You Meant It for Evil, God for Good

Thank you for singing hearts, dancing feet, praising voices, and now you speak in your still small voice maybe, to our hearts, through your word. Thank you Lord, in Jesus' name. Perhaps you would have liked to have continued another hour of that fiesta, but we are people under authority, so you've got to put up with what you get.

Now I'm seeking again to continue from where we left off last time I was talking with you, wherever that was, and I'm seeking to walk a little on the summit tonight. We found that what we might call the last campsite to the summit, or the reach of the summit itself, was this unity with God of which we are permanently and inwardly conscious. A unity, a oneness, a unity, a oneness with God, with Christ, with the Holy Spirit, of which we are permanently conscious, which has been imparted to us, because as we said all along, faith produces substance.

And we talked last night of how we come to that, whatever we may call it, second step of faith, when we pass on from a conscious relationship of reconciliation to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, justification, forgiveness, membership in the family of God and so on, we move on from reconciliation up to a unification as a fixed permanency of which we are conscious, because you only live by consciousness. We're inside people, we're inner people, we only live by what we are inside. And life is being, not becoming, it's our-ing, being.

And so we saw how we redeemed people, moved into a being life, and we are conscious, we do belong to him, he does come and dwell in us. Now we move up, the second step will be equally conscious that a unification has taken place, something in a way way more marvellous, which was the fact all the time, we had to move up until we could recognise it and then it could become conscious to us. So we walk at ease in an amazing fact, imparted to us by the Spirit, the Spirit himself bearing witness to our spirit, as it's said in Romans, that it's not we, it's he, it literally is not we, it's he.

Paul's word? I live? No, no, it's our Christ living. A unity has taken place, not a fellowship, not a partnership, a unity. We've gone through all the illustrations the Bible has given us to present that to us, and the necessity in our freedom of our involving ourselves in what is a fact, for my inner self, receiving to ourselves what is a fact, affirming a fact, whatever terms we like to use, terms for faith.

Usually confessed in some way, same as our salvation is confirmed to us when we confess. With the heart man believes unto righteousness, with the mouth compassion is made unto salvation. Heart believing is in my heart, I believe in Jesus Christ, God recognises me as righteous in Jesus Christ.

That's an inner relationship, with the mouth, compassion is made unto salvation, when we come out and say, Jesus is my saviour, we're believing inside, and we're conscious that we are saved people, we aren't only justified inside of God, we're made conscious of this fact in our own inner beings, we've become conscious. So consciousness usually follows some form of utter confession, of some kind, in my own case it was just writing it in the Bible, beside my wife, in Africa, as I told you yesterday. But something that confirms this, because we're living in that, but the confirmation, as we say all along, comes not from the faith, but from the object of faith.

I've explained it to you all along, faith is letting yourself to something that you desire, something which is available, and something which appears to you to be reliable, so you involve yourself, you let yourself to it. In a simple outward term, we use the illustration of sitting in a chair, but if the chair makes itself known to you, in those cases it's done very quickly, and immediately you involve yourself in the chair, the chair involves itself to you, and you know it. You involve yourself in learning a language, it doesn't come in a day.

You involve yourself in learning a trade, that doesn't come in a day. Now there, you relate yourself to something which is available, and desirable, and to you reliable, so you move in and say, all right, I'll learn music, I'll learn teaching, I'll learn medicine, I'll learn secretarial work, I'll learn something, I'll learn it. I'll learn housewife, and so on.

Now you involve yourself in something, and you take. Now in those cases, it isn't so quickly that it takes you. And by that comes a period when you're at home.

I well remember after I, fortunately, when I went to Africa, it was an easy language, oh, I never should have got it, and I moved in on the language, but even then, oh, I went in here and came out there, I shall never get this stuff. And then, amazing, it wasn't so long, it was an easy language, maybe three or four months, I found myself talking, it got me. I'd become spontaneous, it'd become part of me.

It just naturally, I spoke that language as much as I naturally speak my own language. What I took, after a certain period, took me. And it was the object of faith which bore the witness to me.

It was the language made so real to me. Now that's why it is to have a consciousness. That's why it is to have a witness.

That's why it is the way by which the Spirit makes us know this is a fact. You don't have to think about it again. It's just a fact.

You're living in the light and the spontaneity of the fact. Don't fuss about that. That's not your business.

You fuss about believing what God told you to believe. Because if you don't, you're making God a liar, so you'd better get on with it. You fuss about that, that you believe what God said.

He is his joy and the Lord is one Spirit. Nevertheless I live, yet it is not I that live, it is Christ that lives in me. And I am fused as a branch into a vine, as a member of a body into a head and so forth.

Your job is to confirm, even if you don't fully understand, even if you don't feel that you're even ready for it. Didn't you make yourself ready? God makes you ready. He's pretty clever the way he twists you around.

He'll do all that business. So even if you don't feel ready for it, that's not the point. If it's what God says, you take it.

You affirm it. That's your part. You affirm.

You say, it is. And maybe do, take some step which signs it up to you. It's like some confession to somebody or writing something which helps you.

We're human. It helps us. Like the Bible is an outer form that helps us.

It's the object in which we believe, or in this case in whom we believe, who makes this plain to us that it is a fact. The object, the person, of course, is the Holy Spirit or the Lord Jesus Christ or the Father, whomever we like to call him, who by his own means, quickly or more leisurely or whatever it be, confirms. Ah, that's it.

That's it. Now then, this faith has reduced substance. We live in the substantial fact.

That's it. And as I said, because the Church is earnestly seeking with different terms, it reduces different ways to name somebody by different names. So some people talk about entire sanctification.

