The Everlasting Covenant
by
J. Wilfred Johnson
by
J. Wilfred Johnson
Jan. 7th 1976
Transcribed from six C/Ds, July 17, 2012 thru September 2, 2012
by
Steven Pond and Mary Savoy
I don't like to start off with apologies, but sometimes you find
yourself in that predicament. I am not as well organized as I wanted to be for
tonight, especially with all these recorders going, one likes to have things
fairly well in line, but I don't have that. One of the problems is there is so
much truth that it is a major undertaking sometimes to wade through it to pick
out the atoms that relate to any one particular topic and then select the
connecting links that go off to the other topics that you can get into one
single study. And sometimes I get bogged down in doing that, I get absorbed in
some of the literature that we have at our disposal and we have an amazing
amount of it. And I end up with not enough time get everything just completely
organized just the way I like to have it, so, I will be a little unorganized
tonight, informal, or whatever you want to call it.
Some time ago there were some requests that came to me for some studies
in connection with The Everlasting Covenant, and I am keenly interested in this
particular study. This covenant is a fantastic thing really. It is the central
element in the plan of salvation. The Everlasting Covenant is the plan
of God to save the universe and at the center of it of course, is
Christ.
Now I'm just going to talk about a little bit first if you don't mind me
doing that. And I have quite a few books here with me so if we want to get
verification upon some of the things we will be touching upon, hopefully we'll
have it here. And if I don't have it here tonight or if I can't lay my finger
on it, I'll get it for another night.
(A man in the audience) May we ask questions upon occasion?
Yes, however, let me explain something that I am reluctant to admit.
When I get wrapped up in moving through a series of thoughts, that are unit and
someone interrupts with a question I lose the thread, I have a very poor
recall. I am not blaming God for that I accept what He has given me with very
deep thankfulness. But sometimes it is
difficult for me if very many questions come through and I lose the thread and
I lose the concept and can't carry it through to conclusion. However, if it is
a question directly in connection with what we are saying and can be answered
quickly an occasional one isn't all that bad, but I will certainly plan to open
the meeting for questions whenever there is an opportunity or moment to do it.
(1)
I think before I go into that I'd better read just a few statements from
The Spirit of Prophecy in connection with our study of the Word so that
we will not run up against the problem a little later on. I think, I hope that you all are aware that the Word of God is not
static and that Seventh-day Adventists do not have all the truth. I will be
very frank in saying that The Spirit of Prophecy has given us many statements
to the effect that the truth will unfold to the end of time. And it may be that
we will touch on a point that you may not have thought of before and wonder
whether it is a valid point. Any points that we bring out, we do expect to be
able to substantiate from the Word of God or from The Spirit of Prophecy.
If we can't do that and if it doesn't fit the pattern we would certainly like
to know that and reassess the point.
There is no way that I can explain The Everlasting Covenant and show how
it relates to all the different facets of the plan of salvation without
bringing out some thoughts that I have discovered nobody that I have contacted
has ever thought of or noticed, And this has sometimes brought on a little bit
of disputation, a question of validity and I suppose that is to be expected. I
have sometimes discussed things with somebody who has brought a thought to me
that I have never thought of. And being human our first normal reaction is that
whenever thoughts that we have not thought of are expressed especially on
topics that may be a little deeper than what we normally enter into, we
immediately have a tendency to say “well, that point hasn't been revealed, the
Lord hasn't given us that, we don't touch that.” The implication is of course is
that if we don't understand it, God hasn't revealed it. And that is rather a
self-centered implication. And I am
guilty too, I have done that. I don't know whether you have.
I hope that God has placed me in a position where I am willing to listen
to any concept that is expressed by any sincere Christian who is studying the
Word with an open mind. I am not trying to cast stones at anyone I'm simply
expressing a situation, the Word of God is filled with mysteries. And yet it
isn't God's plan that these mysteries should so exist, at least according to
this statement; Education page 171;
“God intends that to the earnest seeker the truths of His word shall be
ever unfolding. While "the secret things belong unto the Lord our God,
those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children. The idea
that certain portions of the Bible cannot be understood has led to neglect of
some of its most important truths. The fact needs to be emphasized, and often
repeated, that the mysteries of the Bible are not such because God has sought
to conceal truth, but because our own weakness or ignorance makes us incapable
of comprehending or appropriating truth. The limitation is not in His purpose,
but in our capacity.”
Now, to me that statement is very plain, I don't think it needs any
elaboration or any excuses for any sentences that are in it.
(2)
The fact needs to be emphasized and often repeated that the mysteries of
the Bible are not such because God has sought to conceal truth.
Would you believe it? I have not heard that once from anybody. It has
never been repeated to me, and it has never been emphasized. I have heard just
the opposite. “You mustn’t delve into the mysteries of God.” And I believe
that. You mustn't. But when God reveals a mystery it is not a sin to accept it,
and the promises given in many places, that God will reward the one that comes
to Him in search of truth and understanding of His word if He comes with the
right attitude.
This is from Education page 171; “It is impossible for any human
mind to exhaust even one truth or promise of the Bible.” Now, think about that,
I can't exhaust a single truth or promise in the Bible. Neither can you.
Now, if that is true, then presumably I could catch a certain portion of
it, but that doesn't mean that you would catch the same portion, you might
catch a different portion. So that you would understand a certain facet of that
particular truth or promise, and I would understand a different one. But this
is not just cause for us to get into an argument; this only means that God has
permitted one to see one facet and somebody else to see another facet. Rather
than to have a controversy over the understanding of the passage, far better
would it be to put the two pieces together, or as many as there are, and try to
get the total concept. Just like the two eyes in your head, each eye sees a
different image, a slightly different angle, which gives us our sense of depth
perspective, in addition to the comparative sizes of the object. Without
binocular vision we don't get the sensation of depth for the space nearly so
clearly, and the same is true with the word of God, you will find many passages
in the scriptures and in The Spirit of Prophecy, where one passage
apparently contradicts another passage. I'll be coming across some of those
with you; I'll be reading some of those. And a person who has read only the one
passage formulates his conclusion on that basis and the person who has read the
other passage formulates his conclusion on the basis of that passage and the
two conclusions are at variance, one with the other, and they disagree. And too
often the habit of the individual is to argue about the points and to contend
over them rather than to put the two pieces together as in binocular vision and
let the psychology of the mind fuse the two images into a concept that has
greater depth of understanding. God's word is like that.
So she goes on to say; “One catches the glory from one point of view,
another from another point; yet we can discern only gleamings.”
I'm only going to select just a few of these because I feel that we
don't have the time to go through them all. But there are a large number of
them, and some of them are really quite revealing. But I don't want to take the
evening to do this;
(3)
I would rather get on to the topic. Let me read another one here from Christ's
Object Lessons this is page 129;
“Yet it is possible for us to see all that we can bear of the divine
compassion. This is unfolded to the humble, contrite soul.”.... Did you notice?
The humble contrite soul. .... “We shall understand
God's compassion just in proportion as we appreciate His sacrifice for us. As
we search the word of God in humility of heart, the grand theme of redemption
will open to our research. It will increase in brightness as we behold it, and
as we aspire to grasp it, its height and depth will ever increase.”
Now listen, “If we keep the Lord ever before us allowing our hearts to
go out in thanksgiving and praise to Him we shall have a continual freshness in
our religious life, our prayers will take the form of a conversation with God
as we would talk to a friend. He will speak His mysteries to us personally.”
Let me read that again.“... He will speak His
mysteries to us personally.”
I don't expect you to answer my question. But look into your own
experience; do you know what it means to have God speak a mystery to you
personally? “...Often there will come to us a sweet joyful sense of the
presence of Jesus. Often our hearts will burn within us as He draws neigh to commune
with us as He did with Enoch. When this is in truth the experience of the
Christian, there is seen in his life a simplicity, a humility, meekness, and
lowliness of heart, that show to all with whom he associates that he has been
with Jesus and learned of Him.”
Maybe we should seek a closer relationship with God so that we could
each establish a communication channel with Him in whom we will have the sweet
joyful sense of the presence of Jesus and that our hearts will burn within us
as He draws neigh to commune with us as He did with Enoch.
Do you realize that you have the privilege of having a relationship with
God as Enoch had?
One more here;
“When we eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood,”.... (And we will touching on that later on, maybe not tonight.) .... “When we
eat Christ's flesh and drink His blood the element of eternal life will be
found in the ministry. There will not be a fund of stale, oft-repeated ideas.
The tame, dull sermonizing will cease. The old truths will be presented, but they
will be seen in a new light. There will be a new perception of truth, clearness
and a power that all will discern. ....Their perceptive faculties will be
quickened to discern the beauty and majesty of truth.”
Page 133; “Far more than we do it is our privilege to understand these
wonderful themes.”.... And she just is talking about the gospel and the key
that unlocks it. And she goes on to say on page 135;
(4)
“Thousands more may engage in the work of searching out the mysteries of
salvation. As the life of Christ and the character of His mission are dwelt
upon, rays of light will shine forth more distinctly at every attempt to
discover truth. Each fresh search will reveal something more deeply interesting
than has yet been unfolded. The subject is inexhaustible. The study of the
incarnation of Christ, His atoning sacrifice and mediatorial work, will employ
the mind of the diligent student as long as time shall last;”... And those
three topics are all directly connected with The Everlasting Covenant as we
will see. ... “And looking to heaven with its unnumbered years he will exclaim,
"Great is the mystery of godliness." In eternity we shall learn that
which had we received the enlightenment it was possible to obtain here, would
have opened our understanding. The themes of redemption will employ the hearts
and minds and tongues of the redeemed through the everlasting ages. They will
understand the truths which Christ longed to open to His disciples, but which
they did not have faith to grasp. Forever and forever new views of the
perfection and glory of Christ will appear.”
“Those who eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God’.... This
is from Testimonies to ministers, page 116). .... “Those who eat the
flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God will bring from the books of Daniel
and Revelation truth that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. They will start into
action forces that cannot be repressed. The lips of children will be opened to
proclaim the mysteries that have been hidden from the minds of men. “We are
standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Many of the prophecies
are about to be fulfilled in quick succession. Every element of power is about
to be set to work. Past history will be repeated; old controversies will arouse
to new life, and peril will beset God's people on
every side. Intensity is taking hold of the human family. It is permeating
everything upon the earth. Study Revelation in connection with Daniel, for
history will be repeated. We, with all our religious advantages, ought to know
far more today than we do know. As we near the close of this world's history,
the prophecies relating to the last days especially demand our study. The last
book of the New Testament Scriptures is full of truth that we need to
understand.”
Well, I don't think I'll read more of those at the moment.
There is just one other one here I want to read, I have a couple dozen
more, of different types, we can probably read those some other time.
This is found in Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing page 20;
“The words of God are the wellsprings of life. As you seek unto those living
springs you will, through the Holy Spirit, be brought into communion with
Christ.”.... (Did you get it?) .... “As you seek unto those living springs
(words of God) you will, through the Holy Spirit, be brought into communion
with Christ.”.... Listen now ....“Familiar truths will present themselves to
your mind in a new aspect, texts of Scripture
(5)
will burst upon you with a new meaning as a flash of light, you will see the
relation of other truths to the work of redemption, and you will know that
Christ is leading you, a divine Teacher is at your side.”
There are one or two others I thought I had handy.
Christ's Object lessons page 112;
I'd better read two or three more of these so we get the total picture.
“No one can search the Scriptures in the spirit of Christ without being
rewarded. When a man is willing to be instructed as a little child, when he
submits wholly to God, he will find the truth in His word. If men would be
obedient, they would understand the plan of God's government.” (Do you
understand the plan of God's government? If you don't, there is a condition,
obedience.)
“All who come to Christ.”.... This is page thirty. .... “All who come to
Christ for a clearer knowledge of the truth will receive it. He will unfold to
them the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and these mysteries will be
understood by the heart that longs to know the truth.”
Review and Herald Dec. 20,
1892; “There is no excuse for any one in taking the position that there is no
more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are
without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for
many years by our people is not a proof that our ideas are infallible.”.... And
that applies to all of us. “.... No true doctrine will lose anything by close
investigation.”
Christ's Object Lessons page 108;
Christ's words are truth and they have a deeper significance than appears on
the surface. All the sayings of Christ have a value beyond their unpretending
appearance. Minds that are quickened by the Holy Spirit will discern the value
of these sayings. They will discern the precious gems of truth, though these
may be buried treasures.
Review and Herald Oct. 21,
1890; “To say that a passage means just this and nothing more, that you must
not attach any broader meaning to the words of Christ than we have in the past,
this is saying that which is not actuated by the Spirit of God.” .... In other
words, just because a passage has meant to us a certain thing for many years we
are not at liberty to say that it has no other meaning. If we say that we are
saying something that the Spirit of God did not prompt us to say. Shall I read
it again? .... “To say that a passage means just this and nothing more, that
you must not attach any broader meaning to the words of Christ than we have in
the past, is saying that which is not actuated by the Spirit of God.”
Remnant Church page 20; “Those who think that they will not have to
give up a cherished view, never have occasion to change opinion, will be
disappointed.
(6)
As long as we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined
persistency we cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed.”
Review and Herald Aug. 2,
1889; Maybe I am reading too many of these. .... “We
should never permit the spirit to be manifested that arraigned the priests and
rulers against the redeemer of the world. They complained that He disturbed the
people and they wished He would let them alone for He caused perplexity and
dissension. The Lord sends light to us to prove what manner of spirit we are
of.”
Now I haven't time to go in and show you tonight. The evidences we have
that the Lord is going to bring a very severe shaking upon His Church, and the
evidences are coming in thick and fast that the time is right upon us. And one
of the means that God is going to use to shake us loose is to bring in expanded
views of truth that is one of the means that will bring about a situation where
people are differing in their opinions and because of those differences they
are perplexed. We are moving into a time when every individual is going to have
to stand on his own two feet; he is going to have to have his own relationship
with God and his own communication channel. His is going to have to study the
word of God earnestly and sincerely and independently, and he is also going to
have to open his mind to receive the things other people are discovering in the
word of God. And Sister White recognizes the God's people will be meeting in
little companies studying the word of God and the word will continue to expand
in their thinking. There are some who have a very self-satisfied attitude
towards God's message, and God put a message in the book, Revelation 3, which is
designed for His people at this time, the remnant church, known as the
Laodicean Church. The message that He placed there was one of warning to them
that they should not become too self-satisfied. He says, you think that you are
rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. And then He gives
counsel.
Revelation 3:17, 18;
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need
of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that
thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that
the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve,
that thou mayest see.”
I have the statement with me but I won't take the time to look it up to
read it because I am taking too much time on this but Sister White applies that
passage very specifically to some of our people who have the feeling that they
are secure in the truth. We have the truth and we are safe. Inasmuch as the
Israelites back in Jeremiah's day were told by the false prophets to put their
trust in the temple, remember in our Sabbath school lesson two weeks ago? We
much be careful not to place our trust in corporate
strength. We much search and move in toward a personal relationship with God
because every one of us, if we are going through, is going to be required to
stand on His own, in His own defense, between himself and God alone.
(7)
So, I'll read you one more here, from Review and Herald Apr. 1,
1890; “To our brethren who are standing in this self-confident, self-satisfied
position, who talk and act as if there was no need of more light, we want to
say that the Laodicean message is applicable to you.”
I think that I won't go any further with those at this stage, if we need
more at some later time I will bring them in.
Now, the reason that I am reading these statements to you at this point
is simply this; The Everlasting Covenant is one of the mysteries of God. There
are certain things about it which are revealed in the book, the Bible, and some
things that are revealed about it in The Spirit of Prophecy. And in
dealing with this topic we will be reading some of these passages that will
raise questions in our mind as to how can that be. And
as we compare passage with passage we will see that there is a link and a
connection between those passages and together we will get a view of this
covenant that we probably have not noticed before. And I would just like for
you to be prepared. I am a little sensitive towards this because some things I
have expressed in the pass have been misunderstood and some things I have said,
I have misunderstood, and we need to be cautious and base all our thinking
clearly on the word of God and on The Spirit of Prophecy.
Now, at that point, does anybody have any comments or questions to make
before we go into the covenant?
(A man in the audience) Would you differentiate in your mind the term
Everlasting Covenant and the plan of salvation or do you see this as one and
the same? Or, is the plan of salvation part of the big covenant?
(Wilfred) The Everlasting Covenant as I understand it comprehends the
plan of salvation.
(A man in the audience) But the plan of salvation is not The Everlasting
Covenant. Is it part of it?
(Wilfred) The covenant is an agreement. The details of the agreement are
the plan of salvation.
(A man in the audience) So, basically they are one and the same thing?
(Wilfred) I think basically, yes.
(A man in the audience) That is the point I wanted to get your thinking
on.
(Wilfred) Well that’s the way I see it at the present time. Maybe we
will discover something on it that would lead us in one direction or another.
(8)
(A man in the audience) So, in
other words, this is going to be our theme of study all through the ages in
heaven?
(Wilfred) Yes.
(A man in the audience) We are told we are going to study the plan of
salvation.
(Wilfred) Yes, and it will continue to unfold. And the reason I have
read some of these statements is because we will probably be discussing some
things that maybe you have not thought about before. And I didn't want anyone
to get the feeling that we were delving into mysteries that we had no business
delving into. I wanted you to know a little bit about want Sister White says,
and what we can expect, and I know that some people are very averse to
discussing anything that they have not thought about down through the years.
They want to stay right on that ridged road and there is no room for expansion
of understanding. Which is find for those people who wish that, but Sister
White has some things to say about that too. But I don't want to take any more
time now to talk about it or we won't get on with the covenant. I should give a
little bit on the covenant tonight.
Last night at prayer meeting I went through the background of the
Kingdom of God so that we could understand a little bit about how this covenant
came into being and why it came into being. But some of you were not there, so,
I suppose the rest of you could be tolerant enough to allow me just a few
minutes to point out how the covenant became necessary.
In the Kingdom of God there was no such thing as coercion. God's Kingdom
operates more or less like any kingdom in the sense that you have a group of
subjects, a dominion with people in it. These people have freedom of choice,
they can act on their own, individual initiative, make their own choices, and
God gave them that heritage. And it is because of that principle, freed of
choice that the entire plan of salvation became necessary; there could have
been no sin if there was no freedom of choice.
Apparently this principle of freedom of choice, the individual
independent acting decision, is so valuable in the sight of God that He was
willing to make this stupendous sacrifice in order to preserve it. If there had
been no freedom of choice there would have been no need for the plan of
salvation, because everyone would obey on the basis of the programming of his being.
Now in God's created beings He did program His law into their hearts. They were
instinctively obedient. They instinctively had the principle of the law in
their hearts.
Does anybody want to tell us what the principle of God's law is?
(A man in the audience) Self-renouncing love.
(9)
(Wilfred) Yes, you will find that in the first chapter of Desire of
Ages. The law of life for earth and heaven and the principle of God's
character, the basis of His total activity is love, but
a unique kind of love, a love that reaches out, rather than turns in. Well, it
had to be this way if He was going to have a kingdom of peace with freewill
beings. Because, if I have a freedom of choice and I can do as I please and you
have a freedom of choice and can do as you please, if my will is free and your
will is free, then I can decide to do something in my interest that interfere
with something you want to do in your interest and sooner or later that's going
to happen, otherwise the will isn't free. There is no independence. But if I
decide to do something that interferes with your rights and privileges then I
am going to cause you unhappiness if override your will and do it anyway. So,
it is no longer a kingdom of peace. The only way that God could guarantee a
kingdom of peace was to institute this restriction. You can do as you please
until your pleasure begins to interfere with somebody else's pleasure then you
have to consider your neighbor. You have to regard your neighbor as yourself.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Don't do things in your own interest that are
going to harm your neighbor. Now that is the true principle of God's law, and a
Christian, a genuine Christian will function on that basis. I sometimes wonder
how many genuine Christians we have.
Our instinctive motivation for choices is normally in the interest of
self. We make all our plans, all our purposes are built on the idea of what we
are going to get out of it. Is that right? And there is nothing wrong with
that, until it gets to the point where it interferes with other people. Now, at
which point does that start?
The lord has a way of dealing with that. Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you. We can still run into difficulty on that because my
standards may be a little different than somebody else's, and what I would not
mind them doing to me, they might mind my doing to them. But let’s not get to
far afield in that. Basically, that's the principle.
Now, if you do the first commandment, is of course love the Lord you God
with all your heart, with all you mind and all you strength, and so on. But he
says, if you do that, and if you want to demonstrate
that you love the lord with all your heart then the way that you do it is to
love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says; “In as much as you have do it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, you have done unto to me.” So, if you
want to do something for God, to show your appreciation, to show your love, you
do it to others.
Well, I would like to go into the details of the original Kingdom, to
give you some concept of the type of government God had in the beginning. But
that there again I am going to run into a lot of time and I am so long winded
that it’s pathetic.
But how do you understand things unless you lead the mind through those
things and bring the thoughts together so you get a concept, I don't know
there’s any
(10)
other way to do it. Let it be sufficient to say that the original Kingdom of
God was a kingdom of peace, everybody was happy, everybody loved to serve the
Lord, it was their instinct, their greatest joy, to serve God. The angels
received their greatest happiness from serving God. You find some of this in
“The Story of Redemption”, and some of it in Mount of Blessing I think,
and other books. And if you want me to read it, I can do that, but won't do it
just to postpone it.
Now what upset this thing? The one to whom God had given the greatest of
all gifts, the being upon whom He had showered the highest degree of talents,
the greatest beauty, and the highest position, that one, began to question the
justice of God's law. He wanted to indulge himself a little more, he didn't
think God's law was quite fair, it was too restrictive; he thought he could do
away with that law. You don't believe it? It’s in the books, The Story of
redemption.
Now as soon as you do away with God's law, can you see that peace cannot
be sustained? Can you see that? Is there anyone who can't see that? Just let a
bunch of people lose doing their own thing. Tell them they can do anything they
please. What's going to happen sooner or later? Peace, harmony, everybody
happy? Well, in order for God to vindicate His law He had to let Lucifer prove
that his ideas were not right. He had no choice really in that matter, He could
have destroyed Lucifer. Sure. He could have taken Lucifer's freedom of choice
away and made him a machine, obey His dictates. But the freedom of choice was
the thing God was not willing to relinquish. That He wanted to preserve.
Because He wanted to preserve that He had to go through with the plan of
salvation.
Now look, why did God want to preserve the freedom of choice? Is there
something so specifically valuable that it was worth that much cost? What do
you think?
(A Women in the audience) They wouldn't have had true fellowship.
(Wilfred) That's good, that's good.
(A Man in the audience) Love can only exist if the freedom of choice
exists.
(Wilfred) And that’s a good statement too. Although love and freedom of choice
are two distinct things, I'd have to get a little more thought to that one
before I can crystallize a conclusion on it. I can feature that it would be
possible to have love, the feelings of love, without having the freedom of
choice. But I would have to give it more thought, Does anyone else have a
though on it, have you though it through?
(A woman in the audience) unintelligible,
(something about her dog.)
(Wilfred) Yes, he’s programmed. Well I don't think the thought is
pertinent to our argument here anyway at the moment so maybe we can move on and
come
(11)
back to it, if somebody wants to come back to it.
(A Man in the audience) The question is if we are going to serve God can
we use all the service as a motive of Love and that can only be prompted by a
choice made by the party going to do the service.
(Wilfred) That's right brother, that's good, thanks for bringing that
in.
(A Man in the audience) It can be forced.
(Wilfred) That's right. Love as a motivation of behavior can only
function where there is freedom of choice. Everybody got that? Now where you
have freedom of choice, if there is no outside coercion of any kind, none at
all, then can you see that that freedom of choice gives you the privilege of
creation. You can come up with something new, something that is entirely your
decision. It wasn't given to you, it wasn't pushed on you, and it's in the
principle of freedom of choice that created art, created works, are produced.
Now do you see this, the reason that God is so anxious to preserve the freedom
of choice is the fact that His character constrained Him to do it. What is His
character? What kind of love? Self-sacrificing. Now if
He didn't have somebody to self-sacrifice it on, He couldn’t function as a God
with that character. God craved fellowship with beings who could respond on
their own initiative without any outside compulsion. You get that?
The creating of freewill beings was providing God with a situation where
He could
express His character. Parents, children come into the family that gives you
the privilege of expressing your character.
(A woman in the audience) Well then, are angles and human beings the
only ones that have this power or characteristics?
(Wilfred) It is my understanding that there are many other worlds in
which there are freewill beings, I think we can get the verification for that
in the books.
(A Man in the audience) May I even suggest it goes beyond beings in a
sense even goes to created nature, birds; we may get this concept if you'll
read that part right adjacent to the quotation that we have already mentioned.
If I recall correctly it’s on page 19 originally it is amplified on page 20 of Desire
of Ages and right on the lower portion there is depicted to the right lower
portion this is what I have always called the circuit of beneficence, I don't
know if you want to expand on that idea there, but it says “Even as the birds
sing, and they in turn praise God and we in turn praise God by sharing our
love. God gave His love through His son to us we in turn praise God by
imparting this love to other so that they two may praise God and this is the
way this whole thing works as a circuit. And when we fail to impart this love
of God to our fellow men then we break the circuit. And this is called the circuit
of beneficence; Beneficence is another word
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for charity which is another word for love. This whole concept of the
circuit of beneficence, and it even talks, go under, yea, right there on that
page, right there above your finger maybe.
(Wilfred) My paging is different, apparently.
(A man in the audience) Oh, I am sorry.
(Wilfred) Because page 19 is the very first page in my
book.
(Another man in the audience) There is nothing save the selfish hard man
that lives to itself, is that the part, no bird cleaves the air, no animal that
move on the ground....
(The other man again) All of this, yes, that's the idea, where you have
the birds, the animals, lives unto itself. They all live for the benefit of
man. And man in turn has lived in turn to benefit the Lord. Because we have
received, we must give, and when we don't, it breaks the circuit.
(Wilfred) Very good. Well we are leading up to
The Everlasting Covenant.
When Lucifer decided with his own free choice to go contrary to the law
of God and he refused to accept the counsel, to accept the advice, to accept
the warning, as to the consequences. God could have stopped it, but if He had
stopped it the minds of the other beings in the universe could always have had
a question.
Now, the fact that God knew of the apostasy right from the beginning
indicates to me that God was prepared to go through with this thing right from
the start. And if He was prepared to go through it right from the start He knew
the outcome and decided the outcome was worth it. Do you follow that? So, He
knew that Lucifer was going to foul it up. He gave Lucifer everything He could
give him, all the honor He could give him, just a
little bit below the Son of God, he was next in line from the Son of God in the
hierarchy in heaven. And God knew that it wasn't going to work. You see, God's
principle of position and honor is based on character and the person who
humbles himself, what does the Bible say, he will be exalted, and the person
who exalts himself, what will happen, he is humbled.
