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     1. Dwelling in His Holy Presence   (3:10)
     2. Taking the Cross Sincerely   (37:05)
     3. Jesus, the Joy of Loving Hearts   (2:30)
     4. All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus   (2:34)

Philippians 3:18-20.  (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: ¹⁹Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)  ²⁰For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 3:7-11.  But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.  ⁸Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, ⁹And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: ¹⁰That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.  ¹¹If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

His life is “hid with Christ in God.”  Jesus lived like that.  He always lived in the bosom of the Father.  The Bible says, “The Son who is in the bosom of the Father.”  And wherever Jesus ministered, wherever He spoke, wherever He walked, He always did those things that pleased the Father.  He was always controlled, always controlled—His very talk.  He said, “The words that I speak unto, I speak not of Myself.”  And again, He said, “I do always the things that please Him.”

What a life!  “Your time is always, but My time is not yet.”  Oh, what a Son of God—to dwell in the bosom of the Father even while He was being crucified by wicked men!  No wonder death couldn’t hold Him!  No wonder death had to give Him up, and He conquered death, and He “abolished death,” and conquered hell.  What a life this Son of God lived! 

But you know, when He says, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am ye may be also,” He’s not talking about heaven, but He’s talking about that heavenly place—that wonderful union with the Father.  And do you realize that Jesus Christ is here today to do that for us?

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He says, “Many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping: enemies of the cross of Christ.”  They don’t take things seriously.  “Whose god is their belly.”  They’re moved, they’re governed, they’re ruled by earthly considerations: “They mind earthly things.” 

Isn’t that a description, though, of most Christians that we know: “They mind earthly things”?  “Their end is destruction!”  Now that, of course, we have ruled out of our curriculum; we don’t believe that!  Why, no!  We have somehow succeeded in fitting the Bible to our natural tendencies and experiences.  And we’ve been very adept at doing that.  But, oh, the judgment of the Bible, “their end is destruction,” ought to go to our hearts.

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Why, beloved, only the cross of Christ can deliver me absolutely from destruction, from this earthly life.  “Enemies of the cross of Christ.”  And the cross of Christ is only an emblem—is after all only a deception unless it means the crucifixion of my “old man with its affections and lusts.”  You realize that all of us lived in our affections and in our lusts.  Those things controlled us: they controlled our actions; they controlled the destinies of our lives; we arranged our living according to the lusts and affections of our own hearts: “among whom we also had our conversation in time past.”  That word “conversation” is the same as is expressed in “walk”—“our walk is in heaven.”  “Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”

Well, but who doesn’t do that?  Who would have the brass to judge that or to criticize?  “The desires of the flesh and of the mind” control humanity; they control Christianity!  There’s but one cure, and it is death—and not the death of man, but the death of God, the death of Christ—that cross of Christ that has wrought the sentence of death upon my old man, and I have been “crucified with Christ.”

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A lot of what we call “spirituality” is but imagination.  We read books.  We have known people that would take deep-life books by Madam Guyon and walk down the street like this, and breathe heavily: “Oh, what a deep-life Christian I am.”  What a farce! 

I tell you, the cross of Christ is so real you cannot mistake it.  You can’t.  When God unsheathes His sword and turns it against you, you’ll lose all judgment of others.  Then you will know what true humility means, where you “consider everyone better than yourself,” when God Almighty has been able by the light of the Holy Ghost to show you the destructiveness of this deceitful heart of ours—the absolute hopelessness of self.

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Oh, what a lot of charlatans we are!  What a lot of fools we are!  “When they thought themselves wise, they became fools.”  God points to the source of wisdom: that despised, spat-upon, bespattered with blood, mangled, crucified, thorn-crowned God!  That’s the “wisdom of God.”  That’s the sentence of God upon all that is me—everything pertaining to me.  And unless I accept the sentence of God, beloved, the harlots and publicans will get into heaven quicker than myself.

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But, oh, to be heavenly-minded!  “Our conversation”—our walk, our life—“is in heaven.”  I must be in heaven now!  God knows whether I love the cross of Christ.  God knows the people who think the thoughts that He gives.  Don’t you think He knows?

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We ought to say, “Well, God, the time past of our lives may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles”—meaning the will of my own mind.