Others talk about full salvation. Others talk about entering into his rest. Others talk about second blessing.

Others talk about the baptism of the Spirit. Different terms. So long as it's whatever way God's come to you, it has produced this inner, permanent confirmation which you can't doubt again.

It's just a fact. And then you live in this new spontaneity. As we were saying yesterday, the consequence is, there's a whole area of our life when you're quite unconscious.

You just live. You be. You are yourself now.

You're just yourself. And you appear to be yourself. And you function as yourself.

And you act as yourself. It isn't really you. Right through your queer, funny self is coming Christ.

You are the light of the world. You are the love of God. You are the peace of God.

Mind you, this conference has taken us some steps. Some of you in those choruses and statements have made statements which you have not heard in conferences. You've known that God's brought you to something of this level of what we're talking about.

It's He who makes it the part of you. So it just is you. And then you live.

And so as I say, there's a whole lovely area of life when you forget God and be. You just are yourself. Enter into conversation.

Run your home. Run your business. Enter into interest.

Talk. Laugh. Whatever it may be.

You're not conscious of thinking of yourself. You're not conscious of thinking of Christ. You're just yourself.

But that is Christ. That's Christ expressing himself through you. The devil will tell you it isn't.

Your own heart. Watch your own heart. Because the Bible says your heart will condemn you.

Your heart's just a human. It says if your heart condemns you, God's greater than your heart. That's in 1 John 4. But watch that.

So you may say, oh, it doesn't feel like it. And if you're a wife, your husband is sure you say it isn't so. That you're Christ walking about.

And if you're a wife, you're sure to tell your husband it isn't so. But whatever they say, it is so. It is so.

Because God says it is so. All right. Now we sought to consider that and talk around it and present it from God's word.

The last talk we had. I was just reminding you of that fact. Now I want to move on to the ultimate meaning of all this.

The ultimate meaning of all this. I'll sum it. Because I understand in God's word there is a distinctly third recognition.

Third recognition. I'll put it in simple terms. It's quite easy to see.

If the summit we're talking about is a unity with God. So that we are literally now, through our Lord Jesus Christ, restored to him. We are literally expressions and manifestations of God.

If that's so, what kind of person is God? Love. God is self-giving love. He's total self-giving love.

He has no other interest in life except to be the means by which his universities, people, needs may be met. If that is so, you are nothing but love. You are nothing but love.

You are total love. The only meaning to life now is your life has a meaning for others. Nothing else.

Nothing else. That's the next step. Nothing else.

If God is nothing but love for others. And you are in unity with him, you are nothing but love for others. That means the foundation of new life is never again something happening to you concerning you.

Why does this happen to me? No, no. Whatever happens to you has some purpose for which God manifests himself to others. It may not appear to be so.

It may appear to me, me, maybe you have some physical problem or home problem. It appears just as so. Oh no.

Never again. Now I'm saying that's a change of recognition. A fundamental change of recognition.

Because we're not used to looking at life like that. Because we're human, we're used to looking and saying, why does this happen to me? I wish I wasn't so frustrated. I wish this wasn't here.

Looking as if I'm something happening which is doing something to me. I've got to have a tremendous new recognition that nothing again ever happens to me which isn't part of God's purpose for others. Now it doesn't mean you run around doing good for others.

Do good to those awful people. Don't run back to self effort and try to run about doing good. Just be yourself.

But you can't do this to yourself. You just are a part of God for others. He'll make you.

He'll do it. But you recognize the fact. See, we can function on the basis of recognition as faith.

Recognizing. Recognize the fact. Accept the fact that it'll be God who'll be mutilizing you as a means of his manifestation.

Perhaps the simplest term used is a term Jesus used himself. Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. But the Bible says we are also bread.

1 Corinthians 10 says this about the communion. For we, being many, are one bread, one body. Speaking of us eating the bread of the Holy Communion.

We, being many, are one bread, one body. So we're bread. Now, the significance and character of bread is obvious.

Bread finds its fulfillment in you. Not in being bread. It goes through certain processes, and it is a means by which we live.

Therefore, the only, do you get it? The only means to life, if you're in this summit relationship, is everything for time and eternity. In which you're concerned, there is some meaning by which you're the means by which other people get their needs met. You're the bread other people can feed on and they eat.

And you get your satisfaction and fulfillment in that fact. Now, do you get what I'm saying? I'm not saying run about and do it. I'm not saying, oh God, do something about it.

I'm saying, recognize it's a fact. See, all these stages we take are recognition. Because they're God's facts imparted to us.

This isn't a ladder we've climbed. It's a ladder He came down for us and takes us up on it. The recognition you have justified isn't your business.

You recognize He justified you by His precious blood. He forgave you. You didn't accept Him.

He accepted you. So all you did, when you came to the condition, you said, thanks God, thanks Jesus. Oh, that's wonderful.

You recognize a fact and then the fact recognized you. And the witnesses came back on you. All level, it's just the simplest thing on earth, recognition.

Now you've come up and you've gone through those stages of self-effort and it hasn't worked. You've found the misuse of trying to be something and become something. You've learned again you're not, you're just a vessel, a reflector.

So you've given up that line of things. And now you've come to a new place and say, well Christ, you say so. You are this person living in me.

I just recognize a fact. This isn't I to you. And then the light shines in.

That's so. In every case, all you basically do is recognize a fact and the fact makes itself real to you. Each stage is simple recognition, which is perhaps the simplest word to use for faith.

And this third one is not just going to run about doing good or saying, how can I pour my life for our brothers? You are yourself, but you recognize you are not brothers. You are bred brothers. And God's going to privilege you to make everything that happens to you with some form, with something else, get some beneficial revelation of Jesus Christ.