Now God exalted Lucifer and Lucifer did not have to fall. He could have
had that position for eternity, but there is one condition; let him who is
greatest of all, be a servant. And Lucifer wasn't willing to take that, he
didn't like that idea, he wanted a little bit more of his own thing. He wanted
to do his own thing and forget about God's law. So here was the soil in which
God could demonstrate the principle of His law. He said, Ok, I am going to let
Lucifer demonstrate his ideas. He created this earth and He placed man upon it,
in a mortal state, so, that after the demonstration was all completed the
consequences that are intolerable in the
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Kingdom of Heaven could be destroyed. There is only one way to get rid
of things you don't want, that is to destroy them. If
anybody is expendable and useless, he dies. But everybody that God created in
this world has the privilege after having had preformed his part as a guinea
pig in the great demonstration of being rewarded with everlasting life in the
Kingdom of Heaven. God is fair, He is not cruel, and He is not unjust. And the
people who are willing to go through the highest degree of service, the service
that causes the greatest degree of suffering or pain or whatever will be
rewarded according to their works of surrender and willingness. Do you
understand that?
Now, if you cannot take the position that God has placed you in, if you
feel you can't take it, like Lucifer, but you honestly feel that the thing is
too hard for you God will let you have your own will, your own choice, and you
do not necessarily have to be lost. That is in Corinthians. You can
accept the call of God, and there is no repenting of that. If you decide not to
take the call that God gives you, and then God will choose somebody else. And
you have lost that call. But you do not necessarily at the same time have to
lose eternal life. Let’s be sure of that. Now some people will, who was that
who was called before Sister White for that special job? It was Hazen Foss and
William Foy. Now, one of them and I forgot which one it was, by his own choice
said that he couldn't make it.
He created the earth, He set man upon it, and He ordained that here
Lucifer would have the opportunity to show his principles of government. To
demonstrate before all the universe how his ideas
would function. Now you say, well, suppose Adam had not sinned. Alright, if
Adam had not sinned the demonstration would not have gone forward. But listen,
God knew of the apostasy from the beginning. God knew that Adam was going to
fall. He knew it. So, His plan was all set up. Right from the start He had the
provision made. And He knew, He could see the end from
the beginning, that after the demonstration had gone forward for six thousand
years, and that is a significant thing too. It was six days that He made the
literal creation, and on the seventh day He looked it all over and saw that it
was good. Six days, each day for a thousand years, He planned for the
demonstration and the restoration, the recreation of the image of God in His
people, and on the seventh day, a seventh thousand years, you know what we are
going to be doing? We are going to be looking over the whole situation,
everything that happened and deciding that God was right. It was good what He did.
Got that? It is a very significant parallel.
(A Man in the audience) Where did you glean that concept from? That’s a
quotation I would very much appreciate. I will be happy to supply you later on with
thirty three statements about the six thousand year period, from The Spirit
of Prophecy. Dr. _____ passed them to me the other day.
(Another man in the audience) That's one I would like to have,
(A man in the audience continues) There are thirty three statements from
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The Spirit of Prophecy indicating
that until Christ comes there will be a six thousand year period, and then there is the thousand
years of rest when we will study the history of this world during the
millennium, and see if God is fair.
(Wilfred) I'll answer your question just the same. I got that concept as
I looked at the picture that comes to me through the scriptures and the
calendar, and where the Bible says that one day with the Lord is as a thousand
years and a thousand years is as a day. And Sister White says that every
statement has a significant meaning beyond its surface meaning. And I just take
a look at the genealogies which date back to about 4000 B.C. and where we are
in history, and the signs are taking place, and it all fits together. Now I
can't say that we're going to end right at the end of six thousand years
exactly, I am dubious about that because the Bible says that except He shorten
those days no flesh will be saved. Now whether that means shorten the six thousand
years or not, remains to be seen, I am not concerned about it because the Bible
says that no man knows the day and hour when this thing is going to round out.
However, they will know before the end comes. But I don't know and I haven't
contacted anybody else that could prove to me any particular date was the right
date. But I rather suspect that there is something in the book that will give
the clue, but failing that regardless, the voice of God is going to speak from
heaven delivering The Everlasting Covenant, pronouncing the never ending
blessing, and giving the saints the day and hour of Jesus' coming, those three
things, the voice of God from heaven is going to declare before Jesus comes.
But it won't be very much before according to the sequences of The Great
Controversy, it looks like it comes very close to the end. So, we won't
worry about that.
Now, we are right near the end of the conflict, the controversy, and
Sister White said that as we near the end God's people are going to be stirred
up to study the word. They're going to be intensely interested in the closing
events and its now happening all over the continent, meetings like we are
having here are duplicated all over the place. People are gathering in private
homes, little groups, families, and they are delving into the
prophesies and the books. They are gathering up the quotations, there is
no end of individuals who have been burdened to go into The Spirit of
Prophecy in research and gather all the passages that deal with a certain subject.
I have several of those books at home where somebody has gone to work and
gathered all the quotations that deal with any one particular subject that they
can find in The Spirit of Prophecy. And these things are going to be of
inestimable value for us as we fortify our minds with the truths of the
scriptures so that we can stand through the last great conflict, and if we
don't do it, we won't stand. We won't necessarily be lost but, whether you are
saved or lost depends on your faith in God. If you lose your faith in God
you've had it., because you are saved by faith. And
the devil is going to do everything he can to destroy your faith. You can't put
your trust in any person; you can't even put your trust in any denomination.
You can't put your trust in the theologians. I can read that to you from the
pen of inspiration. You can't do it. Your faith is going to have to be built on
your understanding on your word of God as the Spirit of God has
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revealed it to you. And if it is the Spirit of God that is working on your heart and mind and it
will be if you fulfill the conditions. Then your thinking will harmonize with
the thinking of every other one of God’s children because Jesus prayed that
they would all come into unity, into the unity of the faith, that they would
all be one as He and His Father were one, that was His last prayer. And the
saints are going to be perfectly united in their understanding of God's
principles of truth. There may be little facets on the fringes that are
different because we have different minds. But the concepts, the basic concepts
of the plan of redemption and specifically the things that pertain to the
experience of God's people in these closing hours, and it is a very
important subject, they will be unified on those things.
Anything I say, don't accept it just because I said it. But go to God
and His word and if you find evidence that the things that we discussed are in
fact true, and you are convinced in your own mind, thank God. If you find that
the Bible contradicts it, The Spirit of Prophecy contradicts it, then I
would be the first person who would thank you because you came and showed me,
because I want the truth and nothing but the truth. I have found statements
that contradict other statements and I may say something
(The end of C/D #17 and the beginning of C/D #18)
If the contradictions occur and you can't see through them put them on
the shelf, just leave them rest, don't forget them just put them in storage.
Sooner or later you ask God to help you understand that, sooner or later you'll
come across other passages of scripture or you'll have other experiences which
will give you the material that when brought together with those two
contradictory passages will link them up and they will fit like a glove, and
you'll get inspiration like a flash, I see it. There it is. It is something
like putting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together, you know. You put these pieces
where they fit, and they fit only in one place, and when you get them all
together you know that you've got them in the right place because you see the
picture. And that is the way God's plan of salvation is. When you have the
correct interpretation it will fit the total concept.
Now the plan of salvation is very complex, I didn't read you that statement
but she has one which says that there are many things in it that we still don't
understand. And that it will unfold through every generation. In fact she makes
this statement. I think I should read this one.
The Great Controversy page 609;
“Different periods in the history of the church have each been marked by the
development of some special truth, adapted to the necessities of God's people
at that time. Every new truth has made its way against hatred and opposition;
those who were blessed with its light were tempted and tried. The Lord gives a
special truth for the people in an emergency.”
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In Christ's Object Lessons page 129; “In every age there is a new
development of truth, a message of God to the people of that generation. The old
truths are all essential; new truth is not independent of the old, but an
unfolding of it.”
On page 78, the same book; “For His church in every generation God has a
special truth and a special work....At the outset its advocates are few. By the
great men of the world and by a world-conforming church, they are opposed and
despised.”
Now my question is. Oh, one more, I'll read before I comment. Page 134, “The significance of the Jewish economy is not yet fully
comprehended. Truths vast and profound are shadowed forth in its rites
and symbols. The gospel is the key that unlocks its mysteries. Through a knowledge of the plan of redemption, its truths are opened
to the understanding. Far more than we do, it is our privilege to understand
these wonderful themes. We are to comprehend the deep things of God.”
I hope I have read enough of those statements to justify what we are
doing. I am merely planning to share with you the things that God has permitted
me to see in the books. And you can sort them out, check them and come to your
own conclusions. Some of them we can't come to conclusions on, we simply have
to accept because the book say it. You don't understand, well, it still says
it, and we accept it. Some of them we will be able to understand, but we are to
comprehend far more than we do, see. We should be understanding
far more than we do understand, that's the point. And how are we to come to
understand more than we do understand if we don't dig in and study. She talks
about digging like a miner digging for gold, or for minerals, we've got to dig,
but we must have the right attitude. We are not digging in any sense to use
what we discover for self glorification or for self monetary aggrandizement is
the right word, right. Or curiosity, or sensation, or argument
sake. And my recommendation is to you that if you spot something you
hadn't seen before, you don't necessarily have to go out and broadcast it all
over Alberta the moment you see it. Because you may have seen something that is
right or you may have something that is wrong. Hang on to it for a while, do a
little more checking. Wait a bit to see whether it fits in with the rest of the
picture. And when you finally get a unit of the concept and it is dead sure,
then maybe you can start sharing a little of it with somebody, and seeing how
the reaction is. Maybe they can point out to you something that is a flaw in
it, maybe they can add something to it, and maybe they can substantiate it.
Now, my question relative to these statements; Where
do you think we are living today? What
part of the time period are we in?
(A man in the audience) The time when the angels are
holding back the winds of strife.
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(Wilfred) Yes, just ready to let loose. Why aren't they letting loose?
(A man in the audience) Because the saints have not
yet been sealed in their foreheads.
(Wilfred) Right! And why have they not been sealed?
(A man in the audience) They are not prepared to stand for the things
that lie ahead.
(Wilfred) Right! They are not prepared for the great and dreadful day of
the Lord. That is exactly what it is. They're not preparing.
And the seal is a settling into the truth. But they don't understand all
the truth yet. When the Holy Spirit comes, the Spirit of truth, He is going to
guide you into how much of it?
(Audience) All.
(Wilfred) Are you sure of that? That's what is says, isn't it? Do we
have it all yet?
(Audience) No.
(Wilfred) That wasn't very loud.
(Audience) No.
(Wilfred) Are you sure?
(A man in the audience) Sister White says in Selective Messages Vol 1 page 401, “We only have the glimmerings of the rays
of light that are yet to come to us as a people. “
(Wilfred) But she also says, and here this contradictory statements, But
she also says; But all the truth necessary to see us through to the Kingdom of
God has been given.
(A man in the audience) But we don't understand it.
(Wilfred) See now, you've got to bring those two thoughts together. Both
of those two statements are correct otherwise she is a false prophet.
We don't understand the truth that has been given. That's the key.
(A man in the audience) Part of it is that we haven't studied
sufficiently.
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(Wilfred) Good, Good, Now if we are going to be prepared for the
sealing, if we are going to be fortified so we can stand through the last great
conflict we must fortify our minds. And that is what we are attempting to do or
going to attempt to do. And I am a little slow here at getting at the subject I
hope you will forgive me.
There are hundreds of related thoughts and ideas that mesh in with it
and without bringing some of them we will be walking along a street like horse
with blinders over its eyes and he can't see except straight down the road. And
if that's all a horse can see, it doesn't know anything about the territory it
going though. Right? We need to, as we go through the
streets of this great panorama of truth keep our eyes peeled in all directions
so that we can tell how all the streets fit together and find our way through
the maze. So, I have to do a little of this and I hope you will be tolerant
with me. If you stay with me long enough I think I can pretty well guarantee
that you're are going to see a jigsaw puzzle with a picture in it. But if you
just get snatches of it here and there that picture isn't going to show up. And
it will look like a hodge-podge. But I want to assure you right here and now
that I am thinking in terms of a coherent, logical, sensible picture that I
have checked and rechecked and have found dozens and dozens and dozens of
statements all through The Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible that concur
with that picture. And I am constantly looking for things that contradict it,
because I want the truth, and God knows that. In my teenage I couldn't understand
the truth. I had no trouble understanding other things. Science was quite
simple for me I didn't have any trouble getting 100% on my exams or awfully
close to it. And I could comprehend things very quickly, I could understand
them and how they worked, see through it, But I can't remember things. And God
doesn't always bless us with all the good things in life. But actually, I am
thankful to God because I have a good forgetter. Because there are things in
life that I like to forget and as long as I am going to live in this world I
will be thankful to the Lord if He will continue to let me have a good
forgetter. It has a penalty with it. I have to keep studying and studying and
studying to retain things that I want to keep, and that is a chore. But then it
is off-set by thought that I can forget the things I don't want to remember,
and some people have a very sharp memory they can't forget. And they keep on worrying and worrying and
worrying about the past and the mistakes they've made and the painful things
they have experienced, they never have any peace.
I am thankful that the Lord introduced the principle of death. Because
incidentally a dying memory is a part of death, if you lost your total memory
right now, you couldn't remember a thing that ever happened to you, you were
just band new fresh setting here and that all you ever knew. What part of your
life would you have? It’s all gone. You are essentially dead. Death is
unconsciousness isn't it? And you are totally unconscious of your past life.
Your life is gone, it’s gone. So, I am glad that God introduced death because
only by death, the principle of death could sin be irradiated and its
consequences. If that thing was forever going to be popping up throughout all
eternity, constantly looking back at all these horrible things that have
happened and there are some awfully horrible things that have
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happened under the government of Satan, some terrible things, how happy could we
be? And even God Himself says in His everlasting covenant, He states it, He
says, I also am going to forget something.
(A man in audience) Your inequities and your sins.
Wilfred) I'll wipe them clean up. Now God is going to have to take a
part of His life where that is recorded and slice it off. Even God is going to
taste of death because of sin. Doesn't it say that God died with His Son? He
suffered with his son. I don't have the statement, maybe I am wrong. It seems
to me that some place she says, it just came back to me now. She says something
about how. I probably didn't say it quite right. But God suffered through the
death with His Son, I mean He felt it, He partook of it, but I don't understand
that, the God head is a mystery. However, I do understand this,
that Christ died an eternal death of the sinner. I know that. Because she said it. And she also says that the death of the
sinner is an everlasting death from which there will be no hope of a
resurrection. So Christ did die to something for eternity. But we won't go into
that either. We will be touching on it later.
But, do you see why death was necessary? Death was not just an arbitrary
consequence of sin that the Lord invented and said well, I'm going to punish
you because you sinned, I'm going to wipe you right of the face of the earth or
I'm going to torture you for eternity as many of the Protestant Churches
believe. God didn't just do that because He took a notion to do it. It was the
merciful thing to do. No way could you have an eternal government of peace, a
complete restoration to the peaceful government before Lucifer's sin, which I
could read to you out of the books. No way could you have that restored if the
effects of sin were going to be remembered in the future. Only by death could
that be irradiated. Only by death can suffering be irradiated. You see. The
penalty of sin, no, I won't say penalty, I'll say consequence. The consequence
of sin is suffering. You break God's law and somebody is going to get hurt and
that suffering can become very intense. Jesus accepted the most intense
suffering that any being ever suffered, He accepted that. And death was a
relief, a release, from the suffering. Death is a merciful thing. I would
rather have eternal death than eternal suffering, wouldn't you?
I think you had a question?
(A man in the audience) Yes, your reference as to death being a method
of forgetting.
(Wilfred) That's part of it.
(A man in the audience) Now, how about the one hundred and forty four
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thousand that are going to be translated without seeing death yet they
would have partaken of the results of sin and so on and so forth, they are
going to suffer a small death on their own as well.
(Wilfred) They are not going to die physically but they are going to
reach a stage where they cannot recall a single sin that has not been confessed,
and they know that when a sin has been confessed that it has been forgiven and
it will no longer torment them. In other words, God is going to cleanse house
for them in such a manner that they will not be tortured with quilt over the
sins of the past. They are going to forget their sins just like God is. If God
is going to forget them, surely He is not going to let His people remember
them. You see. Now they are going to go through a period of cleansing, an
experience in which they are going to be cleansed. And I will be touching on
that, it’s in the Bible and it’s in The Spirit of Prophecy. Those who
are willing to go through and I hope you people are or some of you, because if
you aren't and nobody else is we going to be handing around for more than six
thousand years. And I don't want to see the world then; maybe I'll be passing
off anyway. But what about you younger people, you will still be around and I
do not want to be here if I were you. The sooner we can get this thing over
with, the sooner we are going to be out of it. And if we are willing to do it
God is going the initiate a program of purification of His people, a cleansing
of His people. But we have to fulfill the conditions. And as soon as they are
purified and perfected, probation will close. And He will demonstrate after
probation closes that the plan of salvation worked. Because
here He has got a people who are keeping His commandments and who have the
faith of Jesus. And they have no mediator to stand good for their
deficiencies, they are standing before a holy God without a mediator and they
are living before a holy God without sin. And some people don't believe that
can happen, even some of our good Adventist theologians don't believe that can
happen. But there is an increasing number who are catching the message. And the
literature is coming out, the articles are being written, and they are dead on.
God's people are beginning to see the things they are going to have to see in
order for the Lord to close up His work. And that is one of them.
God's people are going to be perfected; they are going to overcome sin
as Jesus overcame. You don't believe it? Well, you don't have to believe it,
but I'll read it. Right out of the message that God wrote to this particular
people. Again back to Revelation 3:21. In verse twenty He shows you what
He is going to do to bring it about. In verse twenty one He goes on to say what
the results going to be. And He says, “To him that overcometh
will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set
down with my Father in his throne.”
Now look at that a little closer, and maybe you have looked at it, it
really says more than one thing and much of the scriptures are that way. It is
so carefully written, that's why I like the King James Version with all
apologizes to the other interpretations. I think that God had His Spirit
guiding the translators in all the important things and many passages are so
written that they have more than one
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meaning so that the meaning is present truth under a new situation. But listen,
it doesn't just mean that they overcome in somewhat the same way that the Lord
overcomes it means that they overcame by the same process that the Lord overcame. To him
that overcometh....even as I also overcame.... I can read
it to you from the books.
The reason that Jesus came into this world was to prove that in sinful
humanity it was possible to live without sin through the strength that would be
given by God in the union of divinity with humility. And Jesus came to this
world and stripped himself of all the power He had within Himself and accepted
only the power that God gave to Him in His conflict with sin. And He used in
His own behave no power that is not freely available to us. I quoted from
Sister White. And the reason he did was to prove that it could done. And now
that He proved that it could be done the Father was willing to accept the
mediation of Jesus on behave of The Everlasting Covenant, which I haven't got
to yet. This is all material that relates to it though we will be pointing back
to it. Jesus can now ask the Father, pray the Father and He will send what?
(The audience) The comforter.
(Wilfred) What is the comforter?
(The audience) The Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) For what purpose?
(The audience) To lead us into all truth.
(Wilfred) For what else?
(The audience) Convict the world of its sins.
(Wilfred) Yes, for what else? What have we just been talking about?
(The audience) To help us overcome.
(Wilfred) TO KEEP US FROM SINNING. That is
what she says; God gave His Holy Spirit to keep us from sinning. Now we are
going to go in and dig out from the books the process by which that takes
place. It's a process. And it’s all in there.
When the Spirit comes it brings to us the love of God. Romans 5:5
And it’s the love of God which is the life of Jesus,
the very life of Christ is His love. It is that self sacrificing love that will
be implanted in the human soul that will give the motive power, the
constraining power to enable that human soul to implement his decision to cease
from sin. Not only that, it will transform the heart so that the
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programming in the computer lines up with the law God and he will love the Law of
God and hate the sin, which is contrary to what he does in his natural state.
That's the job of the Holy Spirit. Now I hope you are listening. That portion
of the Holy Spirit, that particular element or aspect of the Holy Spirit, (and
it has many aspects), which is able to do that could not have been given to
sinful humanity accepting through the sacrifice of Christ. That is what He
provided through His sacrifice. He provided His own very life for you so
you could live without sin and live eternally.
(A woman in the audience) So, in time when the 144,000 when we have the
law written in our hearts and in our minds is when the Spirit can come in and
help us that way, otherwise it cannot be done that way.
(Wilfred) The Spirit will come to do that job. You can't do it yourself.
Your heart, incidentally, I should explain the heart usually in scriptures
means the emotions, the feelings, the way you feel, your likes your dislikes,
your loves and your hatreds. That’s your heart. It has other usages in the
Bible but that’s the main use, that’s what we are talking about there when we
talk about a transformed heart, a changed heart, it’s your feelings, your
emotions. You see, Jesus delighted to do the will of the Father, right, He
delighted to do God’s law, it was a joy to Him, He liked it, and He wanted to
do it. So He didn’t have, I shouldn’t say He had too much trouble doing it
because the devil was moving through His physical degenerate nature to pull Him
down. But it was because of His divine nature, which recoiled at evil, she
says, that He hated sin that is why He didn’t sin. Now, with me, I love sin,
some of it, like the box of chocolates that somebody from the states sent me a
couple of days ago, and I dug into those and I ate more than I should have.
Now, why did I do that, and I didn’t feel very good for a day or so. Because my heart is sinful. My appetite graves the
chocolates, I love chocolates. Now, if I hated chocolate like I hate mustard,
there would have been no temptation. And the Lord says He going to change that
heart of mine so that it is in harmony with His. Because He
said so in His New Covenant. He says; I will give you a new heart, I
will write my law in your heart. And when He writes that law in my heart I will
love the law of God. I won’t be like Lucifer, not like him, I will love it,
(A man in the audience) Would you like me to send you a box of candy if
we know you won’t eat it?
(Wilfred) I hope so. No, it isn’t quite that way. Do you know that it is
harder to eat in moderation than it is to refuse all together?
And the Bible says; Be ye temperate in all
things. Alcohol is not a sin to imbibe. It is not a sin to drink alcohol. It
depends on your motive that the purpose is. There are some people who feel that
you must NEVER do this because it’s wrong. Now, there are some things I refuse
to take. The only time I ever take alcohol is
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when there is a certain medicine that is dissolved in alcohol that I need.
And even Paul advised Timothy to take a little alcohol for His stomach sake. As
a medicine, in temperate moderation for a specific good purpose it is not a
sin. Whatsoever is not of faith, says my Bible, is sin. The implication is that
whatsoever is of faith is not sin. Happy is the man who condemneth
not himself in that thing which he alloweth. Paul
says, It is not forbidden of me, but it is expedient
that I don’t do it. Right?
I’m sorry John.
(A man in the audience) I was just going to say, If you lived out on a
farm here and you were an Adventist and your great grandfather had some brandy
that was there and there was a terrible storm and someone came in, or your dog
found someone who was just about dead it would be very wise you give him some
of that brandy to preserve his life.
(Wilfred) Well, there are many thoughts here. We have liberty in the law
of God, but not license. And let’s be careful how we understand these things.
(A man in the audience) Liberty tempered by wisdom.
(Wilfred) Liberty tempered by wisdom. The law of God you see has a
principle. A principle, that we respect what our behavior does to God and what it
does to other people. And if everything is governed on that basis, we’ll come
pretty close to it. But lest we may a little uncertain in some things the Lord
has given us an abundance of instruction that we should have no difficulty
following it.
(A woman in the audience) She does say that appetite will be hard to
overcome close to the end.
(Wilfred) It’s the last sin to be overcome. Appetite will be the last
sin that will be overcome.
(A man in the audience) She says that gluttony is the sin of this age.
(Wilfred) Meanwhile, don’t have guilt complexes. You people who are
worried about your weight and how much you’re eating and all the rest of it.
It’s a sin alright, it’s a sin. So was Peter’s behavior on the eve of the
crucifixion. It was a gruesome sin. Did God forsake him? Why did Peter sin?
(A man in the audience) He was of the flesh.
(Wilfred) Yes,
(A man in the audience) He lacked self-sufficiency.
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(Wilfred) Yes, A little more than that.
(A man in the audience) God permitted it so he would understand his true
nature.
(Wilfred) Who was the one that was really functioning through Peter?
Satan. Jesus said it. Satan has desired to have you Peter, and I’m praying for
you that your faith won’t fail. Peter had to have an experience and the only
way to have it was for God to let that happen. But He didn’t want to lose
Peter, so He prayed that Peter’s faith wouldn’t fail. The same is true with
you, God doesn’t want to lose you, but you are going to have to go through an
experience to convince you that you are totally helpless. Like the Israelites
did under the Old Covenant. They thought they could do it; God had to show them
that they couldn’t. And He is going to show you that you can do it. And when
you are good and ready to admit that and if you really want victory, you just
keep praying for it and you keep plugging at it, don’t quit. Now, there are
some people who teach that you should let go and let God, see. Yes, you let go
and let God, but you don’t stop striving. And I can read that to you.
You still make your decision not to eat those chocolates Johnson or at least
not to eat so many at one time.
It’s not a sin to have a chocolate. God made all of these things for our
pleasure and our enjoyment. But the things that are poisonous, we would be
better to stay away from them.
Now, She talks against sugar, you know that don’t you? And, so some
people say, we won’t have any sugar, so they quit eating sugar altogether. Well,
that’s not the law. And Sister White didn’t quit eating sugar. She ate sugar.
One of her favorite desserts was lemon pie. I’d like to see you eat a lemon pie
made without sugar.
(A man in the audience) She also says fruit pies are alright. And they should
be put on the table when all the rest of the meal is put on the table.
(Wilfred) That’s right. Well, the Lord does not condemn you.
(A man in the audience) You condemn yourself.
(Wilfred) Yes, you condemn yourself. Listen, the Lord has provided for
the forgiveness of every one of your sins, past, present, and future, until the
close of probation. And even then, that’s another story. And all you have to do
is accept His forgiveness.
You parents, you tell your little tykes look, you mustn’t do that, now
don’t do that, so the little tyke goes ahead and does it. What do you do? Well,
you may discipline him but you don’t pick him up and throw him out a window,
and say get out, I don’t want you any more, do you? Huh? Any
of you done that? You
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wouldn’t if you loved your kids.
Now what is God’s attitude towards us? It’s the same thing. He loves us,
and if he loves us He is not going to throw us out, no way. He doesn’t like the
sin, He hates the sin, but He loves the sinner. So, if you flunk out, you just
keep on trying. And as you have your attitude of repentance and penitence
before God and you plead for purity of heart and I can read that to you. You
plead for purity of heart; He will give it to you. But it is a process and some
of us have discussed that before and I suppose we will have to discuss it again
for those who haven’t. It’s a process. There is a purification process. It
comes through the agency of the Holy Ghost. But the Bible says. In fact, Jesus, No. It was John the Baptist that says this,
He says; I indeed baptize you with water but somebody is coming after me who is to baptize you with water and fire.
