said don't lose sight of it. He said you've not walked this way before. Not talking about walking through that water. They've been there. He's just saying there's no cloud now. There's no fire. You must keep your eye on that presence that that ark represents. Walk in the Spirit and you'll not fulfill the lusts or desires of the flesh. The faith of the church is no longer in the power and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but in the worldly power, fleshly learning, and carnal wisdom. We've come to make ourselves believe that knowing a thing is the same thing as possessing. That's where the seminaries have led us. We've questioned everything about God and made the church believe that our knowledge of the thing is the same thing as possessing. You can know all there is to know about God and go to hell. You have to know God if you're gonna be saved. It has to be a personal, intimate relationship with the God of heaven. I myself must know him. Doesn't matter what the church knows or don't know. What my mother knew, my grandmother knew. No matter what kind of relationship she had, I myself must have that relationship. I must seek God. I must find God for myself. I must know him. Amen. In the absence of the Holy Spirit, the imperfections of the old man in worldliness, gossip, self-seeking pride, anger, envy, division, and immorality abound in that church. Cannot be otherwise. Wherever the Holy Spirit's up there, we don't even know what sin is. I said we don't know without him to expose what it is. We've accepted the world's definition of sin, of crime. We've made it crime. The world has set up safeguards in an effort to save itself from crime, but those very people, all of them are guilty of sin. There may be sin with no crime. Wherever there's crime, there's sin, but man doesn't know what sin is till the Holy Ghost comes. Amen. We've got adulterers in the choir, murderers teaching Sunday school. They haven't shot anybody, may never got in bed with somebody else's wife, but the Bible said if you look with lust, if you hate your brother without a cause, when that Holy Spirit is not there, everything is all out of focus. He is absolute necessity of that church. The church wasn't born Catholic. It wasn't born Baptist. It wasn't born Methodist. It was born talking in tongues. It was full of the Holy Ghost on its birthday, and when it leaves here, that's the kind of a church is going to leave here. You say, I don't like that. Doesn't matter what you like or don't like. That's what the church is. Build it together for a habitation of God by the Spirit, and if you refuse him his rightful place, something else will occupy that vessel. I said something else. Nature does not tolerate a vacuum. You'll either be filled with God or filled with self and ultimately filled with the devil. All along. It just cannot, will not ever be otherwise. Amen. In the absence, it's a fact that the basis of Christian life is a constant meditation upon and the simple acceptance of everything this book teaches. This Bible is God's Word to us. Amen. But as Christ's work of redemption in the flesh was only preparatory, listen to me, to his future indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the visible Jesus had to come here to establish his place in humanity, but he had to leave. He said, it's expedient for you because the Holy Man had to be replaced by the Holy Ghost. He had to come. Listen, it had to be. So his work of redemption, placely work of redemption was only preparatory for his future indwelling by the Holy Ghost. So the written Word of God is only a means to that inward teaching and powerful working of the Holy Spirit. You can come to worship the letter and Paul said it will kill you. Some people make this book an icon. It isn't that. It has to be made real and alive by the Holy Spirit of God. It's fatal to rest in the mere letter without expecting through the Holy Ghost, a real living experience of everything that letter promises. Not enough to me to know that I should walk as God walks. I must walk as he walked. Not enough for me to believe that God expects me to be holy. I must be holy. I must walk to be holy in him who is holy. I can have no more holiness than I have of the Holy Spirit. That's his name. I said, that's his name. You cannot have any more of the holiness of God than you have of the Holy Spirit, but you can have no more of the Holy Ghost than you're willing to accept of his way of life and his holiness to you. You can have no more of him than what you will accept of him. Amen. It's fatal to rest in the letter, not expecting that Holy Spirit to make real every experience. Nothing of divine love, life or goodness can have birth or place in us, but by the power of the Holy Ghost in our hearts. It just cannot be. You must go on. God's will for you, if you've been born again, is to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Hadn't called you to go preach nowhere. Hadn't