Either being brought to salvation or being built up or being helped or being blessed or something. Your whole life exists so now it's going to be bred by which other people eat, which other people eat by which they can live. And that's a third recognition.

As I say, it's against the tide, because as I repeat and explain again in a moment, we have to start as humans. Because we start as humans, we're feeling people. Because we're feeling people.

Why? Why does this happen to me? I don't like that. I don't like living in this relationship. I don't like this.

I don't like that. As if I'm the hurt one. As if something happened to me.

And that can block. The one thing that can block you is hurt self. You can block at this level.

That's why you take up this cross. You take up this cross. The other, the other, you put onto it.

This one you take up. Because you can block there. You can just be a hurt self and not recognise this hurt that's come to you.

This crisis, this physical hurt, this what you like. You say, oh why this to me? Now you're on that level. But if you're saying, no God, everything somewhere I'm a means of which other people can get the revelation of Jesus.

Here I am. Now you replace hurt self by this recognition that this is God in operation. So I'm saying a tremendous thing.

I'm saying a specifically third tremendous thing. There's a third stage in this. A third stage of recognition.

From reconciliation to unification to the commissioned life. Whatever you like. If you need Bible terms, I've got it clear to you.

You don't run about doing it. This isn't a self-effort life. It's God makes you do it.

He'll make you. He'll use you. He's love and you're his love means now.

We humans are his love means by which he expresses his love to others. Just as he has made your bread. So you don't run about it.

But he'll make you. Many of you of course know this already. You've already proved this.

He just takes you his own way. But it's a revelation when you begin to take whatever happens to you as something for others. That's the new thing.

You've been after because of every single thing that happens to you as something for others. That's the new recognition. As I say, if you want the scripture for it, you get a great many three-folds.

One of the best I know is that simple one in 1 John. Where he specifically speaks of the God's children, his little children, young men and fathers. And then labels them and explains in 1 John why he says that of them.

I write unto you little children. I write unto you young men. I write unto you fathers.

Very briefly, infants, adolescents and adults. Now there's a big gap in one spot. You've got to watch.

Infants, it says here, a spiritual infant is one whose sins are forgiven for his name's sake and knows the Father. I'm saying what the Bible says. Now that's the simple, all my sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake.

And God's my Father. That's the first elementary step. And all you have is reliance on him then.

You're doing nothing about it. He did it for you. And you're relying like an infant relies on his mother, his father.

It's helpless and relies on what they do for him. That's the first stage. Now an adolescent is quite different.

An adolescent's got to find himself. That's why adolescence, that's an adolescent ferment. An adolescent has got to pass through a phase where he breaks away from outer alliances and finds inner alliances.

He's got to break away from alliances on his parents and find himself. And in human adolescence, we say a human adolescence is when he's matured in body, when he's graduated in mind, and he's supposed to have enough ethics to live by. Because if you haven't got the gospel of the grace of God, it doesn't work too well.

But you're supposed to have physical maturity, mental training, and enough ethics to live by. Now that's the human. In other words, an adolescent has to find internal resources by which he can live.

Now, of course, we're the opposite of that. We find our internal resources by not having that by which we live. And we find Christ in us.

So the Bible says that the spiritual adolescent, the spiritual one, has found he's got to meet the challenges of life. Hasn't got what it takes. But now the word of God abides in him.

First the word of God came for him, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the word of God, the living Christ, abides in him now. Now he's coming to the second stage of unification.

It's not his self-efforts and so on. You know, what he'd gone through before, it's Christ in him. Now that's the second stage.

Now the big jump always comes between adolescent and adolescent, very big. Why? Because infancy and adolescence are purely for the development of you, development of the child. Adulthood is contribution to others.

Infancy, adolescence is intake. Adulthood, output. That's the big jump.

You've moved over from the person getting things yourself and being trained and being helped to one who's being a means by which other people can get their needs supplied. The adult lives for his family and to run his business and earn his wages and make his contribution to his society and so on. So that's the big difference.

The little phrase used in the Bible about I write unto you fathers, adolescents, would look rather mysterious. About the infant, the sinner forgiven, adolescent, the word of God lives in you. I write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning.

That's all. Because you've known him that is from the beginning. Now remember in Bible words, the word know means mixed with.

It doesn't ever mean mental knowledge. Whenever the word know is used in the Bible it means you're mixed with something. You're inwardly mingled with something.

So it means you're mixed with the realisation of him that is from the beginning. His name's taken away. He's no longer father, God, his name.

Why? Because this is the everlasting person. You've moved in now into the stream of the one from everlasting to everlasting, him that is from the beginning fulfilling his purposes to the end. And you're part of him.

Now you've moved in. So that's one of the presentations of the Bible of the three steps. I can't stop at great lengths.

Another very good one is the Ephesian one, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. The Ephesians hardly touch on crucifixion and resurrection. They pass that by and they say the great revelation, I pray you understand, the great revelation is exceeding greatness of the power which lifts various Christ of the dead, set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principles and powers of the devil.

Don't waste your time fiddling about the devil. He's way below there. You hardly see him.

Far, far above. It means far above. I'm reading what the scripture says.

The scripture says in Ephesians 1, he set him at his own right hand far above. And then he says, we are seated with him. Then he tells how we started at the bottom, dead in trespasses and sins, and it is rich in mercy, quickened us, that's new birth, raised us up, that's the unification, made us sit in heavenly places in Christ.

So it's giving us there a third phase, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. Now crucifixion, as I've told all the time, is where we're cut off from the old. In Christ's death, we're cut off from that old dominion and the spirit of ascension is dead, the sin in Christ.