And if you want to go over to Malachi, chapter 3, you will find here the
promise that the Lord is going to send the Messenger of the covenant, and that
is what we are going to be talking about, see, is that covenant. And God is
going to send a messenger of the covenant to do a job, let’s read it. It’s
about time to quit here, but we’ll finish off with this.
“Behold, I will send my messenger and He shall prepare the way before Me, and the Lord whom you seek”.... But before I go any
further, we are looking for the Lord, aren’t we? And the way of the Lord has to
be prepared, doesn’t it? It was at the first coming and it has to be at the second
coming. You’ll find that at The Spirit of Prophecy. There is to be a
preparation of God’s people for His coming. Do you agree with that? Now, He is
going to send His messenger to do it. Do you see that? That’s what it says
here. .... “And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to His temple”. Now
listen, you have thought about that in terms of the temple in heaven, where
Christ entered to become the mediator.
(A man in the audience) In 1844?
(Wilfred) Both in the beginning and at 1844.
But he entered here now in 1844 to cleanse the temple. Right?
That’s the way you think of it. And that is correct. That is absolutely
correct. He is going there to cleanse the temple. But did you know that the
true tabernacle is two other things? Not just one, two. I don’t know where it
is just now, but I’ll get it if anybody wants it. You got it?
(A man in the audience) The Jewish tabernacle was a type of the
Christian Church, the church on earth was composed of those who are faithful and
loyal to God is the true tabernacle whereof the Redeemer is the minister. God
and not man pitched this tabernacle on of a high elevated platform. This
tabernacle is Christ’s body and from north, south, east, and west, He gathers
those who shall help to compose it. A holy tabernacle is built up of those who
receive Christ as their personal savior. Christ is the minister of the true
tabernacle, the high priest
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of all who believe in Him as a personal savior. 7th
volume of the Bible commentary, page 931.
(Wilfred) Did you all get that? Now do you see that there is another
tabernacle, another temple?
(A man in the audience) Is that taken from one of her books, or is that someone else?
(Wilfred) No, No, that is Mrs. White. It is Mrs. White. No question
about it.
Do you see now....? I hope to hold your attention now just for a few
minutes while I finish this line of thought or I’m going to leave it in mid air
and don’t want to do that.
Do you see that there is another tabernacle, another temple, into whom Christ is going to come to dwell? (The Temple is the
drawing place of Christ). The Bible bears that out. Ye are the temple of God,
built up a habitation of God through the Spirit; ye are the temple of the Holy
Ghost. Right? Alright, now what kind of a temple has
God got right now, a clean one or a dirty one? Have the sins be transferred to
the Temple through the decisions of the individual and the confession of sin.
Parallel doesn’t fully hold with all respect. But listen, when you sin what
happens to it? It is recorded in your Tabernacle. Now, before we are fit for
the Kingdom of Heaven what has to be done?
The temple has to be cleansed. And Sister White says the while the
temple is being cleansed in heaven there is a parallel work going in the earth.
Do you see it? The temple of the Holy Ghost has to be cleansed. Now here is the
messenger of the covenant coming suddenly to His temple. I told you about new
flashes of truth. I told you about how that you can’t exhaust a single passage
of scripture, how that there are other meanings, and we can’t say, that just
because we have looked at this way all these years that it can’t mean anything
else. I read that to you because I didn’t want you contradicting me when I read
this now. But I want to point out to you here that the messenger that comes
suddenly to His temple is the Holy Ghost. Coming to the
temple of the Lord, His body. Do you follow me?
Now, I have other texts to prove that, but right now I haven’t time to
give them to you. And what’s He going to do? He says He is the messenger of the
covenant. I can read to you from The Spirit of Prophecy that as the
finger of Christ wrote the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone Sinai, so
the Holy Spirit will write the law on the tables of the heart according to the
terms of the New Covenant.
Now, the messenger of the covenant, the one who comes to deliver the
covenant to God’s people is the Holy Spirit. He is going to come to His temple
suddenly, suddenly. The latter rain when it comes my
friend is going to come suddenly. And one is going to receive it, and the
person sitting next to him isn’t going to know
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that it happened. That is how it is going to happen. He is going to come
suddenly to His temple. One shall be taken and another left, but God knows
where His saints are. And the Spirit is going to come to His saints and we are
going to talk about what we have to do to qualify.
Upon whom God is going to pour His Spirit? Let’s read on, The messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in, Behold, He
shall come saith the Lord of Hosts, but whom may abide that day of His coming?
Now, I wish I had time to back to Joel to show you that the same
language is used in connection with the warning about the coming of the dreadful
day of the Lord. Who may abide that day?
The day of the Lord is just ahead of us. We are not ready for it. The
messenger of the covenant is going to come suddenly to His temple but who can
abide that day?
Why is it going to be difficult to abide the day of the coming of the
messenger of the covenant. But let’s read on; Who
shall stand when He appearth. For
he is like a refiner’s fire and like a fuller’s soap. Can you see what
He is going to do? And how do you cleanse? Trial and
tribulation. Do you see the word “fire” used here? Do you remember what
it said over there about John the Baptist? Baptized with
water and fire.
And we are going to talk about the baptisms of Jesus too. Jesus was
baptized, I think three times if I remember right. Once with water, and He had
some other baptisms. And we are going to be baptized, and I can read you that
in The Spirit of Prophecy. We are going to be baptized again, with the
baptisms of Jesus and the fire. Why? Because we need to be
cleansed. The sanctuary has to be cleansed. Cleansed
by the sprinkling of blood. We are going to explain that. I never
understood that until one day God gave it to me. And I saw it. And as I look
through the books I wonder why I hadn’t seen it before. It’s there. We are
going to be cleansed by the sprinkling of blood. Alright, and He shall sit as a
refiner and purifier of silver and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purify
them as gold and silver. That they may offer unto the Lord... What? In what? An offering in righteousness.
Well, there you have it.
And over in Revelation chapter 3 our favorite message to God’s
people, He’s got it in there too. He says, In verse
19, As many as I love, I rebuke; and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Now listen, I wish I had time to you the rest since I got started on it, but I
haven’t, I hate to leave you at this point because there is a complete
composite unit of thought involved with this concept and the passages are all
available.
When you ask the Lord to purify and cleanse you, to make you pure and
holy, do you know what you are asking for. You’re asking for the fire. Are you
ready to
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take it? Now, the only way you are going to make it is to let Him give you a
little bit and you survive that. Then He gives you a little more, and you
survive that. When it gets too hot and you can’t take it, you tell Him, Lord I
can’t take it. Do you know what He will do? He’ll turn it off. He’ll back off.
(A man in the audience) He will not tempt you above what you can bear.
(Wilfred) Not beyond what you can bear. So, hang on, hang on in there
and don’t ever let go.
(A man in the audience) Do we have to tell God that?
(Wilfred) No, you don’t really have to tell God that. But sometimes, you
know how weak we are.
And I have discovered in my own personal experience that my God is a God
of love. I found that out, He is kind, He is merciful, He is thoughtful, He
looks upon us as children, but whenever we back off we are letting Him down.
You see, He wants to finish this thing out, because He’s suffering too, believe
it or not. And until we are through with sin He will not be released from His
position as mediator and sin bearer. He has committed Himself to the priesthood
forever. And it’s no wonder that He had a hard time in Gethsemane making up His
mind about that. That’s why He sweats great drops of blood, because He was
making an eternal commitment to stand good for you and me forever. That was His
commitment. That’s part of The Everlasting Covenant. That’s part of the
sacrifice. He staked His whole future on the principle of His love being
delivered to you through the terms of The Everlasting Covenant by God the
Father the administrator of His last will and testament delivering that Holy
Spirit to you. That Spirit of eternal life the belonged to Jesus it was His
personal possession. That the Father should give that to you
a sinner instead of giving it to His son who deserved it.
Christ gave up His life that it might be given to you so that you might
have the divine nature that He had to enable you to live without sin. And only
when you cooperate by deciding not to sin can it be
accomplished. And only when you do that and refuse to sin will He be released
from His position as priest. And only when His people, a hundred and forty four
thousand of them, (whether you believe that is literal or not), only when those
people come to that point where they have done with sin can He lay down His
robs and say, It is done, and let the devil prove whether He is right or wrong.
And when it has been proved He shuts it off. There is so much more, there is
more to it, much more. There is the marriage of the Lamb to the saints that
takes place before the close of probation. The head becomes reunited with the
new body. Because, you see, His body was broken, that’s what he said, in the
very last supper He taught the last lesson to His disciples before He made that
irrevocable decision. He said, My body is
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going to be broken for you. And you are going to eat it and my blood is going
to be shed for you and you are going to drink it (and we will explain what this
means but not tonight). But that is the only way you have internal life, I will
read you that lest you think I’m stretching things. It is in John
chapter 6 verse 53.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood; ye have no life in
you.”.... Is that plain? Can you doubt
that? .... “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him
up at the last day. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.”.... And
we’ve got other texts that we have to refer that to get the completion to that,
but it is referring to the communion service. .... “As the living Father hath sent
me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me.” And a little
further down, verse 60; “Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard
this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can hear it?” No wonder. Can you take
it? Does it make sense to you?
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible.
(Wilfred) Well, we hope we make sense out of it before we get through.
“When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto
them, “Doth this offend you? “ “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend
up where he was before?” “It is the spirit that quickeneth;
the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” What body was He talking about
here that you have eat and what blood was He talking about that you have to
drink?
(A woman in the audience) Was He talking about His life (?).
(Wilfred) Yes.
(A man in the audience) It wasn’t His human life because He still
retains that.
(Wilfred) It wasn’t His human physical body that’s for sure. Because He
is living in that and the blood was spilled at Calvary, right?
(Another man in the audience) The nature of His experience helps purify
us and every time we eat the bread and drink the blood it is indeed a symbol of
our edification of the covenant and as we become purified and when we finally
get our minds or our temples purified, the sealing of God takes place in our
foreheads, the forehead is the part of the brain, the cortex, where we think
and this is where the seat of the will is which then determines the inhibitions
against wrong....
(Wilfred) But what was he trying to bring out here by saying you have to
eat my flesh and drink my blood.
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(Many in the audience trying to speak at once) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Well, it would take me awhile to explain it and if I did just
tell you you’re liable to have a question in your mind about it. But there is
only one other body that Christ had, there is only one other blood He had,
before He came to this earth. Did it ever occur to you that He was a living
being from eternity and that He had a tremendous body, in fact it was so bright
that when Moses asked Him to show him His glory, the Lord had to hide Moses
when He went by or it would have killed him.
Now, I don’t know the mysteries of that body, but I know that it had
many characteristics, because when Moses asked Him to show him His glory, the
first thing the Lord did was to reiterate His characteristics. Abundant in
mercy and goodness, you know? He gave all the characteristics of God. So, that
at least is one of the aspects of the body of God of His original heritage that
He is going to deliver to His saints. You are going to have the characteristics
of that body. You understand that? Now it had certain characteristics
omnipotence, omniscience, and all the rest of it.
Do you realize that Jesus said, that He received His life from the
Father, What do you say Brother Johnson, It says that He had in him life
unborrowed and underived, that is what Mrs. White said. But have you read in
the Bible where it says from His own mouth; As the
Father has life in Himself so hath He given the son to have life in
himself. Where did the son get His life in Himself from? If the Bible is true,
if Jesus spoke the truth, He got it from His Father. Where does the Son get His
life anyway? Do you realize that Jesus Christ received the scepter of authority
from His Father? That’s in The Desire of Ages. Before He came into this
world, here is what He said; He gave back the scepter into the hands of the
Father. Do you know what that word “back” means”?
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible.
And in The Story of Redemption God called a counsel of all the
angels and He bestowed special honor on His Son. The Story
of Redemption the very first few pages. And that’s one of the things
that got Lucifer’s goat. He didn’t like that. Why should the Son receive all this honor, and Lucifer wasn’t receiving any. It didn’t
go over.
Now what I am trying to show you is something that has to do with The
Everlasting Covenant again. Before Christ could come to this world in that tiny
little seed in Mary’s womb, He had to relinquish the body that He lived in. And
He had to relinquish the life that He had in that body. Now, as Adam, when he
died gave up the ghost as, is it Jacob or Joseph it says in the Bible, He gave
up the ghost as Jesus on the cross, He gave up the ghost. When you die you give
up the ghost. What does that mean? The breath of life, where
did it come from? Where does it go? Where did Christ get his life in
Himself from? From His Father.
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Where did it go when He laid down that life?
(A man in the audience) Back to the Father.
(Wilfred) Back to the Father. But before He
laid down His life to come in that little seed He made His last will and
testament stipulating what was to be done with all the heritage the Father had
given Him. The Father didn’t take it, the Father had bestowed it all on the son
and had made Him equal in authority with Himself, says so in The Story of
Redemption, that’s exactly what it says. And that the angels should accept
the word of the Son as the word of the Father. That’s exactly what it says. So
the Son decided on His own free will what He was going to do to save man. And
He laid down His life. There is a heavenly sanctuary you know. And the last
will and testament which was an agreement between Christ and His Father on
behalf of man stipulated that that life that He laid down was to be given to
His people. And I am going to show you from the Bible and The Spirit of
Prophecy that that life comes in the form of the Holy Ghost. The life that
goes when a man dies goes back to God who gave it. What is left after a man
dies? Dust. And if you ever see him after he dies,
what do you call it?
(Man in the audience) A ghost.
(Wilfred) Did it ever occur to you that the word “Holy Ghost” never
appears in the Old Testament? It doesn’t appear until the New Testament. The
Spirit of life, the Spirit of eternal life which gave life to the Spiritual
body of Christ that He existed in before He came into this world, that life is
what He shed. The Bible tells me that the life is in the blood. That the blood is the symbol of the life. When you shed the
blood you are shedding the life. Jesus Christ shed His blood, His life so that
you could have it.
Desire of Ages, He took the death which was ours, that we might
receive the life which was His. Am I getting the point across?
And He told His disciples, now look, I’ve got to go away. At any time up
to that point He could have gone back to His Father and become the same being
He was before. You follow? He was down here voluntarily, all along the way. But in Gethsemane He made the decision that He was going to become
our eternal surety, forever. And
He told his disciples I am going away. And that has more than one meaning. And
He says; But I am not going to leave you, not
comfortless, I’m going to come to you, and He explained how He was going to
come, through the Holy Spirit. And He explained how the Holy Spirit was to come
and from where. He said, I’m going to pray the Father and He will send you the
Holy Spirit. Now, do you get the picture?
Here is Christ who decided what to do with His eternal life. He made the
agreement and appointed the Father as executor of His estate, His last will and
testament. And He said, Father will you accept this
covenant, and will you give
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my Spirit to those who accept Me as their personal Savior? Even though
they are sinners, will you do it? And the Father agreed to the covenant. But after
Jesus came forth from the tomb, and this was a terrible, traumatic experience, I won’t even touch
it. But after He came forth from the tomb, He told Mary not to touch him. Why?
(Man in the audience) He said; I have not yet ascended to the Father to
see if He accepted my sacrifice.
(Wilfred) That’s it, that’s it. He wanted the
assurance from His Father that the Father would send that Spirit to Mary. That
was the upper most thing that was the thing. If the Father couldn’t do
that. If the Father couldn’t bring Himself to put His Spirit on that
bunch of sinners that the Lord left here on this world to carry His message,
everything is lost. Look at that crowd of disciples He had there just
before He went to the cross. Did you ever take a look at them? What kind if
people were they? Very good candidates for the out pouring of the all power of
the Holy Ghost weren’t they? Can you see why Jesus was concerned? Is this it?
Is that what I gave my life for? Will the Father take that? Well, He did.
(A man in the audience) Was the Holy Spirit functional prior to the
ascension of Christ?
(Wilfred) O yes. Jesus was the first recipient of the Holy Ghost as the
head of the new body. It was the Holy Ghost that initiated His life as a human
being; it was the Holy Ghost that was His anointing at His baptism to make Him
the Messiah, when He received all power. That is, by a choice He could have
used all His former power on His own behalf.
(A man in the audience) Was it in action prior to the birth of Christ?
(Wilfred) Yes.
(A man in the audience) You say He was the first recipient though.
(Wilfred) Yes. In that particular sense.
(A man in the audience) The Holy Spirit had a different function.
(Wilfred) Yes. The Holy Spirit had several functions.
(Another man in the audience) Doesn’t it talk in the Bible about the
Seven Spirits?
(Wilfred) Yes. It does, it talks about the seven spirits. But the Holy
Spirit, I don’t know whether I should get into this, because the trinity is a
mystery, but you probably notice that you never hear of the Holy Spirit spoken
as a separate entity
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in the Old Testament. I haven’t found it. If you can find it I would like
to see it. It may be there. It always talks about the Spirit of God. And Sister
White used that term “The Spirit of God” in the sense of The Spirit of
Kindness, the Spirit of love, you know. She uses it in that sense.
(A man in the audience) Or the Spirit of the Lord.
(Wilfred) And, in the counsel back there in the
beginning she never.
(The End of C/D #18 and beginning of C/D 19)
Now, I am in just a bit of difficulty because of some of you having
heard quite a bit and some of you having heard very little. So it is a bit
difficult for me to just carry on directly from where we were. However I don’t
want to repeat everything we have done before, that wouldn’t be fair to the
ones who have been with us and at the same time if I don’t give a little bit of
information for the back ground it wouldn’t be fair for those who haven’t been with
us. So, let me just say a few words first.
Last week we read a few statements, certainly not all that are given,
but a few, to verify that thought that in spite of the fact that all the truth
necessary to bring us through to the Kingdom of Heaven has been given, there is
still much more truth to come. Now without reading the statements, if you can
accept that and if you would like to have the verification you could check with
me afterwards and I would read some of these. Any of you who
may have missed that. Also, in each generation God has a special truth
and a special work, We have always thought of ourselves as being the last
generation and our people have thought of themselves as being that for the last
hundred and thirty years which his more than a generation.
Back in 1856 there was a conference at which Sister White made this
statement; That some of the folks at in that conference were going to be food
for worms, that meant that they were going to die, some of them were going to
be subjects of the seven last plagues, that means they were going to live after
probation and go through the plagues, and some of them were going to, I hope
I’ve got that right now, go through to be translated.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible.
(Wilfred) They are all dead now. The reason I’m referring to that is
that we are a new generation. Right? Let’s not worry
about the problem involved with that quotation right now, we’ll think about
that maybe sometime in the future, But we all agree that we are a new generation
now if are a new generation and she says here in Christ’s Object Lessons
page 78 in my book, but may be a little bit one way or the other in your
edition. “For His church in every generation God has a
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special truth and a special work.” .... On page 129 she says;
.... “In every age there is a new development of truth, a message of God
to the people of that
generation. The old truths are all essential; new truth is not independent of
the old, but an unfolding of it.
Great Controversy page 609 she say; “Different periods in the history of the church have
each been marked by the development of some special truth, adapted to the
necessities of God's people at that time. Every new truth has made its way
against hatred and opposition; those who were blessed with its light were
tempted and tried. But the Lord gives a special truth for the people in an
emergency.”
Now, I don’t suppose I have to prove to you that the church is in an
emergency situation today, but if I do I’ll do it, but I may not do it right
now. Maybe you don’t believe that. But way back in the eighteen hundreds Sister
White said that we could have been in the Kingdom, and here it is in 1976 and
we’re not there yet. If that isn’t an emergency I don’t know what it is. And
the world situation is rapidly deteriorating. So, something has got to happen
to change our lackadaisical, Laodicean, lukewarmness.
Right? And what is it that is going to happen? Well, I
just read it to you, But I’m going to, if you stay with us give you
considerable more information on that from the Bible and from The Spirit of
Prophecy to indicate that God has an expansion of truth that is relative to
our situation right now, which is going to be pertinent in the concluding of
His work. Is that logical? And there will be many voices raise
in chorus to focus on that message. I could read you that too. In any case,
here we are a few individuals digging into the book.
She says in Christ’s Object Lesson again
on page 112; “No one can search the Scriptures in the spirit of Christ without
being rewarded. When man is willing to be instructed as a little child, when he
submits wholly to God, he will find the truth in His word. If men would be
obedient”... Notice that condition ... “If men would be
obedient they would understand the plan of God's government. The
heavenly world would open its chambers of grace and glory for exploration.
Human beings would be altogether different from what they now are, for by
exploring the mines of truth men would be ennobled. The mystery of the redemption...the
mystery of) the incarnation of Christ”.... Note that one, because we are going
to be talking about it...: the mystery of...His atoning sacrifice, note that
one, because we are going to talking about it, she says these mysteries would
not be as they are now, vague in our minds.”.... That means we don’t understand
them very well, their fuzzy. .... “They would be not only better understood,
but altogether more highly appreciated.”
What I am trying to point out is, for the benefit of those who haven’t
been with us. We can expect that a clearer understanding of the mystery of
redemption, the incarnation of Christ, and his atoning sacrifice, which are all
related to the plan of salvation which has not yet culminated. And that is the
reason we aren’t in the
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Kingdom, a clearer understanding of these things is due right now, so that the Lord can
finish this thing off. I also brought out last day, and I must repeat these
because it is important that we understand this.
The words of Christ are truth, but they have a deeper significance than
appears on the surface. All the sayings of Christ have a value beyond their
unpretending appearance. Minds that are quickened by the Holy Spirit will
discern the value of these sayings. They will discern the precious gems of
truth though these may be buried treasures. That’s on page 108, Christ’s
Object Lessons.
Now the pages are a little different in the regular edition, this is the
subscription edition. These are older quotations I dug up quite a few years
ago.
(A woman in the audience) Is there a page number for that one that says,
If men would be obedient they would understand the
plan of God's government.
(Wilfred) Yes. I’m sorry. 112. I think most of these are in one chapter,
it’s called, Things New and Old or Old and New or something like that. But
there are others scattered throughout the book.
That quotation indicates that we can expect to find meaning in the words
of Christ that go beyond the things that we have thought of in days gone by,
that’s what it says. And lest we get a little disturbed at a thought like that.
Let me read one or two more, and
then I’ll close off this part of it.
This is from the Review and Herald Dec. 20, 1892. “There is no
excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be
revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The
fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our
people is not a proof that our ideas are infallible....No true doctrine will
lose anything by close investigation.”
In other words, she is suggesting that it is possible that we may have
made a mistake and have to change our minds on some things. I haven’t come across
any of those things yet, I’ll let you know right away. But there may be some
that will show up sooner or later.
Education page 171; “It is impossible for any human mind to exhaust even one
truth or promise of the Bible” ... You can’t exhaust a single truth or a
promise in the Bible. If you can’t do that then it means that there are more
things that are in there than what you have seen. Is that not right? She says;
... “One catches the glory from one point of view, another from another point;”
... In other words I can see it one way and you could see it another way from
that same promise and that same truth, and both of us can be right. My point
here is that let us not get quibbly and quarrely when people express something that we can’t see or
agree
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with. Let’s not get on our high horse and think that we have it and they are
wrong, that’s the human way. It always pays to be humble. Accept what the other
person gives tentatively, maybe put it on a shelve if there is no way of
resolving it, but check it with the word, check it with The Spirit of
Prophecy, think about for a while and see if possibly there may be some
light in it. And even if there isn’t maybe that individual has a way of looking
at it that is different from yours because of his or her background and he may
be perfectly correct in his interpretation and you just may not be able to see
it.
Ok. There’s another one, Review and Herald Mar. 18, 1890; “To say
that a passage means just this and nothing more, that you must not attach any broader
meaning to the words of Christ than we have in the past, this is saying that
which is not actuated by the Spirit of God.” .... In other words, if we come to
the conclusion that a certain passage doesn’t mean anything more than what we
have interpreted to mean. Well, that’s what it means you see. That’s what it
says, and that’s what it means. We’ve always believe that and it doesn’t mean
anything else. Anybody that makes a statement like that is not speaking under
the inspiration of the Spirit of God. That is what this statement says. He is
saying that the view he holds at the present time of that particular passage is
the correct view and there is no other view. He is closing God’s word and
shutting it off in he own mind. When God says it will continue to expand like
an ever flowing fountain. Well, there is more here but I don’t want to read
those at this point. It warns against being too bigoted of other view points.
Alright now, I think we will go on to the subject of the covenant, The Everlasting
Covenant. What do you understand The Everlasting Covenant to be? What ideas
have you about that covenant? Could we collect a few?
(A woman in the audience) The covenant has to write the law in our
heart.
(Wilfred) The covenant has to write the law in the heart. Well, actually
the covenant doesn’t do it. What is the covenant?
(Many in the audience speak together) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) It’s an agreement. Who made the agreement?
(A woman in the audience) God and Christ.
(Wilfred) The Father and the Son. And what was
the agreement about?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) The salvation of man. And she says it
goes beyond that.
(A man in the audience) To save the whole universe.
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(Wilfred) To save the whole universe. For the security of the whole universe. Otherwise it could
have deteriorated, unless God had taken away the freedom of choice which He
wouldn’t do. Now, God recognized the problem He was bringing into existence by
creating beings with freedom of choice. He recognized it and made provision for
it. The Everlasting Covenant is just what it says it is. It’s an everlasting
covenant that is going to last forever, it will never be abrogated. But when
did it start in the other direction? Well, according to the books, the
provision was made even before sin came. The covenant is the outgrowth of the
very character of God. And God’s character has always be the same, that’s what
He says. He has been the same yesterday, today, and forever. There has been no
change in the character of God. And by virtue of His character He could not
create free will beings without making provision for their eternal life. But
when He created a free will being He created the possibility for sin. The
possibility that the being would choose to go contrary to the law which I have
already explained was absolutely necessary. You can’t have peace and security
among a group of will beings unless each of those beings is willing to think in
terms of what his actions will do to the other members of the group. If he does
just as he pleases anytime he wants to he can really raise cane in any society.
And that is precisely what the devil has done, precisely.
There are many things in here and I don’t just how many I should share
at this point. But here is one you may appreciate. God created the first being
and made him the top. He made him as nearly as possible like himself, Mrs.
White says. God gave Him everything He could give him as a created being, next
to His Son, who was not a created being. Nobody can complain the God didn’t
shower and share all His blessings upon His first created being. Nobody can
complain about that. But God knew that that fellow was going to fall, He knew
that before He created Him. Now, I could read you this. It’s not all in one
place, but you’ll find most of the things about Lucifer in The Story of
Redemption, Patriarchs and Prophets, Great Controversy, and
other things are scattered throughout other books where she just incidentally
brings in a point. But I have the statements to verify what I have said so far,
only I don’t have them all in one place unfortunately. There is a tremendous
amount of material that we have in our storehouse of truth. It’s just so big
that it’s almost impossible to wade through it. Unless you have a lifetime of
leisure and just devote yourself to it.