called you to teach Sunday school back there nowhere. Hadn't called you to do anything but be filled with the Holy Ghost. That's the will of God. Amen. And to move out without that leaves you vulnerable. He said to those first apostles, don't you leave here until you've been endued with this power. He himself never began that earthly ministry until that dove lit upon him. It came upon him in a form of a dove because he had no sin. It come on us in the form of fire because it had to burn a lot of trash out of us. But just the same, he had to walk in that spirit as a man. He represents us all. I said he represents us all. The Bible should be referenced as doing all that words can do and bring us to God. That is to point the way. The life-given power of Christ though does not abide in Greek syntax or Greek or Hebrew syntax, but in the quickening of the Holy Ghost. The gospel is not preached in word only, but in power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. We must ever remember that. What a tragedy that we've reached such a depravity in spiritual thinking and believing that a preacher is taught by a certain level of education to be fully qualified to engage in a ministry for which the apostles had to receive the Holy Ghost. But we're there today. We put them through the seminaries and we educate them and at some point believe because of that that they are ready to preach. I make no appeal for ignorance, but I'm here to tell you quickly there is no reward for scholarship. I said no reward for scholarship. One of the greatest disappointments to me has been able to meet some seminarian professors. I've never met the first one quotes the Bible. He's always quoting Westcott or Hort, demon-possessed men. Gentlemen, I don't know what to say. They're the ones brought on this trash of changing the Word of God. They took that old Catholic deal where they changed everything and here we have all this new stuff that's coming out today. Say what you will, do what you will. Amen. The Word of God is not to be tampered with. Well, I don't understand charity. I do. Amen. Thee and thou. I know what it means. Never had no problem. It saved me and tens of millions of others. All of a sudden we got so smart we got to throw it out. I can tell you we must come back and believe. Have the Bible. Thee and I thee. You take the first verse of the book of Romans, 8 Romans. It says, therefore, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that in Christ Jesus. Period. There ain't no period there. It says, who walk not after flesh but after spirit. Leave that out and the devil will think he's righteous. You can't, you can't tamper with us. The Holy Ghost will never allow that. What a tragedy. The only alternative to the Holy Spirit is the flesh. With its scholarly worship of the letter, which opposes always the ministry of the Holy Ghost. Always. Therefore, when the Holy Ghost is not honored and sought after, the flesh with its schemes and its programs abound. Oh, the preacher's got so many of them going. He don't have time to pray and he don't have enough courage to let the mess drop and go back to the altar. He doesn't have enough courage. We're promoting more every day. Got a video that they call the vision. Amen. And here's a preacher walking down the street with an old t-shirt and shorts on look like a bear in a gunny sack. And he's out there in a neighborhood. Witness knocks on the door of a man and the man opened. He said, I'm just here to invite you to church. He said, I don't have anything to do with that. And he said, Oh, don't close that door yet. Let me tell you, come as you are. There's nothing there going to offend you. We're not going to say anything. They'd ask him such questions. Why don't you go to church? Well, they preached against the theater. We're not going to do that. Well, it preached against this. We're not going to do that. Course you're not. The flesh is not going to turn against flesh and the devil's not divided. If he did, his house couldn't stand. This life giving power of the Holy ghost, wherever, listen, the flesh is in control. The works of that flesh abound. We today have mighty warriors camps. Oh my. Don't you just get excited. Somebody comes out there and dungarees on with a sword to all the devil left town today. I can tell you that if he ever laughed at a messy, laughed at that great preacher, friend of mine, one of the great evangelists. Amen. He was, he helped me so much in that church, laying that altar one or two o'clock in the morning, groaning. What's wrong here? Ben didn't have, wasn't, didn't, wasn't afraid of anything. Didn't care what you thought. I thought anybody else thought. He said, I'm called of God. This is not clandestine church. It's God's. Whatever see wrong going to deal with it. Amen. One night, three o'clock I'm laying on the floor down there. He's laying up on the platform. He looked down and said, any God, anybody going to make it? I