Resurrection, of course, is when we're united to the new, which is Christ living in us, the second stage. Raised with him. Seated, what's seated mean? Seated means you've finished the job.

When you've worked a day's work, you sit down, finished. But you don't remain seated. You get up and then become active in another interest.

You simply change interests. Oh, I've finished my job. Now get up, now be involved in this, involved in this, involved in this.

Seating doesn't mean you remain static. It means you drop one job to be occupied in another, that's all. Now Jesus Christ, when he was seated, had finished that tremendous work of dying in our place and rising in our place and completing all that is necessary to bring us back to the fact of the unity with God.

The whole thing was finished. Pentecost was the seal that was finished. Pentecost bears witness to us that this is a fact.

The Holy Spirit is finished. So he left that, he sat down. And therefore, we have sat down with him.

We've dropped our infancy and adolescence. You see, our problem in our churches is hanging on infancy and adolescence. A large amount of our hymns is.

That's why I must say you refresh me here. Because even the hymns have a better tone. It isn't, oh, we poor miserable creatures, one day we'll get to comfort up there or something.

Do help us. Miserable, crawling, wormy stuff we sing. Most of our hymn books need junction.

Unless we put the CFO hymn book into all the churches. And baby to lead them. Because there's some stuff in them, some stuff in them.

It's up, it's up, it's up. Leaving behind, oh dear, how can I? I am there, he put me there. I don't get there, praise God, no.

He put me there. I recognize he's put me there in grace. Crucified with him, risen with him and so on.

Seated. Now seated means, that's finished. Don't get, oh, just recognize that this is going on in you now.

It's Christ is the one living in you. Now, you get up from the throne, as it were, to move out. It's in the Bible, from the throne he gives the gift to the Holy Spirit and the gift to the church.

He moves out now by the Holy Spirit into his church to reap the harvest. He goes out into his bodies from the ascension. The Holy Spirit has to reap the harvest of the redeemed.

To fulfill the kingdom of God for the coming days. So there are three there. Oh, you get them all.

Yes, Romans, Romans 1 to 5 is the guilty reconciled. Romans 6 to 8 is the self-reliant, find Christ is our answer. Unification.

Romans 1 to 5, justification, reconciliation. Romans 6 to 8, unification. 8, 9 to 16, concern for others.

Paul forgot himself, forgot talking about how we get into Christ, concern for others. His whole concern is how we live practically for Christ in the world. Right up to the distant Gentiles.

His last great 15 chapters, 15 chapters he's concerned about the Gentiles. Gentiles is a non-Christian. Right after the missionary call.

So those tremendous chapters flow out from the believer into the world. The first stage. You get it in Hebrews? Though there are certain reasons why it doesn't come very clear.

Because they've got some self-pity coming, self-hurt self, knock it out. So Hebrews, he's presenting to the Hebrews the fact you've got your present day Moses. The Moses who took his children out of Egypt on the way to Canaan is Jesus Christ.

Took her out of the world into himself. Now you've got your Joshua. He took her out of the wilderness life of self-effort.

Joshua took her out of the wilderness life into the land of milk and honey. Land of rest. Now your Joshua is Jesus.

Took her out of the land of self-effort. Brought you into this union consciousness. Now you're in the land of rest.

You've got the sufficiency for your job now. He's become your sufficiency. Your able minister of the new covenant.

Now you're also Jesus Christ's arm of Kisadik. That means a high priest. That's the highest form we have.

I talked a little in my last talk tomorrow about that. It's the highest term I know in the Bible of what we mean is royal priest. Royal priest.

That term is not used in Hebrews. It's used in 1 Peter. Because it couldn't be used in Hebrews.

Because self-pity got hold of those Hebrews. So they couldn't see the identification with Christ in priesthood. They saw identification with Christ in reconciliation, regeneration.

Identification with Christ in union life. They couldn't catch the other. Although the great by faith chapter.

By faith. Those of you who know your Bible in Hebrews 11. Outlines how men were that kind of people.

They were priests to their day. But it wasn't ever said so because they couldn't take it. God won't give you more than you can take.

So it comes in other places. I'm only saying in each case there's a third level. There's a third strata.

Now don't let's get the idea it's some painful growth. It's what Christ is already to everybody of us. The moment you're redeemed you are actually a priest.

The moment you are redeemed you are actually ascended. He did the thing and finished it. It's only a matter of how quickly you can recognise what you are.

So don't think it's some painful crawl up in 45 years or something. No. You are this up to the level at which you're conditioned to recognise you are that.

So I'm always a bit afraid of the word growth. Because it's a hidey hole. Oh of course I haven't grown there yet.

In 45 years time I might conquer that or something. A hidey hole behind a growth. The growth of the Bible is great in recognising Jesus Christ.

That's the growth. Not in you becoming something. Get out of that you becoming.

Vessels become nothing. That's all it is. They just remain vessels.

I've told you a thousand times already. They don't change. Don't look at yourself to change.

But growth is a larger recognition of the person who is in you and what he is in you. Growing grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ in 1 Peter. Grace is God's gift to us of Jesus Christ.

Knowledge is oh that's what he is. That's what he is in me. So growth is not I becoming different.

It's I recognising a little more of this wonderful person who is beginning to operate in wonderful different ways in my life. So those are the stages. So I'm just presenting to you.

A third stage which has as its meaning tremendous meaning. Nothing again ever happens to you or to me if we pass the unified stage. It isn't part of eternal purpose for us because eternal life is love which is finding all our delight in being with other people than these men.