But let’s get the essentials, the point is this; That God couldn’t give
Lucifer any more than He had given him to reveal His generosity, His kindness,
and the nature of His character of self renouncing love. He could not have done
any more for Lucifer than He did. He let Lucifer in on the understanding of His
character and His government, he was sort of a “Prime Minister”, the light
bearer, and he was the one through whom the inner understandings of the
universe were delivered to the rest of the angels. He was a light bearer. He
was in command, but he assumed to himself more command than was His right. You
see, the Son of God was above him, and, in order to make sure that he
understood this, God
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called a counsel one time back there, and you can read this in the first
chapter of The Story of Redemption, and bestowed special honor upon His
Son in front of all the angels including Lucifer. And this became a test of
Lucifer’s willingness to abide by the law of God. Now, when I am talking about
the law of God at this stage I am not talking about the Ten Commandments, I am
talking about the basic law of God. The principles of His
character which He delineated to Moses there on the mountain. It was a
principle of love, long suffering, abundant in goodness, mercy, and truth,
these are the principles. But in the middle of all that you have this
application, the principle of humility, and exaltation, or humility and pride. These two elements. Now, God gives every one of His
creatures a test, and here was Lucifer’s test. Could he accept the fact that he
wasn’t as big as Christ? That he had to stay in his position, he had to accept
the principle of humility and submission. God after all was a self-denying God,
Lucifer didn’t recognize this. And maybe the universe didn’t recognize it,
maybe they hadn’t even thought about it. But when Lucifer decided he wasn’t
going to go God’s way it came out in the open and they could make a decision on
it as to whether they wanted to or not. But anyway, Lucifer didn’t like this so
pride was born in his heart. And then with pride, instead of taking himself in
hand and humbling himself he permitted pride to have its way and it lead to
covetousness. He wanted to be like God, he didn’t want to be left out in the
cold so to speak. Why hadn’t he been honored the same as the Son had been? It’s
all described there in The Story of Redemption.
Well, what comes before a fall according to the Bible? Pride. And Lucifer was on his way down. He refused to submit
to the law of God. That is the basis of the universal kingdom, the law of God.
There is no way that you can have eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven and not
respect the law of God. And that doesn’t mean just respect it just because you
have to and for quite a while that what Lucifer did, he pretended that he
respected the law, but he didn’t underneath. And he began to subversively
indoctrinate the angels with suspicion of God’s character, after all he wants
us to submit to Him, He wants to give all the orders, He doesn’t even keep His
own law, how can we tell that He is a humble individual, that He is one who
will deny Himself, prove that, he hasn’t proved it. Now do you see the reason
that Jesus came and was born in a stable and was wrapped in swaddling clothes
in a manger, do you see? Or does it make sense?
(A man in the audience) Can’t get much lower.
(Wilfred) Can’t get much lower. The great God
of the universe at one time was nothing more than one tiny little single human
cell in the womb of Mary. Could you get much lower, as a personal being? There
wouldn’t be anything left if you got any lower than that, there wouldn’t be any
being there at all. Tremendous!
Well, for once and for all God demonstrated that He kept His own law. And
He also demonstrated that when a person is humble then He can honor Him. Now
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you say, ok. Sure, Jesus was born and He was raised up and He became
translated and went to Glory. And He is setting on the right hand of His Father
in Heaven where He used to be.
(A man in the audience) But not like He used to be.
(Wilfred) Not like He used to be, No. But He is there. He’s got
the same position back there. So what? What happened to Lucifer? Well, he’s
tumbling down yet. But he’s going to end up in another thousand years in the
lake of fire, and pretty soon he wouldn’t be. He will be as though he had not
been. He’s going to go. And Sister White says that the redeemed from the earth
will take the places of those who fell.
Do you see what that means? Somebody is going to follow the pattern but
not quite get to the same place Jesus got, see. But somebody is going to take
the place Lucifer left, and you can be sure he is going to go through the same
mill or a similar mill as Jesus went through. Not in every respect, but in the
respect of humility and submission to God’s law. It’s going to be somebody who
really respects God’s law, no question about that.
But somebody is going to be there. Let’s make a little more to our
point. Here we are a group of people, what are the prospects according to The
Everlasting Covenant for us? Would you like to read it? Our
favorite message, a message which we really should have memorized by now
because it is God’s message to the remnant church.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) O yes, but I was talking about this principle of God’s law and
the position and the hierarchy at this particular point. It’s
Revelation chapter 3, some of you know it already, I’m sure.
And the Laodicean message starts, verse 21, and because the microphone
is here I’ll read it, so it goes on the tape, “To him that overcometh
will I grant to”.... do what? .... “sit with me”....
Who’s talking? Christ and where is He going to sit?....in
my throne. Now if you wonder just what that means He goes right on to explain
it.... “even as I also overcame, and am set down”.... “Where? .... “with my Father in His
throne.”
Now look, in the same way that Jesus is set down with His Father in His
throne, you may be set down with Christ in His throne. Well, what is his
throne? What does it say?
(Many voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) He’s sitting where?
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(Several voices in the Audience) On His Father’s
throne.
(Wilfred) And if you are going to sit down with Him in His throne where
are you going to be sitting? The same place aren’t
you? What’s a throne? A seat of authority, a seat of
government. What does the throne do or the person sits on it?
(A man in the audience) Rules.
(Wilfred) How do you rule? What is it that you do when you rule?
(A woman in the audience) Make laws.
(Wilfred) Make laws, that’s right. Why do you
make laws?
(A man in the audience) For the good of the Kingdom.
(Wilfred) For the good of the kingdom. You set
forth rules, regulations, laws, counsel, oh yes, we mustn’t forget that. God’s
Kingdom is not like ours you see. This little child that was born back there, Isaiah
9:6; “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall
be upon His shoulders,”.... you see, He’s going to sit on that throne ... “and
His name shall be called Wonderful, and there is a good reason for that,
Counselor,” .... not dictator, .... “Counselor,”....
He doesn’t say “Look,
do this”, it’s going to be counsel, that’s the kind of governor He is. He is a
mild ruler. I think I read you that last week, or some place I read it from Mount
of Blessing... “The Mighty God,”.... He is going to be called. Well, do you
see the connection between Revelation 3:20?
He’s sitting in His Fathers throne, He’s going to be called the Mighty God,
because that what He is. And He is going to be called, and this
next one is a little harder,
(A man in the audience) The Everlasting Son.
(Wilfred) Not the Everlasting Son, it says, “the Everlasting Father.”
Could He be exalted any higher than that? Did God keep His own law?
(A woman in the audience) Yes.
(Wilfred) And the next statement, “The Prince of
Peace.” That’s the aim of the government of God. Peace. And that is the
heritage that Jesus left with His disciples, “My peace I give unto you.” Now,
what does it say is going to happen to us then, if we overcome as He overcame?
(A man in the audience) We will share His government.
(Wilfred) We will share His Government. That’s right. It’s going to take
a character that is patterned after the character of Christ. Anybody that does
not have a character like that cannot handle that particular situation. It’s
got to be a
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character that can be trusted. And you can see that the characters that are going
to be sitting in that throne, who are going to be overcomes out of the last
remnant church, those characters are going to have to be characters that can be
trusted, or they can never sit on that throne. You couldn’t put Lucifer there,
he could have gone there if he’d behaved himself, but he didn’t. He was too
self-centered. He wanted more for himself. What kind of people are these folks
going to be?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Self-sacrificing,
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) You are speaking a very, very, important truth. That is
absolutely true. The character of Christ will have to be perfectly reflected in
His people before He can come and claim them. Because He couldn’t put them into
that position if they weren’t, and the degree of overcoming is expressed there.
The way that Jesus overcame, that’s the way that these people
will overcome. If they don’t they won’t be sharing that throne in that
way.
(A woman in the audience) Does that mean the method for His overcoming?
(Wilfred) That’s a good question. I guess I put those quotation away, do
you remember that one that I read? One of them was; all the words of Jesus have
a deeper meaning. Another one was; One sees it from one point, one see it from
another point, Another one was; That If we think that it means just this a
nothing more than what we said for so long we’re are not saying that that was
actuated by the Holy Spirit. Now putting those things together, does that
answer your question?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Then I’ll answer it. It means both.
(A woman in the audience) Ok.
(Wilfred) The Bible is full of that type of language. That’s why I like the
King James Version incidentally. But don’t tell everybody that. Some people are
very much hung-up on certain versions. I like the King James Version, I
think that God had His angels and His Spirit and I don’t know what other tools
He had there guiding this people that were translating that book. And I’m not
saying that there is no mistake in it, I won’t say that, but there is no
mistake in that book that is of any consequence, God saw to it that it was
stated it just the way He wanted it stated. And in many places you will find
that the meaning applies at a certain
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time at a certain way, and at another time, lo and behold, it shows up with
another meaning and it is just as logical, but it fits that situation 100%. So,
it is present truth.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) What I was trying to say is that some of these modern
translations completely destroy that principle.
(A woman in the audience) I guess that’s what the commentary is for
because sometimes the old English stumps us the way they put their words
together, doesn’t it?
(Wilfred) I understand, yes. The translators lived a few centuries ago,
not very many centuries, but quite a while ago, and the old English is a little
different. Unless you know the meaning of the word as it was used in their day
you can get stumped. But here again, there are places where that word as it
meant in those days delivers a certain meaning to the text. But if you take it
as the word means today it delivers another meaning that makes equal sense. In
other places, it doesn’t. There is only one way you can really be sure that you
are understanding the word correctly and that is to
take the whole Bible to compare it with all the other things that bear on that
same topic, and see if it fits. And there is nothing, nothing that surpasses The
Spirit of Prophecy to help you understand what is really does mean. There
is nothing like it. If you are in doubt, go to The Spirit of Prophecy.
If you can’t find anything there you’ll just have to bide your time until the
Lord directs you thinking to see it clearly and sharply. And invariably if it
is the truth there will other minds that will sooner or later see it also. But,
you may stand alone awhile, in you interpretation. And if you do, it pays not
to agitate things too much, unless it is a very important point.
Now, where was I?
Yes?
(A man in the audience) Will this group that is given a position of
leadership, is this to remain through all ages or just the ones that are alive
at this time?
(Wilfred) The Laodicean church is the last church. So, who would it
be?
(A woman in the audience) They lived in the time of the Laodicean
church?
(Wilfred) Yes, if you really want to get a little more on it you can
find it Testimonies for the Church vol. 5. The chapter entitled “Joshua
and the Angel” it’s
number 32. You will find there, starting about page 467, but as you get further
in to it, you will come closer down to the end, she describes very clearly the
condition of these people and the experience they go through. I would like to
take
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time to go through it but I had thought to do The Everlasting Covenant tonight, and maybe we should stick with that
and come back and do this sometime later. But she describes these people and
the condition and the experience that they go through and the outcome. She
calls them, “The hundred and forty four thousand”. And I’ll read you just the
last sentence of the whole chapter; “And it shall come to pass” ... She is
quoting the scriptures ...”that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall be called holy even everyone
that is written among the living in Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is the church, and
those who are left alive at that time are all going to be holy. But the whole
chapter is an amazing chapter, tremendous. And I’ll deal with it again, but not
tonight.
Now, we’ve covered this little principle, or a big principle of humility
versus exaltation and God’s plan of bringing up His children. Just think of all
these little tiny things that have been wiggling around in the world, you know,
we call them kids, down through the years. Out of that bunch of little live
wires every once in a while somebody pops up that makes a mark in history.
God has this thing all under control; He is working out a program. He is
building a Kingdom, and when He is finished He is going to unite all of those
who fit into the program into a union. Not a labor union, no, not labor union.
And when it is all been finished, this is as the third angels message is closing
and probation is closing, she says; “He that is unjust, let him be unjust
still, and he which is filthy, and let him be filthy still, and he that is
righteous, let him be righteous still, and he that is holy, let him be holy
still.” That the declaration at the end of probationary time. Right? I’m reading from page 280 of Early Writings.
She says that; “Every case had been decided for life or death. And while Jesus
had been ministering in the sanctuary the judgment had been going on for the
righteous dead and then for the righteous living.”.... Now listen ...”Christ
had received His kingdom having made the atonement for His people and blotted
out their sins. The subjects of the kingdom were made up.”… So all these people
who come up through the mill, they’ve all gone through their experience,
they’ve all been trained, they’ve all built their characters, now they are
ready. The number is completed. Then,.. “the marriage of the Lamb was consummated”.... And we’re
going to talk about that....“The Kingdom and the greatest of the Kingdom under
the whole heaven were given to Jesus and the heirs of salvation”.... Now, to
whom is the Kingdom given?
(Many voices in the audience respond) Unintelligible.
(Wilfred) All right. You see, it says that
Christ had received His Kingdom; just a couple of sentences before that, did you notice that? And now it says; The Kingdom was
given to Jesus and the heirs of salvation. Did you get the point? What does
Jesus do with the Kingdom that He receives? He shares it, He’s got those people
who are coming with Him to sit on His throne, see? Then Jesus was to reign as
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and I already pointed out to you that His
reign is a counseling. He is going to have a hundred
and forty four
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thousand kings on His throne sharing His government. Now I don’t know whether
one is going to be in charge of one section of the universe and another one in
charge of another section of the universe, or how this thing is going to work,
it doesn’t matter to me. All I’m trying to do is point out to you that God is
fair in His analysis of a situation and His development and His working of it
out. He has a law that He cannot abrogate, it has to be kept. If somebody is
going to transgress that law he has two choices either repent and accept the
provisions of the covenant be instated to everlasting life or accept eternal
death. He’s got those two choices. Anyone who is willing to accept the law of
God and accept the Lord Jesus as King of Kings, which Lucifer didn’t want to,
he wanted to be it himself, anyone willing to do that, is accepted for eternal
life. And the question of his getting rid of sin and overcoming sin and being
able to live the life of Jesus that is a part of the provision of The
Everlasting Covenant. There is provision in the covenant that was made between
Jesus and His father to bring this about in anybody who will accept Jesus as
King of Kings and Savior.
Now, what is that provision? How does it work? Shall we plow into it? I
think we’ve all been at one of the places where I read The Everlasting Covenant
in Hebrews, remember the four points that were brought out in the covenant.
Let’s run through them.
1. It provides that the law of God be written in the heart.
2. It provides for the restoration of the Kingdom of God. That is, He
will be to us a God, and we will be to Him a people. We accept the King-subject
relationship. We acknowledge Him as King. This is a voluntary thing. Not until
God’s people have voluntarily agreed to accept Him as Savior and His law as the
guiding rule of life is the Kingdom restored in that individual. And Jesus says
plainly that the kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is within you. It is not a
thing that is on the outside, it’s inside. When that law is written in the heart then that Kingdom is
restored, because you are then in harmony with the law of God.
3. We shall know the Lord; everybody is going to know the Lord. That is,
they are going to know His character, that the most important thing about Him.
(A woman in the audience) Is that a blanket statement? Everybody that’s living on the earth?
(Wilfred) Everybody who accepts the covenant. Because it’s the covenant that provides for it. And you can
reject it.
4. And Finally, His is going to be merciful to those and forgive their unrighteousness
and forgive their sins, and He is going to forget them. And if He is going to
forget them, you might as well forget them too. Don’t be hung-up on a bunch of
guilt and remorse and worry about what people think of you or what they’re
going to think and all the rest of it. Get rid of it. Chuck it away. He buries
it
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in the depths of the sea. As far as the east is from the west will your
transgressions be remove, why hang on to them? He
promises forgiveness, accept His forgiveness.
Now, do those things mean anything to you? Are you happy? Are you
content; are you pleased that the Lord provided this for you?
(A woman in the audience) I don’t know how to get hold of it.
(Wilfred) Alright, we all appreciate it and we all accept it. I had a thought
and it slipped me. Hopefully it will come back. Alright, we’ll move on. I’m not
thinking very quickly tonight, my mind isn’t functioning as rapidly as it
usually does. I hope you will be patient with me. I’ll get to all these
thoughts.
How did the Lord make provision for this to take place? What all does it
involve? Ok, we go back to Adam. When Adam sinned, when he
broke God’s law he transgressed the commandment. I can’t tell you
exactly what happened, but I know something happened in his chemistry, in his
body. Because the Bible tells me, that because of that sin all future
generations of mankind were born in iniquity, they were born in sin. Not
meaning they themselves sinned before they were born or when they were born
because you can’t make a decision at that stage, but they were born with the
consequences of a sinful nature in their body.
Now, originally they had the law in the heart. We must understand what
it means “by the heart”. The Bible sometimes means the mind, sometimes it means
the feelings or the emotions, the way you feel about something, sometimes it
means both. Sometimes it means the whole center of a man so to speak, his very
core. But normally it means the feelings. Before Adam sinned the Lord had
created him pure and holy. Adam’s inclinations, desires and likes were in
harmony with the things of God and the laws of God. There was no conflict. The
things he wanted to do were the things God wanted him to do. There was only one
little spot where his decision and desire might go contrary to God’s desire.
Just one place where that could happen, I’m not saying that it would, it didn’t
have to happen, but it could. And that was that tree, remember? The tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and it is a very significant name. Because after he
eats of it he found out the difference between good and evil. Which he wouldn’t have found out if he hadn’t eaten of it, at least
not in that way.
As soon as he had sinned, now I’ll give you a little opinion here, I’ll
admit that it is an opinion, but there is evidence to indicate that it is
probably the correct opinion. He became afraid, the Bible says that much,
that’s not an opinion. But medical science today recognizes that fear causes
more illness than any other cause. Fear as a matter of fact may even be
responsible for an infection which is caused
by germs and viruses because it lowers the body’s resistance to the
disease. So you catch you go down with it. The emotion of fear does something
to the human organism that is detrimental to it. Now originally, fear is
instilled in us, it’s a gift of
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God, it’s an instinct designed to preserve life. It is designed to take
us away from things that can be harmful. You take the little animals that
function purely by instinct. They could not survive if they didn’t have the
fear instinct. They’d get catch. Even with it they don’t survive, a lot of
them.
Now that fear was so traumatic in the experience of Adam and because,
and this is a little part of my opinion, because of his having eaten of the fruit
of the tree of life his organism was endowed with terrific power, in fact it
was so viral that even after sin it survived for nine hundred years. Now, with
that type of power and vitality the imprint of the fear into the mechanism of
his body affected the genetic process. It became written right into the
chromosomes that were passed on to his posterity and it has come right on down.
But since the time of Adam they have not been able to eat of the tree of life,
and the human race has gradually been deteriorating. Going
downhill. If God had not done that there would have been eternal
sinners. But death is the release from the consequences of sin. And by taking
him away from the tree of life Adam ultimately died. And the record of sin in
his body died with him. But it was passed on to us. Now it was into this kind
of body that Jesus came and I realize there are differences of opinion among
some folks in our denomination on this point. But I think, I don’t just think,
I know that The Spirit of Prophecy is very clear according to my view,
and the view of many other respectable theologians, teachers and students in
the denomination. That Jesus did in fact take the body as it was in that time
in history after four thousand years of degeneration. He accepted all the
weaknesses of humanity so that the devil could tempt Him through that weakened
body just the same way he tempts us. Some folks think that Jesus received the
nature of humanity that Adam had before he sinned. Well, if this were true then
how could Jesus be affected by temptations the same as we are? How could the
devil reach Him with the same temptations through a perfect body?
(A man in the audience) He certainly got tried...
(Wilfred) Well, I can read you the statement, and I will by and by,
which tell us very specifically that He accepted the sinful nature of man.
And it was in this body that He overcame sin through the strength given Him
from God. And we’re going to find out that the strength that was given Him from
God was the strength that was delivered through the agency of the Holy Spirit,
the same as it is delivered to us. It is a question of partaking of the divine
nature, it was through His divinity that Jesus overcame sin, but He did it in a
human body that had the deterioration of four thousand years of sin. Now, if it
could be done in Jesus’ body by connecting with divinity then Sister White
says; “It can be done in us.” The same way, by connecting
with divinity. And it is through the union of divinity
and humanity, the divine nature being combined with the human nature that
God’s people are going to overcome sin. How do we get the divine nature? Well,
I’m going to read you statements that will show that it comes through the
agency of the Holy Spirit.
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Now, Jesus died a sacrificial death and then He became a mediator in the
sanctuary, a priest, a high priest. It says that He died the death which was
ours that we might receive the life which was His. Desire of Ages I
think it was 22 or 25, something like that.
Do you understand the sacrifice of Christ? Do you remember that I read
that statement? That it is kind of hazy in our minds. How is it in yours? Is it
clear cut?
(A woman in the audience) I don’t understand...
(Wilfred) What is the sacrifice of Christ? Let’s discuss it a little
bit.
(A man in the audience) Well, He gave up something that He had before
but does not have now. He gave up many things,
(Wilfred) What is the main thing He gave up?
(A woman in the audience) He gave up...... Unintelligible
(Wilfred) So He gave up what He had in heaven before Him came to this earth. Whatever He had,
(A woman in the audience) He gave up His omnipresence.
(Wilfred) His omnipresence, alright.
(A woman in the audience) He died.
(Wilfred) He died. But we die too.
(A woman in the audience) He died an eternal death.
(Wilfred) But He still lives.
(A woman in the audience) He had things different; He didn’t go back to
what He left. He’s not in the same body. He’s a human forever, He isn’t what He
was.
(Wilfred) He isn’t what He was. He is a human now. So that’s part of the
sacrifice.
He died, we die too. But He died an eternal death. He died the death of
the sinner from which there is no hope of a resurrection, she says. He took the
death that was ours that we might receive the life which was His. What kind of
Life did He have?
(A man in the audience) Eternal.
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(Wilfred) So what kind is He going to give to us?
(Several voices from the audience) Eternal.
(Wilfred) Alright. What kind of a death did we
have coming?
(A woman in the audience) Eternal.
(Wilfred) What kind of death did He take?
(Many voices in the audience) Eternal.
(Wilfred) How come He is still alive? So my question again; Do you
understand the sacrifice of Christ?
(Several different comments from the audience)
(Wilfred) Well, if I were to take the penalty of somebody else’s
transgression who was doomed to die and I died in his place and I was still
alive again would you say that I had covered the deal? Was He going to live
again if He died for His particular sin?
(A man in the audience) But we don’t know what He lost by dying for us,
so to speak. He lost something eternally, for good.
(Wilfred) He lost His life, His eternal life. But He is still living.
(A man in the audience) It’s a mystery. (Much laughter)
(Wilfred) Well, I think I proved my point, that it is hazy. It’s just
not clear is it? Well, I’m not so sure that I can make it clear either. But I’m going to tell you some things and you can accept them or not.
But I’m going to tell you the way it is. And, I think that the Bible bears it
out. The Spirit of Prophecy bears it out, if it means what it says, it
does. If it means something else then what it says then I’m open to receive it
and any time someone can explain it to me in a manner that makes more sense,
I’m willing to listen. So, let me go back and talk about that, and then I’m
going to read the quotations and I may not get to them all tonight. But I’ll
read them to you so you will see on what it is based.
(A woman in the audience) Ok, just something on the death of Christ.
Christ died so that Hs life covers us with His righteousness..........
Unintelligible
(Wilfred) One reason.
(A man in the audience) He took on the possibility of dying eternally.
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(Wilfred) Good for you boy. You’re thinking.
(A man in the audience) He didn’t die eternally but He could have if He
had sinned.
(Wilfred) Well, I’m going to go through and I’m going to give you the
picture as it has come to my thinking, with the evidences and then you can
either take it or leave it. And I would welcome any further statements from the
Bible or The Spirit of Prophecy that have a bearing on it and any
thoughts that have a bearing on it. I think it is a very vital subject, it’s
very vital, because it involves an understanding of the nature of God’s love.
And until we can understand the nature of God’s love, until we get to know what
God is really like, we are never going to overcome sin. I’m going to read that
to you too. The power that enables us to overcome sin is the love of God.
That’s all God got to give us. Love is the only power that can persuade us to
quit sinning. He can’t use force, see? And there is no other power stronger
than love that doesn’t force.
(A woman in the audience) Isn’t love even stronger than force?
(Wilfred) Well, it is a force, it is a power. Love is actually, and this
is a scientific thing, Love is actually the power that created this world.
(This is the end of C/D #19 and the start of C/D #20)
Love is the power that motivated the creation of this world. I’m
going to read you a statement which says that God’s Spirit is love, that His
life is love. And at creation what was it that moved upon the face of the
waters.
(The Audience) The Spirit of God.
(Wilfred) A what is it that is going to
recreate the image of God in us?
(The audience) The Spirit.
(Wilfred) And she says that it is the same creative power as operated in
the creation of this world that recreates the image of God.
(A woman in the audience) (She asks about spontaneous creating, but what
she says is mostly unintelligible)
(Wilfred) What do you mean by spontaneous?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) I’m thinking of it now in a scientific way. Love is an actual
physical force. You can measure it in terms of electrical energy in the brain.
It is a power.
(50)
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Well, you can’t even feel if you don’t have that power going on.
There is no such thing as feeling without the electric current. It is a power,
a physical power. In fact, well, I’d better not involve to deep in that. Let me
say it this way, just as The Spirit of Prophecy says it: The same power
that created this world is the same power that is going to recreate us. And the
power that is going to recreate us is, I’ll read to you, is the love of God.
So, what created the world?
(A man in the audience) Love.
(Wilfred) And maybe there is a little bit of a parallel in that. God
gives us a little example of that in the family. Love is at the basis of
creation.
Ok. Now, the covenant that God made, it was Christ actually that
volunteered to give His life, and the Father struggled to accept it, but they
made the covenant. Paul talks about here in Hebrews chapter 9 about the
last will and testament. He talks about the testaments or the covenants. If you
want to look at chapter 8 just a moment verse 6, He says; But now hath he
obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a
better covenant...You see that the word covenant, well, in the margin it says.
Does anybody have it, do you have a marginal reference, testament and covenant
are translated that same? Now, that has a parallel with the Bible incidentally,
you’ve got two testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament and the Old
Testament is essentially a manifestation of the Old Covenant experience. And
the New Testament is a manifestation of the New Testament experience, a New
Covenant experience. So, there are really Old
Covenant, New Covenant records. But the New Covenant which is The Everlasting
Covenant spans right through from beginning to end. It was in effect in the Old
Testament as well as the new. But there is an Old Covenant experience which was
illustrated or manifested at Sinai in the Israelites at that time. And I
explained that last Tuesday night. Which is the agreement that the people make
with God saying that, “they’ll keep this”, but the idea is that they intend to
keep it without His help, without the benefits of the New Covenant in their own
strength, and they can’t do it. So it leads them to recognize that they can’t
do it and they have to accept the New Covenant before it can be done. The New
Covenant is the only means of salvation that is the provisions of the covenant.
