The Skillet That Did Not Burn

The Skillet That Did Not Burn

by Barbara Hughes Fiscus

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

You know, it suddenly dawned on me last evening, while these precious little children leave, we’re going to have another story the next night time, because I really love stories. I’m sure Tommy will take care of tonight. But it suddenly dawned on me that I perhaps was trying to walk into your approval on Tommy’s message. And I certainly would want to relieve Tommy from any sense of responsibility in that area.

Not in any way, but you see, it gives me a perfect reason to tell you this story that I just love. Is that okay? But anyway, I heard one time about a young man who had a scripture. And so he called a minister. And he said, “I’d like very much for you to explain this scripture to me, interpret it.” And the man said, “Oh, no, no, no, we don’t interpret scripture. You just read it. And whatever it says, that’s what it means.” And the young man said, “Well, will you just tell me what it says?” And the minister said, “Okay, what’s the scripture?” And the boy read him, “And David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.” And the minister said, “Well, it means just exactly what it says. David danced before there was any such thing as an Ark of the Covenant.”

And the young man said, “Thank you very much.” So he called another minister and he said, “I’d like for you to interpret a script.” “Oh, no, no, no. No, we don’t interpret scripture. You just read it. And whatever it says, that’s what it means.” “Well, will you just tell me what it means?” “Okay, what’s the scripture?” “And David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.” “I can’t see why there’s any question in your mind. That’s just as clear as the nose on your face. David got up in front of the Ark of the Covenant and danced.” And the young man said, “Thank you very much.” And he called a third minister. And he said, “I have a scripture I’d like for you to interpret, explain to me.” “No, no, no.” And went through the same deal. And finally the minister said, “All right, what is the scripture?” And the young man said, “And David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.” And the minister says, “Well, it seems to me like it’s absolutely clear. The meaning is obvious. David got up and danced and then the Ark of the Covenant got up and danced.”

So, you see, the truth of the matter is, all any of us will ever hope to do, as far as my understanding at this point, is to help challenge you to do your own seeking, until the Holy Spirit brings the light of truth within your heart. For it is only this truth that you can speak with authority. And I have been blessed by so many, many, many people. As I have done my studying and my walk. And it isn’t that I sat down to trace anything through the Bible. It’s that there would be certain areas in which I was hungry and seeking to know answers. And then all of a sudden, scriptures fit together and fell into place. And this was my great joy. And I offer it to you for the suggestion that it will mean to you. A minister said to me one time, “Barbara, you have sent me back to my scriptures more this week than I have been in a long time.” And I said, “Hallelujah.”

Because, you see, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will quicken them into life within you. So if I, at least, can just challenge you to go back to the source, then this will be a very beautiful experience. Shall we pray?

Oh, thank You, Holy Father, that You are so much greater than even we know You are. Thank You that You desire to be so much greater in us than we even at this moment have the courage to claim.

But, beautiful Father, we do thank You that we are on the way. And we would not choose any more than Your heart wills to be in the way. But use us, Father, as instruments of Your love and joy and service for the blessing of Your world.

In the beautiful name of Jesus Christ, by the anointing power of Your Holy Spirit. Thank You, Father. Thank You. Thank You. Amen.

We were talking last evening about Jesus as He was incarnate in flesh, as He walked the 33-plus years in the man form, bringing to us more and more and more of the consciousness that is within the reality of God. We were talking about Jesus as the preacher, Jesus as the teacher, Jesus as the healer, Jesus as the miracle worker. And, you know, if you ever want to know that there is one spirit working in many, many, many, many different forms of spirit, then I couldn’t help just chuckling when I saw the beautiful sign this morning. “Smile and enjoy the miracle of now.” Because, you see, it’s the now power that we’re seeking. And the young people are just as right as rain when they’re calling us to zero in on the now power. Because this is the power that we need. But we need to understand something of Jesus as the miracle worker. And this has been a part of the great joy of my heart as I have studied this New Testament. For you remember, Jesus did so many miracle works. But it was so important to Him that He pointed the disciples to the principle that was beyond the incident.