That's of course why we should be safe as I said before to marry the universe. We are to be the sons of God co-heirs with Christ and as I said before an heir manages his inheritance. He's the heir of all things.

We are safe to marry him because we are for the universe not the universe for us. If we grab the universe in our fallen condition we can only have chaos again all grabbing is for ourselves. But this new life we are for everybody else.

Now you are safe to run your management job because you are for that which you manage not that which you manage for you. The reverse is taking place. That's God's nature.

God's character. Now I've got to ask this and one or two other things. What is the effect of this? Is it just a theoretical thing? How does it work out down here where we're living? This fact that we're him, part of him, expressions of him for others.

Well I'll just say one or two things. The first is this. The sign manual of a Moschee Redeemer is suffering.

The sign manual of our true condition is suffering. Suffering is our royal privilege. Suffering.

I want to say now there that I'd like to at least as far as I see underline, I have touched on it before, an important understanding of what suffering is. Now I'm saying what the Bible says. Jesus says, for instance, I mean Paul says, Heirs of God, co-heirs of Christ, if so be it you suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him. I reckon that sufferings of this present time are in a way to be compared to the glory that shall follow. And he talks about our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us.

It says works, the exceeding weight of glory. The affliction, he calls it light, works for us. Or your tribulation, which is suffering, worketh patience.

Experience, hope, love of God, share the glory in Romans 5. You see the links, they're all the way through. Now in saying this, what I want to say is this. I've been through this.

You say well, if I can't reign with Christ, does that mean I suffer? Well my head hasn't been cut off yet. I suppose I shan't reign. Because we're such foolish people, we always connote the world, ourselves with the outer.

We're not outer people. We fall into the outer. We fall into, that's why it's so silly to fuss a whole lot about healing.

Don't worry about physical healing, get spiritual healing. Our bodies matter anyhow. We've got far too much emphasis on physical healing, far too little emphasis on the real healing as Christ glorified coming often through an unhealed body.

Sometimes healed but very often unhealed. We're on the wrong foot with this outer stuff. Outer on foot.

We're not outer people, we're inner people. Suffering isn't outer. Suffering's inner.

Suffering is the way you take a thing. I told you before, if I'm right, the whole meaning of what we call the sufferings in the world, they're to force us to say, oh, why am I like this? What has just happened to me? Now I'm getting somewhere. It's the best thing that happened to the unsaved.

When they have enough suffering, they say, oh, what's this mess? There's something wrong here. When life's become discordant enough and defeated them enough and messed them about enough, they say, oh, now inward, what can I do about this business inside me, inside me? Suffering is the way you take a thing. Outer suffering, there is a certain level of outer suffering that's not the real thing.

It's just a certain level. Suffering is how you take it. Now you know that because we have proofs now, beloved friends here.

We have proofs that we can go through outer suffering. And we have to go through with it, of course. But when it's as from Christ, the glory of Christ comes through.

The glory of Christ comes through. And the suffering would be if you're kicking against it. If you're in a condition, you're kicking against it, then you suffer.

But if you find how to replace your inner sufferings by the secret of release, then your sufferings become a means of glory. This is the secret. So I'm saying an important thing.

We're all sufferers. Now why? Not because we're all going to have our heads cut off or all put in prison or all be torn apart by lions or something. No, no.

Because suffering comes from inside. Now all of us are sufferers. Why? Because we're sensitized to situations around us and we suffer through them.

That's the thing. Our royal hallmark as one of God's representatives is we're sensitized to conditions and we're always in conditions of, oh dear, I wish this person was changed. Oh, I wish this was different.

I wish they could be. Now, that's it. You're being hurt and disturbed and burdened by things.

We all are. This is our suffering. Suffering is the way you take a thing, not the thing itself, the way you take it.

So we suffer because this person is still unredeemed and this person is living a wild life and this hole is being broken up and there's a conflict here or other things, whatever you like. Whatever causes you inner suffering, that's your suffering, not the thing, the way you take it. So on that basis, life continues forever to be suffering.

Get that? Because our privilege is to be involved in the world and because it's a distorted, fallen, torn up world, we're going to be inwardly torn up by it. And that's our privilege. That we feel, I wish it could be different.

How can I help it to be different? Thank God. If we aren't sufferers, we may watch on it. You see, again and again, it doesn't mean you're having great agonies or something.

It doesn't certainly mean you're having outward things. It means inwardly there is in your life always places of concern. Don't try and blow it up in some great emotional business.

But any sensitised person has areas of concern. That's it. They may only be to you as just one small thing.

The size doesn't matter. But every life, the suffering is an area of concern in which you wish certain things could be different. Now take it a first step further.

Why do we suffer when we wish things could be different? Because we see them as evil things. We suffer because we're believing in the reality of the evil of them. That's why.

All life is belief. All that controls you is what you're believing in. That's all.

You're an inner person. You are controlled by what you believe in. Now if something's altogether wrong in our lives and you believe it, you say, Ah, that's wrong.

You suffer. You suffer because you say, Oh, that's wrong. It is wrong.

I don't say it isn't. I say it is wrong. And you suffer.

Oh, that's wrong. You're seeing evil. You're seeing darkness.

You're seeing the devil. You don't get very far from seeing the devil. You don't get very far in this life by seeing two powers.

You only get very far when you see one power. And that's not the devil, I assure you. So suffering really is my... It's full of it.

You watch. When you get life to it. All through life we're believing in things in their wrong condition.

Why does this happen? There are little things where you lose a train or something. There are the least things in life. We're always believing in responding to the bad things.

The discordant things. The failing things. The difficult things.

We're conditioned to this negative believing. Believing is real. Believing makes the thing real to you in the condition you believe it to be.