said, not after what you preach tonight. When he died, he had asked me to preach his funeral 10 years younger than me. I said, maybe I ought to ask you to preach mine. No. He said, you promised me almost had put my hand under his thigh. Amen. Well, he died. His wife called me. I preached his funeral. I thought, now this is going to be someday nearly ever preacher of this district is going to be there. It was in Houston, the headquarters city. And I said, nearly ever preacher. And I said, Oh God, I opened my mouth, said I'd preach it. What am I going to say? And I heard him say, I want you to say what he would say if I let him come back. Oh, I said, that's going to be bad. I didn't going to be good. That superintendent sitting right down there for one hour. He backed him out like a toad in a hail storm. I'm telling you, I just said what I knew he'd said. I dealt with everything. I left nothing. Amen. If he didn't get up, I scared it out. And if it got up, I shot at it. I dealt with everything that was wrong. I said, if he were to come back here today, what a mess he'd find. I said, all this stupidity of putting people in clown suits out there trying to be a witness for Christ, big red nose and a clown suit. I said, folks, I grew up. And the only thing that a clown ever told me, don't take what I'm doing seriously. That's the only thing he ever took. And I said to put a man out there with a clown suit to preach this gospel. Some got up and left. I went on, I preached on. And when, when it was all, all over outside, superintendent talking to me, just to put the body in that hearse and his wife come up, she's a great lady. And she said, I just want to tell you, brother Clinton, and I always loved to hear you preach. I got most, excuse me, most of your tapes, but she said, I always loved to hear you preach because I never got through that. I had to ask what you said, always knew what you said. And she said, you just don't know what we have to go through on a Sunday morning that calls itself a church. Oh, I'm sitting out and I'm hard. She said, Oh, you know, it's the truth. You know, it's the truth. I had to leave the next day to go to Russia and brother White and I got out there, got home and we got out there out on a Monday morning, called her. And she said, we went to that church where the funeral was on a Sunday morning and said the pastor preach a half decent sermon. But he said, there'll be no, no church here tonight. We're all going to put on clown suits and go down on the streets of Houston and do spiritual warfare. Oh, I said that devil was shook up that morning, huh? Tonight, we're going to have a bunch of clowns down here dealing with the devil. I called Robert the next day. My that's my pastor, the church. And I said, pastor, did you hear any rumble out of Houston? Is any trouble over there? What do you mean? I said, well, understood. Church took all of them down clown suits and challenged that devil. I thought the headlines may have picked that up. That's where you go when the Holy ghost isn't there. I said, that's always a man. You wind up wherever the flesh is controlled. It abounds in such an atmosphere produced by the Holy ghost. The truth of God is changed into a lie. Men make it fit their own lifestyles. Whatever that lifestyle is, they have to change that gospel to fit that lifestyle in such an atmosphere. Neither priest nor people will tolerate the scriptural teaching of victory over sin for to do so would condemn them. I said, it damn them. They will not allow you to preach that because they've already moved at all costs. The life of the old man must be defended and a life filled and constantly inspired by the Holy ghost must be dismissed as extremism. They said the only thing that I have against Clinton is this. Everything is black and white. There's nothing in between. I can tell you it's either heaven and hell. There is no purgatory. You either walk with God or you walk with the devil. Why is it necessary for a new creature baptized in the Holy ghost? Why is it rather as necessary for the new creature to be baptized in the Holy ghost as it is for the unregenerate man to be born again? A sincere intention to make Jesus Lord and to obey every precept of the gospel is a precept without which a man could scarcely be turned to true Christian, yet it's not sufficient in itself for victory. That desire is not enough. Men of great willpower may by determination produce many outward works of seeming virtue in the power of self-will while totally lacking the Holy Spirit's willing and working within him. All of that is canceled out. It is nothing. I said it is nothing. All a man's outward good works are like an outward good words. He's not good because he uses them often. Words are not good just because you use them often. They must be your life. Paul said we're not of those who handle this book deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man conscience. What he's