And if you and I aren’t careful, we’ll do the same thing the disciples did. And we’ll get lost in the incident. And we will fail to go through it to the principle that is ever greater than. You remember the time that Jesus fed the multitudes from five little biscuits and two little fish. You remember the time that Jesus was… He had dismissed the disciples and sent them into the boat. When the people were going to, by force, take Him captive. And this He could not allow. So He dispersed them quickly. He sent the disciples away in the boat. And then He went up into the mountain to pray. And then as He came along, the disciples saw Him walking on the water. And Peter cried out, “If that’s You, Lord, then bid me come to You walking on the water.” And Jesus said ever so simply, “Come.” Who was it yesterday who said they’d probably be tempted to write a book? And Jesus says things in such a few words. He said, “Come.” Because you see, He knew He was teaching a principle. And He said to the disciples, “Whoever would say to this mountain…” Boy, that leaves a lot of scope for inclusiveness, doesn’t it? “Whoever would say to this mountain, ‘Get up and be moved into the sea,’

“And does not doubt in his heart the word that he speaks, it shall be done for him.” The principle, you see, that abides, that is eternal in God, that will operate for anyone who has the faith to operate the law. So He simply said to Peter, “Come.” Knowing that if Peter had the faith to operate the principle, it would work for him the same as it worked for Jesus.

Now, can you imagine? Make yourself into the mind and the being of Peter for a few seconds if you can. And imagine if the Lord Jesus Christ said to you, “Come.” Would you have the courage to take that leg of yours and throw it over the side of the boat against all the logic that you know?

But you see, he took this hairy old leg and he threw it over the side of the boat and the water held him. And he walked on his own faith and came to Jesus. And if you go back and read the story, you’ll find that it wasn’t even a quiet, calm sea at that point. It wasn’t very placid and still. It was a turbulent one. And as he walked along, a wave flew up and hit him on the side of the face. And he suddenly realized what he was doing. And he said, “Great Scott, I have more sense than to know that a body as heavy as mine can walk on water.” And he said.

But then he said, “Lord, save me.” And he came back up and walked. But you see, the principle that is there, the principle in the feeding of the multitudes. And then you remember another time. Oh, I have loved this story of Peter. Again, this is the gospel according to Barbara.

And you let it spark you where it will. And then find your own seed of truth. But as I have lived with this story of Peter and his walking on the water, I am confident that one of those other disciples had something of Barbara’s nature in him. And he would say, “Me too, Lord.” And the 11 of them just wouldn’t stay in that boat. And watch Jesus and Peter having this ball on the water.

And I can just imagine one of them doing exactly as I would do. “Me too?” “Come, come.” And one by one, I have sat and had a glorious experience watching every one of those disciples gain the courage to walk on his faith and climb out of that boat. And I can just see them frolicking and dancing and leaping and praising God on the top of that water. And I can just see Jesus standing over at the side watching them in the way that parents watch children and say, “Oh, Father. They will be so sorely tested so many, many, many times. And how often they will come back to the security of this experience and this moment. Oh, love them, Father, in the joy of this freedom.”

And then when finally He said, “I’m sorry, fellas. The day is coming and we’ve work to do. We must get back in the boat.” Is it any wonder that in this kind of awareness that boat was immediately at the land?

Oh, these beautiful stories. Then you remember another time they were traveling in a boat and the storm came up and the waves were coming up so high that they came right in and filled the boat and they were just bailing like 60 trying to get the water out. And the more they bailed, the waves just filled in faster than they could dip it out. So finally, in deep concern, they went to the back of the boat and wakened Jesus who was sound asleep. And when Jesus looked and saw the situation, He spoke to the wind and He spoke to the waves and the calm came and the quiet. Then do you remember what He did? He turned to the disciples and said, “Why did you bother Me?”

Only He said it in these words, “Where is your faith?” You see, He was trying to help them understand that there was an abiding principle that existed that gave meaning to the incidents and don’t get caught up in the incidents, go to the principle that is eternal. And then another time, when they were in the boat going across the wave, the water, just as they pushed back from the shore, Jesus said to them, “Beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees.” And Peter said, “Leaven.” Oh, oh dear. And then he began to whisper around the disciples. What in the world? Finally, Jesus says, “Pardon me, am I disturbing you?” And Peter says, “Oh, forgive me, Lord. I didn’t mean to distract, but when You said that about the leaven, I just remembered, here we are, all of us in this boat going all the way across this water, and we forgot to go by the bakery. We’ve just got one little loaf of bread.”