If you believe it to be bad, then you're hurt. And you feel the badness. And you probably feel the control of the badness.

You don't know what to do with it, except you can cry to God or something. And you're sort of under it. And what's more, you contribute to it.

Faith always is contributive. We are people who are contributing. And our very attitudes of believing a thing on its bad level is a contributor to that thing.

Now what answer is there? There is an answer, I suggest. To start with, I suggest it's a pretty drastic answer. Now, you must take it as much as you like.

I find no answer except this. That every single thing that happens in this life is part of God's perfect will, good or evil. It's part of God's perfect will, good or evil.

Every single thing that happens has God's perfect plan behind it. Everything. Especially evil.

I know you're not taking it, but you can chase me out afterwards. I go tomorrow, so I'll escape you tomorrow. You'll never get through with a half.

You'll never get through with something's good from God, something's evil from the devil. You can't get through with that. The divided mind came into the fall.

It's not in God. And I'm saying, your answer to your suffering is this. If it's a fact, I've got to give a few proofs of this.

If it is a fact, everything that happens is being engineered and willed by God. Now, whatever's happening, however bad it is, a drug condition or whatever you like to say, a brocade, a little thing, a big little thing, if it's engineered by God, you can see through the evil. You say, sure, it's evil, but it's part of God's purpose.

He's working out something to bring out through this thing something of His glory. Now, you transfer your faith from believing in the evil to believing in God in the situation. Oh, now you're free.

Now the suffering's replaced by peace and assurance. Now, it's a transference of faith. Exactly the same as everything else.

You didn't get saved by looking at your sins. You had to start. They were real.

They cut you off from God. You didn't get saved. I said before, oh, they're my sins.

You had to transfer your faith from your sins to your Saviour. Only when you deliberately say, yes, I'm a sinner, but thank God Jesus Christ is my Saviour, where are the sins? They're overflowed. Now, you didn't get rid of your self-efforts and your strains and trying to be better by looking at that.

You had to say, no, I'm wrong. I'm not meant to try to be better. I'm not for this strain and this self-improvement stuff.

I've understood I'm just a vessel. But I understand Jesus Christ lives in my vessel. He's joined to me.

Jesus Christ, you are the one living here. So I'm not tossing around my self-efforts and failures. I'm not.

I'm saying, Jesus Christ, you've got me. You're the real one living here. Now, that flows into the consciousness.

You're living now for the consciousness of Christ living in you. It's through your humanity. Now, again, you've transferred your faith from the negative believing in your failing human self, which is a fact, which is a fact, to him who comes through your failing human self and manifests himself by it.

Now, do you see every level the same? You see, as you move out, all through life, if I can learn a thing to transfer my faith from my negative believing, oh, that's a myth, which is, it's real, it's real. It's so real, you condemn a person. It's real.

But say, ah, that's not the point. On this level, it's like that. But I don't live on that level.

I'm in this ascended level in Christ, with Christ, with the Holy Spirit, with God, and I'm seeing from his angle far above the devil, far above how he's fulfilling his purpose in that situation. Now, the simple, quick proof I'd give to you, because I say the big thing, I don't ask you to take it, I don't suppose you to, but it's taken me some teaching, but I tell you it's the answer, everything from God, are the simple proofs of the Bible. I'll give you one which, to me, is enough.

You don't need any more. I'll give you some more. One is this.

I always make a little joke of this. I say, lots of you have got it. You hang crosses around your neck, or you go to places of worship, you find crosses.

I have a little joke. I say, well, you're funny, folks. You love magnifying the devil, don't you? You love magnifying the devil, don't you? Because a cross is a devil's action.

Who crucified you? Didn't the devil? So every time you hang a cross, you say, oh, devil, you really did a good job. You're giving that devil a pat on the back every time you hang a cross. Oh, oh, except for one fact.

One fact was the person who faced the cross. When he faced the cross, he did not see the devil crucified. He saw his father's cup.

That's the answer. He transferred his faith from the negative, and he said, here's the devil coming. He said, my cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it? And the cup was not the resurrection.

It was the cross. He went into Gethsemane. He came out of Gethsemane, and they arrested him.

As they arrested him, Peter cut the ear off that high priest's servant, and Jesus quietly healed him. He said, let be the cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it? The devil was God's agent. That's the truth.

Now, I tell you, if that's true, the greatest event of history is true of the smallest event of history. Because the God of the nebulae is the God of your heads, if you've got any left. You see? I'm saying every single detail is engineered by God, good or evil.

He's using the evil to bring people to an end of themselves, to bring something to an end of itself, that there may be room for grace. That's it. Now, very rapidly, I've only got to say two other obvious examples.

You know your Bibles, Joseph and Joseph. Joseph saw this young commissioner, this young man, and God had commissioned him to be a leader for God. And he had these dreams about being over his brothers and so on.

Well, he went to every mortal hellish thing for 14 years or more. Sold by his brothers as a slave, never to be seen again. Those days there weren't cars.

Sold to the Ishmaelites, who took him into slavery, never to be seen again. By his own brothers. And then when he got there, because he never lost his simple faith, and there was reliability about him, Potiphar made him head of his household.

And there the only pure man in the place who said, for God I can't see him. Wouldn't yield to Potiphar's wife's solicitations. And Potiphar's wife turned on him and accused him.

And you bet Potiphar gave him something. If Potiphar believes his wife, that after intercourse with his wife, you may be betting he gave Joseph something. And he went to the prison.