So, He calls it then a covenant or a testament.
Now, let’s go over here to chapter 9, he’s talking about these
sacrifices and I don’t need to go into that I guess. Verse 14; “How much more
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without Spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living
God?” Let me go back a couple of verses, 12, “Neither by the blood of goats and
calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into
the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption. For us, He’s talking about
the sanctuary and I don’t want to get side
tracked into that. I just want to contrast these two bloods here. 13 “For if
the
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blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the
unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:”
He says that if these sacrificial services with animals and blood and ashes can
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, if that’s
the program, how much more he says shall the blood of Christ through the
eternal Spirit offer Himself without spot to God purge your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God.
Here you have a little insight into what happened back there when the
covenant was formed, here was Christ offering His blood, His life, through the
eternal Spirit and that‘s significant as we’ll see, without spot to God. I
repeat it; Christ offered His spotless life to God.
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) This is way back when the covenant was made. And God accepted
it. God agreed. But it took a little struggle. She says; He didn’t want to do
it. And, yet this was Christ His Son manifesting, perfectly, the law of God,
total self-denial. See? So the Father had to accept it. Why did He have to
accept it? Because the Father also had to manifest His
character. And what was the most precious thing the Father had?
(A man in the audience) His Son.
(Wilfred) His Son.
(A man in the audience) Himself.
(Wilfred) Yes, but He couldn’t give Himself because if He did there
would nothing. So, He was limited. The best thing the Father could give was His
Son. And they both gave the best they had, total self-sacrifice.
So then, by doing this how much more then should the blood of Christ
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. I want you to
notice that it is the sacrifice of Christ, His total self-sacrifice that
manifests the pure character of God and that it is that pure character of God when
it is revealed to you which will purge your conscience from dead works to serve
the living God. It is the strongest most powerful thing God can use to save you
from sin, to make you decide to do His will, that’s what saving means.
Salvation is to do the will of God;
sin is to transgress the will of God. The penalty of sin is death. If you
want life, obey and live, that’s the covenant. Obey and live. If you don’t obey, no eternal life. But the New Covenant
says that God will accept the perfect life of Christ in your place, so that you
qualify without perfection, without perfect obedience. Do you see? The only way
that you could possibly come through voluntarily, the only way you could
possibly get power enough to do it, is for God to do it that way.How else could He show that your allegiance to Him and
your allegiance to
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the commandments are based on self-sacrificing love for Him if He hadn’t
done that? If He had left you to show perfect obedience in order to gain
eternal life what would be your motivation? It couldn’t be anything else. Well,
it could, but you couldn’t prove it. I would want to obey the commandments so I
could get eternal life and so would you, and most of us are doing it right now.
Why do you go to church, got to keep the Sabbath? Don’t keep the Sabbath and
you won’t be ready for the judgment. Your name will go down; you will go to
hell fire. Keep the Sabbath. Isn’t that it?
(A woman in the audience) Why is Christ’s perfect atonements for us does
God gave us the Holy Spirit to perfect our lives
(Wilfred) Good question.
(Same woman in the audience) Christ is perfect for us.
(Wilfred) Excellent question and I’ll answer it right away. We, I think
the rest of us, maybe you haven’t been with us when we answered that, the rest
of us, we have gone over all this.
Because he is the sin bearer and the cross she says reveals to our dull
senses, these dull senses of ours. The cross of Calvary reveals to us the pain
that entered the heart of God at the beginning of sin. And she says that that
pain did not begin at Calvary, nor end there, it started right when sin began.
And it’s going to keep right on going until sin stops. Just like with any
parent, if the kid continues to disobey the parent, he runs away from home,
what’s happening in the parent’s heart? Pain?
Suffering? He is the sin bearer. The only way I can get eternal life, free,
is for Him to accept the consequences of any sins I commit.. Now He
died once on the cross to atone for my sins but the pain of my sins is still
there as long as I continue to sin. I am joined to His family, I become a
member of His family the moment I accept Him as my savior, and I am taken in as
one of the members of the family of God. At the cross, you see, He bore the
sins of the world and from there on out He does not directly bear the sins of
the world. Oh sure, He sees the mess just like I do, I see the mess over there
in some countries where they’re suffering to beat the band and I feel badly
about it but I don’t really have any pain over it. You follow? I’m not really
attached to it. They’re not members of my own family. But if it was a member of
my own family that was suffering like that, I’d feel it. Do you get the point?
Well now, we are members of His family and as we continue to sin, she says in The
Testimonies volume 5; The devil is accusing us before Him, mocking Him,
making fun of Him, He saved us from sin, saved us from sin, look at the kind of
people you’re going to put in and take my place says the devil. You’re going to
put Wilf Johnson up in here? Look at the mess he’s
in. What kind of a salvation is that? See, he is accusing the Lord. And the
Lord says to Wilf Johnson, Wilf,
why do you keep on sinning? Don’t you realize what you are doing to me? So,
Jesus said, If you love me, keep my commandments.
Remember that verse?
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(Same woman in the audience) Yes.
(Wilfred) That’s why. My obedience to the commandments of God is not to
gain eternal life; I have that as a gift. Jesus pay
the price. But I keep the commandments because I want to make it possible for
Jesus to lay down His priestly robes so He no longer has to hang on to that
thing, And as soon as He’s got a hundred and forty four thousand who will do it
Jesus will lay down His robes. He’s through; He doesn’t have to stand between
us and God anymore. Don’t need a mediator. Does that answer?
(Same woman) My brain is kind of slow.
(Wilfred) So is mine. We’ll go over it again and I’ll give some text on
it.
(Same woman) Can you tell us ...... another kind of demonstration that’s
going on because Satan has said that nobody can keep God’s law, it’s
impossible. Isn’t that part of it too, or not?
(Wilfred) Your question implies, why do we keep it? Or why do we attempt
to keep it?
(Same woman) Don’t we keep it also to vindicate God’s law? To vindicate
God’s character, or not....
(Wilfred) Oh, I see what you mean, Bethy.
Thanks. Yes, that’s true. The Lord wants to vindicate His plan of salvation for
one thing. I did bring that up but I didn’t quite finish it.
If I fail to live up to the law of God I am letting down the Lord in the
sense that the devil can continue to justifiably criticize God. God is not
completely absolved in the eyes of the rest of the universe until He has a
people who have overcome sin and demonstrate that the devil can’t get them
down.
(Same woman) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) That’s right.
(Same woman) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Well, He could do it but He would never be clear in the eyes
of the universe. The devils accusation would stand ground and would hold water.
(A man in the audience) That the law couldn’t be changed.....
(Wilfred) It would mean that the law couldn’t be kept. Yes, that’s
right.
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(Another man in the audience) I don’t know,
everybody is kind of slowing me. You were saying to her that being saved is a
gift that you’re saved by grace and faith. Now, you accept Christ but you don’t
have to keep the commandments. How can you do one without other? Like, you say
you’re saved by grace, and even a sinner can accept Christ, right? But that doesn’t
say he going to be keeping the commandments. Now, if he accepts Christ he’s
saved.
(Wilfred) Saved from eternal death.
(Same man) And yet he is still a sinner.
(Wilfred) He’s not saved from sin; he’s saved from eternal death. Are you
saved from sin yet?
(Same man) No, definitely not.
(Wilfred) Neither am I. But I am saved from eternal death.
(Same man) The possibility is there.
(Wilfred) You see, the thief on the cross he accepted the Lord right
there. He never had the chance to prove that he could live without sin. But the
Lord said you are going to be saved
(Same man) Yes, the light just came on. Thank you.
(Wilfred) This is what this is all about brother, this is why I’m
operating here, or I would go home and do something else. We are not yet saved
from sin, but we’ve got to be saved from sin to vindicate the law of God in the
eyes of the universe. And God’s counting on us to do it. And we aren’t doing it. We are too interested
in the things of the world yet. We are not letting Him fulfill The Everlasting
Covenant in our lives. That’s why I’m sitting here. I want to explain to you
what The Everlasting Covenant is and I am real slow at doing it because there
are so many side issues. I want to show you what the Lord is trying to do and
invite you to cooperate because He is waiting for a hundred and forty four
thousand people who will do it. And there are other voices like mine who are
stirring up around the country now. And that are teaching the same thing and
the Lord is going to raise them up. She tells us that the time is coming when
the Lord is going to take the work into His own hands and He is doing it right
now. And some people are going
to see the message because the Sprit is going to be poured out in the
latter rain and one is going to be taken and one is going to be left. It
depends on the individual heart the individual choice. Do you want to go with
God? Do you want to be one of those who He can count on to build the character
and stand through it? For His sake not for yours, you won’t do it for your
sake; you would long give it up for your sake. But for His sake you would do
it. It’s based on the law of God.
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God is looking for people who would demonstrate that they have the law
of God in the heart, but you can’t put it in there yourself. He’s looking for
people who will let Him do it, and that’s what it is all about. And I’m anxious
to get into it. And get it finished.
Now, where was I? Nobody’s fault but mine but I just can’t keep my mind
on one track tonight. Oh, we were reading here in Hebrews 9 verse 14;
That Christ offered Himself through the eternal Spirit....without Spot to
God....And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by
means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the
first Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal
inheritance. And that’s what we have received. We flunked out under the Old
Covenant, we can’t keep the law by ourselves, so we have to come to Christ and accept
the New Covenant, by which we are purged and cleansed and purified by His
blood, and we will explain that a little later.
And He is the mediator of this New Testament, this New Covenant, and we
are going to receive the promise of the eternal inheritance through that
covenant. I think you understand that now, don’t you? “For where a testament
is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament
is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the
testator liveth.” If you look up in the Bible dictionary under the word
“covenant” you will find this definition; Last will and testament. And in the
Greek words that are used meaning “covenant”, there are two of them, one of
them means a covenant that made between two parties and the other one means a
covenant like a statement of intent or purpose that is made by an individual
like his last will and testament. Now the New Testament is actually both, there
again we have this double meaning that we were talking about.
Here was Christ who had all the treasures of heaven. He had the
inheritance of God. As the Father had life in Himself, Jesus said, so, hath He
given the son to have life in Himself. Is that not the
normal procedure in the family? That the son inherits what the father has. The
Father had life in Himself and the Father gave to the Son to have life in
Himself, therefore He was an eternal God, He had eternal life. There is no way
that He could have died unless He relinquished that eternal life. Is that not
clear? So, He had to lay down His life before He could die.
(Several voices from the audience) unintelligible
(Wilfred) He didn’t commit suicide. But He gave up the Ghost, as the Bible
says when a man dies he give up the Ghost or the Spirit of life, right? What
kind of Spirit of life did this great body that Christ was living in up there
in heaven before He came down here, the one that Moses saw a little bit of?
What kind of body? What kind of a spirit did he have in that body? That gave it
life. Huh? Oh, come on that’s easy.
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(Several voices from the audience) unintelligible
(Wilfred) An eternal spirit. Yes. That’s what
it says right here in verse 14. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breathe of life, what kind of life did he have?
(A man in the audience) A conditional life.
(Wilfred) Yes, he had a conditional life. Not life into himself, did he?
No, we live and breathe and have our being in Christ, in God all the time. What
kind of life did Christ have?
(Several voices from the audience) unintelligible
(Wilfred) So, what kind of a spirit gave His body life? An eternal spirit. An eternal spirit just like it says right
there. Now, for Him to die, like it says in the Bible, you know when these
patriarchs died when they got old, they gave up the Ghost. And what happened to
that Spirit? It went back to God who gave it. What happened to the Ghost that
Christ gave up? It went back to His Father. There is your everlasting covenant.
There’s your last will a testament. Christ said, I
will give my eternal life to my people. You don’t believe that? Or do you?
Well, I’ll read it in John 6:53; Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath...What kind life? Now whose blood are they drinking?
(Several voices from the audience) Christ’s.
(Wilfred) What does the blood stand for?
(Several voices from the audience) The life.
(Wilfred) The life, so who’s life is it that they are getting?
(Several voices from the audience) Christ’s.
(Wilfred) What kind of life did he have?
(Several voices from the audience) Eternal life.
(Wilfred) So what kind of life are
they going to get?
(Several voices from the audience) Eternal.
Wilfred) That’s right. How did Jesus manage to
die on the cross if He had eternal life?
(A man in the audience) He couldn’t have died unless He wanted to.
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(Wilfred) That’s right. What would He have to relinquish in order to
die?
(Same man in the audience) Eternal life.
(Wilfred) That’s right.
(A woman in the audience) But when He gave back, the spirit went back to
God that seems to me ............so His spirit really came back to
Himself............
(Wilfred) Where was he when He died?
(Several voices from the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Well, let me paint the picture. Up in heaven there is a
sanctuary. What is it for?
(A man in the audience) It’s the pattern of the one down here.
(Wilfred) Right.
(Same man in the audience) There was something going on.......
(Wilfred) Where was Christ when that little seed was Mary’s womb? Where
was His omnipresence? Where was His omnipotence? Where was His body? You thinking?
(A man in the audience) Now you reference the body as what we
understand, we do not know what kind of a vehicular He had or God has.
(Wilfred) How are we made?
(A man in the audience) In the image of God.
(Wilfred) So then God has a body.
(Several voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) The prophet to the remnant church makes it pretty plain. And
what about Moses, he saw something didn’t he? Was
Christ there in literal body form?
(A woman in the audience) He saw his back.
(Wilfred) Yes, so He was there. Now that’s the body I’m talking about,
what happened to it. This body was so charged with power, so brilliant that
even when God covered Moses when He went by He let Moses see just a little
glimpse of His hind parts. See? And he was so irradiated that when he came down
from the
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mount later his face was shinning so brightly that the people couldn’t stand
to look at him. He was too bright and he had to veil his face. Now that’s the kind
of body Christ lived in. And He sure didn’t have it when He was in Mary’s womb
as a little seed. What happened to it? Would you believe that the Bible has
some clues to give us? I think maybe the best place to look at it would be in first
Corinthians, long about chapter 11. I’m going very slowly here; I don’t
know whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage. Start about verse 23 “For
I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you”... That means
that Paul had a revelation from the Lord and he is now giving it to them. ...
“That the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed”.... This was just
before He was crucified, right? That’s the time that He did it ....”In which he
was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat? .... Why? ....” this is my”.... what?
(Several voices in the audience) Body.
(Wilfred) He was living in His physical body.
(A man in the audience) Symbolic.
(Wilfred) What does He say to do with it?
(A man in the audience) Eat it.
(Wilfred) Which is broken for you: this do in
remembrance of me. Oh, take eat, yes. Did He mean that they were to take
His physical body like the cannibals over in Borneo?
(Several voices in the audience) That’s what threw the Jews off.
(Wilfred) It threw them off alright. Alright, Let us go on. He took the
cup, when He had supped, saying ... Did you notice that He supped, He partook
of it Himself? You notice you that? .... This cup is the New
Testament in my blood: .... What’s another word for New Testament?
(A man in the audience) Covenant.
(Wilfred) Alright. This cup is the New
Testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as
ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He
come. And there is a wealth of meaning in the statement.
Now will you go back to John chapter 6 and see what he says,
verse 53; “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink (59)
His blood, ye have no life in you.” .... Are
you catching the picture? What does this blood represent?
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(A man in the audience) Sacrifice.
(Wilfred) The Bible says that they were not supposed to drink the blood
of the animal. And it says why. Because it is the life of it.
But here He asks them to drink this wine which is the symbol of His blood. He
says this is my blood. He is teaching them a lesson, you see, with this bread
and wine. He says; Drink this blood, because if you don’t drink it you don’t
have any life in you. What kind of life did this body have that he was in
before He came into the world?
(A man in the audience) Eternal.
(Wilfred) Now obviously this is the body He is talking about, it wasn’t
His physical human body, He going to live in that for eternity. He’s not going
to live in the other body. The communion service tells you what happens to it.
(Several voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) It supplied to us.
(A woman in the audience) It also... the curtain in the temple was
rent.....
(Wilfred) What do you mean?
(A woman in the audience) Doesn’t it symbolize the rent body of Christ?
(Wilfred) The end of the sacrificial service.
Yes, there is one place where it talks about the veil of His flesh. Let’s leave
that just for now, Ok? Let’s see if we can get this thing.
(Another woman in the audience) So He had to partake of His own body
that’s why He drinks too.
(Wilfred) That’s very bright.
(A man in the audience) As a human, He received eternal life as we receive
it.
(Wilfred) That’s right. Ok, are we back in here again? Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath”.... What?
(A woman in the audience) Eternal life in him.
(Wilfred) Well, doesn’t that make sense? Wasn’t that what gave that body
eternal life? And when He gave up the ghost so that He could
lay down that eternal life and take on Himself humanity. So that He
could receive only that which every one of us can receive from God to overcome
sin. What He had, what was His heritage, He left it in the hands of the Father
and stipulated the terms of His last
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will and testament, Father that is to go to my children. Do you get it?
(A woman in the audience) How could.....be borne with the Holy Ghost
when Christ wasn’t even born, I mean, I guess it had been laid down before
hand?
(Wilfred) Yes, just hold it. Just hold it. Can you bear with me and not
interrupt? Just for a few minutes. Because I am having a hard
time collecting my thoughts again. And it’s not an easy subject to
present. And I don’t want to make a mistake on it.
Before Jesus could be born of Mary He had already laid down His life in
the heavenly sanctuary in the outer court, this was the true sacrifice, this
was the true sacrifice of which all the sacrificial services were a type. And
He had left His will, His last will and testament, the stipulations of The
Everlasting Covenant in the hands of His Father, that
was His death of sleep, the first death. It was on the cross that He died the
death of the sinner, which is called the second death. From the death of sleep
there is a resurrection but from the second death there is no resurrection.
Now, when Jesus developed as a little child and grew into manhood He did so
through receiving His former self, by the agency of the Holy Ghost, because the
spirit of life that had been in Him, in His eternal body which gave Him eternal
life had gone back to the Father and was held in trust to be bestowed upon the
children of God. Of whom Jesus was the first born. That’ s what my Bible says. He’s the first
born of every creature, the first begotten from the dead. That is what it says.
Now you say, Oh that means He came out of the tomb. Yes, I believe it does. But
don’t forget those statements I read to you at the beginning, don’t forget those.
Let me point out to you that Moses came out of the tomb many years before Jesus
did. Then how could Jesus be called the first begotten
from the dead? The first born of every creature? Do
you see? What was it that initiated the birth of Jesus?
(A woman in the audience) The Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) The Holy Spirit. And what was the
Holy Spirit? And I have got to read you some passages now, you won’t believe
me. What was the Holy Spirit?
(Many voices in the audience) unintelligible
(Wilfred) The Spirit of life. That gave Christ
His eternal life. It was the eternal Spirit of God. I read you that out of here
in connection with the testament didn’t I. In Hebrews chapter 9. Alright I’m going to read to
you what the Holy Spirit is because you’re likely going to question me. This is
taken from the Review and Herald May 19th, 1904, and it
appeared in the Sabbath school lesson, first quarter of 1973, on page 51;
“Christ declared that after His ascension, He would send to His church, as His crowning
gift, the Comforter, who was to take His place. This Comforter is the Holy
Spirit, — the soul of His life”.... To me that is a
very solemn thought, but let’s follow it through and it will make all the sense
in
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the world. Here was His life which was the spirit of God, called the Holy
Spirit, now called the Holy Ghost. You don’t call something a ghost until after
somebody has died. And that is way it is not called a Holy Ghost until after He
has died. It was the Holy Ghost, His own life that initiated His life in the
womb of Mary. Does your Bible tell you that? Mine does. The angel told Mary
that that holy thing that is going to be conceived in you will be born of the
Holy Ghost. Will be conceived of the Holy Ghost. My
Bible tells me that He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.
He received a daily baptism of the Holy Spirit but it wasn’t until His baptism
and anointing at that particular point of time when he was thirty years of age
when Hs ministry began that He received His major anointing of the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Ghost. It came down in the form of a dove. And He became the Messiah.
And at that point He had the power within His own decision to go back to God
anytime He wanted to. He had the power to command His former life, He could
make those stones bread, but He had never done it in His humanity.
(A woman in the audience) He knew He could do it. There was no question
in His mind but what He could do it.
(Wilfred) Absolutely. He knew it. That’s why
the devil said, Look you can change those stones to bread, after forty days
fasting. The devil said you can turn those stones to bread, why don’t you do
it?
(A woman in the audience) How did He know He could if He had never tried
it?
(Wilfred) You can ask Him that when you see Him, after we get up there.
All I know is that He could do it. If He couldn’t do it, there would be no
temptation. And secondly, The Spirit of Prophecy bears out the fact that
He did not have to stay here, and go through with the cross.
(A woman in the audience) Well, that’s a parallel test of the hundred
and forty four thousand, I’m sorry.
(Wilfred) Now, Christ was awake, He went to sleep voluntarily in the
court of the heavenly sanctuary, now He woke up in a new human body. Ok? But He
was committed to the terms of The Everlasting Covenant. He must never use any
power in His own behalf that would not be made freely available to His people
to overcome sin. Got that? So, He completely emptied Himself, and I wish I
could keep these statements in order so I would know where they are, but I
can’t. I arrange them in a certain way and when I talking in a different
direction. But I’ll read it to you by and by, I’ll come across it. He totally
emptied Himself and He depended entirely upon the strength that God gave Him.
He used none of His own inherent power in His own behalf. Do you think you
could have done that for three and a half years? He did it because He wanted to
demonstrate that it is possible for a man to live without sin in the strength
God would give him according to the terms of The Everlasting Covenant. Jesus
Himself was the
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partaker of that covenant. See? Do you understand? He was the first one that
partook of it. And He became the head of the new body of Christ. That’s all
through the New Testament. And His people, those who accept Him become the
members in particular of that new body of Christ. And it is through the Holy
Ghost that Christ comes to His people.
Now, I’ve read to you about the communion, the communion of the body and
blood of Christ, and we are going to come back to it again sometime and get it
clearer. But we must absorb not only the eternal life of Christ but the eternal
body of Christ; we get a piece of it. Its broken and divided each one gets his
piece. Do you get that? The new body of Christ is going to be divided; it’s
going to be split up into individual human bodies. Is that clear? And the head
of that body is going to be Jesus. And they are going to be functioning as one
body. I wanted to read you that. I don’t want you to think that I am stringing
you a line here. If we can’t get it from the Word of God we better drop it. I
find it over here in Ephesians chapter 2, We
better go down to about verse 19, Now therefore ye are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.
... So, we’re in the family, right?... And are built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being
the chief corner stone In whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the
Lord: What’s he talking about? People who are being built up
into a temple. What for? In whom ye also are builded together for. .. A
what?
(Many voices in the audience) A habitation.
(Wilfred) A habitation of God through
(Many voices in the audience) The spirit.
(Wilfred) The Spirit. Now, I’m not through.
Down on chapter 4 verse 8; Wherefore he saith, When he
ascended up on high, he led captivity captive ... We won’t comment on that
part, but. .... gave gifts unto men. And she tells us
that the greatest gift He gave was the gift of the Holy Spirit and all other
gifts are contained in that one gift. But down at verse 11 he delineates, he
says He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some evangelists; and
some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of
the ministry, for the edifying of …. What?
(Many voices in the audience) The body of Christ.
(Wilfred) Alright. Until we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto....What kind
of a man?
(Many voices in the audience) A perfect man.
(Wilfred) A perfect man, measured by what?
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(Many voices in the audience) The stature of the fullness of Christ,
(Wilfred) The stature of the fullness of Christ.
I’m not through yet. Let’s go to chapter 5, we’ll start here at verse 23 “For
the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church”
…. Now what does that say? Christ is the head of the church. What is the
church? The body. It says right there. .... ”and he is
the saviour of the...What?
(Many voices in the audience) The body.
(Wilfred) The body. So Christ is the Head of the body,
His church. 24 “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the
wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” .... Paul kind of runs a parallel here. .... 25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church and gave himself for it;” 26 “That he might sanctify and
cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,” 27 “That he might present it
to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing;
but that it should be holy and without blemish.” .... What kind of a church is
God going to have? Absolutely perfect. 28 “So ought men to love their wives as
their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.” 29 “For no man ever
yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the
church.” .... Now Paul goes so far as to say that the wife is of the same flesh
as the husband. See? That’s what he’s saying. But he explains why a little
later. 30 “For we are members of his.
.... “ What?
(Many voices in the audience) The body.
(Wilfred) And of His? Wait a minute, we missed one
here. We are members of His....
(Many voices in the audience) His body.
(Wilfred) And of His?
(Many voices in the audience) Flesh.
(Wilfred) And
of His?
(Many voices in the audience) His bones.
(Wilfred) He wants to be very specific. When we become a member of the body
of Christ it is a very literal thing we partake of His flesh. See? And we
partake of the blood which is the Spirit of Life. 31 “For this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they
two shall be one flesh. Now Paul admits, that he is kind of talking about
something that is mysterious here, and he says it is. He says this is not just
a mystery,” 32 “This is
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a great mystery” ... Why? Well, I am speaking about Christ and the
church. So we’re talking about a mystery. And the mystery is the marriage union
of Christ and His church. You don’t believe it?
Alright, we have to read some more. And I have this one now from the
Bible Commentary volume 7 page 406; Comment on chapter 19 of Revelation;
“God is the husband of His church. The church is the bride, the lamb’s wife.
Every true believer is a part of the body of Christ.” Remember how Paul said
they became one flesh. The body of Christ is going to become one flesh with
Christ. In the spiritual sense not in the physical human sense that is the
spiritual body of Christ is going to be restored in His saints. Paul says in
another place His inheritance is in His saints. Well, what was His in
heritance? Why, His eternal life. His eternal body what bigger inheritance
could he possibly have. Where is it going to be? In His saints. Christ regards unfaithfulness shown to Him by
His people as unfaithfulness of a wife to her husband. We are to remember that
we are members of Christ’s body.
Here’s another one on the same page; the church is the bride the lamb’s
wife, she should keep herself pure, sanctified and holy. Never should she
indulge in any foolishness for she is the bride of a King. Yet she does not
realize her exalted position. I’m sure of that. If she understood this she
would be altogether glorious within.
And here is another one. The church is the bride of Christ and her
members are to yoke-up with their leader. God warns us not to defile our
garments and Paul says; No ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost, which temple ye are, if any man defile his body, him will God destroy.
First of all Jesus went through this life partaking of the Holy Ghost
which was His former self, and He was Christ because the Holy Ghost was His
initiator, His Father. He was Christ. With this combination of divinity and
humanity, divinity coming though the divine nature, the Holy Ghost, Christ was
able to live without sin. And I’m going to read these passages. I’ll have to
leave a lot of it out. I just can’t give it all; I’ll be here half the night.