And Jesus said, “Oh, Peter, how long must I be with you? How many, many, many times must I show you? See, don’t get hung up in the incidents. Go through them to the principle that abides.”

Would you believe me if I told you one story from my own life? Because here I’m not quoting anybody else. I read Agnes Sanford’s book, The Healing Light. And in this book, she says that there is a law under which the law of this earth, under which our cells operate. And when we call upon that law, the cells are damaged, they must be repaired and replaced, and the healing come. But beyond this law, there is a higher law. And if we could learn to call on that law first, it would operate for us and transcend this law, and there would be no cell damage. Well, the Thomas and Barbara said, “If that’s true, then it’ll have to work for me.” So I set about burning myself. Not on purpose. But when you’re ready to work, the Lord really cooperates. And I burned myself more times than I’ve ever burned myself before. But you know, after I determined that I was going to try this and prove it in my own life, the first time I was reminded was when I felt a soreness on my finger, and I looked down, and there was a big blister, and I thought, “Oh my, I was going to call upon the law of God.”

You see, there was that much interval between the burn and my remembering. But each time I burned myself, this gap shortened. Until one time, I burned myself, and I said, “God, no.” But you see, I had called on the mmm first. So the burn was there. But one day, I came in from a meeting where I had stayed a little longer than I should. And I was going to just have leftovers out of the icebox. And you know, you women know how you can always pad leftovers with a little hot bread. So I was going to fix cornbread. And so I came in, and you come in our front door, and immediately to your right is the kitchen, and then almost immediately on the left wall is the oven. So with my book still in my hand, and I think I had a hat on at that time, but even so, I flipped on the oven and set it to 450, as you do to fix cornbread. And then I went on back in the bedroom, and I changed my clothes, and came in and mixed the cornbread, and then turned around to put it in the oven. And when I opened the door to put the cornbread in this oven that had been preheating all this time, I saw in there a cast iron skillet that I had, you know, to make a tidy looking kitchen, had hidden in the oven that morning, rather than to take the time to wash it.

So there was the skillet. I had the cornbread in this hand, the cornbread in this hand. So I reached up, and I took that skillet, cast iron, that had been in that oven all that time, and I put my hand around the handle of that skillet to lift it out, and I cried, “God, no!” And I testify to you, I drew my hand out as clean as it is now. Hallelujah. I proved it. I know.

But you see, this is when I gained deeper meaning on this 15th chapter of John, abide, because, you see, I’ve burned myself lots of times since then. I plugged in, but we so quickly slip out. That’s why Jesus said, it must become such a constant thing, such a continuing thing, such an unending thing, that you abide there. Abide. “Abide in Me. I’m the vine. You are branches in Me.” You see, when Jesus says, “I’m the vine,” He doesn’t mean that I’m just the stalk and you’re sticking into Me. He’s saying, “I’m the vine. I’m the whole thing. I’m the root, the stalk, the branches, the fruit. I’m all of it. Abide in Me. And let My life abide and flow through you. And then the same life that operates Me will operate you.” Beautiful, beautiful, the teachings that He gave. All these marvelous works that He taught.

But you see, as sacred and as wonderful and as marvelous as all of these are, He also was Savior. And here we come to a quality about Jesus that I don’t believe any of us yet understand. For if we take our scripture at its word, that on His death on Calvary, He set things right in a universe, in heaven, in heaven and on earth, then how far did this act go? And the one thing that I know in all my heart, I can’t say it to you yet, but one thing I do know, there is not one person that I know yet who has ever explained to me the depth of what Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane when He said, “Oh, Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me.” How could we know if this was a cosmic experience, a cosmic value? One thing I know, He was not a man afraid to die.

When I was in high school, at this very impressionable age, and if I ever loved a man more than I loved my husband, I loved Ronald Colman. And the way that man, his diction, and the flow of his voice, oh, he’ll never know how deeply he was loved. But I went to see A Tale of Two Cities on a high school date. And when this man whom I adored stood at that gallows and said, “This thing that I do is a far greater thing than I have ever done before.” And willfully, he placed his head on the block in order that the husband of the woman he loved might escape to be with her. Here was a man who was not afraid to die. And my Jesus is less than that. Or when Benedict Arnold was brought before the firing squad, and the story, history tells us that as they came up to him to put the black cloth around his eyes, he rejected. He said, “No, I have done wrong, I know, and I am willing to pay for my sins. But I did what I thought was best for my country at that time, and I am not afraid to stand on my decision.” And my Jesus is not greater than that.