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“I forget the things that are behind.  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering.”  Beloved, that knowledge doesn’t come to us only through prayer, but it comes through “forgetting the things that are behind,” and counting them “but refuse.”  It doesn’t mean that you put certain things in the ice-box so you can grab them again when you want them.  You know what you do with refuse: you get rid of it; you don’t want to see it; you don’t want to smell it anymore.  Oh, how good it is when the saints of God strip themselves of “every weight, and of the sins that so easily beset them.”

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Pentecostal ministers have said to me, “We have only one meeting a week that amounts to anything; that’s Sunday morning.  But Sunday night, you can’t get them out: they’ve got their television sets in their homes.”  You mean to tell me that people like that are going to heaven?  Why, they wouldn’t stand it in heaven without Barney Google and Spark Plug, and Mutt and Jeff, and Krazy Kat!  They wouldn’t stand it five minutes!  They’re full of it; it’s in their hearts.  But how different to be crucified, to be slain, to “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth”!

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Jesus Christ is not going to have a hypocrite for a bride.  He’s going to have one that’ll be like Him.  He’s going to have a band of people that’ll “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,” glory to God!  They’re going to “know Him.”  “The power of His resurrection” is going to be their life.  “The fellowship of His suffering” is their glory; glory to God!  They will not be under the control of earthly things. 

Why, we don’t even come out of our dumps—out of our sensitiveness, out of our peculiarities, out of our bondages.  We don’t even find it out.  The people that started out in the Spirit here, they’re not here anymore because they got sore at the preacher.  They got sour inside of them instead of bowing to God’s call.  “Blessed are they that are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.” 

Beloved, I’m exuberantly happy this morning to think that God still deals with us in His mercy.  Oh, I’m so thankful, because I’ve known God to say of certain people, “Don’t talk to them anymore.  They won’t take it.  Don’t bother them anymore.”  And they went on prophesying and speaking in tongues and dancing in the Spirit and all that sort of stuff, and God left them alone!  He’s gone to his idols! 

But I tell you, if Jesus Christ finds one soul that wants Him, He will bless them by letting them partake of the bitter cup: His death.  Oh, “that I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings”!

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Ministers who did not follow Mrs. Robinson’s example in continually seeking the Lord.  “God allowed them to sink into deep mud because, presently, they began to take credit to themselves.  They were ‘the gifted of God,’ they were ‘the chosen ones;’ they were ‘powerful.’  Now they told others to tarry for the baptism and they had no more time—they didn’t have to.”    (from 21:17)

In those days, a radio ministry in Europe was impossible.  “I discovered that the saints of God did not have radios.  They said, ‘That’s worldly.’  They wouldn’t have them in their homes!  We think that’s fanatical, but I wonder how much better off a lot of us would be without television sets, and without some of those gadgets.”    (from 24:00)

The legend of Peter fleeing Rome.  “Peter was leaving Rome because persecution was getting too hot….  Jesus said, ‘I’m going back to Rome to be crucified once more because you refuse to.’”    (from 26:07)

Stories of those who dared witness in communist countries.  “We pled with her to stay in the West. … She said, ‘Well, who will preach the Gospel there if they all run away?’ … And we sit here in a fine church like this and we can’t even testify—we’re not ‘comfortable.’  And we can’t spend an hour’s time to pray.  We ‘haven’t got time.’”    (from 27:08)

The example of the Norwegian man who prayed Hans Waldvogel through to the baptism.  “Mind you, he stayed until four o’clock in the morning.”    (from 28:58)

Christians act like the sorcerer’s apprentice.  “That’s what’s the matter with us: we ‘crucify the flesh,’ but we raise a thousand old Adams, and they all trouble us.”    (from 30:33)

Genesis 6:3.  “…Die Menschen wollen sich von meinem Geist nicht mehr strafen lassen…”  —  “Men will not be disciplined by the Spirit of God.”  The King James Version says, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.”

HRW reveals that the Persian mission he mentions in several recordings was located at N. Sheffield Ave. & W. Montana St. in Chicago.

Date: “That light has been shining here for 33 years.”  That would place this recording around 1958.

Audio Quality: Poor