He finally went to Gethsemane where He made a decision that was irrevocable; He
could never go back on it. He was now facing the second death. And there was no
hope of a resurrection from it.
From the second death, this was the eternal death of the sinner; He was
now forever going to relinquish His personal eternal life, so that it could be
delivered to His people.
(A man in the audience) He didn’t gain it through the Holy Spirit?
(Wilfred) Yes. He said; It is expedient for
you, for his disciple before He went to Gethsemane, It is expedient for you,
that I go away, if I go not away the comforter or Holy Spirit will not come
unto you. Don’t you see?
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(A man in the audience) In other words, up to that point He could have
gone back and been as He was before.
(Wilfred) Right.
(Same man in the audience) But when He made that decision He was a man
forever and the Spirit to us.
(Wilfred) Right you are! At that point He felt that God had left Him. Don’t
believe that? He cried out “My God my God why has Thou forsaken my?” He sensed
it. And He said at the communion service, He gave them the key. Intellectually
He knew what was happening, but emotionally, it was terrible. And you will
never know what that’s like until He permits you to share it. And every one of
the hundred and forty four thousand is going to get a little spot, a little
experience, a taste of Gethsemane, He’s going to have to drink of the cup and
be baptized with the baptism. I can read you all this. Because until He does
get that he does not really know what Christ went through.
He doesn’t really understand, but he’s going to get a taste of it.
Christ relinquished His life; He took the death that was ours that we
might receive the life which was His. But in the communion service He says I
will not again partake of it until when?
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) With you anew in the Kingdom. Do you
know when the Kingdom of Christ is reestablished?
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) The Kingdom with His saints, I read it to you here, is
established before the close of probation and the marriage of the Lamb is
consummated. Remember I read you that, further back? And I read to you in the
Bible about the marriage of the Lamb with His bride, he’s talking about Christ
and His church. The union of Christ as the head of the new body and the hundred
and forty four thousand saints who are going to be united with Him in a
mystical marriage union
in which the Holy Ghost, His life blood, His very soul is going to
circulate. The head will be reunited with the body. And that’s how He lives, by
His Spirit. If we fail ...this is terrible, if we fail, He has no body. He will
not partake again of that life until He partakes of it with you when the
Kingdom is reestablished. And it comes in the outpouring of the latter rain.
That is the thing that completes the work of salvation in the soul and perfects
God’s people and unites them with the Head of the mystical union of Christ and
the marriage is completed. He says it is done through the Eternal Spirit. And
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the very soul of the life of Christ.
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Now I want to show you a few things, I know it’s about time to quit I suppose. I’ve got a few minutes left.
Review and Herald May 19th, 1904, “In the gift of the Spirit, Jesus gave to
man the highest good that heaven could bestow.... Do you understand that now?
What is the highest good or the highest gift that heaven has got? “
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) The life of Christ. Christ. Christ.
And He is to be in your heart, and He is going to come to you too. Oh, there
are so many texts I could read to prove this.
John 14 and I’m going to read it so you won’t think
that I am deceiving you. He says, If you love Me keep
my commandments, and I will pray the father and He shall give you another
comforter that he may abide with you....For how long?
(Voices in the audience) Forever.
(Wilfred) Yes, now let’s get this straight. What happens first, I will
pray the Father. Do you see your mediator?
Interceding, says Father remember the covenant. Father, there’s Wilf Johnson with all his sins down there; I know you don’t
want to send your Spirit on him. He doesn’t deserve it. It really belongs to
Me. Christ doesn’t really say that but I’m trying to get you the picture. The
Father doesn’t want to give Christ’s life to a sinner like me. It belongs to
His only begotten Son. But listen, in The Everlasting Covenant the Father
agreed to give His Son to the sinners. For God so loved the world that gave His
only begotten Son that whosoever shall believe on Him, including Wilf Johnson, should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And you cannot have everlasting life unless you eat the flesh and drink the
blood of the son of God, and the blood of the Son of God is the Spirit of God
which is the spirit of life, the very soul of Christ. Did I get it clear?
Father, send my Spirit to Wilf Johnson according to
the terms of my covenant. He is my mediator. He is interceding for me. In
another place she said, Jesus adds His intercession for the Spirit to come to
His people. Let’s read on. 16 “That he may abide with you forever.” How long is that
Spirit going indwell in God’s people?
(Voices in the audience) Forever.
(Wilfred) Forever. 17 “Even the Spirit of
truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth
Him: but ye know him for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” 18
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” Now, get
this, don’t think that this statement of Sister White is inaccurate, that it’s
not biblical. Take a look here. As I have told you before, when you read The
Spirit of Prophecy you can go back to the Bible and find out what it means.
I never saw this. I never understood this, in the Bible, until I read this
statement. Then when I came back to the Bible I saw it. Do you see it yet; let
me call your
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attention to it. Who is it that’s going to come and abide in us?
(A man in the audience) The Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) The Holy Spirit. Then what is the
Holy Spirit?
(Voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) It has something identical to Christ doesn’t it? It is
identified with Christ in some way. In what way is it identified with Christ? I
read it, where did I put it. It’s the soul of Christ. It’s the soul of His
life. The soul of His life. It’s His life that we have
to eat to get eternal life. He says that if you don’t eat my flesh, if you
don’t drink my blood you have no life you. But if you eat my flesh and drink my
blood you have eternal life. Didn’t I read that? And the Jews didn’t like that;
maybe some of you don’t like it. But the Jews said, Boy, that’s a hard saying,
how can we take that? And many of them went away and walked no more with Him.
That’s what the Bible says. And Jesus turned to His disciples and He said, You going to go too? I’m going to turn to you and say, Are you fed up too? That too hard for you
to swallow? I’m I giving you truth or am I giving you imagination? Is
that what it says here or doesn’t say it?
So, the highest good that heaven could bestow was the gift of the Spirit
of Christ, which includes His eternal life. Do you know what His flesh is?
(A man in the audience) The Word.
(Wilfred) The Word. That’s right. His Word.
(A woman in the audience) So there isn’t a literal body in Christ?
(Wilfred) It’s a spiritual body.
(Same woman in the audience) But there needs to be?
(Wilfred) Yes.
(Same woman in the audience) It’s a mystery.
(Wilfred) Yes. It’s a mystery. We can’t understand God, but let us
understand what is has give us. The part that applies to us, let’s take that,
It’s very important, I’m really laboring this thing because there no way you’re
going to understand salvation unless you understand this.
(A man in the audience) So what’s the Bible or the Spirit?
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(Wilfred) And as the body without the Spirit is dead so the Word without
the Spirit is dead. You can read that Bible from cover to cover and not
understand a thing that it’s saying, in a spiritual sense. You’re spiritually
discerned, Paul says.
(A woman in the audience) Then ...... break ...my body is broken for
you...........
(Wilfred) Yes, so everybody gets a peace. It has more than one meaning.
You will never understand some of these scriptures unless you’re willing to
open your mind up to take in more than one meaning. As I have read you a few
statements about that, but there are more. But until you can do that you’ll
never understand the Bible.
(A woman in the audience) Well, this explains to us what it means, that
the blood cleanses from sin.
(Wilfred) That’s exactly right! We are cleansed; we are purified by the
blood of the Lamb, right. I never understood that until I saw this. Do you
understand it?
(A woman in the audience) I am just beginning to understand it. Yes.
(Wilfred) We are cleansed by the rain, the water, and the flowing
streams of the Spirit of God. It’s the latter of rain. It’s the blood. It’s the
life. Doesn’t it say you are saved by His life? Isn’t that what it says in the
Bible? I could find it in my concordance. It does say it. We are saved by His
life.
(A woman in the audience) And to think that you’re saved by Christ’s blood.
I never understood because I didn’t see that Christ’s blood was shed without____you know that drop by drop from the cross would
save me.
(Wilfred) Right. That’s a symbol. How many
people in our church do you think understand it?
(Many voices in the audience) Unintelligible.
(Much laughter)
(Wilfred) But you’ll see, next week maybe, if we get to it. The importance of this. God is going to cleanse His people
from sin. He is in the inner most compartment of the heavenly sanctuary
officiating, but, and I could read you that statement but my tape is about gone
and I don’t want to keep you over. The true tabernacle not made with hands is
His church, and I can read it to you. And the temple that is to be cleansed is
not just the temple in heaven. She says there is a parallel work going on here
on the earth while Christ is cleansing the heavenly sanctuary He is cleansing
His true tabernacle by His Blood. He shed His blood and the blood had to be
taken to the inner apartment to the most Holy and the
saints that are living in this generation are those who are going to be made
most holy. Without fault, no blemish, stand perfectly before God without an
intercessor. The work is going to be finished and He can lay down His robes.
The blood has been delivered and
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it will be there forever. That’s what I read.
(A woman in the audience) So that’s why it was so hard for God to give
up His Son.
(Wilfred) Absolutely. He gave up something
permanently, see. But it was hard and it wasn’t hard. He loves us so much that
He was willing to let His Son do it. Isn’t that something?
(A woman in the audience) It says that He loved us so much that He loved
the Son even more for the sacrifice that He made.
(Wilfred) But He had to let the Son do it, can’t you see, otherwise the
devil would always have a point. God did not live His perfect law of self
sacrifice.
(A man in the audience) Because of this the whole Godhead is exalted
because now everybody sees really what He’s like, they would have never seen
this before.
(Wilfred) That’s right. The true character of God will be fully
revealed. I can read you that from the Desire of Ages. The last message
to God’s people, and hopefully we are sharing it here. The last message to
God’s will be a revelation of the love of God. God’s people are going to see
His love in a manner they have not seen it before, But there is more to it. And
we’ll cover all these
(The end of C/D #20 and the beginning of C/D # 21)
I would like to continue more or less from where we were last week and
probably just do a little bit of reviewing as we go along, and tie the pieces
together. We have been dwelling upon The Everlasting Covenant, not only in
these meetings but in prayer meeting and in last week’s service and some of us
have been at some of these and not at others. We’re all at different stages and
it’s difficult for me to know just how much I need to review and how much we
can move on without reviewing.
But briefly The Everlasting Covenant is a covenant that was made between
Christ and His Father which comprised the agreement concerning the plan of
Salvation. And the Bible gives the elements of this covenant in little bits and
pieces, here and there. This is the way God choose to write His Word. We get a
little here and a little there, percept upon precept, line upon line, and then
with The Spirit of Prophecy commenting and enlarging on some of the thoughts,
and making them clearer. We have many different facets that have to come
together in order to get a complete picture of the plan of salvation, There are
certain things about it that are far more important then
others, at least they appear to be and we have reached a point in our history
were it is an emergency situation. If
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this thing goes on very much longer it will be impossible to live in this
world. There are certain things that still have to been done. God is waiting
for His people to respond. It’s a voluntary thing were nobody has to go God’s
way, and yet His very throne is at stake if His people don’t respond. For this
reason God is going to do something. And I am hoping maybe next week to deal
with that portion. It’s in the Loadicean message and
other parts of the Bible and it applies to us at the present time. The
Spirit of Prophecy has quite a bit to say, and until we understand
that aspect we are not really prepared for what really is going the happen.
I might also say that some of the things we are going to be pointing out
here of necessity because unless we understand them God’s work isn’t going to
be finished, that’s all unless we understand them. But in bringing them in we’re treading on thin ice for the simple reason
that the devil is out to knock down every advancement in God’s cause. And He’ll
do anything He can to knock it out. And as I say I’ll deal a little more directly
with that next week in connection with the unfolding of the events that will
transpire as we are facing into the close of probation. There is a great work
to do yet but it’s going to be done fast, a shaking among God’s people and the
sealing. That’s what is right ahead of us. And I don’t think any of us really
have a very exact concept of what’s going to happen. But the Bible does have
some things to say and so does The Spirit of Prophecy
and I think it is about time we get into those.
But now let’s get back into the covenant. The basic theme of the
covenant is the salvation of God’s people. In fact, the
salvation of the universe, the preservation of freedom of choice, and the
reestablishment of the government of peace. That’s it. And it is an
internal government; it functions from the inside out. Allegiance to God is on
the basis of love, you respect Him for what He is, you do the things He asks
you to do, and you keep His commandments, because you want to do it. But it
goes deeper than that, the law of God is a principle, a principle of life, in
fact it is the very essence of the life of God, expressed. It is the principle
of self sacrificing love, and this has to be planted into the hearts of the
believers before they can enjoy doing God’s will, before they delight to do His
law. And unless they do it out of this motivation the law is not kept and the
government of peace is not established. But the kingdom of God is going to be
restored in the hearts of His people before probation closes. And the way He is
going to do it is revealed in His word.
Ok, what is the goal of the plan of salvation? It is found in the
Mount of Blessing page 18. At least this is a reference to it; there are
many passages that state it directly. Maybe I should state it directly before I
go into that passage. I had thought to move in a slightly different direction
but I’ll do it this way.
Can any of you give me a statement in The Spirit of Prophecy that
indicates what the goal is?
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(A man in the audience) For the
plan of salvation?
(Wilfred) Yes.
(Same man in the audience) Thou shall call His name Jesus because He
shall save His people from their sins.
(Wilfred) Yes. To what extent does this apply?
(Same man in the audience) Be perfect as even your Father in heaven is
perfect.
(Wilfred) So there is our example. There’s the measuring stick. And we
are to come up to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. That’s
what the gifts of the Spirit were given for, to bring us up there.
And here is one from the sixth volume of The Bible Commentary,
page 1118, “Only those who through faith in Christ obey all of God’s
commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness
in which Adam lived before his transgression. They testify to their love of
Christ by obeying all His precepts.” Now the moment Adam sinned the mediator
had to step in. We are soon coming to the time when the mediator is going to
lay down His robes. What condition do we have to be in before He can do that?
The condition of sinlessness as it existed in Adam
before he fell. Now that is a tremendous challenge that is a tremendous
challenge. And we can’t do it, there is just no way.
So I’m going to go through here as fast as I can tonight to show you
what God’s plan is for accomplishing this, up to a point, I can’t finish it.
I’ll deal with something else next week.
Mount of Blessing, page 18; “Righteousness is holiness, likeness to God,”....Is that
plain? Righteousness is holiness, being like God. “and
"God is love." 1 John 4:16. “It is conformity to the law of God,”....
What is righteousness? Conformity to the law of God.... “for all Thy
commandments are righteous" (Psalm 119:172), and "love is the
fulfilling of the law" Romans 13:10. Righteousness is love, and love is
the light and the life of God.”.... Isn’t that something? Righteousness is
love, and love is the light and the life of God. That’s a fantastic Statement.
And I venture to say that some day if the Lord permits this thing to keep
going. Science is going to discover that emotional energy is the driving force
of life. In fact, I think that many of them have tumbled to it already. You
wouldn’t function at all if it weren’t for the fact that you have emotional
energy. Emotional energy is a mechanical form of energy. It is a form of
electrical energy and if that were not present you would have no motivation to
do anything, you would be completely apathetic, and you would be just like a
vegetable, a dish rag. Only when you get
the drive, Oh, I want to this. You know what I mean. I want to do this. That is
the evidence that there is vital energy operating. It was love that created
this universe, that’s the energy that God used to created the universe. Love is
the
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light and the life of God. It is the central core of the Deity. It is the
central core of the universe; everything is founded on the life of God, which
is His love. Well, I haven’t explained it, I’m not professing to explain it,
but I’m trying to give you some thoughts that might help you to realize how
important this principle is. “The righteousness of God is embodied in
Christ.”....Now where is this righteousness? It is embodied in Christ. Now to
be embodied means that it is in His body, in His particular personal physical
being, that’s where it is. It is embodied in Christ. “We receive righteousness
by receiving Him.” Wherever we are going to get this
righteousness that she is defined here as holiness, likeness to God, conformity
to His law, love. If we are ever to get that, we are going to have to
get it where? From Christ.
Now, I want to go to Review and Herald Nov. 19th, 1908, To explain how we get Christ, I was confused
on this for many years, I’ll admit it. When I was younger, a little tyke, like
when we get these instructions down in cradle roll or primary or wherever it
is, you see a picture of a heart and you open it up and there is a picture of
Christ inside. Christ has to be in your heart or you can’t be good. Now, it
took a long time to knock that idea out, because Christ is a physical being how
can He get in my heart, and if He got in here how in the world could He get in
yours? It just doesn’t make sense. It is a difficult thing to explain to a
youngster isn’t it? It is even a difficult thing to explain the grown-ups. But
I’m going to read some statements that will probably help a little ...I hope.
Quoting, “The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life
of Christ.” Does that help any? So it isn’t Christ bodily that has to come in,
it’s His Spirit that has to come in.
(A man in the audience) What is the reference of that?
(Wilfred) Review and Herald Nov. 19th, 1908. It’s very
noticeable that Sister White began to speak about some of these love principles
and spirit principles at the turn of the century, after the nineteen hundreds,
that’s when they start to come in. Her experience was progressive you see.
(A man in the audience) What was the last part of that statement?
(Wilfred) I’ll read it again. “The impartation of the Spirit is the
impartation of the life of Christ.” It imbues the receiver with the attributes
of Christ.”.... So that’s where we get it from. If we get the
attributes of Christ then we are becoming like Him, aren’t we? Like it
said holiness was? .... “Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of
the divine nature.”.... So the divine nature is tied in with the attributes of
Christ and it’s tied in with the Spirit of Christ.
Now we will go to The Desire of Ages page 389, and I hope you won’t
object to me reading quite a bit here. I’m doing it for a reason. There is a
certain amount of fire that can stir up by things I might say and I want to
make sure that the
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references are here.
The Desire of Ages page 389, “It is by beholding His love, by dwelling upon it, by
drinking it in, that we are to become partakers of His nature.” ... So we have
to drink in His love, we behold it, we dwell upon it, we just absorb it. And
that is what we have to do in order that we may become a partaker of His
nature. Now since His love is His life, I just read that from Mount of
Blessing page 18, then to receive His love is really to receive His life.
Isn’t it? Christ has to live in us, That right? He
lives His life in us. How does He do this? Well, He does it through giving us
the principles of His life. The basic one being Love, and this motivates us.
This brings about our behavior in line with the life of Christ. I’m going a
little ahead of myself there on that statement. But... let’s move on. If the
light and the life of God is His love, Mount of Blessing page 18. You
got that? “And the light and life of God is embodied in His Son,” That is also
from Mount of Blessing page 18, “Then to receive Christ into the soul
temple is to receive the light and life of God, His love.” Is that clear? I
just summarized it. Or should I say it again? Is it too difficult? “If the
light and life of God is His love, that’s what Mount of Blessing page 18
said it was. And if the light and life of God is embodied in His Son Christ, that was also from Mount of Blessing page 18,
“then to receive Christ into the soul temple is to receive the light and life
of God, which is His love. You may have to listen to that again or write it
down or look at the statements to kind of put that one together. But to receive
Christ into the soul temple means to receive the Holy Spirit into the soul
temple. We read that didn’t we? Therefore the Holy Spirit is the conveyor of
the life of Christ. That clear? It is the Holy Spirit
that is the transmission agent of the life of Christ to the individual soul
temple. Now, maybe we should do a little more reading.
Romans 5:5, I won’t look it up, I think I can quote it; “....the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” How
does the love of God get into our hearts? By the Holy Spirit.
And, I have one that I just read, “The impartation of the Spirit is the
impartation of the life of Christ.” Alright, now I’ll move on.
The reason that the Holy Spirit is the conveyor of the life and love of
God is made clear in the statement from the Review and Herald May 19th,
1904. I think that’s the one that’s quoted in the Sabbath school quarterly,
1973 1st quarter, page 51, and it says this; “Christ declared that
after His ascension, He would send to His church, as His crowning gift,”....
The very top gift, see? .... “the Comforter, who was
to take His place.”.... Now, that’s clear isn’t it? The Comforter, the Holy
Ghost is the best gift that He could bring. The very top one.
And He is going to send Him to take His own place. .... “This Comforter is the
Holy Spirit,”.... Then the next statement is the thing that really shocked me.
It comes after a dash which means that it is restating or defining what the
Holy Spirit is. That what that dash means. This
Comforter is the Holy Spirit “— the soul of his life, the efficacy of His
church, the light and life of the world.” Now there we’ve got that same
statement again, the light of the world is the Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit is
the
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soul of Christ’s life. .... “With His Spirit, Christ sends a reconciling
influence and a power that takes away sin.” Alright now, why is Christ
sending the Holy Spirit, which is His very soul?
(A man in the audience) To give the power to take away
sin.
(Wilfred) To give the power to take away sin.
That’s why. I just read it. That’s why He is sending Him. Now there are many
other statements that bear that out. Many of them. The
Holy Ghost is the very soul of the life of Christ. It is the eternal Spirit of
life, the divinity of Christ which could not die. Notice this now, and
through the eternal sacrifice of Christ wherein He laid down that eternal life He
made it available for man to share. While He died the
eternal death of the sinner in His humanity on the cross. Now I read
that because I wanted to write it distinctly so I wouldn’t make a mistake on
it. That is not a quotation from the Bible or The Spirit of Prophecy.
That is a conclusion which is obvious from statements that are given. I have
not given you one stating that His divinity did not die. I didn’t get it looked
up. Do you know where it is John, off-hand?
(John) I can find it.
(Wilfred) Well, maybe we can just accept the fact that it’s so until we
get it. It was His humanity that died not His divinity. Divinity cannot die.
Now, Christ’s Spirit, His soul, His divine Spirit, His divine soul, did not die
on the cross. This was the life, the eternal life that He laid down voluntarily
so that you and I could partake of it. Now, we are going to read some more
passages to bear that out.
I’m still commenting; The Holy Spirit is the very soul of the eternal
life or divine nature of Christ, the divinity that could not die. This was the
Ghost which Jesus gave up before He could die in His humanity. Is that clear?
He had to give it up or He couldn’t have died. That’s why the Holy Spirit is
called the Holy Ghost indecently. It was the very life of Christ, the very soul
of His life, as I have read to you, which He had to relinquish in order that He
could die. The Holy Ghost was the divine eternal life, it could not die. But
Jesus in His humanity became unconscious of His eternal life. He went to sleep.
He died. Sister White said that when He came forth from the tomb He came forth
by means of a power inherent in himself. Do you understand that now?
(A woman in the audience) If He laid down His humanity, didn’t you say
before that this soul that He laid down went back to God?
(Wilfred) Yes,
(Same woman in the audience) Then how did He raise Himself?
(Wilfred) That was His power.
(Same woman in the audience) Well, is that the same power as His soul
that
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went back to God?
(Wilfred) It was His, It was His, and The Bible says in several places that
God raised Jesus from the dead. Now, if you can find any other way of
reconciling those two statements that I have given, I’ll be very glad to hear
it.
(Same woman in the audience) Ok, it was Christ ...... unintelligible
(Wilfred) We are dealing with a very difficult thing. I know that,
that’s why I want read as many statements as I can to verify what I am saying.
We don’t understand the Deity, there’s no way to understand it. We know that
the Holy Spirit is spoken of as an entity, “IT”, we also know that it is spoken
of as a person, “HE”. Now if I read this right, He is the image of Christ. The Ghost of Christ. If I read this right.
I don’t find any separate Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, it may be there but
I haven’t found it. The Holy Spirit is in the Old Testament, yes, but it is the
Spirit of Christ. If you get what I mean. The Holy
Spirit is the power of God whereby Christ could be everywhere at once, be aware
of everything at once. He came down on Mount Sinai and talked with Moses, He
was an entity, in a body. But at the same time He could be aware of what’s
going on everywhere else. He was God, He could do this by virtue of His eternal
Spirit, the eternal spirit of God which was His, and He told us where He got it
from in the Bible. Anybody got the text? No? I am amazed at Adventist students.
(A man in the audience) I didn’t hear the question. I was looking up
something. What was the question again?
(Wilfred) He told us where He got His eternal Spirit of life.
(A man in the audience) From the Father.
(Wilfred) That’s right. Remember the text? As the Father hath life in
Himself even so hath He given the Son to have life in Himself.
Isn’t that plain? I don’t know how you can twist that around. And who give Him
His authority?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) How do we know that? I’ve heard that He always had it.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) That’s right. Before He came to this world, I’d have to read
the statement to get the exact point of time. Just a minute.
Here it is. Page 23 of Desire of Ages “This was a
voluntary sacrifice. Jesus might have remained at the Father's side. He
might have retained the glory of heaven, and the homage of the angels. But He
chose to give back the scepter into the Father's hands, and to
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step down from the throne of the universe, that He might bring light to the
benighted, and life to the perishing.” Now, this was at
the time that He came to this world in the form of humanity.
She goes on to say; “Nearly two thousand years ago, a voice of
mysterious import was heard in heaven, from the throne of God, "Lo, I
come." "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest
not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me” .... Now,
that’s important. Did you get that? God prepared a body for Jesus who was
Christ, to come into. That was His human body, see. .... “Lo, I come (in the
volume of the Book it is written of Me) to do Thy
will, O God." Hebrews 10:5-7. In these words is announced the
fulfillment of the purpose that had been hidden from eternal ages.”.... That’s
the core of The Everlasting Covenant..... “Christ was about to visit our world,
and to become incarnate. He says, "A body hast Thou prepared Me."....
And she goes on to show how He couldn’t have come in His original body. Now, He
gave back the scepter. That means He turned back His authority to the Father.
He didn’t have that when He was a little baby in the manger. Can’t you
understand that? I mean, He couldn’t rule the world in that condition. Where
was all this authority that He had before? He gave it back. He wasn’t an all
knowing, an all wise, an all powerful, in the flesh. He was just like we are.
He came in the same form of humanity as we are. Do you see the point? The
Everlasting Covenant is the key to this thing. It tells us that it is the last
will and testament of Christ. So, if we want to find out what He did with it we
just have to find out what happened afterwards. What were the terms of His
will, what has been happening since He did all this? Well, we know what been
happening, He has made available the Hoy Ghost in its immeasurable quantity if
I can put it that way.
I’ll read a statement or two to verify what I am saying. There are so
many things in this plan of salvation that it’s going to take eternity to cover
them all. So don’t expect me to answer all the questions that may be in your
mind right now. But I want you to see certain points which are very vital to
our understanding of the nature of God’s character of love. That’s what I want
you to understand. Here was this God, Christ, who was willing to forsake the
eternal Spirit of life, and all His former knowledge and wisdom, and power, and
become a simple little human being. I say simple with quotations around it
because no human being is simple. But, comparatively to take on this human form
and the purpose of all of that was to prove that man can live the law of God
without sin when he partakes of the divine nature. Now Christ had the divine
nature originally, but He had to come and go through the process whereby we
will go through in order to make the demonstration and prove it. The devil
says; it can’t be done. No human being can keep your law. It’s not possible. So
Christ laid down His former existence, His former life, and He went to sleep
and appeared as a little baby. And the only thing He got from God was the
anointing of the Holy Ghost in the same way that you and I can have it, with
reference to this business of overcoming sin. Now, you say, it’s a little
different because the Holy Ghost was His Father, alright. I say it is. But I
don’t want to get on to that subject tonight. And, I am not so sure we
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can solve it. But, we can solve this much. That Jesus
while He had available to Him all His former existence, by a decision He could
have been reinstated. He was still Christ. He was still the King of the
universe, and He was still able to go back to His Father and reinstate Himself.