One day, dear hearts, as our consciousness is expanded into the infinities of God’s knowing, we will understand all that was in Jesus’ heart when He prayed, “Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, Thine be done.”

And then I came to this beautiful verse which Tommy used, I think, in his opening message. And he read it from a different translation. But let me read it to you from this one, the 21st verse of the 5th chapter of 2 Corinthians. “For our sake, God made Him, Jesus Christ, to be sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” You see, we come again to this state of being word is in its different forms, am and be. But you see, it’s pure state of being and it’s greater than action. And this came so clearly to me when I finally came to grips with the scripture in 1st John. God is love, is a state of being, you see. We’ll talk about this again when we talk about love, but it’s so important that we understand the difference between love as state of being beyond love as action. For you see, if we take love as action, science teaches us for every action there’s an equally strong reaction. But when you have love as state of being there is no contrary, you see. The sun is. And there is no way you can make the sun be the sun more than its being every minute of every hour of every day.

So you see, I cannot pray for God to love me more, for God to do more for me than He’s doing right now. He’s being God and therefore He’s doing it in totality of fullness all the time. Now, if I go out and see the clouds on a rainy day, how much sense does it make for me to pray for the sun to shine?

“Barbara, get yourself in position to get those clouds out of the way and receive what’s already there.” God is love. Thank you, Tommy. It is good. I don’t know how many of you know that blessed Dalton Miller, but she was such a joy. She was active in the camps down our way and she lived in Waco, Texas. And she said one time, “If you have a glass brimful of sweetened water, it doesn’t make any difference how much you knock it, how much you shake it, how much you spill it, how much you bump it. You can’t spill out anything but sweetened water.”

God is love. And you see, if the things that seem to come into our lives do not seem like loving actions, check how you’re asking the question. Because you see, it’s the difference between daylight and dark. And the one question is, “Why did this happen to me?” You can ask it. “Why did this happen to me?” Beautiful, little, wonderful, glorious, ego-centered me. “What did I ever do to deserve anything that bad?” And you’re so busy with your own ego you couldn’t hear the answer if it came.

But when situations come into your life and you say, “Holy Father God, why did this happen to me?” “Peter, Peter, Satan asked to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you.” Oh, oh, Father, spare Peter this sifting. Don’t you believe it? “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” The sifting is necessary for the purification, the discipline is essential. Father, what’s the lesson? What is there in this expanding consciousness of all that You are and would be in me that I can know only as I give myself to walking Your victory in this experience? Oh, dear, beautiful hearts, let’s get over this thing of thinking that when we accept Christ in our hearts, we’re on a gravy train to heaven, and that there’s everything just bright and shiny and beautiful and lovely for us.

“I complete in my body the sufferings which Jesus Christ began.” And, lovely hearts, until God can send us into the valley of man’s need, there to carry in our bodies His need, and in the victory demonstrate to them the majesty of His love. We don’t have anything to say to the world.

Peter and Silas beaten and thrown into prison for no reason except healing a sick girl. A Roman citizen beaten without just trial. Paul sitting there with his back bleeding, his hands in the shackles, and saying, “Just wait till I get out of here. I’m a Roman citizen. I know my rights. They’ll pay dearly for this all.” They sang and gave praises to God for the glory of witnessing through the experience. Is it any wonder that the earthquake threw the doors open? You’re dealing with power. God’s desire to touch His children everywhere. And there those gates swung open to every prison cell and they didn’t have justice in the courts of those days and when those people were thrown in prison they could rot there for life. The rest of their life on this earth. Not one of them moved to freedom. Why?