saying now, it is to use this book deceitfully to roll one way and look another. It is absolutely wrong to speak one message and your life be something else. You want to know what a born again man is? Paul said you're looking at him. I'm talking about being a holy man where we find it. That's me, he said. I commend ourselves to men's conscience by the truth that we become. We're not preaching not what we are. We're proclaiming a truth that we have become. Words cannot bring goodness to man, nor are they worth anything in themselves, except they proceed from the life of Christ manifest by the Holy Spirit. Only then is it the true word of God that work in men's lives by the power of the Holy Ghost. Holiness is solely the work and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Every stirring in the heart of man towards good is a voice of Christ by the Holy Ghost calling, follow me. That is a call. Follow me. Nobody else to follow. Having grieved the Holy Spirit by her indifference to him, the Neo-Pentecostal Church has left its members to the beck and call of every charlatan down the line. They sit on my television. They can believe two different things all at one time. Trying to believe everything the poor things believe nothing. There's a confusion beyond my ability to describe simply because they're left open. They haven't brought the truth that says to them, you have it within you to walk with God. If the preacher don't go, you can go. The Bible said, even in drought your soul shall be satisfied. This river doesn't come out of a building, it's in me. If I keep myself right, walk in this Holy Ghost, I can live and walk with God no matter what other men do. This great preacher I told you about that died, I preached his funeral. The last revival he preached for me before I left and went to Russia. He preached about it, come from up in north. He could have come from California or he could have come from the south, didn't matter. Just come from there. He said, I was in a church you won't believe. The beauty of that place, velvet carpet, velvet on the altars, the pews padded, but he said everything, death personified. He said the ushers coming out at all looked like they're changing the guard as they come out together. He said everything moved on the bong, everything. It was all queued in. Every second of that thing was planned. Everything was laid out. He said I was sitting on the platform, had no rhythm guitar that he strummed around and said he's leaning up against the pew on me and the pastor said to me, why don't you play your guitar? He said, I can't strum it, that's slow. Amen. Just came, just came. He said I did everything. He said man, pastor said I got up a little big number 11s on top that altar walking on that velvet. If I can just make one up, man, somebody will cuss me. It's just somebody said get off that altar. Nobody ever sat on the front pew but one little lady. I'd jump up on that cushion, bounce around on it. One time he said I dropped the microphone, run all the way around the building and the only people I ever saw in my life, he said, could turn their head all the way around without moving a shoulder. He said I've never seen anything more dead. Said it just all was stunk, but he said on that front seat, one little lady found out she's 85 years old, said she wouldn't weigh 85 pounds soaking wet, but said she sat right on that front seat. Said I'd be a preacher and every now and then I'd push that button, she'd come up. She'd spin, sit down. Oh my. He said on and on that went. Said one night I told that pastor at the church, he said we need to pray for that little lady on the front seat. They said which one? Said the only one on the front seat, man. All the rest of them, far back as they can get, said we need to pray for her. He said I didn't know anything wrong with her. He said I don't know anything wrong with her either. Why do you want to pray? Because that's all the oil you got, mister, and if she dies before you pour that in something else, it's over with. Holiness is the work of the Holy Ghost. Everything in the heart of man toward good is a voice of Christ. Come and follow me. Therefore when a man feels this call within, he turns all his thoughts outward. Because of the teaching of the church, he turns all of his thoughts outward, away from the knocking of Christ's spirit within, and runs after some religious guru. What do you think? Do you think this is wrong? Do you, God, tell you anything about me? No, I wasn't trying to find anything else about you. I'm trying to find out about me. This is always the way. We've got them running from one meeting place to another, trying to find some charlatan that wants to control their life. Has God said anything to you about me? All of this is a product of a church without the Holy Spirit. We haven't taught men that God is in you. He doesn't talk out here. I know this man heard the audible voice, but I'm telling you, it