And year by year, what is it, seven, fourteen more years he lived in prison? He said the iron entered into his soul. And even there he didn't get rescued, because he retained his belief that God could speak to him through dreams. And that butler and baker came there, and they told him this dream he had, and he told him the dream that the baker would be killed when they got out of prison and the butler would be returned to his job.

And he said, oh do please remember me when you get back to Pharaoh, will you? Remind me I'm an innocent prisoner, give him a reminder of me, will you? And he forgot. Once again, where was God in this business? Until that wonderful day came when Pharaoh couldn't interpret his own dreams and the magicians couldn't do it and so on. And then the butler said, oh I remember my era, he said, I remember my era as a man in prison who interpreted my dream.

And it came true. Go to him. And the wonderful poison they had went into his first shave for a long time, like some people need.

And he came out, dressed and so on. And cool as anything, cool, wonderful. In front of the whole host of Pharaoh's palace, a guard, he was watching those magicians waiting to pounce on him and say, well you're a phony, because they couldn't do it, you see, waiting to pounce on him.

He said, oh it's not in me to interpret your dream. Pharaoh said, you can interpret it, oh it's not in me, it's in God. Beautiful, beautiful self, deep in his heart, God, it's in God.

God will interpret your dream for you. Well you know what happened. Well you know what happened.

When he was made premier of Egypt, and you bet he got a number of those Egyptians and saved too, he didn't waste his time. There he was, and the brethren came in after the famine, his own brothers came in, you know the beautiful story, a delicate story. If you want to see how a person can be brought to repentance, you read that.

The beautiful way he brought them to recognize how wrong they'd been. He didn't hammer at them. He didn't preach at them.

He won them to see themselves, their past guilt. And they were ready then for the revelation, that he was there with forgiveness. And you know the dramatic moment when he revealed himself to his brothers, they were all terrified.

Now, what did he say? Um, be not afraid, you meant it for evil, God meant it for good. And they gave an actual positive word. God's will isn't permissive, it's directive.

And he said, God did send me before you to preserve life. So all that hellish business, God was in that sale of slaves, God was in that potter's wife business, God was in the, the, the interpretation of these, God was in the whole business. And through that, God's been glorified through history.

So God operates through evil. You can't have a more perfect illustration of that. If I went back for a moment, by the way, to Jesus Christ, it's a striking thing, isn't it? In the first speech after Pentecost, the official first speech after Pentecost, the first speech of the early church, and the first recorded prayer of the early church, both say this.

The, the, Peter said this, speaking to the Jerusalem people, for the truth, no, he said that, um, for him, listen, Jesus Christ, who, through determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by wicked hands have crucified the slave. But those weren't it. God determined and counseled you to crucify Jesus.

What do you make of that one? God determined and crucified him. That's enough. And the prayer said this, for against thy holy child Jesus, both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the people of Israel have risen for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before should be done.

So God's got no permissive will. He's got a determined will. Now, you can move in in poise.

When you dare say against all appearances, this is part of God's perfect will. And I say, God brought this, this bad situation into being. It's, he's handling it because out of it he's going to manifest himself.

Now you operate by faith. Now you move into faith. Because you, you've moved from the negative control of, this thing, oh, I'm suffering, what shall I do? Say, oh no, praise you, I can't see how, yet you're in it.

I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm watching to see how you're going to bring out a revelation, a mystery, a change of life, a transformation in a life, whatever you like.

Now, you're moving into the authoritative faith. The final authoritative faith, if I just say one last word to finish it up is this. The final, that's the kind of almost a passive approach.

Well, I'm not going to believe down here. I sometimes put it like this. We say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Evil's in the eye of the beholder too. If you see it evil, it's evil to you. It is evil, but you're not living from this standpoint.

You're not in the third dimension. You're a fourth dimensional person. You can't live down here in height, length, breadth.

You're in Christ, in the timeless and fullness. So, you don't interpret it as it can be interpreted down here as it is evil. It is evil.

You don't see it like that. You say, sure it's like that, but I see it as God sees it as some means by which he's operated to bring something more of his mercy and glory and fullness through. That's the point.

Now, that's the kind of sort of passive step in which you have transferred your attention, not quite passive, but from believing this way to believing in Christ. Now, the last word I want to say on authoritative faith is this. Authoritative faith is God getting through us for some specific end.

God getting through us. Faith is God getting through us. First of all, I'm saying this.

Because we've got so far away from God through the fall, we regard God as half asleep and we're mostly awake. And so we spend our lives saying, God do wake up and come and do something. If God's asleep, we've got to arouse him.

Of course, the truth is God's awake and we're asleep. And he puts us in these negative circles and says, arouse us to action. You see, it's a tremendous thing when I can begin to get hold of the fact the whole eternal, whole universe is God pressing himself through.

Like air has so many pounds to square inch. God is pressing love. He's pressing through.

Always pressing through to produce his final perfection, his final universal fullness when we all go back into Christ. He's pressing through. Now, because we're so far away from him, we think he's asleep and want to get him depressed.

No, he's pressing through. And the conditions, the situation we are is God pressurised us to let him through. All faith is letting God through and nothing else.

It isn't sweating at it. It's not crying at it. It's not claiming.

It's letting God through, affirming you're doing it. Now, the simplest proof of that, of course, is this. Or the best, perhaps, way of putting it is this.

Where, at what spot is faith consummated? At what spot is any human activity consummated? At the word. That's why the Bible makes so much of the word. A word is a human going into action.

We're inner people, not outer people. Our outer follows our inner. Now then, where do we go into action? At the point of the word.

What do I mean? I mean all operations is faith. All operations in life start, it's on the thought word deed. Or the father, son, spirit business.

It starts with thought. You're thinking about something. Now, you can think a million things.