Because they were experiencing something greater than they knew. And when the jailer came down and viewed the experience and said and was going to take his own life, Paul said, “Don’t hurt yourself. We’re all here.” So the next day the authorities realized it was a tempest in the teapot so they sent word and said, “Just tell them to get on out of town and we’ll turn them loose.” Peter says, I mean, Paul said, “No. All these people in this prison had complete access to freedom and they didn’t take it. I’m not about to walk out of here scot-free and leave them to rot. You tell those authorities if they want us to get out of town quietly and without incident to come here.” And do you know what I believe with all my heart? I believe they set up a court of justice and here sat these authorities and Silas on one side and Paul on the other side and one by one every prisoner was brought to the bar of justice. God loves His children.

Could He do that with you? God made Him to be sin. What does that word be mean, dear hearts? We’ve heard so many times that He took all the sinful acts from Adam to the end of time and absorbed them into Himself. I don’t doubt that for one minute. But that’s not enough.

You see, if God could allow separation to come into the garden in order that thereby we learn the maturity of sons of God, He realized He was allowing this to come in and only He would have the power to remove it and take it out.

And therefore, Jesus not only took in all the sins, all the separation consciousness, all the sinful acts, but God made Him to be the incarnation of sin. And I don’t even understand all I’m saying in those words, but I feel a great deal. And when Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He was not quoting an Old Testament psalm. He was experiencing once and for all separation from God. That’s right, Father. Amen, that’s right. He’s a great Christ. He’s a great Lord. Oh, don’t sell Him short.

This is the victory He purchased for you. He was also reproducer. And I suppose if there is any part that is greater than any other part, it’s this tremendous act of reproduction. As Tommy so beautifully told you yesterday, this grain of wheat falling into the earth to die. Because if it remains alone, as Jesus said, it remains alone. But if it dies, it yields itself to the process of reproduction and brings forth multiplied likenesses of the same life that was within itself. This is why there’s such deep meaning to the verses in Genesis where God said, “I will give each plant seed with the capacity to reproduce of its own kind.” And when you plant a grain of corn, you don’t have to worry about gathering tomatoes.

You see, reproduction of its own kind. And when Jesus said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

This is why He could say to the disciples, “I’m going to leave you in the single body in order that I can return to be the inner spirit of life within you. And never again do you have to go anyplace to counsel with Me. I’m right there.”

And this is the beautiful thing. It was my joy to teach this to a group of high school young people at a Kansas CFO a number of years ago. So as Walter and I were traveling, we stopped by a couple of fields and we picked up, we picked a couple of stools wheat because, see, I’m a city girl. And I didn’t know this until I told this story one time and I thought one grain of wheat sent up one stalk and there was a head on it and that head had from 30 to 50 reproduced grains and I thought, “Man, isn’t that great?” Until I told it one time in a farm community.

And this farmer came up to me and he said, “Honey, it’s greater than you know. One grain of wheat will send up between 20 and 30 stalks, and each stalk will have between 30 and 50 grains.” So we stopped and we gathered a couple of the stools and you know, I just prayed like 60 that the farmers would catch us so I could explain to them what we were going to do.

But we took those and that morning, knowing this scripture as I know it, with my stool of wheat sitting in the wastebasket, ready to pick it up and take it to those young people, I sat down to read this scripture. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And do you know, when I read those words, my eyes saw, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be multiplied.”

And suddenly it dawned on me, His glorification is in His multiplication. By them, by you, He says in John, am I glorified. “As in Me, the Father is glorified, so in you, I am glorified.” Beautiful. You see, sometimes we get scared of words. And if we’re not careful, we walk away from beautiful truth. I never shall forget in my fourth grade teaching days, we could talk about Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex and Ichthyosaurus and all these prehistoric animals, but we couldn’t use the word preposition because that was too big for the children to understand.

And I went in one morning in spelling to help them have fun to be challenged by it. And I wrote anti-disestablishmentarianism all the way across that board. And I said, “To my knowledge, that’s the longest word in the dictionary.” And then we took it apart by syllables to see how if you take it by syllables just a piece at a time, then pretty soon you have the whole thing. And I wish you would know how many children came back next day. “Miss Hughes, look.” And they strung it out. I was always, “Miss Hughes. Miss Hughes.” And they wrote that big old anti-disestablishmentarianism. Don’t be afraid of big words. Know what they mean.

