<TITLE>12. Par 38-40</TITLE>L-38 Now, notice why he did it. Listen. Why did he do it? Listen at him when he addresses Him. "Rabbi (Teacher. See?), Rabbi, we know..." We who? The Pharisees, the religious world. "We know that Thou art a teacher come from God." Why? Because You got a degree? No. Because You speak so eloquent? No. Because that You are an educated man? Nope. Because You belong to a certain deno... Nope. "We know that Thou art a teacher come from God (Why?), because no man can do the things that you do except God was with him." There you are. Not, "No man could teach the things that you do." Not, "No man could teach the theology you do." Not, "No man that could do these things, or teach the Bible like you do," but, "No man could do the works that You do."
There's one thing to teach something, there's another thing for God to confirm it and say it's the truth. There's one thing to say something; it's another thing to do something. It's not hearers; it's doers. "Show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith," said Paul, "by my works." If you believe it, you'll act upon it. That's it. And then your faith becomes works and God can go with you then.
"We know that you're a teacher come from God," we Pharisees. "Well, why don't you come and join with me then. Why don't you believe me?"
"Well, of course, we have regulation. And our regulation is a tradition of the elders which says if you don't belong to the Sanhedrin or the denomination here at Jerusalem, why, we'll all be excommunicated. And therefore we can't accept it." And yet, was willing to admit that no man could do the things that He did except God be with Him. Why? God is proving His Gospel. God's always did it.

L-39 Now, my clergy brethren and Sunday school teachers, let us reason for a minute. Did you know religion is one thing and salvation is another? Did you know it come up from Genesis? Do you realize that Cain was a religious man, just as religious as Abel was? He came to--before the Lord. He realized that he was mortal: he had to die. And he built an altar unto the Lord, a church. He brought in and made a sacrifice to the Lord. He paid his tithings and his offerings, as it were, to the Lord. And besides that, he knelt down and worshipped the Lord.
So if belonging to church, and supporting the church, and bringing in your tithes and offering, and kneeling down and worshipping, is all that God requires a man to do, then He would be unjust to condemn Cain, because Cain done every bit of the religion that Abel did. But the only way that Abel was just, it was a spiritual revelation that it wasn't by works, it was by faith. "Not him that worketh, but him that believeth." And not apples, and peaches, and pears, or the fruits of the land that brought us out of the garden of Eden, but it was the blood.

L-40 And Jesus vindicated the same thing when He said, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, Simon Peter," when he confessed Him to be the Lord. "Flesh... You never learned this in a seminary. You never learned this from some church, but My Father which is in heaven has revealed it to you. And upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Spiritual revealed truth of the living God.
When God has revealed to you by the Holy Spirit, not by theology, not by mental thinking, but by the actual birth of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ raised from the dead, you have Eternal Life. That's the revelation. Wish we had time to bring it through the Bible.


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