But He didn’t do it. He took only what God gave Him according the terms of that
covenant. Now, it was all worked out, they had it all worked out beforehand.
And the Father was the administrator of this last will and testament of Christ,
doing what Christ wanted with it. And He was administering this agency of the
Holy Ghost which was Christ’s very soul, He was partaking of himself, His
divine nature, you see. And I can read you that. He was a partaker of the
divine nature, which was His own. And by partaking of that divine nature He had
the love of God in His heart and He recoiled at sin, He hated sin, and that is
what gave Him the power to not sin. The Holy Ghost.
And it’s that power, and that’s the only power that there is in this whole wide
universe to keep you from sinning. And we can partake of that same divine
nature, that same Holy Ghost, that same eternal Spirit of life which was
Christ’s, we can partake of it. And I’m going to show you that. And only as we
partake of that will we ever live without sin. So the key to returning to the sinlessness of Adam before his transgression is to receive
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That’s the key. So we want to know how do we
get it, well, we’ll come to all of this. But I must, especially since this is
going on tape, I must give references. In order to protect our arguments here,
I say argument. I don’t mean argument in the sense that we arguing, I mean
argument in the sense of reason.
Yes?
(A woman in the audience) So Satan was right when he said nobody can
keep your law?
(Wilfred) 99%
(A woman in the audience) In a sense that you can if you have the Holy
Spirit, there’s no other way.
(Wilfred) There’s a condition. And if Christ hadn’t done it we wouldn’t
have had a chance in the world. And if Christ hadn’t made that divinity
available to us we wouldn’t have had a chance. That was His sacrifice, isn’t
it? What was it that He sacrificed anyway?
(A woman in the audience) His life.
(Wilfred) His life according to my Bible. Isn’t
it? Is that what you said? That’s right. His life. What was it that God Sacrificed?
(A man in the audience) His Son.
(Wilfred) The life of His Son. For God so loved
the world that He gave His only
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begotten Son that whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish but have
everlasting life. And He says that if you believe in Him you shall have everlasting
life. It’s as clear as it can be, isn’t it?
Now we’re going on to Desire of Ages page 656, “In partaking with
His disciples of the bread and wine, Christ pledged Himself to them as their
Redeemer.”.... What are we talking about here? The last
supper, the very last lesson that Jesus taught His disciples. What was
he doing? Pledging Himself to them as their redeemer.
.... “He committed to them the New Covenant, by which”.... Now here is one of
those little gems about the covenant, see? .... “By which all who receive Him
become children of God,”.... Can I comment? How do you receive Him?
(A woman in the audience) By His Spirit.
(Wilfred) His Spirit. When you receive Him
through His Spirit you become a child of God. So, you are born of the Spirit
and the Bible says that you are born again. Right?
That’s our born again experience when you receive the spirit. Now, if you
become a child of God then you are one of His family,
aren’t you? And if you become one of His children in the family you are entitled
to His heritage aren’t you? If there is a last will and testament don’t you
cash in on the heritage?
Well, let me read it in black and white here, Become children of God and
joint heirs with Christ. That comes right out of the Bible. To become a joint
heir with Christ means that you inherit the same things that Christ inherits,
doesn’t it? In other words, He has brought us up to His level or He has come
down to our level or we have come together. He has reconciled us to God. We are
now brothers in the same family. He is our elder brother, we are all joint
heirs. He shared His heritage with His people, do you get it?
(Wilfred)Yes, Sister.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Right. That is right. And Sister
White brings it out very clearly. And so does the Bible. Actually, she says
that the redeemed will take the place of the angels which fell. Now that would
put them on the level with the angels. But God has a higher plan than that. In
the message to the Laodicean people, which is us, He makes the promise that
those who overcome as He overcame, and some body’s going to do it, you see.
I’ve already read that. Will be set down with Him in His
throne, even as He has set down with His Father in His throne. Don’t you
see? We are joint heirs with Christ. Now, that is what Christ did and He did it
to save us. Because He has no power to save a man against his will, without
taking that will away from him. And He won’t do that, no coercion; He has no
way to get rid of sin out of a man’s life except by the decision of that man
himself. I think I must have left an envelope at home tonight, where I had
those quotations. It says in Desire of Ages, that the expulsion of sin
is the act of the soul itself. It also says
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in this statement that I called your attention to in the quarterly. It’s
in the passage; it’s quite a long passage. It also says here, listen; At the
cost of infinite sacrifice and suffering Christ has provided for us every
essential to success in the Christian warfare. Now how did He provide it?
Through sacrifice, and what was His sacrifice? His life and
His total heritage. By doing that, He has provided for us every
essential to success in the Christian warfare. Isn’t that a tremendous
statement? The Holy Spirit brings power that enables man to overcome. Now,
can’t you see in that statement the connection between the sacrifice and the
Holy Spirit? There are dozens of statements where the sacrifice of Christ, what
He did for us, is tied right in with the Holy Spirit. Do you understand why
that’s tied in from what I have said so far tonight? You get that? The Holy
Spirit brings power that enables man to overcome. It is through the agency of
the Spirit that the government of Satan is to be subdued. It is the Spirit that
convinces of sin, and with the consent of the human being expels sin from the
heart. I want you to notice that the expulsion of sin is the act of the soul
itself, that’s from the Desire of Ages I didn’t look it up; it would
take me a moment to find it. That is I have to expel sin from my life, I have
to make the decision. But the expulsion of sin from the heart is the
Spirit’s job with my consent. Did you get that? No you don’t. I can see by the
look on your faces. Look, I can obey the commandments of God by own decision, but
my heart doesn’t go along with it. I have to buck it in the warfare with evil I
have to buck it. But I can still do it. You don’t believe it?
(A woman in the audience) Nicodemus said “I kept your law”.
(Wilfred) But you can’t keep them the way they are supposed to be kept.
See. You can keep them, out of a sense of obligation, you know. Pushing yourself as hard as you can. But that keeping of the
commandments is not adequate, why not? Because the
commandment of God goes deeper that outside commandments, it’s the heart
principle of self denying love, and I don’t have that in my heart, but I still
keeping the commandments. Now, the expulsion of sin, meaning
transgression of the commandments is the act of my decision itself. Do you
understand? But the expulsion of sin from the heart, I read here is the job of
the Spirit, with my consent. Now, how do I show the Spirit that I consent?
(A woman in the audience) By keeping the commandments.
(Wilfred) By keeping the commandments, that’s right! Oh, you’re coming
along famously. I’m sorry for what I said a few minute ago. The mind is then,
I’m reading again, The mind is then brought under a
new law, and I gave a sermon about this back in vespers a few months ago, and
down in Red Deer the next day, The mind is then brought under a new law, the
royal law of liberty. And how come it’s the royal law of liberty? Because you no longer have to struggle with sin. You like to
do righteousness, the law of God is in your heart, you love to do His
commandments, and it’s a joy, you do it just because you want to do it. That’s
what you want to do. You want to go skating? You love skating? You don’t
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have trouble for going skating, unless it’s too cold. You love God’s law; you
don’t have any trouble keeping God’s law. Now, do you understand then that
there is two stages to this thing? When you accept the
Lord Jesus Christ and you accept forgiveness for all your sins, I could read to
you from 1st Selective Messages that that
justifies you and before God you become as righteous as His son is. He accepts
you just as though you were His son. You are in to His family, a joint heir
with His Son. And He treats you like He treats His son. She says, and He loves
you as He loves His Son. Now that is a tremendous thing. To think that God
loves me the way He loves His Son. I don’t understand that, but He can. However
it goes on to say that if you want to retain justification, Do
any of you know what it says? If you want to retain justification you have to
obey. You have to obey. And it says in Acts; That God gives the Holy
Spirit, to what kind of people? Those who obey Him.
Well, why do you obey? Why do you have to keep the commandments of God when your keeping of the commandments isn’t good enough anyway?
Can you give me one reason?
(A man in the audience) For one thing it develops character.
(Wilfred) That’s one. Another one?
(A man in the audience) Love.
(Wilfred) How come? Can you explain it? Because we were talking about
the fact that we haven’t got love in our hearts yet, you see.
(A man in the audience) Love to do what is right.
(Wilfred) We haven’t to that stage yet, that’s the second stage.
(A man in the audience) By keeping the Law to
understand God’s character. And that’s what I think comes in with the
Law of the Lord for converting the soul.
(Wilfred) That’s good Ted, that’s right. Can you give me another reason?
(A woman in the audience) To show we love Him.
(Wilfred) To show that we want to be cleansed.
That we want to keep God’s law. We are looking for His cleansing, see? Can you
think of any other reason?
(A woman in the audience) Did you just say that He gives the Holy Spirit
to those who obey Him? If you’re trying to obey Him He’s going to give you the
Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) That’s good and that’s what Rick was on. So, we can move into
that one. And when the Holy Spirit comes what happens in the heart?
(A man in the audience) The motive....
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(Wilfred) The motive begins to change over, doesn’t it? Then you begin
to do it because you want to do it. Now, most of us are in sort of a transition
stage aren’t we? Has anybody got it fully made yet? You really love to do
everything God wants you to do? Without any questions?
It’s the joy of your life and you hate it, you can’t stand it.
(A woman in the audience) To show the universe what Satan
...... Unintelligible
(Wilfred) That’s another good thought because the Lord has to
demonstrate that the devil is wrong. That’s why the world was actually created
and why we are here. He has to demonstrate, and how is He going to demonstrate
it if we don’t help Him to do it. After all it is us that He is concerned
about. He’s got to be justified in sending His Spirit to us to transform our
hearts in the eyes of the universe. And He can’t do it if we aren’t
demonstrating that we want it. If I am not demonstrating that I am trying to be
qualified to accept or receive the Spirit, and I want the Spirit and I want the
purification and I want to do His law. If I am not demonstrating that then how
can God be justified by sending me the Spirit?
(A woman in the audience) What is the use anyway of God sending the
Spirit if you we don’t want him....... unintelligible
(Wilfred) No point in it, is there? No point in it.
(A man in the audience) I think there is also a point out of mercy that
God doesn’t send His Holy Spirit to us in fullness, because if we had the
fullness of that Spirit and then went contrary to Him. Something like Saul’s
experience, Saul was given an instantaneous change of heart but it wasn’t
enough to save him.
(Wilfred) We’re touching on a little problematic point there too, John,
because the Bible says that we can’t use the Spirit, the Spirit uses us. So we
want to watch just how we state this but it is true, that when God gives
somebody something, He gives it to them and they can use their decision in
implementing their activities. There are different phases to the Spirit,
different facets to the Spirit and one of them is power. God can give you power
in divine healing, that is very well illustrated. There is an actual electrical
energetic force that is delivered to the body in divine healing. Now, when God
gives power, additional power to you so you can use your decision utilizing
that power you have a greater risk. That’s the reason He took Adam away from
the tree of life incidentally, if he had continued to eat of the tree of life
he would have continued to eat of that life give force which was tremendous
because even after he was cut off from that tree he had enough vital energy to
keep him for nine hundred years. Now, if God had permitted him to continue eat
of that tree, he would have been an eternal sinner. I mean, the sin pattern
would never have died out. The only way you can get rid of the sin pattern is
death. That’s the only way. That’s why God had to take the tree of life away
from us, and He’s not going to restore it to us, and incidentally, the tree of
life is symbolic. I’m not saying there isn’t one up there, but the tree of
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life is symbolic. So is the river of life, it’s the very thing we are
talking about. And God is going to; according to the terms of The Everlasting
Covenant restore everlasting or eternal life to His people on this earth before
Jesus comes. You may not believe that but I’m going to read it. You are going
to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. And drink of the water of the tree of
life, in a sense.
(A woman in the audience) Mrs. White says that the branches of the tree
are hanging down.
(Wilfred) Good for you, I wondered if anyone would remember that one.
Some of the branches hang over the wall.
(Same woman in the audience) Right.
(Wilfred) And she talks about how they are healing people, as a present
thing that is happening.
(A man in the audience) You asked about if God gave us more of the Holy
Spirit. There is a statement in Mount of Blessing that says that; If it
were possible for God to force to give one hundred times more of the Holy Spirit
then you now possess it would not make you a Christian. Because there is
something
(Wilfred) Your decision.
(Same man in the audience)
that your decision has to be involved.
(Wilfred) In a sense, this is the tree of life. And she says the God’s Holy
educating Spirit is in His Word, and it is the Spirit in the Word that makes it
alive. And that Word equate to the boy of Christ. Christ, who was the Word,
wasn’t He? And He was made human flesh. Right. But
before He was made human flesh He was the eternal Word, the record of all truth
was in the mind of that great body He had up there. There was never a thing
that ever happened that wasn’t recorded, and it was there permanently,
including the record of sin. That’s the true sanctuary, that’s where it was all
recorded. And the pain. Am I speaking the truth? Is
that where the pain was recorded? Anybody have the passage?
(A man in the audience) It’s Education page 63.
(Wilfred) That’s right. Now, how is that record going to get
obliterated?
(A man in the audience) Through the cleansing of the
sanctuary.
(Wilfred) Yes. It had to come through death and the shedding of blood,
and I hope you understand that better before we get through.
Let’s move on. “He committed unto them the New Covenant,” I’m still
reading
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from the Desire
of Ages page 656, “by which all who receive Him become children of God and
joint heirs with Christ. By this covenant every blessing that heaven could
bestow for this life and the life to come was theirs.” Isn’t that a statement?
Isn’t that a statement? “By The Everlasting Covenant which He committed
to His disciples at the last supper, every blessing that heaven could bestow
for this life and the life to come was theirs. Tell me, what’s the highest
blessing they could possibly get?
(Many voices in the audience) Everlasting life.
(Wilfred) Everlasting life, and where does it come from?
(A man in the audience) The Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) And whose Spirit is that?
(Same man in the audience) The life of Christ.
(Wilfred) The life of Christ. Got it? Good for
you. So now we can say that Christ lives in us. Right?
And we can understand what it means, more or less.
(Same man in the audience) And we live in Him.
(Wilfred) And we live in Him. As He said He lived in His Father and His
Father in Him, He prayed that we might be in Him and Him in us and that we all
might be one. Remember that prayer? There you have it. The Spirit of the
eternal God is the unifying agency. It is the life of Christ. Now, at the last
supper Jesus said, “Drink it”, His is my.....What?
(A man in the audience) Blood.
(Wilfred) What is the blood?
(Several voice in the audience) The life.
(Wilfred) The symbol of the life. So you see we
must assimilate the life of Christ. We must drink it. He said, It’s shed for you. He said, I
didn’t shed it so I could take it all back again. I shed it for you. You are
going to be a joint heir with Me. What about the
bread? He broke it into pieces didn’t He? And He gave each one of them a piece,
and He said, Now take, eat it. That’s my body, which
is broken for you, now get it. That body He used to have, see,
with all its characteristics, all its attributes, all its powers, is broken.
He’s never going to live in it again, excepting as He lives in it through the
marriage union with His saints which is in the New
Testament, Paul describes it. He is the head of the new body, and each one of
His joint heirs is a member in particular, says Paul, and the marriage union is
going to take place. And the marriage she tells us very plainly is between
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Christ and His Church. And Paul talks about how the husband is the head
of the wife, the head of the house, and he talks about how they, twain, shall
become one flesh, remember? And then he says in Ephesians there, Now,
that’s a great mystery. How could they become one flesh? After all, they are
two people. Paul says there, It is a mystery. But I’m
not talking about a husband and wife when I say that, I’m talking about Christ
and His Church. Don’t you see? How that the head and the body are going to be
united through the agency of the Holy Spirit, the blood which circulates
through the body, and nourishes the whole body and ties it together in gives it
all life. There’s a symbol here too. Jesus also said,
That He was not again going to partake of this bread or wine, until He did so
anew in the Kingdom with them. In the Kingdom. Now,
you will find in Early Writings that the Kingdom is restored before
probation closes. You will find that the marriage takes place before probation
closes. I think it is on page 280 of Early Writings. Does that mean
anything? It means to me that the outpouring of the Spirit in its fullness, the
fullness of the life of Christ is going to be poured out on His people, they
are going to expel sin and the hearts going to be changed, they are going to be
like Christ, restored to the sinlessness of Adam
before His fall, and the marriage union is going to take place, and they are
all going to be one before the close of probation closes. And then He going to
lay down His robes because then He can do it safely. And He is going to
demonstrate before the universe that those human beings have indeed overcome
sin as He overcame and the devil has access to them from all directions,
excepting their life. Why can’t He take their life? Because they’ve got eternal
life, that’s why. He can’t touch them, Can’t touch them.
You had something?
(A man in the audience) Well, I was going to read this statement; Let us
bear in mind that Christ is the great central heart from which the lifeblood
flows to every part of the great body of humanity. He is the head from which
extend the nerves that reach even the most minute and most remote parts of the
body. When one member of the body which Christ is so mystically connected
suffers the throb of pain is felt by our Savior.
(Wilfred) Excellent! I’ll have to get that statement afterwards. I don’t
have it with me. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that clear? I would like to assure
you folks with all the sincerity that I can possible muster that I am genuinely
trying to give to you the truth as it is in God’s books. And if I make a
mistake it is not a deliberate mistake. And I am not without fault by no means,
and I am not infallible, and if anything shows up that I have brought to you
that appears to be in error or it’s contradicted by something that is in the
Word or the books I would appreciate you bringing it to me. Rather than going
around the community and saying all kinds of nasty things about the nonsense
that Johnson is teaching. I would appreciate that very much. Not that I am
expecting to be immune to criticism but when it is unnecessary I think we
should try to avoid it.
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I am as eager to find out God’s truth as you are. I think I can safely
say that. I don’t think there are any of you more eager to get God’s truth then
I am because my whole outlook, ambition, aim in life from here on in is to do
the will of God and to fulfill His commission, which He has given to all of us.
And the only way that can be done is to feed on the Word. It’s the only way it
can be done.
(The end of C/D # 21 and the beginning of C/D #22)
This covenant deed was to be ratified or confirmed with the blood of Christ,
and the administration of the sacrament, that is taking part in the communion
service, was to keep before the disciples the infinite sacrifice. We have it
again see, the communion service is to keep before the disciples the infinite
sacrifice which was made for each of them individually as a part of the great
whole of fallen humanity. That’s makes it personal, right?
Alright, my next statement is from Christ’s Object lessons page
419. It says: “In the great and measureless gift of the Holy Spirit,”.... How
big a gift is it? Great and measureless. ....”are contained all of heaven's
resources.”.... How many of heaven’s resources? All of
heavens resources. Was there anything left which God didn’t put on the alter? Not a thing. Now, can we get this point? The Law
of God is self-renouncing love. The devil says nonsense, and God doesn’t keep
His own law. What choice did God have if He was going to silence the devil
forever? And never have another devil arise, but to lay all on the altar. I
mean, if that’s His law, total self-sacrifice and the devil says he doesn’t
believe it. How can you demonstrate it if you don’t do it and God did it,
that’s The Everlasting Covenant, that’s The Everlasting Covenant.
The Son said, Father, I will volunteer, I’ll give my life, that’s all I’ve got,
that’s it, my life, if I don’t have my life the rest of the treasures don’t
amount to a thing. But He had His Kingdom and He had His life, So, He gave back
the scepter, turned back the Kingdom, all the possessions of the universe and
He gave His life. That’s all He had, total self-sacrifice, He proved the devil
wrong. Got it? What did God do? He gave His Son. He gave His son. What else
could He give? God could not give His life, if He gave His life there would be
no universe. The whole thing would go to pieces. He could not give His universe
either, without anyone to govern it, it would go to pieces, and there was no
way. The best that God could do was to give His Son. Now, it doesn’t say
anything about the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. Did you notice that? It
doesn’t say anything about that at all. Can you see why? Because
the Holy Spirit was the eternal life of Christ. Don’t you see? I read
you that tonight. It was Christ who gave up the Ghost. Don’t you see the
significance of the Bible language, when a man dies he gives up the Ghost, when
Jesus died on the cross He gave up the Ghost, but that ghost word is written
with a small letter. Why? It was the human, the same
one that you and I have to give us conditional life. Ok? But the other one, the
eternal one that gave Him eternal life in Himself,
that Ghost has a capital letter and that’s the one that The Everlasting
Covenant assigned back to the Father, the life of Christ went back to the
Father. The scepter went back to the Father as the administrator of the estate
of the last will
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and testament of Christ. And
Jesus in the manger, even before that, was the first human temple. The first to
partake of the Holy Ghost that Christ had relinquished. He was the first born
of every creature; does that make sense to you now? The first begotten from the
dead, does that make sense to you now?
(A woman in the audience) If the Holy Ghost is the life of Christ and it
never died then Christ never died.
(Wilfred) That is right!
(Same woman in the audience) Then what sacrifice did He make?
(Wilfred) Because Sister White says that the divinity cannot die. He
died in His humanity.
(A man in the audience) Could I answer it this way, that prior to
Calvary’s cross that was Christ that was His heritage.
But The Everlasting Covenant was that He would share His life with His people
that that eternal Spirit of life would be broken, divided, and distributed to
sinful human beings. That they might be one with Him, and in that sense it was
an infinite sacrifice.
(Wilfred) The Bible says, He came to give them
life and to give them life more abundantly. That makes sense to you now? You
see what that means? But it came from some place, you see. It was His heritage,
which He assigned to His people. All of heaven’s resources are contained in the
measureless gift of the Holy Spirit. And we’ve already talked about the
greatest resources of heaven. So let me go on to Review and Herald May
19th, 1904, and that the same one from the quarterly here. Quite a bit in that quarterly. I hope you saved it.
“In the gift of the Spirit, Jesus gave to man the highest good that
heaven could bestow.”.... Well we have already read that. The same thought. But
she goes on. ....“The Saviour
looked on humanity, and saw that it was under the power of the prince of
darkness; but He saw also that there was hope for human beings because there
was power in the divine nature successfully to contend with evil agencies” ,,,,
Then how was He going to help them to contend successfully with evil agencies?
By giving them the highest good, and what was the highest good? The gift of the Spirit.
Now let me go on. Mount of Blessing page 55. “If they would open
their hearts fully to receive Christ, then the very life of God, His love, would
dwell in them, transforming them into His own likeness.” .... That’s the goal
isn’t it? Aren’t we right back to the goal that we started with? We are going
to be transformed into His likeness, that’s holiness. Now if
we would open our hearts fully to receive Christ, and you know what that means
now don’t you? That means to receive the Holy Spirit. Then the very life
of God and you know what means don’t you? His love. I
told you that at the beginning, that love is the power it is His life. I read
you
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that would dwell
in them and what would it do? Transforming them into His own
likeness. .... “and thus through God's free gift they
would possess the righteousness which the law requires.”.... The
righteousness that we defined right at the beginning.
(A man in the audience) It becomes their own
possession through the Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) That’s right! That’s imparted righteousness. There is a lot of
talk going on today, a tremendous amount of it about imputed righteousness.
They just call it the righteousness of Christ, see? And it is all about imputed
righteousness. There are very few people talking about imparted righteousness.
But bless his heart Elder Lehmen down there in
California, he’s talking about it. He was at our camp meeting last summer. I
hope some of you got it. And there are others. And within and few months if not
within a few weeks you will find many more springing up. How do I know that? I
know that because the books say so.
The last message of mercy to a dying world is going be a revelation of
the love of God. And before she said that she says something about how His
character has been misunderstood, misrepresented. I think I’ll take a moment to
read that at this point, because it will make more sense right here, then where
it was going to be. It’s taken from Christ Object Lessons page 423, “So
the followers of Christ are to shed light into the darkness of the world.
Through the Holy Spirit, God's Word is a light as it becomes a transforming
power in the life of the receiver. .... And I haven’t talked about that yet. I
have been talking about the Spirit, but the other part of the communion service
is the body, you know, the Word, and that comes into it too. .... “By
implanting in their hearts the principles of His Word, the Holy Spirit develops
in men the attributes of God. The light of His glory--His character—“.... That
means that His glory is His character. .... “is to
shine forth in His followers. .... “The great apostasy will develop into
darkness deep as midnight, impenetrable as sackcloth of hair.” This is the day
of the Lord which is spoken about in Joel Chapter 2, and it is right
ahead of us. And the reason we are meeting here, so far as I’m concerned is to
get ready for that day. That’s why we’re here. It’s deep as midnight,
impenetrable as sackcloth of hair. .... “To God's people it will be a night of
trial,”.... It’s not going to be a day;
it’s going to be a night of trial. .... “A night of weeping,” You’ll find that
in Joel. .... “A night of persecution for the truth's
sake.”.... And some of that persecution will come from members of your
own church. Mark my word. .... “But out of that night of darkness God's light
will shine.” “He causes "the light to shine out of darkness." 2
Corinthians 4:6. When "the earth was without form, and void, and
darkness was upon the face of the deep," "the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light; and there was
light.”.... Do you see the parallel? .... “Genesis 1:2, 3. So in the
night of spiritual darkness, God's word goes forth, "Let there be
light." To His people He says, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come,
Where do they get that light from? The Holy Spirit. ....” and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”.... What’s glory of the Lord? His character. I just read it a minute ago. Isaiah
60:1. "Behold," says the Scripture, "the darkness
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shall cover the
earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and
His glory shall be seen upon thee." Isaiah 60:2. “It is the darkness
of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. .... Do you believe
that? Yes. God is lost sight of or completely misunderstood. .... “Men are
losing their knowledge of His character. .... Is that right? Yes, listen to all
the swearing that going on, even these little wee tykes four and five years old
can out with the longest words you ever heard. Where did they learn those? ....
“It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God
is to be proclaimed,”.... I read to you last Sabbath, those of you who were
there a statement which said that there is a special message in each
generation, and an emergency, and we’re in it. We are not the same generation
of Sister White’s day. We are a new generation. And here it is; At this time a
message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and
saving in its power.” .... Do you get the connection? What have we been
talking about?
(A man in the audience) The Holy Spirit.
(Wilfred) And what’s he going to do?
(Several voices in the audience) Save us from our sin.
(Wilfred) Save us from sin. Right! That’s the message!
“His character is to be made known.”.... What have we been talking
about? The character of God. And what’s going to
happen with it?
