TIH 559 Pastor Charles>> Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me, bless his holy name. We begin this program today by blessing the name of the Lord and also blessing his people. The Mosaic blessing that he gave to the children of Israel and also the Melchezidec blessing that our Lord gave unto us and that is be blessed in the field, be blessed in your homes and in your womb. Be blessed in your minds and your Spirit and just be blessed by the revelation of the Living Christ, the Lord of glory, the bread from heaven. Today on our program I would like to talk about by creed or by revelation and I want to start by asking this question. How do you know God? Do you know him by creed a written creed or do you know him by divine revelation? Do you know him by religious environment? You go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, go to choir practice on Friday or something like that, you go to young people's meeting or you have a song fest. Do you know him by that? Do you know him by religious affiliation and association or do you know him by divine revelation? What is a creed? You know we've every one of us somewhere along the line has come in contact with creeds, Apostles Creed, Athanasian Creed, the Nicene Creed of the fourth century. Really what it is it's a statement or a summary of what one believes. It's a statement of faith. You may ask what's wrong with that? Nothing within itself until it builds up borders around your belief system that you cannot believe anything else. You can only believe that which men has prescribed you to to believe. This is the Apostles Creed quote “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the day from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” unquote That's the Apostles Creed which was not necessarily composed by the apostles. But is your faith and is your experience limited to a man-made creed? There's three dimensions of belief as we see in the ministry of Jesus Christ, three dimensions of belief. Number one as we read the gospel story we see throngs following the Lord Jesus. They're thronging him for different reasons. In John chapter six verse twenty six, “Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily I say unto you, ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.” Do you know, I know you know, that some church people may be goodhearted people their concept of Christ, of the church and of Christianity is just simply to help the needy, to help the poor, those that are economically deprived, the poor. And people some people follow their the level of their experience, the depth of their experience is only can you give me something. What is in it for me? They follow the Lord Jesus for the loaves and the fishes only. That is the carnal, carnal needs a carnal concept of Jesus. Just give me, give me, give me, that's it. And then the next level of belief we see here in John chapter fourteen beginning with verse number nine, “Jesus saith unto him have I been so long with you, actually he's talking to Philip, Lord Philip said Lord show us the Father and it will satisfy us and Jesus said have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father and how sayest thou then show us the Father? Believest not believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me. The words that I speak to you I speak not of myself but the Father that dwelleth in me he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me or else believe me for the very works sake.” Level number two is believing Jesus for miraculous display. I want to see something was the attitude of the Pharisees. I want to see something. Prove your identity by turning these stones into bread is the idea. It's proof that you're the son of God. Do something to satisfy the lust of my eyes and the lust of my own earthly curiosity. Do something. I'm not against miracles. The Bible is full of miracles. God has performed no doubt millions of miracles in the last one hundred years even right here in the United States. I believe in miracles, miracles have taken place in my life and in your life but we do not seek the Lord just for earthly satisfaction, to help the poor or give me bread, feed the the people that are deprived and they need to be fed. But if you're following Jesus just for the loaves and the fishes, earthly benefits, material benefits, that's a mighty weak faith. Even if you follow him just for his miracles, that's not what he really wants out of us. What he really wants out of us is verse eleven in John fourteen, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” We believe Jesus for who he is. He's the manifestation of God in flesh. That's what Jesus told them to do. Now John goes on to say that God's work, this is St. John chapter six, he goes on to say John six verse twenty eight, “Then said they unto him what shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of God that ye believe on him whom God hath sent.” The work of God is to believe on Jesus. Now what does this word believe mean? It means to become one with Christ. You commit everything even your eternal destiny to Jesus Christ. You you commit your very life, your mortal life everything about you, your spiritual life and your eternal destiny, you become one with him one joined because we are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh or you can become anybody can become sectarian in their attitude. Remember the story that is found in the book of Mark and it's found in Mark chapter nine and verse thirty eight, “And John answered him saying, Master we saw one casting out devils in thy name and he followed not us and we forbade him because he followed not us but Jesus said forbid him not for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can likely speak evil of me for he that is not against me is not against us is on our part for whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name because ye belong to Christ verily I say unto you ye shall not lose his reward.” The sectarian spirit is that if you're not with me and believe everything that I've believe, if you're not part of my group then I don't want to have anything to do with you. You must be a cult. You must be false because you're not with me. That's sectarianism. That's Pharisaical. We find a further explanation of this sectarian spirit in Luke chapter nine. It's a corresponding story with Mark chapter nine. But when we come to Luke chapter nine and verse forty nine this is what we see. “And John answered and said, Master we saw one casting out devils in thy name and we forbade him because he followeth not with us and Jesus said unto him forbid him not for he that is not against us is for us and it came to pass when the time was come that he should be received up he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face and they went and entered into the village of the Samaritans to make ready for him and they did not receive him.” Did you catch that? They did not receive him because his face was though he would go to Jerusalem. “And when his disciples James and John saw this they said Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elijah did but he turned and rebuked them and said ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. And they went to another village.” But this was the rebuke ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. It it's the old totalitarian Spirit of rule or ruin. If I cannot rule you I will ruin you. If you don't believe like me and so much of that has crept in. It's a malady in the church or in the body of Christ. It's what church do you belong to? Do you belong to this church or this church or that church or which denomination? Who have you been approved by? Which priestly order has