You're free to think anything. That's the universal. Now, you can't operate from the universal.

You have to come down from the universal to the particular. So what happens? Out of all your thoughts, you say, that's what I'll do. Now, that's you in action.

I always use simple illustrations like a carpenter. Now, I say, a carpenter's order to make a table. Well, he's a trained carpenter.

He may make 40 different types of tables. Now, on the general side, oh, there are 40 different types of tables shall I make. What shall I do? He can't make the table out of 40 types.

He's got to find one type. So out of the 40, he comes and says, that's what I'll make. Now he's in action.

The word puts people in action. The deed only follows the word. When I say, that's what I'll make, then, in that case, he uses his tools, he uses his materials, and produces his tables.

All life is that. Whatever you look, you'll find it's always thought, which has come into action on the word level. And then out of that has come the substance, the Father, the Son, the Spirit.

That's why Jesus Christ is called the word. Because he brought the universe into being by word. All he did was let God through.

You read Genesis. Jesus' faith, which produced the world, wasn't sweating at it. Let there be light.

Because God is the light pressing through. And his son was the one, the agency of faith through whom he pressed through in the form of light. And then in the form of animals, of vegetation, of people.

And all Jesus was, letting through all his miracles like that. As calm as can be, you come along God, you come and do it. You come through it.

Because God's getting through. Come on now, you come along. He's coming through.

He's letting God through. That's all faith is. It's as easy as can be.

And in our specific cases, it's how to learn. Now this is an exchange I can't, I must be stopping now so I can't take it too long. Where, in these situations, where, now I say, back on suffering, your concern, you're a concerned person, many things, different things, concern, starting just where you are, just to know all the things of life.

Now your concern is because you see it as bad, your suffering. Now you move from that and say, yes it is bad, but God's in this badness. I'm going to dare to say God's engineering this thing and he has a purpose of love and grace.

Just the engineer in my life and he got me to salvation. Same idea. All right.

Now, I say, all right now, at this point, it depends, you died hundreds, many of you died hundreds of times, it depends on, you can't bring it down to the exact situation, on what the thing is, if you can begin to specify the thing. If you can clearly, in a situation, specify the kind of thing you'd like to see happen. Jesus said, whatever you desire, not say what he desires, he's put himself at your disposal.

You're the son with the sons operating the resources of the father. And the father's pressing through to get something out of his grace and power through you. Now, he's at your disposal.

Same as he was at his own son's disposal. And so, it's whatever you desire. Because, of course, you're in Christ.

Now, your desires aren't going to be just wild. I can't take it any more deeply, I think of that at the moment. Now, where you catch your desire on, whatever you desire, now, when you pray, believe that you receive them.

Prayer is not central. Prayer is peripheral. Prayer is central.

Mark 11, 24. Whatever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them. Now, believe that you receive them, that's coming.

That's coming. Now, this is the process by which I... You die lots of times, and we've got to get much more daring, much more free in doing it. In large and small things, saying, all right, Lord, in this generation, I say, I'd like to see it happen.

You've got something in hand here, all right, I think I'm going to bring that thing along now. I'm saying now it's going to come along. Now, that's the word of faith.

And it's through the word that action comes. In those cases, it may involve your own cooperation, or it may be as the Spirit of God goes out and moves in to do things and brings them to be. Now, this is the way, part of the way we operate as royal priests.

There's a little more I want to say about this tomorrow to complete it, this royal priesthood. But this is the, really, the background of it. And I, as I must stop it, we, I mentioned before, we, I personally learned that secret through that man, Reece Howell.

Some of you have read his book, it's too late now. I learned this, this authority of faith. And we began to practice it years ago when I had to take secretary-ship in our mission.

And we learned that. What was God saying? I won't give you details, I won't stop there. What's God saying? We caught what God's saying.

When we caught what God's saying, by that we had some mysterious thing, we came to conviction, this is the plan God's given us in our crusade, let's get on with it. In our deep weakness at that time. Hadn't got a thing to do it with.

Let's get on with it. Because we knew this had been the purpose of the crusade to our founders and so on. Well, when we got that, we specified our first need.

We said, all right, Lord, you're at our disposal, now a step forward, a little weak step in those little weak days, we were 1,200 strong, we were only 30 strong then. In one field, now we're in 40 fields. And we said, one little step, all right, Lord, now just a step forward, no money, nothing there.

You will send us ten called and trained workers within one year. With no appeals for money, there's no need to. It's much harder to get money out of Europe.

It's much harder to get money out, easier to get money this way. Please, don't bother about you people, you're too stingy. Let's go this way, come.

It's just God, that's all. And so we just said that. And we stated it and declared it in faith.

Watch with us, you'll see by July 16, 1932, ten will come. They came. The last man still in Africa was Mr. Ten by the Africans.

Because he was the tenth to go out. And the last money came, but it was the principal. When that happened, three days before the end of that year, we said, this is the principal in action, no matter about the ten.

So then we began to move. Next year we said, 15 now, Lord. Next year, 25 now, Lord.

Next year, 15 now, Lord. Next year, 75 now, Lord. Then we got to get too many.

So we said, stop it, we'll open a few more fields and get them in. We've been working at them since. Now, don't think that's some weird thing.

Missionaries are weird people, but you're a missionary too, so you're a weird person. That's all. So don't think it's some private matter of missionaries.

God forbid. We're all in this business. No secular spiritual, you know that.

It operates on a level level. So I'll leave that tonight, this afternoon. Three stages.

The recognition of the implication of the new stage. And beginning to see how to operate in the new stage, which is not beginning for you. Many of you know it already, but just reminding you how we do it.

Thank you very much.