(Many voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Alright, good for you. .... “Into the
darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His
goodness, mercy, and truth. .... The last rays of merciful light, the last
message of mercy to be given to the world, are a revelation of His character of
love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and
character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.”.... And
I missed one sentence, I should have read it, I thought I would save a little
time, but shouldn’t have done that. I’ll go back. It comes just ahead of that
“The last rays of merciful light... And here it is ... “Those who wait for the
Bridegroom's coming are to say to the people, "Behold your God.” I can’t
do it yet can you? I can say, “Behold your God and point that way, but I can’t
point this way. And I never will be able to.
(A man in the audience) But Jesus did, and He said He was our example in
all things.
(Wilfred) Yes.
(A man in the audience) He said; He that has seen Me
has seen the Father.
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(Wilfred) Right. But I will never be able to
point to me and say; Look I am without sin. She says
it. If anybody says he is without sin, the Bible says, He deceives himself; he is
a liar, he is not telling the truth. So, you will never see yourself without
sin. But God will.
(A woman in the audience) Isn’t it weird that the closer we come to
Christ the more sinful we are in our own eyes?
(Wilfred) Right. So, we will never be able to
boast. No boasting. If we boast we know good and well that we haven’t made it
yet.
(A man in the audience) It says that the world will be filled with the
glory of God other people looking at the one hundred and forty four thousand
will see Christ in them, will they not?
(Wilfred) Perhaps, up to a point, and for a time. But after probation
closes there will only be one hundred and forty four thousand righteous people,
ultimately living on the earth. And the wicked aren’t going to appreciate their
righteousness. Who are they demonstrating it for?
(A woman in the audience) The universe.
(Wilfred) The universe. But, listen. Before
probation closes, while the sealing is still going on, and the shaking is
taking place, the last message of mercy is going to the world. And who do you
suppose is giving it? Who’s giving it? God’s people.
So they are going to be seeing God’s people giving the message, see? And any
other of God’s people who are going to come into the truth are
going to see it and they are going to join into their ranks. Do you understand?
That’s why the message of mercy has to go, because there are many more yet to
come in. And from there on in the message has to go as a testimony, as witness
to the others. What a privilege. But it’s going to be a dark day first, a dark
day, a day of weeping, a day of morning, a day of persecution. Are you ready to
make your choice yet? Well that’s up to you. You better get some more
information on it.
(A woman in the audience) How can it be so much darker?
(Wilfred) Misapprehension of God’ character, it says. The devil is
taking over. The Spirit of God is being removed from the earth. Don’t you
understand? It says that the Spirit of God is being removed from the earth.
Where is it going to be? On God’s people and the devil is in control of
everybody who does have the Spirit of God.
(A man in the audience) What I was going to say, you see brother, it
seems to me in the epistles of John there are apparent contradictions
but I think he is talking about the experience, the progressive experience. If
we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but then
over a little further it
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says whosoever is
born of God does not commit sin.
(Wilfred) That’s right. And do you know what born of God means....
(Same man in the audience) ....or His seed remains in him and he cannot
sin because he is born of God.
(Wilfred) That is exactly right. That’s exactly what we have been trying
to say isn’t it? That when the Spirit is received, you are
receiving the life of God and become a member of the family. You are
born again and you hate sin, you recoil at it, so you can’t do it. Isn’t that
what we have just said tonight? I think that if you go back on the tape you
will that it is on there. And that is what he is saying there, you see. But at
the same time you cannot say you are without sin. That is what he says.
(A woman in the audience) So we can’t even really say, most of us that
we were born again....
(Wilfred) You are saying a very profound truth.
(Same woman in the audience) I’ve always wondered how could disappointed
people come to you and say are you born again, are you saved?
(Wilfred) There are different meaning though.
God’s word is like a telescope, the old fashioned kind you used to be able to
push together and then you pull it out, like one of those dinking cups you used
to take on the train to drink water. You pull one out and then you pull the
next one out and you pull the next one out and it expands you see. That’s the
way God’s truth is.
You are born again, in a sense when you first accept the Lord Jesus
Christ and you first receive a measure of the Spirit. It is an experience of
the rebirth at a certain point, at a certain level. But there is a renewed
rebirth....
(A man in the audience) Do you have to grow up?
(Wilfred) Yes, you have to grow up too. But the new birth experience is
not completed until you have complete victory over sin. Otherwise it is a
contradiction, isn‘t it? Alright, let’s go on.
Mount of blessing page 114, “God's forgiveness is not merely a
judicial act by which He sets us free from condemnation. It is not only
forgiveness for sin, but reclaiming from sin.”.... Do I have to
read that again? “It is not only forgiveness for sin, but
reclaiming from sin.” God’s forgiveness is. ....”It is the
outflow of redeeming love that transforms the heart.” That’s what God’s
forgiveness is. God’s forgiveness is the outflow of redeeming love that
transforms the heart. When you see yourself as the sinner that you really are
we’ll talk about that
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experience some time
later. And you recognize what God really did to forgive you those sins and the
sacrifice that He went through and the price He paid, that will charge your heart
with love. And that’s what transforms, that is the Spirit of God.
388 from the Desire of Ages. “It is through the Spirit that Christ dwells in us; and the Spirit of
God,”.... Now, before I go on, I’ll call your attention to this, she identifies
the Spirit with the indwelling Christ, then she identifies that with the Spirit
of God, see? It’s all the same. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. “And
the Spirit of God received into the heart by faith, is the beginning of life
eternal.” Now I told you I’d read something that would tell you that you will
have life eternal, everlasting life while you are still on this earth. Did I
read it? “Received into the heart by faith, is the beginning of life eternal.”
And I think we can get a better grasp on that if we go to our Bibles here. To John
chapter 6, now Sister White does make quite a bit of comment on this chapter
too. We could have read it from her, but I think we’ll go to the Bible this
time directly. We should be able to understand what Jesus is talking about
here, now, after what we have read. As I told you before, if you read The
Spirit of Prophecy, which illuminates the Word then you can go back to the
Word, the Bible, and read it again and you’ll understand what it means. The
Spirit of Prophecy does not replace the Bible, but it certainly illuminates
it. After all it is The Spirit of Prophecy, and where does The Spirit
of Prophecy come from?
(A man in the audience) The Spirit of God.
(Wilfred) Yes, the Spirit of God. It is one of the manifestations of the
Spirit of God.
I think we’ll start about verse 47; 47 “Verily, verily, I say unto
you,”.... There’s that statement again. Whenever Jesus uses that statement,
He’s coming out with something very important. He says; Truthfully,
truthfully, I say unto you. He that believeth on me”.... What does he have?
(A man in the audience) Everlasting life.
(Wilfred) Does He say he is going to have it? No, He says he has it. And
how does He identify everlasting life? Next verse. Who
is that bread of life? He is. 49 “your fathers did eat manna
in the wilderness. and are dead. 50 “This is
the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die.” But they die don’t they? So what death is He about? He’s talking about
eternal death and eternal life, not this conditional life. .... 51 “I am the
living bread which came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread, he
shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh ... Do you get
the connection now with the communion service here? .... “which
I will give for the”.... What? What is the purpose of giving His flesh? To give the world ... what
kind of life?
(A man in the audience). Eternal life.
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(Wilfred) Why did He make this sacrifice? To give
eternal life. I just wanted to make sure you got that. The sacrifice was
that He gave His eternal life to His people that’s the
sacrifice.
52 “The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”.... Can you
imagine that? And there would be a lot of people who would think us queer if
they heard us talking tonight. Believe you me. But, of course there are so many
ridiculous things in the world today that the devil got going that the world is
getting calloused to ridiculous things. Let me say that when the message that
in this book is thoroughly preached as it is going to be preached, there are
many people who are going to think, Oh, that’s just another bunch of nonsense,
listen to what they are talking about, eating the flesh of the Son of God. Crazy. They are fluey in the head. Can’t you see that?
That’s what they thought about Christ back there. They thought He was the
prince of devils.
(A man in the audience) Just another cult.
(Wilfred) Just another cult. Yes. Another
deluded soul. Again He said; 53 .... “Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink his blood; ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.”....
Alright. Before I go any further, I must remind
you of this that we have for many years taught, correctly, that the flesh
stands for the Word of God. It is a symbol for the Word of God. Sister White
does that, and that the blood symbolizes the Spirit of life. Now, it’s the
Spirit of life that gives life to the Words, see? In the same
sense that the breath that God breathed into Adams nostrils gave His body life.
In the same sense, the Spirit of God breathed into this Word brings it life.
But while we have taught this for many years, and it is correct, we much avoid
closing our minds and saying, that’s what it means and nothing else. Do you
recall the statement I read you on that? Do I need to read it again? And there
is more than one. But if we say that it means this and nothing else, a
statement of Jesus, it specifies that if we take a statement of Jesus and say
this is what it means and nothing else we are not saying that which is actuated
by the Spirit of God. Now, to me that mean that the words of Jesus have deeper
meanings, and she says that directly, she says, all the saying
of Jesus have deeper meanings. I want to make that
clear and I want it to on the tape so that anyone who listens will know that we
are not transgressing the Word of God by giving the interpretation that I have
already given you. You’re going to have to drink the blood of the Son of God
and that is talking about the eternal life. You’re going to have to eat the
flesh of the Son of God. And that is talking about the eternal Word. Now get
this point, where did this Bible come from?
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible.
(Wilfred) Give me the text.
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(A man in the audience) Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost.
(Wilfred) Good for you John. Did you all hear it? Who is the author of
this Word?
(A man in the audience) The Holy Ghost which is the
life of Christ.
(Wilfred) And who is the author?
(A man in the audience) Christ.
(Wilfred) And how did it come to get into this book?
(Many voices in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Through the Holy Spirit. So, to drink
the blood, which means to drink the life of the Son of God.
Means to drink the very author of the book. And when
you get the source of the material then when you read the book, do you have any
trouble understanding it? You follow that? Alright, now how much further do we
go here? Maybe one or two more verses to clinch it. .... 55 “For my flesh is
meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood,”.... Now here, this is interesting. .... “dwelleth in me, and
I in him”.... Do you get the communion there? “dwelleth
in me, and I in him”.... There is your communion. That’s the communion service.
You partake of the Son of God. .... 57 “As the living Father hath sent me, and
I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me.” 58 “This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as
your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth
of this bread shall live forever. Well I thought you would appreciate that
passage after what we have said. Now you have seen what that passage means, how
it fits into the communion service and I have shown you how that in eating the
last supper Christ committed to them The Everlasting Covenant which was the
covenant that provide for the total sacrifice of God to demonstrate His
character. Are we making sense?
Alright, we are back to the Review and Herald Nov. 19th,
1908. Oh, I have read this before but there is a little more to it, so I’ll
repeat it. “The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul.”....
So what does it do to the soul? It gives it eternal life right? Just like the
physical breath. .... “The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the
life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ.”....
Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Now I
have given you all that in other statements, but that puts it together in one.
I’m just about through for tonight.
Now, you’ll find in 1 Peter chapter 5 verse
3, that he talks about God’s heritage being in His saints. No it doesn’t. It
talks about God’s heritage being His saints; we’d better look it up. 1 Peter
5:3 “Neither as being Lords over God's heritage, \
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but being ensamples to the
flock.” If you are a lord over God’s heritage what is he talking about is God’s
heritage? The people, isn’t it? You can’t lord over something that hasn’t got
freewill can you? He is talking about His people, that’s
the point there. “Neither as being Lords over God's heritage
but being ensamples to the flock.” You’re not supposed to lord it over
them, but you are supposed to be an example. But the point I want to get out of
there is that He calls the saints, “God’s Heritage”. That’s the point I want.
Now, go over to Ephesians 1:17, 18, and 17 “That the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,”.... Where does all glory come from?
....
(A man in the audience) Jesus Christ.
(Wilfred) “may give unto you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:” 18.... so
that ....”The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know
what”.... “You’re supposed to get revelation and knowledge and you are supposed
to understand and so on. What for, what is it that you are going to understand?
The hope of His calling. What is it?
(A man in the audience) That you should glory in His
heritance.
(Wilfred) No, whose calling is this?
(A man in the audience) Christ’s.
(Wilfred) The hope of His calling. What’s
Christ looking for? The redemption of His people, his
heritage that He used to have. Where is it now? In the
possession of His....
(Several voices speaking at once) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Yes, until He gives it back to His people.
In Early Writings page 280, it says; “Every case had been decided
for life or death. While Jesus had been ministering in the sanctuary, the
judgment had been going on for the righteous dead, and then for the righteous
living. Christ had received His kingdom, having made the atonement for His
people and blotted out their sins.”.... What does it mean that He had received
His Kingdom? Having made the atonement for His people? Do you see? What is the
Kingdom? A ruler-ship over people. He has now received
His Kingdom. What does that mean? The ruler-ship of His people had been
restored to Him. What does that mean? Their allegiance is restored they
voluntarily are obeying His commandments, His law.
(A man in the audience) Perfect confidence in God.
(Wilfred) Perfect confidence in God. Because of
freedom of choice He can’t force
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them back, no
jails, no execution chambers in His government. No whip, so to speak. It’s got
to be voluntary. So the only way He can get His people back is to win them. Now
when the kingdom is restored in their hearts as Jesus said; the kingdom of God
is within you. When it is restored, that means that His people are at one with
Him. Or, put it the other way around, when God’s people have become reconciled
to God and they are in total allegiance to his commandments then the kingdom is
restored. Do you understand that? Alright. .... “The
subjects of the kingdom were made up. The marriage of the Lamb was
consummated.”.... And I told you about that. .... “And the kingdom,”.... Now we
are talking about the kingdom as a totality ... “and the kingdom and the
greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven,”.... that’s how we know the
totality of it, see? was given to Jesus and the heirs
of salvation,” ... Get that? .... “and Jesus was to
reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.” His heritage, His eternal life, all
His possessions which the Father had given into His hand, and I could have read
you that statement, to be used to prove to His people that there is no love in
all the universe greater than God’s love for them. That’s what she says. God
gave all this into Christ’s hands to prove that to us. And that their greatest
joy will be found in loving Him. That is what Christ was to do with that
heritage. Did He do it? Yes, He is doing it. So His heritage is then where?
(A woman in the audience) In His saints.
(Wilfred) In His saints. If His saints don’t
come up to standard, there is no heritage, it’s lost. It’s lost. His very body has
been given them to eat, and the marriage has taken place. If there is no body
the head is in rather a bad predicament. Isn’t it? His heritage is in His
saints, do you get the picture? His very throne is at stake, she says, in the
perfection of His people. Can you understand that now? The kingdom will be
restored if you and I and the other fellow are willing to let Him do it. Are
you willing? Are you willing? The Spirit is what’s going to do it. We’ve come
to take conclusion. So we are up to the same point I always get to and never
get any further, it seems.
What are the conditions for receiving the Spirit? And we will leave it
until next week because we don’t want to keep you too late. I think that we
have a few minutes left on the tape yet. If you want to ask questions or
discuss anything about what we have said.
(A man in the audience) Brother Johnson, this heritage is His saints,
but by the last will and testament of Christ we may inherit Him. It was His
life that He laid down to give to us, isn’t that what it means in Colossians
where it says; 12 “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”
(Wilfred) Yes. That was Colossians what?
(Same man in the audience) Colossians 1:12-14, 12 “Giving thanks unto the
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Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in light:” 13 “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:” 14 “In whom we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:”
(Wilfred) Excellent. You know, as you read your
Bibles now, and The Spirit of Prophecy, but particularly your Bibles,
you are going to find that texts will flash out with a new meaning that you
have never seen before. And I want to read that to you from the book here. She says that’s what’s going to happen if I
can find the page. I am very poor at finding page numbers. Here it is. This is
what’s going to happen to you if you grasped what we talked about tonight. This
is what’s going to happen. “The Words of God are the wellsprings of life. As
you seek unto those living springs you will, through the Holy Spirit, be
brought into communion with Christ. Familiar truths will present themselves to
your mind in a new aspect, texts of Scripture will burst upon you with a new
meaning as a flash of light, you will see the relation of other truths to the
work of redemption, and you will know that Christ is leading you, a divine
Teacher is at your side.” Mount of Blessing page 20. That’s what’s going
to happen to you.
John just brought a text out now. Any other thoughts
that anybody has?
(A man in the audience) You mentioned earlier that eating the fruit of
the tree of life is actually this very thing we have been talking about,
partaking of the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit. And here’s the
statement here in volume 5 of The Bible Commentary page 1135, it says:
“As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me should live by me. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
and they are life. This is eating the fruit of the tree of life.”
(Wilfred) Excellent John, I appreciate it very much. You can see why I
like to get statements and quotation to verify what I am saying. Because it is
easy for a mind that hasn’t thought of these things to be closed and rebel at
any new thought. That is the normal human reaction. And antagonism rises very
readily in minds of some people whenever a thought is expressed that they have
never thought of before, especially if they are in a position of trust and
authority, it’s the human reaction. This is going to be and I could read you
this from The Spirit of Prophecy. This is going to be one of the tests
of brotherly love. “The Lord is going to
bring into His people new truth, truth that comes out of the old, expands, I
could read you all this. And it is coming upon them as a test of brotherly
love. How do we react, are we humble, teachable, open minded, or are we closed,
stubborn, rebellious. The Spirit of Prophecy is very clear in its
denunciation of being closed. At the same time, we have no safety in listening
to all sorts of fantastic theories. It doesn’t matter who they come from. And
if you do not test everything I say by the Word, you are foolish, because I may
say something that isn’t right. I have done it in the past and I can do it
again. I am not infallible. But I have tried to keep my thinking as close as I possible can to the things I have the
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evidence for. I have
a lot of other thoughts in my mind that go beyond what I have talked to you
about, but at the present moment I don’t feel I have sufficient evidence to
justify sharing it with somebody. I would rather wait until the Lord gives me
further evidence and makes it clear that it is either true or false. And I
think that is the attitude we have to take. If I have not given adequate proof
to you for what I have said, you better go digging some more.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) You don’t really know. I realize sitting listening to somebody
else, your attention for two hours just does hold without a break. There are
points and things I have said no doubt that you don’t get, and that’s one
reason I tape it so it can be repeated. You can hear it again and I go over
these tapes myself two or three times. If I can find the time I listen to them
again. To make sure everything I said was right in line. Because sometimes I
say something that I didn’t intent to say, I didn’t realize that I said it that
way, I intended to say.....
(A man in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Yes. There was one other point I wanted to comment on what
John said, if I could remember what it was. I think
that is what it was. I wanted to point out that we have to have evidence.
Sister White says that anyone comes purporting to expound on the word of God,
those are not the exact words she uses; I have forgotten the precise quotation.
This is the thought. She says; Let him speak a plain thus says the Lord. If he
can’t do that, you’d better be suspicious.
Yes?
(A man in the audience) I’d like to read one more statement and I think
it is rephrasing what you said in a little different way. This statement says
of the sacrifice of Christ, it says; This was not done by going out of Himself
to another but by taking humanity into Himself, thus Christ gave to humanity an
existence out of Himself to bring humanity in to Christ, to bring the fallen
race into oneness with divinity is the work of redemption. Christ took human
nature that men might be one with Him as He is one with the Father that God may
love man as He loves His only begotten Son. Bible Commentary Volume 7
page 927.
(Wilfred) I have it marked. But I would just like to mark it here. Now
you’ll have to read that statement very slowly and carefully to get what it is
talking about. It’s a profound statement.
(Same man in the audience) The way I see it Brother Johnson, and I am
not sure whether this is correct or not so I ‘m asking you, It was the eternal
Christ which gave life to Jesus and He became the first-born of the hundred and
forty four thousand. The first first-born of every creature it says, then He partook of His
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own life, I don’t know if I
can explain this....
(Wilfred) I know what you mean. He placed a seed Mary’s womb which came
at His baptism..... unintelligible
(Same man in the audience) And that is when He got the first inkling.
(Wilfred) Right. He had no memory of His former
existence.
(Same man in the audience) Right. It says, For our sake Jesus emptied Himself of His glory, He clothed
His divinity with humanity that He might touch humanity.
(Wilfred) But after His anointing at His baptism He had the power to tap
in. But He did not. He emptied Himself voluntarily so that nobody could say
that He had an advantage over us. He took only the strength that was given Him
by God in His battle with temptation for instance. At the same time He was not
telling a lie when He said, Before Abraham was I am.
(Same man in the audience) I have the statement that just substantiated
exactly what you said. When I read this statement several years ago, I had to
read it over four or five times and I have marveled at it ever since. Volume 7
of The Bible Commentary page 925, It says; He could not come in the form
of an angel for unless He met man as man and testified by His connection with
God that divine power was not given to Him in a different way to what it will
be given to us He could not be a perfect example for us.
(Wilfred) Isn’t that wonderful?
(Same man in the audience) That statement is saying that He didn’t
receive divine power in any different way then we ourselves can receive it. Because
if He did how could He be our example.
(Wilfred) John is a great help to us here because he has such a clear
cut and voluminous library of quotations from The Spirit of Prophecy.
(Same man in the audience) Desire of Ages page 24; “And He exercised
in His own behalf no power that is not freely offered to us.....His life
testifies that it is possible for us also to obey the law of God”.
(Wilfred) Just in case those didn’t get on the tape. I’m going to repeat
the references; 5BC 1135, speaks about our partaking of the fruit of the
tree of life, even while here on this earth. 7BC 927, speaks about
Christ and His incarnation and some of the details concerning that. And 7BC
925, says that Christ did not take to Himself for His own use any divine powers
different from ours. And Desire of Ages 24, He used no power in His own
behalf which is not freely available to us. I think that sums it up pretty
well. Any other comments?
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(Same man in the audience) Yes, I see it all here. The thing that
grieves me more than anything else is that, I mean even intellectually as I
look at this immense sacrifice, why isn’t my heart broken just so completely
that I couldn’t possibly continue to do some of the things that I do. That
bothers me more than anything else.
(Wilfred) Do you know why?
(Same man in the audience) My hearts a stone is all I can figure out.
(Wilfred) Do you know why John?
(Same man in the audience) Why?
(Wilfred) The latter rain has not yet been poured out.
(A woman in the audience) But see, we have to obey before He will
receive us.
(Wilfred) That’s right. And that’s the thing I have been trying to
emphasize to you folks.
(Same woman in the audience) How did Enoch get into heaven?
(Wilfred) God took Him up there.
(Same woman in the audience) He lived that righteous life, was he able
to do it and we aren’t?
(Wilfred) How do you know what kind of a life he lived?
(Same woman in the audience) He must have been perfect or he wouldn’t be
in heaven.
(Wilfred) Well, there are lots of people right now who are going to go
to heaven and their life isn’t perfect. I’m not saying Enoch wasn’t perfect.
But I’m trying to point out that God does not have to decide whether a person
is perfect or imperfect when He does something with them. He has accepted me;
if I die tonight I’m going to wake up in the first resurrection. But I’m not
perfect.
(Same woman in the audience) It says he walked with God.
(Wilfred) That’s right.
(Same woman in the audience) He must have been pretty close to Him.
(Wilfred) He was. No doubt about it.
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(Same woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) Well, he had the Spirit.
(Same woman in the audience) But the Spirit didn’t come to this
earth.......
(Wilfred) No, No, No, No. The same Spirit that comes to us through the
sacrifice of Christ was available through the direct application from Christ
before the cross. It was His Spirit. But listen now, this is important. Because
people were not being saved with the level of the gifts of the resources of
heaven at that level, see? He had to continually unfold more and more of the
resources of heaven to prove His love and to deliver that love to the hearts of
His people until He went to the very last dregs and He gave the whole thing.
Now if it doesn’t work He’s got no other resource.
Now with Enoch, Enoch was a righteous man. He was not living in the same
age that we’re living in. He had a physical body that was different from ours.
The degeneracy has progressed since Enoch’s time. So that there are differences
in his experiences from what our experience is going to be. But I’m not
prepared to go into all the details. There is just one point that I want to
mention and that is that every person who comes into this world is not an
accident. God has everything under control, and He anticipates the whole
picture. Enoch was a chosen vessel unto the Lord. To be a symbol or type of God
the Father and He took him to heaven. Moses was a symbol or type of Christ, and
he went there too, but he went through death first as Christ did, in type form,
see? And Elijah is a symbol or type of the Holy Spirit. And that’s why his name
is connected to the work it closes off just before the close of probation when
the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. It is the message of the coming
of the Spirit of God which represents the Spirit of Christ. And the love of God
in your heart transforms you, calling the disobedient to the wisdom of the
just, making ready a people prepared for the Lord. Now, there is more to it
than that, but I can’t give you the details on Enoch’s life. They’re not
revealed that I am aware of and if they are I haven’t seen them.
(Same man in the audience) The Godly character of this prophet
represents the state of Holiness which must be obtained by those who shall be
redeemed from the earth at the time of Christ’s Second Advent.
(Wilfred) So he was a righteous man.
(Same man in the audience) It says he overcame because he came to know
Christ so personally. Since Enoch lived a life of such close communion with
God, in another place here in Patriarchs and Prophets it says with
Christ, they are used interchangeably. He lived a life of such close communion
with God that he was not permitted to fall under the power of death.
(101)
(Wilfred) Well, that indicates to me that he was a righteous man, and he
attained it by walking with God. Just the same as we can. In every age it has
been possible for people to attain to perfection. It has been possible, but it
hasn’t been done.
(A woman in the audience) Do you think Sister White was perfect?
(Wilfred) Well, I don’t like to give opinions on that. Certainly God
accepted her.
(Same man in the audience) It seems to me Brother Johnson that in every
age there have been overcomers.
(Wilfred) In the Christian age the promises are given to overcomers and you can assume there were some. Sister White
has a statement on that doesn’t she?
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) There have been other Enochs, yes I
think there have.
(A woman in the audience) Unintelligible
(Wilfred) I’ll let you ask the Lord that when you get up there.
(Same man in the audience) It almost seems as you study the Bible that so
many of these men are going to be alive on the earth just before the coming of
Christ.
(A man in the audience) What difference does it really make when they
are translated when they have communion and a relationship with God, the Holy,
and they have eternal life it’s just like going to bed each night and getting
up in the morning as far as it goes?
(Same man in the audience) It’s a sleep.
(A man in the audience) Yes.
(A woman in the audience) These people that have overcome, they
evidently have had a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit than we have? Is
that because their characters are perfected further and the Holy Spirit is able
to do this for them since they’ve demonstrated this? …
(Wilfred) That’s good thinking. We do not have the fullness of the
Spirit because we do not fulfill the conditions. We’ll try to cover some of
that next week. But, there is more to it. We are a special situation since
1844. There is a special work going on and the cleansing of the sanctuary, Oh,
by the way the sanctuary is cleansed by the blood. Does that make sense to you
now? We are washed in the blood of the Lamb.
(102)
(Same man in the audience) There is a text, isn’t it in Zachariah
that says: In that day there shall be a fountain open for uncleanliness
and cleansing....
(The end of this six C/D series on the Everlasting Covenant)
May you be richly blessed by this book, is our prayer
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