Living in the Invisibles (Part 3) – Living in the Spirit vs the Law: The Corporate Life of Faith

The Lord Jesus Christ has been publicly crucified in the presence of the church in Orlando. I want you to speak as though that were true, would you? You think you can figure out a way to do that? Then let us do things that have never been done before. Let us go places that nobody’s ever been before.

Audience: I’ve always thought of this being somewhere back there, and I mean, it puts the whole new perspective on just the life that I have in Christ, with it being right here.

Just really nearby, a place you can go and visit and remember. I have a thing I want, one thing I want to find out from a Church, we’re back in the corporate. I want to ask a church. Church, did you receive the spirit? Now, brothers and sisters, an individual receives the spirit, but so does a person who is corporate. And this is where this thing gets kind of unbelievable. I ask you as a people: did you as a people receive the spirit, the glorious, wonderful, liberating experience of the spirit of God coming into you…by not working on Sunday? Or by hearing the word of God by means of faith? Are you really that foolish that you believe the Spirit came into you because you didn’t go anywhere or do anything on Saturday? No, that’s not the way it happened with you. You began, having never even heard of the law, or the Sabbath, or obeying anything, and the Holy Spirit came into you anyway. That’s how you started as a body of believers. Then one day, you invited a Baptist minister to come and minister to you. And you who began in the spirit, not knowing anything about obeying sabbatical laws or anything else that you needed to obey…you listened to a Baptist preacher tell you what you had to do in order for God to love you. And you started listening to him. And by the way, that’s the absolute truth.

There’s not a person in this room, but what you got saved, it started glorious, and then somebody from Jerusalem came along—and started telling you what you had to do. God forbid that I ever be that man. There are a few things that we have to adjust every once in a while, and a few things we have to be reminded of. But as long as we come back and talk the way we’re talking tonight, we should be able to remain free from the law. Have you ever seen me put the law on you? I call you to answer that question. Have I personally ever put this church or body of believers under anything that could be labeled law? Audience: Does reading Beyond Humiliation count?

I confess – you are right. For how shall you learn grace if you do not first learn law? (laughter) And it was good for you. You put down that book and ran for grace. I don’t know if I have told you this story. I assume it’s true. I was told that a missionary, early in the missionary movement, went into a village in Africa to preach the love of God to these people, but they couldn’t care less, and he was getting nowhere. So, he started preaching the law to those people, and they responded immediately. They were really into this, and he preached it harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder, and they got more and more and more under condemnation. And then while they were stewing in their stew, he preached to them the grace of Jesus Christ, and they all got saved.

Yes, once Gene Edwards put us under the law. Thank you very much for reminding me of that. You began in the Spirit, brothers and sisters. Will you try, therefore, to move further into Christ by your fleshly efforts? And we’re talking about a church here. Now, be careful. Even as I have read these two verses, have you not had…think back for a moment…have you not had a sense of the individual? Brothers and sisters, the greatest thing that can protect you from the law is this church. Not me, but this church. If ever you have been set free and someone tries to put you under law, the greatest single hope and help you have is this body of believers. And without that body, this body of believers to protect you, we are all susceptible to being brought back into the law. Brothers and sisters, we did not begin with the law; we began with the spirit. Let no man bring this church under obligation in order to please God. And that is bound to come.

I will give you an illustration. We had some brothers and sisters come to us from Bakht Singh in India, and they’re in the soul-winning. But that wasn’t what was happening when that brother got up and started condemning us for not winning souls; that brother just was a lawful Christian. I watched the brothers and sisters in that room get like this…because they didn’t win souls to Christ. I sat in the back of the room and watched him put my brothers and sisters under the law. And I saw 100,000 Baptist sermons. The only purpose for which they served was to make the congregation feel bad. I don’t think that man ever had any more idea of what would happen. He was going to make us feel bad so he could feel good. And when he finished and sat down, I got up and said, “Brother, put your money where your mouth is. Name the time, and you name the place, and we’re here, and we’ll go with you.” And you should have seen that whole moment change. He was absolutely stunned.

He got back up, and he could hardly speak straight, and we had to help him help us. So, we decided we would go out on the beaches that afternoon, about 2:00, and about a hundred of us ran up and down those beaches talking to people about the Lord Jesus Christ, and some of them got saved, and we came back, and that made everybody happy. No, I’m sure he was happy then. He felt like he had come from India and made us Indians; that we were now good at Bakht Singh-ites. Brothers and sisters, when somebody stands up to do this to you, may the church of Jesus Christ as a body figure out how to respond to that dear brother. (laughter) You don’t have to be ugly.

An old lady from Norway came up to us. She was supposed to be the most sainted woman in Norway. Everybody loved her and adored her. She came to visit us and loved the place. Then I got a letter from her, and she said, “Gene, the way that the sisters dress and the way that people touch one another, I just want you to know, is going to lead to gross immorality.” And until this moment, not one living soul on this earth ever knew I got that letter. I dropped it in the waste basket and probably said something like this. Yeah, hide and watch. An old saying in Texas is that we think you think so. Will you get over there behind that tree and just hide and watch?

Have you, a people, suffered so much in vain? Again, some awful, awful is going to come around here one of these days, and you pay a price for your freedom. You, one corporate individual, is free. You, one corporate individual, suffered. You, one corporate individual, do not let that suffering be wasted by a return to the flesh. Oh, by the way, saints, have you received the Spirit? Have you received the Spirit individually? Have you received the Spirit corporately? Probably. Can you see that physically happen? We’ve got another invisible one here. So, please be alert here as we read. We’ve got another “can’t see here.” But to be able to…who have you ever heard stand up and say, “I have received the Spirit.” Well, who have you ever heard say, “I’m a holy one.”

I was thinking about someone who’s saying I have received the Spirit who is now living in me. You don’t have to say I’m a holy one. You can say, “I have something to share with you, but I want all of you to know that I have received the Spirit who now indwells me. And I want to tell you that you also have received the Spirit and He indwells you.”