But take this thing of transcendence and immanence. The transcendent God, the God who is. Immanence, the God who is in process of becoming. The transcendent Lord Jesus Christ who is at the right hand of God the Father. The immanent, indwelling Christ that is in process of becoming. The great, transcendent person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that is within you and me, quickening, and bringing us into that fullness of understanding our divine sonship. I was looking for a way to explain this. And someone told me one time, “You can prove a truth of anything by testing it three ways.

“You’ll find it somehow in your scripture, in nature, or in your own body.” And so I began to try to understand this transcendent Lord and the immanent, indwelling Lord. And it came to me as it naturally would to a mother, to a mother who enjoys so much being Mary. For I’m a poor Martha. I confess. That’s where the Lord’s working on me. But anyway, when the cell of the mother, or when the egg of the mother is fertilized by the sperm of the father, there is this fusion and you have one cell. One cell! This cell moves into the womb and there it begins to multiply and there is this multiplication in the center and this other multiplication on the outer covering and pretty soon this outer covering sloughs off and separates and from the single cell there is the division and the outer covering fastens to the side wall of the womb and becomes the placenta. The inner area. And this, to me, was the most beautiful explanation of the transcendent Lord Jesus Christ and the immanent. For you see, this one cell that multiplied itself in you and me is fed by that part which fastens onto the womb and stands as mediator between God and me and transforms everything from God that would destroy me because of its power into that which I can handle.

Oh, hallelujah. Beautiful, isn’t it? The transcendent Lord. Oh, yes. And you see, dear hearts, it is this transcendent Lord on which the immanent, the indwelling, that which is growing into its full mature sonship within you and me, it is this transcendent on which the immanent feeds.

Jesus says, “Eat My flesh, drink My blood, continue to feed on Me. This do in remembrance of Me.” So you continue the feeding as you feed in the immanence of growth into from that which eternally is. Oh, I think it’s beautiful. Go back to the story of the scientist and the ant for just a minute. Suppose this scientist reduced himself to the ant and came and told the ants how to get over that hurdle. And then he went away from them. And they were soon just groping and struggling in a very short time over another problem that was just as great. And all the time they were looking back to the day when the great ant was here. Oh, how wonderful it was when the great ant was here. And one day the great ant’s coming again. And they’re looking here and here. And they’re wallowing in the despond of deprivation and separation in the here and the now.

Do you see? Jesus would have been a monster rather than the master. If He had only dipped down and then gone back up. But He left that of Himself. The seed, the fused son of God, son of man, that now becomes the very life spirit within us. And it’s beautiful. As this immanence grows. For you see, dear hearts. Hannah Hurnard. Oh, there are so many scriptures in my Bible I don’t understand.

But Hannah Hurnard said in one of her writings, “If you see something in the Bible that seems to be completely contradictory, and you cannot fit it together, then you take the area that seems most in line with the greatest concept of God that you know. And one day, these two will fuse together, and you will be on a higher level of awareness than when you saw them in their division.”

So you see, in a manner of speaking, we’re all kind of seeing it the same way. For there are those who look for the second coming, and they’re expecting the transcendent Lord to come back. The way it seems so beautiful to me is God in His children, allowing so much of His power and beauty and loveliness to finally manifest until there is no separation, and this beautiful bride of Christ becomes so holy and pure and perfect without spot and blemish, that she becomes this mature body of Jesus Christ in His immanence. Then the transcendent can come back and be fused with the immanent, and God is all in all.

It’s beautiful. The other day, Marjorie was visiting us, and she had this little precious granddaughter with her, and they went up to visit the kinfolks in Ada. And while they were gone, I was staying at home with Clayton, who needed me at that time. And when they came back, I could hardly wait to see what everybody thought about this grandbaby. I wish you could know her. She’s a doll. She isn’t even going to be a year and a half old until the eighth of this month. And she’ll just throw those little old arms up and say, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” And she can sing all of “Jesus Loves Me.”

But anyway, when she came back, all the relatives from all over the United States were going to be there, and it was a big family reunion. And I could hardly wait to hear about it. Well, when Marjorie got out of the car, she didn’t even touch the ground. She just floated in. And I said, “How was it?” “Oh, Mother, she was perfect. She was perfect. She did everything just exactly right.” And I sat there and I thought, “I’m seeing my Father.”