is within. It is a moral voice. It's a voice that directs and guides by the peace of God that's disturbed or not disturbed. But we've not taught them that, and they're running everywhere, looking for religious psychiatrists to tell them what to do. Herein lies the cause of man's blindness and misery. He has lost the knowledge of God as essentially living within him. He's lost that knowledge. By falling under the power of an earthly flesh and life, thinks of God as living in another world. He always, God, is somewhere else. I can't find God. I'll tell you, I can find him every morning. He's in me. Amen. I've got to wade through all that flesh, get it out of the way, but he lives in me. I am the temple of God. So he seeks by opinions, by doctrine, theology, to set up an image of an absent God. Are you listening? To set up an image of an absent God instead of worshiping the God of life and power in whom he lives, breathes, and has his being. He's always an absent God, looking for him somewhere else, looking for some guru to tell him what to do. Amen. Christ and his apostle taught nothing but death and denial of this thing called self and the impossibility of having any virtue except through the miracle of a new nature, born again, filled with the Holy Ghost. Jesus was a firstborn of a new race. As a man, he was a firstborn. The new creature is just like Jesus. It came into being exactly as he did. The Holy Ghost moved upon us, planted the seed of Christ in our spirit. A new creature came. Jesus, the Holy Ghost, the Bible says, rather, the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary, planted the seed of Christ, which is a word of God, in the womb of the Virgin, and out of that came this firstborn of a new race. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, so I must be born of that Spirit, I must be filled with that Spirit, and he was constantly led by the Holy Ghost. From the moment it came on him, in the last verses of the third chapter of Matthew, it said the Holy Spirit came on him in the form of a dove. And the first verse of chapter 4 said, then was he led of the Spirit into that wilderness. Forty days he overcome the devil in a forty-day temptation. At the end of it, he went forth in the power of the Spirit. And the Bible said he went to Nazareth, he mounted those pulpit steps to preach, and his first words were, the Spirit of the Lord is upon man. He was anointed and made to preach, constantly under control of this Holy Ghost, David. Jesus was born a baby. The Bible said he grew in stature, but also in wisdom and understanding. He learned to meet his little things he suffered, tipped in all points, overcame by the power of the Spirit. That's a testimony of Christ as a man. He overcame by the power of the Spirit. The new creature to become, what he was born to be, is impossible without the Holy Ghost filling him and possessing him. I wouldn't leave this house tonight till I was filled with the Holy Ghost. This man sang a while ago that we're standing on the threshold of his coming. I believe that. That trumpet is gonna sound. Five of them virgins missed it because they didn't have any of this oil. I said, didn't have any of this oil. They weren't dirty. They were virgins. They were still clean. They were religious, but they had no oil. I said, they had no oil. It isn't the time to play around with God. It isn't time to say tomorrow. Now is the accepted time. Today, God says, for that new creature to become what he's born to be is impossible. As we behold him in the Spirit, then and only then are we changed. No other way. To learn the new creature must be taught by the Spirit. He'll guide you into all truth. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he'll teach you all things and bring things to your remembrance, which I said unto you. His wisdom must come from God to him personally. Personally. If any man like wisdom, let him ask of God. It don't come to the church as a whole. It must come to you by the Holy Spirit. Amen. If any man like wisdom, let that man ask of God. You don't call up any inn, and you don't call up Klendamon. You call up the Holy Spirit. Do you let God deal with that heart? To learn the new creature must be taught by the Spirit in all things. His wisdom must come. Now to become what God personally bore demands the Spirit. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For power to work the works of God, the new creature must be filled with the Holy Ghost. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. To truly know Christ, you must be filled with the Spirit. He will take of mine and reveal it unto you. Though there has to be this Holy Ghost filling, to be filled with the Holy Ghost is the final step in restoring that human spirit to its original and highest fellowship with God. That is the final step. He is the final revelation of God. Amen. He is Father. He's Son. He's Holy Ghost. There's one God manifest in these three wonderful persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He came first, His Father. That precludes offspring. Christ came and lived among us. Then He had to go and the Holy Ghost come. God was working for this all the time. That is manifestation without visibility. That's the reason they said, you say odd against the Father, you can find forgiveness at this altar. You say odd against the Son, you can find forgiveness. You say odd against Him, but you cannot see it won't be forgiven in this world or that next world. Everything depends upon His working. In this mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost, the new creature finds his destiny fulfilled. He was created to contain the Creator. Hallelujah. No other reason. I wasn't created to be religious. Never been religious. Never been religious in my life. Never been a rebel, but I recognize that right off. I knew what that wasn't. I worked, men wouldn't work for me. I went to school with or served in the army with religious people. I recognize right off. I thought, if that's Christianity, I'm as good as they are. They went to church every Sunday, got drunk on a Monday. Got to Australia, amen, had to fight them over the girls over there. No different than I was. But Sunday, they'd go off to church, want me to go with them. Oh no, I'm sleeping in. I'm going to get rested up for tonight. Why should I go? It ain't done nothing for you. Religion is nothing. It's life. It's an all-encompassing life. You cannot circumvent this life. You can't leave it anywhere. You can't leave it anywhere. No way you can walk out of this and come back and just pick it up. You come to that voting booth. I said it the other night. He's going to be in there with you. He knows exactly what you voted for. You say, well, I voted this way, but I don't believe it. You lied to yourself. You voted that in. I said, you voted that in all the time. It doesn't matter. You cannot. This is an all-consuming thing. It wants you dead to everything but itself. It works to rid you of all that is not this life, all that is not this life. The Bible said, to him that overcometh, will I give. Think about it. How literally? Will I give. Seven times the statement is used in the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation. It's only used in speaking to the church, the new creature. Never said that to anybody else, but that new creature. The church has lost something that she must recover or she'll lose her right to be called to church. Christ said, I will remove that candlestick. I will remove it. What the church has lost is life in that. In that revelation, that's what's true today. He that overcometh, born in the fires of Pentecost. The church turned the world upside down by the power of that life. She moved in life and swept everything before her. She didn't move in theology. She moved in life. You must be sound in your doctrine, but you can be very sound in your doctrine. The most fundamental people on earth killed Jesus. The Pharisees and Sadducees, they were the fundamentalists of religion and they killed him. They'd kill him again. Amen. It is only as we move in life, they move, they swept everything before him. But in a few short years, the church born in the fire of Pentecost wandered into a far country and wasted her living, her substance in riotous living. That word substance is the same word used in Hebrews 1 and 3 where he said that Christ was the very substance of his being. In other words, what he wasted was the very life of God Almighty. Amen. In that religious play, he wasted that religion of that life of God. She came of form, born of power, learning how to be religious without God. The church became a cesspool of iniquity. The path was downward. Jesus, looking into that apostate mass, said to him, the individual that overcometh will I give, that given included all things, even the rapture. He looked into that convulted apostate mass and he never asked him to let him in. He said, if you come out, any man, any man, it's beyond help now. I said, it's beyond him. It's the church of the Laodiceans, not the church of God now. It's all the way down the ladder and it's over with it. Amen. Those who think the church systems, rules, orders, creeds, opinions, programs, entertainment can do for men today what the Holy Ghost alone could do for those first Christians have turned from the true faith and have built a religion of self-effort that's going to lead again to the dark ages. Sure. As you sit in this church, all things are promised to the overcomer. The question is what must I overcome and how do I overcome? That's the whole question that you need to ask. And everything is promised down the line from Ephesus all the way to Laodicea. He said, if you overcome, I'll give you this. If you overcome, it'll be this. If you overcome, then finally says to him that overcometh, I'll give the whole shooting match from Ephesus to Laodicea. Every bit of