given you license? Did Paul the apostle have license from men? He only had license under the old order before he was converted but after his conversion he had an anointing and a calling. That's what we need today to help everybody regardless of the labels. And you know occasionally we get, we get, we get a lot of mail and we get mainly positive mail but every now and then we'll get a letter that has overtones of sectarianism in it or a Pharisaical spirit coming through and we got one not too long ago and I'm just going to use this as an example. As you well know I don't believe that there is a rapture and so this lady says there is one and take my name off your mailing list because all I had to do was read that there was no rapture in your magazine and also had to read that Abraham was not a Jew. Because folks, Abraham was Hebrew. You cannot have been a Jew because the word Jew is a contraction of Judah which was his great-grandson so Abraham was not a Jew. Abraham was a Hebrew and then she says being that you believe that no rapture and that Abraham was not a Jew I'm sure there are many other errors in your magazine. She said I know the Holy Bible therefore I can spot spot false cults very quickly. Please don't send your magazine to my home anymore or I'll burn it. You see that's that's the attitude of this lady from Houston. You're not with us, you're not with me so therefore you're a cult. Possible there's a possibility she doesn't even know the definition of the word cult or the characteristics of a cult and that is what the Lord Jesus rebuked his disciples. And these were good men James and John. He said ye know not what spirit you are of, what manner of spirit, some a a a spirit that wants to destroy somebody else even though they're naming the name of Christ, even though they're naming the name of the Lord Jesus and helping people, leading people to the cross and teaching the Word, because you're not in my group I want to destroy you. I want to call down fire from heaven. That's the totalitarian Spirit, that's a sectarian Spirit. Beware of those people who ex you know ex that display that type of attitude because those are the type of Christians that will turn you into the authorities, governmental authorities because look what happened in communist nations when some Christians turned others in to the authorities to save their own neck. I'm willing to give them up and push them into the mouth of the lion that I may save myself but I can feel justified in doing so because they're not they weren't part of my group. They weren't part of our church or our belief system. E. W. Kenyon was quite a man. He was born in 1867 died in 1948. He was born in New York and he founded the independent church in Los Angeles in 1923, radio pioneer. He's been, he was a an author of many books and magazine and actually gave a lot of thoughts. He was the fountainhead so to speak of a lot of teaching that is being taught today but this is what he wrote. And I want to just read part of his article. It's entitled The Effect of Creed Theology. I quote “Our Creeds have locked Jesus in the prison of sense knowledge. Some of them have actually embalmed him. He is helpless. He had no opportunity to reach the human heart. In other words he's frozen. Every time I see a cake of ice I can almost imagine I see the Master frozen inside and carved above him is the creed or doctrine of some church.” unquote Very aptly put. They have frozen the Savior. He cannot do anything outside of this block of ice called our church or our denomination. God has worked among Catholics. He has worked by his Spirit among people that we consider or you may consider to be cults and old-line denominational churches. He's worked among them because God does not know church labels. It's us that put boundaries on the Lord because of our unbelief but if you'll let him in regardless of what church if you name the name of Christ he'll come in and work and abide with you. Continuing with this article from E. W. Kenyon, I quote “I wonder if you realize that creeds and doctrines have imprisoned the minds of its followers. They cannot learn anything outside of their creed. If they do they are excommunicated. It makes bigots of its people. Could a priest repudiate the creeds and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and hold his place? How few of us realize that our creeds have made slaves of our ministers. Our clergyman become but machines and their advance depends upon their allegiance to their creed. It limits spiritual growth. It paralyzes all growth. One cannot grow beyond this creed without becoming heretic. It gives their creeds a limited God. Their God can reveal nothing beyond what is written in their creed. If their creed repudiates healing then their God is unable to heal in their midst. Creedal Christianity has given us our modernism. How true. How true. They were denied spiritual growth so they have turned to sense knowledge. S-E-N-S-E. It's a strange thing that creeds in our great denominations are not opposed to a preacher becoming a modernist but they object to his becoming a literalist in interpreting the Word of God. Sense knowledge has taken the place of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can only teach what the creeds declare. The Word is limited. Philosophy takes the place of faith. The word of man is taken the place of the Word of God. Theology in the creeds have taken over the modern pulpit. The creed is first and Jesus finds a place wherever he can.” unquote Dr. E. W. Kenyon. How true. How true. We have locked in our people and locked God out by our creeds. We know him in reality by his Spirit and by his Living Word. Jesus said I am the Living Bread. Living Bread is something you get every day. It's something new. It's something fresh. Open our minds to new revelation not to every weird thing that comes along but to the revelation of God's Word. Lord open my mind. This woman in Texas, in Houston, Texas is just an example of thousands and she may be no doubt, a good person, meaning well, but her attitude is that which was displayed by James and John in their immaturity. Let's call down fire from heaven because they did not follow us. We have a magazine that we would like to place in your hands called Truth in History. We will mail this to you free of charge if you would like one, a sample copy. Just write to us, call us or send us an e-mail. Check out our work our website and we will be glad to send you a copy each issue if you would so desire. And I think you will find it helpful and very interesting with all the different articles that we have in that magazine because we're different. We are not trying to conform or copy anyone for success or riches. That's not our aim. That is not our goal. Our goal is to share the richness of the Word of God with you and I pray that you have been enriched, that you have been even set free from a sectarian spirit, set free from a Pharisaical spirit. Everybody doesn't have to believe everything exactly like you or like me to be saved. No, some of these things that we talk about they're not a salvation issue. Salvation is by grace through faith plus nothing. It's not believing every theological point exactly correct. We are, Jesus said believe on me, believe on me, that's the work of God and then the lower-level believe me for my miracles and then the lower of the lower-level is you follow me for material benefits. But we follow him today and I pray that you follow him by believing in him, accepting him and living, letting him live his life in and through us because he is the Living Bread and we are joined with him. We're flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. God bless you everyone.