His joy in His ability to instill so much of Himself through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in us that He can sit back and say, “They did it! They did everything perfectly!” This is His power! This is the beautiful part. Oh, but let me take you to some other stories in the New Testament that thrill me so. Ponder them and let them speak to your heart. And I am indebted to a Baptist minister. You see why I can’t be denominational anymore. Every time in my life that there has been a need, it has been fed. And in the wisdom of God, it’s always been by one who was of another denomination. Not another faith. Another denomination.

One church. And when I talk to you about the church, I’m using it in the way that it’s used in the New Testament. The body of believers. Not the denomination. For you know as well as I that there are some in the denomination who do not yet know about the body. And there are some out of the denomination who know Him just as truly as… Oh, who was the lady who was deaf, dumb, and blind? Helen Keller. When Phillips Brooks came to her and talked to her about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he felt this quickening intensity of her body and so he stopped. And in this broken way that she was learning to speak, she says, “Oh, I know Him. I know Him. I just didn’t know His name.”

This is what we believe. And several of you have said to me, “Barbara, you always pray for the believers. What about the unbelievers? Don’t you care about them?” See, you’re not understanding me. I pray for the believers so that the unbelievers can know.

And Jesus says, “This is eternal life, to know Thee, not know about, to know Thee, the true and the living God.” But the unbelievers, the world, will come into their awakened knowing by you and me. It comes again, so let me tell it to you. This very simple way that I… You see, I keep looking for fourth grade illustrations, but they satisfy me. And then I can go on to a greater understanding. But you see, when you say that Jesus saved the world, and now we don’t have to do it, the way I have always pictured it is here is a body of water, and Jesus comes along, and a man, mankind, is struggling in this body of water. And he has been struggling there for so long that he has lost consciousness and just wildly is he trying to stay above the water. And Jesus jumps in, takes the man, and pulls him out onto the safety of the bank. And the man is saved. But you see, in his consciousness, he still thinks he’s in the water. So lying right there on the safety of the bank, he’s still flailing and throwing his arms around. And then Jesus turns to that soft, gentle touch of the woman, and He says, “All right, my beloved, you cradle him in your arms until you restore his consciousness to the gift he has already received.”

This is us, the church. To cradle in our arms the little ones until we can restore within them this consciousness to accept, this quickening of the spirit, this Christ life within them. Did you ever wonder why Jesus came back in His resurrection appearances? To prove the resurrection, yes. But have you ever paid attention to the way He did it? And how it all came into being? These are scriptures that I just poured over and I’d read them and I’d read them and I’d say, “Oh, please, give me clarity of understanding so that this can really, really be truth, living truth, life within me.” And then one day I was led to the book that this Baptist minister had written. And he took us to the 20th chapter of John. And he said, “Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” And he showed us that in the Greek, that word was spelled B-L-E-P-O, which means ordinary seeing. She just looked and saw. And then Peter and John come up and they come and they run to the tomb. She tells them and Peter reaches the tomb first and stooping in, he saw the linen cloths, but this was just that ordinary seeing.

He just saw the cloths in there. And he went into the… “Then Simon Peter came following John and he went into the tomb and he saw the linen cloths lying.” And he says in the Greek, that saw is spelled T-H-E-O-R-E-O, which means he looked critically and carefully.

“And the napkin, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, John, also went in and he saw and believed.” And he saw. What did he see? What did he believe? See, this was my pondering. What did he see? What did he believe? And he says, this saw is spelled E-I-D-O, which means he perceived. He saw with the divine insight of understanding. He perceived and he believed because the body could not possibly have been stolen. These cloths were not rolled up and dropped in a lump on the floor, but they were in the same form as the man. But they were just crumpled with the life gone out of them in the same way a balloon will when you let the air out. But the form was there. And he believed. He began to remember so many of the scriptures that Jesus had given in preparation for His going.

And then to me, oh to me, this is beautiful beyond words. You see, Jesus was continuing to be the teacher. He was continuing to help us understand this new life, this reproduced seed that is now the seed of life within every man needing only the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit to quicken it into life. And because He knew it was such a tremendous concept, He was giving them visible illustrations of it. And our scripture says, “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept, she stood looking into the tomb and she saw two angels.” And we’ll skip a few verses. “They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him.’ Saying this, she turned and saw Jesus standing. But she did not know that it was Jesus.” Have you ever heard a minister try to explain why Mary, this Mary who loved Him so, would not recognize Him? I’ve heard them say, “Well, it was because she was all knelt down in her kneeling and she only looked around and saw His feet and she didn’t…” This was the Mary who had washed His feet with her hair, with her tears and dried them with her hair.