it's yours if you overcome. That was God's word to that church, to that individual. But the thing is, what must I overcome? To love is Christ's love. The new creature must be filled with the spirit because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Now, as we come to know what it is to overcome, how to overcome, to overcome, you must overcome yourself. That's all. Yourself. If you overcome yourself, you've defeated every devil because that's the only lodge in place. He cannot possess that new creature. He comes through the flesh and causes you to step outside, act independently. Then you're cursed. So to overcome is to overcome what the Bible calls the flesh. What is the chief characteristic of the thing called flesh? Self-love, self- seeking, self-esteem, this essence of life and pride. Wherever self- abilities are allowed to share in Christian service or worship, the satanic spirit of pride always gains control. It's always, oh, I laid my hands upon them and that devil come out. Said, I laid my hands on them and they jumped out of that wheelchair. They come back and said to Jesus, you know, Lord, even devils were subject to us. You know, his word to him was a rebuke. He never said, boys, that's wonderful. He said, I saw Satan fall as lightning. You know what he said? He said, I'm seeing the same pride in you boys that found Satan. That's what cost him his place. I see the same pride. He said, don't you rejoice over Satan being subject to you. You rejoice because you're connected with me because that's the only answer to all things. The supreme enemy that rose out of the fall of man called Antichrist is self-exaltation. That's the enemy. This is that satanic natural self that must be crucified or there will be no disciple of Christ. There will. If you don't crucify self, that self will crucify Christ. What is it in the human that more than anything else hinders the death of the old man? What is it above all strengthened and exalts the life of self? It is the imagined genius of self-will, the glory of learning and the conceit of natural reason more than anything else. The pride. C.M. Ward, the great preacher, one of the greatest radio preachers perhaps that ever took up a microphone. He used to preach for me. I didn't know his room. I just walked down the hall to hear him on that typewriter, old typewriter about the big carrot with him everywhere. Said, I'm just typing out that $25,000 sermon. That's way back in the seventies. He was preaching. He said, now if the Bible school don't kill you, the seminary will. Amen. That was his message. If it don't kill you, the seminary will, because you're going to raise a doubt in your mind about what God has done for you. Raise a doubt. Listen, this is a satanic natural self. Amen. What is it that human that more than anything else, amen, that exalts it? It is that natural reason. Wherever this prideful self is given place in the service and worship of God, Satan collects that as worship. Amen. You've given him rights. If you let an ungodly man or woman get up here and sing, play music, usher in these aisles, teach in that Sunday school, preach in this pulpit, then you have given the devil rights in this holy place and he collects that as worship. Oh, how he does gloat in that kind of a thing. The results of the intrusion of the flesh are everywhere seen. Whereas man ought to be the temple of the living God, self sits there in the natural man obsessed with his own natural abilities. That's the church. It's being built by men who are genius of organization, the ability to promote. Nobody can deny they ought to be running Walmart, not the church. I mean, their abilities don't fit here. That's not what the church is all about. Amen. The results are seen everywhere. When the Holy Spirit's inspiration and guidance are rejected, when the church no longer believes in the absolute necessity of believer being filled with the Holy Ghost, she becomes a product of the flesh. It cannot be otherwise whose character was no longer the holiness of God, but the filthiness of the world. You can watch it in his dress and his talk and its mannerism, what is entertained by all of that comes out when it's no longer a Holy Ghost governed church. The only answer to the present condition in the church is once more being filled with and possessed by the Holy Ghost walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh for the church to be filled with I must be filled. You must be filled for the church to walk in the spirit. The individual believer must learn this walk in the spirit, but you cannot walk in him unless you're filled with him. Let us stand. Hallelujah. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh bless. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/l0m_dtqGEhM.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/bh-clendennen/the-spirit-of-life-makes-us-free/ ========================================================================