She saw the form that she did not recognize. And she says, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him and I will take Him away.” Then Jesus let the spirit of His own life speak through the form and He said, “Mary,” the form she did not recognize, the Christ she could not deny. And she grabbed Him and He said, “No, Mary, no. I have not yet ascended to My Father, but I now, I could not allow you to hold Me in the single form of Jesus, nor can I allow you to hold Me in this form or any form. Mary, you must learn now to look deep within and see Me as the seed of life in every form and speak to that and quicken it into life.”

Or again, in the closing chapter of the Gospel of Mark, it tells about the two walking on the Emmaus road. And it says, “After this, He appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country.” And you have that marvelous story that’s told in the 22nd chapter, the 24th chapter of Luke about Jesus walking along with the two on the Emmaus road. And oh, I wish we had a lot of time because you talk about the humor of Jesus and all the laughter that was going on inside of Him while He was feigning such seriousness when He says, “What are you all so talking so intently about what’s going on? And can you be the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know? What are you talking about?” Oh, and then they tell Him, He says, “Oh,” and then He opens unto their understanding the scriptures. And it’s such a tremendous walk that finally when they reach home, Jesus would continue on. And they say, “Oh, no, no, no. Stop and have a bite to eat with us.” And when He blesses the bread, He allows the Jesus Christ spirit to speak through the form and immediately they recognize Him and instantly He’s gone.

Where did He go? You see, even in the transcendence, we think of it as something off out there. The transcendence is everywhere present, you see. And what He was helping them see is, “Not only am I the seed of life within you, but I’m the everywhere present spirit that’s all around you. And when I go move from the visible into the invisible, I’m not going someplace and coming from someplace. I’m simply moving from the seen into the unseen, but I’m still there. And I’m just as much with you in this room right this minute in the invisible as though I would suddenly manifest and be here in the visible and you could all see Me. Learn to see Me in the invisible of My transcendence, in the reproduction of My seed as the life in every man.” Beautiful.

Again, the 21st chapter of John. And how I do love this story as the disciples are all discombobulated because of this experience with Jesus and there’s so much of it they don’t understand. So finally, Peter says, “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going fishing.” And the rest of them say, “Okay, we’ll go with you.” You see, there’s security in numbers and they were all so unsure at this time. So they all go fishing and all night long they catch nothing.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any fish?” Can you imagine Jesus addressing that hairy old Peter? “Children?” “Children?”

He was looking at their real age, you see. We’re all children. Children. And then He said, “Cast your net on the other side.” And he turned their backs on Him and they cast their net into the water and as the fish began to fill the nets almost until they break, John says, “Do you know who that is on the bank? Look, that’s the Lord.” And Peter puts on his clothes and jumps in the water. That’s an inconsistency.

And he, to get to Jesus. And our scripture says, Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Do you see how gently, how beautifully He’s teaching?

This great, great Lord, we have the honor to call Jesus Christ and whom we can know as the very source and center of life within our own being. My new body, my new body, the church. And let me tell you just one beautiful experience that to me is so transcendently glorious. I just vibrate in the wonder of it. I told you last night, you know, about the way God comes back and comes full cycle. In the second chapter of Genesis, “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man, He made into a woman and He brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’”

You see, from within the very being of Adam, God took that which would make him a complete whole person. Where is the body of Jesus Christ being formed? From within the very being, the new body, cell by cell by cell, is being formed. Until this transcendently glorious day when the bride is beautiful, perfect, beloved in her virgin purity and the transcendent Christ comes to claim her as His bride and stands with her on His arm and presents her to God His Father.

And God is everything to everyone. You, my beloved, are the church. Shall we pray? Father, there are times when we are hushed in the stillness of Your overwhelming love, Your fantastic wisdom and the marvel of Your purpose and Your plan.

But in that stillness, which is the presence of all sound, we know. Thank You, Father. Amen.